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2008-06-14T15:14:00.003-04:00

•°O.O O.O°•

2008-06-14T15:14:00.001-04:00

free your mind

2008-06-14T15:07:00.002-04:00

freeyourmind.blogspot.com

free your mind

2008-06-14T15:07:00.001-04:00

freeyourmind.blogspot.com

Israel PM mostly unscathed by war report

2008-01-31T15:26:00.000-05:00

By STEVEN GUTKIN
Associated Press Writer
Wed Jan 30, 3:28 PM ET

JERUSALEM - Prime Minister Ehud Olmert emerged relatively unscathed from the final report Wednesday on his handling of Israel's 2006 war in Lebanon, even though the inquiry criticized both the government and the army for "serious failings and flaws."

The report stopped short of blaming Olmert personally for what many Israelis saw as a stunning debacle that emboldened the Jewish state's enemies. A harsher indictment could have threatened Olmert's rule and his stated goal of signing a peace treaty with the Palestinians within a year.

The head of a five-member investigative panel, retired judge Eliyahu Winograd, described a U.N.-brokered cease-fire as an "achievement for Israel." And he said Olmert, in ordering a last-minute ground offensive, acted "out of a strong and sincere perception" of what the prime minister thought was "Israel's interest."

The final report stood in sharp contrast to a strongly worded interim report last April, which criticized Olmert personally for "severe failure" in "hastily" going to war.

The war erupted on July 12, 2006, when Hezbollah guerrillas crossed into Israel, killed three Israeli soldiers and captured two others.

Olmert entered the conflict with enormous support from the Israeli public, but his popularity plunged after the campaign failed to achieve his declared goals — winning the soldiers' release and crushing Hezbollah. The two soldiers have still not been heard from.

The 629-page report was delivered to Olmert an hour before it was made public at a news conference, and the prime minister's office was "breathing a sigh of relief," Olmert's spokesman, Jacob Galanty, was quoted as saying.

In a statement, Olmert's office said he had begun reading the report and would study its conclusions.

"The prime minister relates to the final report of the Winograd commission ... with full seriousness," the statement said.

Hussein Haj Hassan, a Hezbollah member of Lebanon's parliament, told The Associated Press that the report underlined Hezbollah's victory. "The Winograd report is an acknowledgment of Israel's responsibility for the war and its defeat," he said.

Despite calls for his resignation from political opponents, the conventional wisdom was that Olmert would weather the inquiry's findings — a comfort to those who are relying on him to pursue a U.S.-sponsored peace push with the Palestinians after seven years of bloodshed.

"I think that Olmert has a good chance to survive the report, but that still can change," said Tamir Sheafer, professor of politics at Jerusalem's Hebrew University. "Olmert will not resign, that's for sure."

The commission did not pull punches in describing the failures of Olmert's government during the 34-day conflict that, according to official figures from both sides, killed between 1,035 and 1,191 Lebanese civilians and combatants, in addition to 119 Israeli soldiers and 40 civilians.
Winograd told a packed news conference in Jerusalem that Israel did not win the war and the army did not provide an effective response to a sustained, deadly barrage of rocket fire from Hezbollah guerrillas.

Despite a heavy Israeli aerial campaign, the guerrilla group rained nearly 4,000 rockets on northern Israel. Israeli reservists returning from the battlefield complained of poor training and a lack of ammunition and key supplies.

"The overall image of the war was a result of a mixture of flawed conduct of the political and military leadership ... of flawed performance by the military, especially the ground forces, and of deficient Israeli preparedness," the 81-year-old Winograd said. "We found serious failings and flaws in the lack of strategic thinking and planning."

Winograd said the committee had decided not to assign personal blame for the war's shortcomings, preferring to search for ways to prevent similar mistakes in the future. "It should be stressed that the fact we refrained from imposing personal responsibility does not imply that no such responsibility exists," he said.

A large section of the report was devoted to the last-minute offensive that stirred controversy because it was ordered just as the U.N. truce was about to take effect. More than 30 Israeli soldiers were killed in that fighting.

Winograd said the 11th-hour offensive "failed" in its mission, did not improve Israel's position and that the army was not prepared for it.

However, he said the operation's goals were legitimate. "There was no failure in that decision in itself, despite its limited achievements and its painful costs." Winograd said both Olmert and his then-defense minister, Amir Peretz, acted in "what they thought at the time was Israel's interest."

Since most of the army's wartime commanders, including Peretz and the chief of staff at the time, have resigned, the big mystery Wednesday was how Olmert would fare.

The prime minister was able to beat back calls for his resignation after the interim report was released. This time, Labor Party leader Ehud Barak, the former prime minister who now serves as defense minister, is under pressure to deliver on his promise to push for Olmert's resignation or advance elections.

If Barak pulls Labor's 19-member faction out of the coalition, Olmert will no longer have a parliamentary majority and could be forced to call an election. His coalition now controls 67 of parliament's 120 seats.

Polls show Olmert trailing far behind Benjamin Netanyahu, leader of the hawkish Likud Party. A Netanyahu victory would bode poorly for President Bush's goal of brokering a Mideast peace accord before leaving office next January.

Opposition lawmakers, from dovish supporters of peace talks to hard-line critics, insisted Olmert must go.

"The report paints a very dark picture," said Yossi Beilin, a dovish lawmaker. "This should not have happened and the man who is responsible cannot continue in his job."
Silvan Shalom, a Likud leader, called the report "an indictment of the gravest sort" and urged Olmert to "announce new elections, to go to the people and let the people say what they think."
___
Associated Press writers Matti Friedman, Aron Heller, Rory Kress and Josef Federman contributed to this report.

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Iran vows to retaliate against U.S. bases in Gulf if it attacks first

2008-01-28T12:39:00.000-05:00

"We realize that there is worry among neighbouring countries - Muslim countries whose lands host U.S. military stations," Jaafari said. He spoke in Farsi, which the network dubbed over in Arabic.

"However, if the U.S. launches a war against us, and if it uses these stations to attack Iran with missiles, then through the strength and precision of our own missiles, we are capable of targeting only the U.S. military forces who attack us," he told the station.

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-=SanD_WhalE=- ???????

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2007

2008-01-15T11:18:00.000-05:00

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
December 19, 2007

(Washington, DC) – Judicial Watch, the public interest group that investigates and prosecutes government corruption, today released its 2007 list of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians.” The list, in alphabetical order, includes:

1. Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-NY): In addition to her long and sordid ethics record, Senator Hillary Clinton took a lot of heat in 2007 – and rightly so – for blocking the release her official White House records. Many suspect these records contain a treasure trove of information related to her role in a number of serious Clinton-era scandals. Moreover, in March 2007, Judicial Watch filed an ethics complaint against Senator Clinton for filing false financial disclosure forms with the U.S. Senate (again). And Hillary’s top campaign contributor, Norman Hsu, was exposed as a felon and a fugitive from justice in 2007. Hsu pleaded guilt to one count of grand theft for defrauding investors as part of a multi-million dollar Ponzi scheme.

2. Rep. John Conyers (D-MI): Conyers reportedly repeatedly violated the law and House ethics rules, forcing his staff to serve as his personal servants, babysitters, valets and campaign workers while on the government payroll. While the House Ethics Committee investigated these allegations in 2006, and substantiated a number of the accusations against Conyers, the committee blamed the staff and required additional administrative record-keeping and employee training. Judicial Watch obtained documentation in 2007 from a former Conyers staffer that sheds new light on the activities and conduct on the part of the Michigan congressman, which appear to be at a minimum inappropriate and likely unlawful. Judicial Watch called on the Attorney General in 2007 to investigate the matter.

3. Senator Larry Craig (R-ID): In one of the most shocking scandals of 2007, Senator Craig was caught by police attempting to solicit sex in a Minneapolis International Airport men’s bathroom during the summer. Senator Craig reportedly “sent signals” to a police officer in an adjacent stall that he wanted to engage in sexual activity. When the police officer showed Craig his police identification under the bathroom stall divider and pointed toward the exit, the senator reportedly exclaimed 'No!'” When asked to produce identification, Craig presented police his U.S. Senate business card and said, “What do you think of that?” The power play didn’t work. Craig was arrested, charged and entered a guilty plea. Despite enormous pressure from his Republican colleagues to resign from the Senate, Craig refused.

4. Senator Diane Feinstein (D-CA): As a member of the Senate Appropriations Committee's subcommittee on military construction, Feinstein reviewed military construction government contracts, some of which were ultimately awarded to URS Corporation and Perini, companies then owned by Feinstein's husband, Richard Blum. While the Pentagon ultimately awards military contracts, there is a reason for the review process. The Senate's subcommittee on Military Construction's approval carries weight. Sen. Feinstein, therefore, likely had influence over the decision making process. Senator Feinstein also attempted to undermine ethics reform in 2007, arguing in favor of a perk that allows members of Congress to book multiple airline flights and then cancel them without financial penalty. Judicial Watch’s investigation into this matter is ongoing.

5. Former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani (R-NY): Giuliani came under fire in late 2007 after it was discovered the former New York mayor’s office “billed obscure city agencies for tens of thousands of dollars in security expenses amassed during the time when he was beginning an extramarital relationship with future wife Judith Nathan in the Hamptons…” ABC News also reported that Giuliani provided Nathan with a police vehicle and a city driver at taxpayer expense. All of this news came on the heels of the federal indictment on corruption charges of Giuliani’s former Police Chief and business partner Bernard Kerik, who pleaded guilty in 2006 to accepting a $165,000 bribe in the form of renovations to his Bronx apartment from a construction company attempting to land city contracts.

6. Governor Mike Huckabee (R-AR): Governor Huckabee enjoyed a meteoric rise in the polls in December 2007, which prompted a more thorough review of his ethics record. According to The Associated Press: “[Huckabee’s] career has also been colored by 14 ethics complaints and a volley of questions about his integrity, ranging from his management of campaign cash to his use of a nonprofit organization to subsidize his income to his destruction of state computer files on his way out of the governor’s office.” And what was Governor Huckabee’s response to these ethics allegations? Rather than cooperating with investigators, Huckabee sued the state ethics commission twice and attempted to shut the ethics process down.

7. I. Lewis “Scooter” Libby: Libby, former Chief of Staff to Vice President Dick Cheney, was sentenced to 30 months in prison and fined $250,000 for lying and obstructing the Valerie Plame CIA leak investigation. Libby was found guilty of four felonies -- two counts of perjury, one count of making false statements to the FBI and one count of obstructing justice – all serious crimes. Unfortunately, Libby was largely let off the hook. In an appalling lack of judgment, President Bush issued “Executive Clemency” to Libby and commuted the sentence.

8. Senator Barack Obama (D-IL): A “Dishonorable Mention” last year, Senator Obama moves onto the “ten most wanted” list in 2007. In 2006, it was discovered that Obama was involved in a suspicious real estate deal with an indicted political fundraiser, Antoin “Tony” Rezko. In 2007, more reports surfaced of deeper and suspicious business and political connections It was reported that just two months after he joined the Senate, Obama purchased $50,000 worth of stock in speculative companies whose major investors were his biggest campaign contributors. One of the companies was a biotech concern that benefited from legislation Obama pushed just two weeks after the senator purchased $5,000 of the company’s shares. Obama was also nabbed conducting campaign business in his Senate office, a violation of federal law.

9. Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA): House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, who promised a new era of ethics enforcement in the House of Representatives, snuck a $25 million gift to her husband, Paul Pelosi, in a $15 billion Water Resources Development Act recently passed by Congress. The pet project involved renovating ports in Speaker Pelosi's home base of San Francisco. Pelosi just happens to own apartment buildings near the areas targeted for improvement, and will almost certainly experience a significant boost in property value as a result of Pelosi's earmark. Earlier in the year, Pelosi found herself in hot water for demanding access to a luxury Air Force jet to ferry the Speaker and her entourage back and forth from San Francisco non-stop, in unprecedented request which was wisely rejected by the Pentagon. And under Pelosi’s leadership, the House ethics process remains essentially shut down – which protects members in both parties from accountability.

10. Senator Harry Reid (D-NV): Over the last few years, Reid has been embroiled in a series of scandals that cast serious doubt on his credibility as a self-professed champion of government ethics, and 2007 was no different. According to The Los Angeles Times, over the last four years, Reid has used his influence in Washington to help a developer, Havey Whittemore, clear obstacles for a profitable real estate deal. As the project advanced, the Times reported, “Reid received tens of thousands of dollars in campaign contributions from Whittemore.” Whittemore also hired one of Reid’s sons (Leif) as his personal lawyer and then promptly handed the junior Reid the responsibility of negotiating the real estate deal with federal officials. Leif Reid even called his father’s office to talk about how to obtain the proper EPA permits, a clear conflict of interest.

Judicial Watch is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. Judicial Watch neither supports nor opposes candidates for public office. For more information, visit http://www.judicialwatch.org/.

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BHUTTO SACRIFICED AT THE MOMENT WHEN DEAL WAS CUT BETWEEN U.S.MILITARY & MUSHARRAF

2007-12-28T18:50:00.000-05:00

Posted By: FarSight3 <Send E-Mail>

RumorMillNews.Com
28 December, 2007

In Response To: :) THE USUAL FUN WITH OBL! A COLLECTION PLUS A *VIDEO* (FarSight3)

Jesterday the "plan-B" was put aside. Pakistan's opposition leader, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated with two shots in her neck and head. That powerful bomb blast that killed about twenty Pakistani nationals was ignited shortly afterwards some twenty meters from the vehicle that Bhutto was in when she was shot at close range at Rawalpindi near Islamabad...

According to some interview with Bhutto from November one can conclude that certain circles inside the U.S.admin had their plans with Bhutto: Either she was used as a "Plan-B" (if Musharraf wouldn't act as desired) or else.

Finally we have arrived at this "else" now - as you can read from this WP piece where you can read that finally a deal was cut to make it officially possible that U.S. troops may "return" into Pakistan:

...Beginning early next year, U.S. Special Forces are expected to vastly expand their presence in Pakistan, as part of an effort to train and support indigenous counter-insurgency forces and clandestine counterterrorism units, according to defense officials involved with the planning...

Now, as this new agreement has been finalized, the first U.S. personnel could be on the ground in Pakistan by early 2008, according to Pentagon sources.

Bhutto wasn't necessary anymore, moreover she seems to have spoken too openly about certain "secrets that everyone knows": She was the next to confirm that Osama Bin Laden is dead already, as you can hear in this video at about 6 Minutes, 12 Seconds.

On the other hand it is interesting to watch what Benazir's return might have meant for pakistan. Her legacy as a two-time prime minister is a legacy of gross corruption. She is estimated to have stolen $1.5 to $3 billion from the Pakistani treasury....

Far Sight 3

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FBI Now Admits Evidence Used to Connect Oswald to Kennedy Assasination Was Bogus

2007-12-18T13:09:00.000-05:00

By Jonathan Elinoff

TruthAlliance.net

Dec. 18, 2007

The front page of the Sunday Washington Post features, "FBI Forensic Test Full of Holes." It claims that hundreds of defendants sitting in prisons nationwide have been convicted with the help of an FBI forensic tool that has been found to be completely full of inconsistent results and has actually been discarded by the FBI for such reasons more than two years ago. But the FBI lab has failed to take or attempt to alert any of the affected defendants or courts, even though the window for appealing convictions is closing.

As early as 1991, the FBI conducted studies on the reliability of the "bullet-lead" analysis used to connect bullets found at the scene of a crime to bullets in thepossession of a suspect. The studies found that lead composition of bullets in the same box didn't always match, which should have been a sign that the test was completely unreliable. Further analysis discovered that bullets packaged15 months apart in different areas of the country in different boxes, unexpectedly matched - a gap the forensic testing originally claimed had different bullet lead make-up.

The Innocence Project is a group of individuals who have committed their time and finances to investigate claims of innocence in convicted cases where DNA testing was never available. To date, over 200 individuals have been set free due to the DNA analysis of many rape cases confirming that the child born from a rape victim's DNA didn't match the accused and convicted individual. Hopefully, they will pick this flawed forensic test up and begin to look at the tens of thousands of people estimated to have been placed in prison solely on this bogus "bullet-lead analysis."

This is just the tip of the iceberg. The test, now confirmed by the FBI's own admittance, has actually been used to connect people to crimes they never committed. The test was first initiated and used on July 8, 1964 by order of J Edgar Hoover for the Warren Commission to connect Lee Harvey Oswald to the assassination of former President John F. Kennedy. Throughout the following decades, this same test has been used to convict civil rights activists and gang members, many of which have maintained their "innocence."

The forensic test was the only major connection Oswald had to the actual scene of the crime. For Kennedy assasination researchers, this is a big leap. For years, the only evidence outside this forensic connection has been completely circumstantial. Oswald never confessed to the murder and actually stated to the public that he believed he was being made a patsy. Oswald was only picked up because an APB had been ordered in Dallas in his description, even though no one saw the shooter.

Oswald maintained that he had gone down to the parade to see the President's motorcade pass, as did everyone, when he was working that day. A famous picture surfaced that many researchers believe identifies Oswald in the doorway of the School Book Depository as the motorcade passed and was not in the sixth-floor window as he was accused to have been.

The interrogation which took place for several hours was not recorded, a violation of standard operating procedure. Oswald was murdered the next morning on live television while being transported in the parking garage at the local jail. Jack Ruby, the man who shot Oswald, was a major mafia/CIA connected nightclub owner and hated Kennedy with a passion. Kennedy's younger brother, Bobby Kennedy, was mounting a large scale war against organized crime, even though the Kennedy's had used the mafia in voter fraud crimes to get elected. The Kennedy empire was built from bootleging alcohol in an organized crime syndicate that Joe Kennedy, John and Bobby's father, ran with connections to Al Capone. Of the many odd factors in the assasination of the former president, it turns out Jack Ruby ran bootleging in Chicago for crime boss Al Capone in his early years as well.

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It turns out Ahmadinejad was the truthful one

2007-12-06T17:27:00.000-05:00

Robert Scheer
Canadian Dimension
December 5, 2007

Bush is such a liar. Or is he just out to lunch on the most important issue that he faces? In October, he charged that Iran’s nuclear weapons program was bringing the world to the precipice of World War III, even though the White House had been informed at least a month earlier that Iran had no such program and had stopped efforts to develop one back in 2003.

Is it conceivable that Bush was telling the truth at his press conference Tuesday when he stated that he learned of the National Intelligence Estimate report, which contained that inconvenient fact, only last week? Even if Bush read the NIE report, he clearly doesn’t respect it, for at his press conference he said “the NIE doesn’t do anything to change my opinion about the danger Iran poses to the world-quite the contrary.” Not that he has anything against the NIE, whose directors he handpicked. “I want to compliment the intelligence community for their good work. Right after the failure of intelligence in Iraq, we reformed the intelligence community.”

But whether or not the intelligence agencies are reformed, the president still ignores them. He didn’t listen when they told him he was wrong in claiming that Iraq had purchased yellow cake uranium from Niger and he doesn’t listen now when they tell him his alarms about Iran are without factual foundation. The difference this time around is that because Bush is a discredited lame duck the intelligence chiefs were a bit more forthcoming with their findings in a report that has, in part, been made available to the public.

The whole episode shows that our democratic system retains at least some essential checks and balances, but it also is depressing to see that, in this instance at least, the fanatical leader of a theocracy seems to have a higher regard for truth than does the president of the world’s greatest experiment in representative democracy.

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, who took office as Iran’s president in August of 2005, two years after Iran’s nuclear weapons program ended, has now been vindicated in his claims that Iran has abandoned the weaponization program. Not so Bush, who has summarily dismissed the intelligence community’s findings and, using his favorite tactic in dealing with debacles, is sticking to his original story. A story, as in the case of the earlier Iraq threat inflation, that too many in the mass media and Congress, including some leading Democrats, have bought.

Take Hillary Clinton, who said that “Iran is seeking nuclear weapons, and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard is in the forefront of that” by way of defending her vote for a resolution that, like the one she voted for before the Iraq war, blindly supports rather than seriously questions the president’s case for war. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was absolutely correct in calling candidate Clinton out on that vote and challenging her lame excuse that she had not read the full intelligence report before her Iraq war vote. “Members of Congress,” Obama cautioned, “must carefully read the intelligence before giving the president any justification to use military force.”

Not a bad idea. In the case of Iraq’s non-nukes, the intelligence evidence supporting Bush was flimsy at best when it did not directly contradict his key assertions. In the case of Iran, it is now publicly understood that there is no such evidence, flimsy or otherwise. But don’t count on that to stop the bipartisan coalition of invasion hawks from pushing on.

Once again, they will attack the United Nations’ experts, who have been proved right in Iran as they were in Iraq. A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency pointed out that the NIE report supports the agency’s view that there is “no evidence” of an undeclared nuclear weapons program in Iran and “validates the assessments of [IAEA Director General] Mohamed ElBaradei, who continuously said in his public statements that he saw no clear and public danger, and that therefore that there was plenty of time for negotiations.”

Can we get ElBaradei to run in the Iowa caucus? Why are our leading presidential candidates so easily fooled?

It’s humiliating to all of us who believe in a free press, separation of powers and individual liberty that a system of government designed by its founders to hold leaders accountable can be so easily manipulated by an unremarkable loser who has been rewarded throughout his life for screwing up. It is hoped that this time around the truth will catch up with him before he gets us in yet another bloody war, just to show he can.

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Posthumous book claims Ford knew of CIA coverup in Kennedy assassination

2007-11-21T22:55:00.000-05:00

David Edwards and Nick Juliano

November 21, 2007

RawStory.Com

Did the CIA orchestrate a cover-up in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy?
According to the publisher of a new book, who appeared on Fox News Wednesday morning, the last living words of former President Gerald Ford fingered the CIA in the orchestration a cover-up of Kennedy's assassination.

Ford, who died late last year, was the longest surviving member of the Warren Commission, which investigated Kennedy's assassination. The new book, "A Presidential Legacy and the Warren Commission," was written by Ford before his death, its publisher claims.

"This book, actually authored by Gerald Ford, finally proves once and for all that the CIA, our government, did destroy documents and cover-up many facts that day in Dallas," publisher Tim Miller told Fox & Friends Wednesday morning.

Kennedy was killed as his motorcade rolled through downtown Dallas Nov. 22, 1963. Officially seen as the work of a single shooter, Lee Harvey Oswald, the Kennedy assassination has sparked myriad conspiracy theories placing responsibility for the assassination on a variety of suspects, including the CIA, the Mafia or Cuban President Fidel Castro.

Although Miller was given little time to go into detail about the book on Wednesday morning's show, a press release gives more detail on the book, being published by Flat Signed publishers.
In the book, Ford argues that the CIA destroyed information about the assassination, but he "contends with interesting specificity that Oswald was the only shooter," Miller says.

"There was a conspiracy to kill John F. Kennedy," says Tim Miller, CEO of FlatSigned.com, in the release. "There is no doubt that President Gerald Ford knew more about the JFK death. There is no doubt President Clinton knows more. Has he or any other US President since November 22, 1963 ever swore under oath that they know no more?"

This video is from Fox's Fox & Friend's, broadcast on November 21.

FAUX NEWS VIDEO PERMALINK

Imaginationland

2007-11-21T21:54:00.000-05:00

AMAZING SOUTHPARK EPISODE WITH AN AMAZING STORYLINE...

PEAK OIL DEBUNKEDPLEASE READ

2007-11-21T10:39:00.000-05:00

The Myth Of Peak Oil

Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones October 12 2005

Peak oil is a scam designed to create artificial scarcity and jack up prices while giving the state an excuse to invade our lives and order us to sacrifice our hard-earned living standards.
Publicly available CFR and Club of Rome strategy manuals from 30 years ago say that a global government needs to control the world population through neo-feudalism by creating artificial scarcity. Now that the social architects have de-industrialized the United States, they are going to blame our economic disintegration on lack of energy supplies.

Globalization is all about consolidation. Now that the world economy has become so centralized through the Globalists operations, they are going to continue to consolidate and blame it on the West's "evil" overconsumption of fossil fuels, while at the same time blocking the development and integration of renewable clean technologies.

In other words, Peak oil is a scam to create artificial scarcity and drive prices up. Meanwhile, alternative fuel technologies which have been around for decades are intentionally suppressed.
Peak oil is a theory advanced by the elite, by the oil industry, by the very people that you would think peak oil would harm, unless it was a cover for another agenda. Which from the evidence of artificial scarcity being deliberately created, the reasons for doing so and who benefits, it’s clear that peak oil is a myth and it should be exposed for what it is. Another excuse for the Globalists to seize more control over our lives and sacrifice more American sovereignty in the meantime.
The lies of artificial scarcity

The crux of the issue is that if oil was plentiful in areas in which we are being told by the government and the oil companies that it is not, then we have clear evidence that artificial scarcity is being simulated in order to drive forward a myriad of other agendas. And we have concrete examples of where this has happened.

Three separate internal confidential memos from Mobil, Chevron and Texaco have been obtained by The Foundation for Taxpayer and Consumer Rights.

These memos outline a deliberate agenda to gouge prices and create artificial scarcity by limiting capacities of and outright closing oil refineries. This was a nationwide lobbying effort led by the American Petroleum Institute to encourage refineries to do this.

An internal Chevron memo states; "A senior energy analyst at the recent API convention warned that if the US petroleum industry doesn't reduce its refining capacity it will never see any substantial increase in refinery margins."

The Memos make clear that blockages in refining capacity and opening new refineries did not come from environmental organizations, as the oil industry claimed, but via a deliberate policy of limitation and price gouging at the behest of the oil industry itself.

The mystery of Eugene Island 330 and self-renewing oil supplies

Eugene Island is an oil field in the gulf of Mexico, 80 miles off the coast of Louisiana. It was discovered in 1973 and began producing 15,000 barrels of oil a day which then slowed to about 4,000 barrels in 1989.

But then for no logical reason whatsoever, production spiked back up to 13,000 barrels a day.
What the researchers found when they analyzed the oil field with time lapse 3-D seismic imaging is that there was an unexplained deep fault in the bottom corner of the computer scan, which showed oil gushing in from a previously unknown deep source and migrating up through the rock to replenish the existing supply.

Furthermore, the analysis of the oil now being produced at Eugene Island shows that its age is geologically different from the oil produced there after the refinery first opened. Suggesting strongly that it is now emerging from a different, unexplained source.
The last estimates of probable reserves shot up from 60 million barrels to 400 million barrels.
Both the scientists and geologists from the big oil companies have seen the evidence and admitted that the Eugene Island oil field is refilling itself.

This completely contradicts peak oil theory and with technology improving at an accelerating pace it seems obvious that there are more Eugene Islands out there waiting to be discovered. So the scientific community needs to embrace these possibilities and lobby for funding into finding more of these deep source replenishing oilfields.

The existence of self-renewing oil fields shatters the peak oil myth. If oil is a naturally replenishing inorganic substance then how can it possibly run out?

The future of oil

This year in particular we have seen a strong hike in oil prices and are being told to simply get used to it because this is the way it is going to be. In the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita gas prices have shot up amid claims of vast energy shortages. Americans are being asked to turn off lights, change thermostat settings, drive slower, insulate homes and take other steps. Meanwhile the oil companies continue to make record profits.

Flying in the face of the so called peak oil crisis are the facts. If we are running out of oil so quickly then why are reserves being continually increased and production skyrocketing?
In the 1980s OPEC decided to switch to a quota production system based on the size of reserves. The larger the reserves a country said it had the more it could pump.
Earlier this year Saudi Arabia reportedly increased its crude reserves by around 200 billion barrels. Saudi oil Is secure and plentiful, say officials.

“These huge reserves enable the Kingdom to remain a major oil producer for between 70 and 100 years, even if it raises its production capacity to 15 million barrels per day, which may well happen during the next 15 years,”

Is this the normal course of behavior if we are currently at the peak for oil production? The answer is no, it's the normal course of action for increasing production.

There have also been reports that Russia has vastly increased its reserves even beyond those of Saudi Arabia. Why would they do this if they believed there would be no more oil to get hold of? It seems clear that Russia is ready for unlimited future production of oil.

There is a clear contradiction between the peak oil theory and the continual increase in oil reserves and production.

New untapped oil sources are being discovered everywhere on earth. The notion that there are somehow only a few sources that the West is trying to monopolize is a complete myth, promulgated by those raking in the massive profits. After all how do you make huge profits from something available in abundance?

A Wall Street Journal article by Peter Huber and Mark Mills describes how the price of oil remains high because the cost of oil remains so low. We are not dependent on the middle east for oil because the world's supplies are diminishing, it is because it is more profitable to tap middle east supplies. Thus the myth of peak oil is needed in order to silence the call for tapping the planet's other plentiful reserves.

Richard Branson has even stated his intention to set up his own refinery because the price of oil is artificially being kept high whilst new sources are not being explored and new refineries not being built.

"Opec is effectively an illegal cartel that can meet happily, nobody takes them to court," Branson has said. "They collude to keep prices high."

So if more refineries were built and different resources tapped, the oil prices would come down and the illegal cartel OPEC would see profits diminish. It is no wonder then that the argument for peak oil is so appealing to OPEC. If no one invests to build refineries because they don't believe there is enough oil, then who benefits? OPEC and the oil elites of course.
It seems that every time there is some kind of energy crisis, OPEC INCREASES production.

The remarkable thing about this is that they always state that they are doing it to ease prices,
yet prices always shoot up because they promulgate the myth that they are putting some of their last reserves into the market. Analysts seem confused and always state that they don't believe upping production will cut prices.

In a recent report the International Monetary Fund projected that global demand for oil by 2030 would reach 139 million barrels a day, a 65 percent increase.

"We should expect to live with high and volatile oil prices," said Raghuram Rajan, the IMF's chief economist. "In short, it's going to be a rocky road going forward."

Yet independent analysts and even some within OPEC seem to believe that the demand for oil is diminishing. Why the contradiction?

The peak oil and demand myth is peddled by the establishment-run fake left activist groups, OPEC and globalist arms such as the IMF.

Rolling Stone magazine even carried an article in its April issue heavily biased towards making people believe the peak oil lie.

The Scientific evidence also flies in the face of the peak oil theory. Scientific research dating back over a hundred years, more recently updated in a Scientific Paper Published In 'Energia' suggests that oil is abiotic, not the product of long decayed biological matter. Oil, for better or for worse, is not a non-renewable resource. It, like coal, and natural gas, replenishes from sources within the mantle of earth.

No coincidence then that the Russians, who pioneered this research have pumped expenditure into deep underground oil excavation.

We have previously scientifically exposed the scam behind peak oil. Here is a 1 hour+ audio clip featuring Alex Jones' comments on peak oil and then the analysis of respected scientific commentator Dr. Nick Begich who presents evidence to suggest the idea of Peak oil is artificial.

A dangerous fallout precedent being set is that people on both the left and right believe wars are being fought in order to tap the last reserves of oil on the planet. The "coalition of the willing", whoever they may be for any given war, will not pay particular attention to refuting this claim because it allows them a reason to start and continue said war.

Even though many will see it as immoral, many will subconsciously attach it as a reason for the war. In reality the war is purely for profit, power and control, oil can be a part of that, but only if the peak oil claim is upheld.

If we continue to let the corrupt elite tell us we are wholly dependent on oil, we may reach a twisted situation whereby they can justify starvation and mass global poverty, perhaps even depopulation, even within the western world due to the fact that our energy supplies are finished.

Peak oil is just another weapon the globalists have in their arsenal to move towards a new world order where the elite get richer and everyone else falls into line.
--------------------------------------------
Alex Jones and Paul Joseph Watson join George Noory for a Coast to Coast AM 3 hour discussion on the overwhelming evidence that 'peak oil' scenarios are fabricated to raise the cost of fossil fuels. Below is a categorized archive of the information supporting this conclusion.
----------------------------------
Evidence of the Creation of Artificial Scarcity by the Oil Industry
Group: Internal memos show oil companies limited refineries to drive up prices
Internal Mobil Memo Showing Effort to Reduce Refining Capacity
Internal Texaco Memo Showing Effort to Reduce Refining Capacity
Internal Chevron Memo Showing Effort to Reduce Refining Capacity
Information from LA Times report on Shell deliberately creating artificial scarcity at Bakersfield California refinery
Shell Oil, Price Manipulation, and the Fleecing of Americans
----------------------------------
The Mystery of Eugene Island 330 and Abiotic Oil
Wall Street Journal: Odd Reservoir Off Louisiana ProdsOil Experts to Seek a Deeper Meaning
Sustainable oil?
The mystery of eugene island 330
-----------------------------------
Further Information on Abiotic, Self-Renewing Oil
Scientific Evidence Debunks Peak Oil Hoax
Russian Scientific Papers on Abiotic Origins of Oil & Related Research
Russia's Oil Boom After Discovering Abiotic Oil
Sustainable Oil? -- v. Peak Oil
Colonel Fletcher Prouty said oil as fossil fuel "Right out of the Rockefeller bible."
-----------------------------------
Who Is Promoting Peak Oil? The Global Elite
The ultra-elite Bilderberg Group expressed their desire that peak oil would provide a justification for a UN global tax on the oil pump.
The ultra-elite Bilderberg Group stated in May that oil prices would double.
The world in the palm of their hands: Bilderberg 2005, Part II
How Long Will the Oil Age Last? The Club of Rome, a nonprofit global think tank, said in the 1970s that we'd hit peak oil in 2003. It didn't happen.
The Club of Rome consulted with Kissinger before he issued his 1974 depopulation manifesto to President Carter. The plan calls for creating artificial food scarcity in order to depopulate the third world.
Colonel Fletcher Prouty said oil as fossil fuel "Right out of the Rockefeller bible."
Commentary on the Myth of Peak Oil
Peak Oil is a Corrupt Globalist Scam
Is 'Peak Oil' a put on?
Russia Proves 'Peak Oil' is a Misleading Zionist Scam
The Myth of "Peak Oil"
'Peak Oil' Scam Unravels, Oil Reserves Increasing
-----------------------------------
Oil Company Profits Increasing as Peak Oil Theory Spreads
Some calling profits obscene
Oil industry rides high energy prices to big profits
UK Oil Companies Show Record Profits
------------------------------------
Additional Contradictions to Peak Oil
Fears of dwindling oil supply unfounded

America suffers an epidemic of suicides among traumatised army veterans

2007-11-15T22:07:00.000-05:00

Tom Baldwin

TimesOnline.Co.Uk

More American military veterans have been committing suicide than US soldiers have been dying in Iraq, it was claimed yesterday.

At least 6,256 US veterans took their lives in 2005, at an average of 17 a day, according to figures broadcast last night. Former servicemen are more than twice as likely than the rest of the population to commit suicide.

Such statistics compare to the total of 3,863 American military deaths in Iraq since the invasion in 2003 - an average of 2.4 a day, according to the website ICasualties.org.
The rate of suicides among veterans prompted claims that the US was suffering from a “mental health epidemic” – often linked to post-traumatic stress.

CBS News claimed that the figures represented the first attempt to conduct a nationwide count of veteran suicides. The tally was reached by collating suicide data from individual states for both veterans and the general population from 1995.

The suicide rate among Americans as a whole was 8.9 per 100,000, but the level among veterans was at least 18.7. That figure rose to a minimum of 22.9 among veterans aged 20 to 24 – almost four times the nonveteran average for people of the same age.

There are 25 million veterans in the United States, 1.6 million of whom served in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“Not everyone comes home from the war wounded, but the bottom line is nobody comes home unchanged,” said Paul Rieckhoff, a former Marine and founder of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans for America.

CBS quoted the father of a 23-year-old soldier who shot himself in 2005 as suggesting that the military was covering up the scale of the problem. “Nobody wants to tally it up in the form of a government total,” Mike Bowman said. “They don’t want the true numbers of casualties to really be known.”

Mr Bowman’s son, Tim, was an army reservist who patrolled one of the most dangerous places in Baghdad, known as Airport Road. “His eyes when he came back were just dead. The light wasn’t there anymore,” said his mother, Kim Bowman. Eight months later, on Thanksgiving Day, Tim committed suicide.

A separate study published last week shows that US military veterans make up one in four homeless people in America, even though they represent just 11 per cent of the general adult population, and younger soldiers are already trickling into shelters and soup kitchens after completing tours in Iraq and Afghanistan.

While it took roughly a decade for the lives of Vietnam veterans to unravel to the point that they started showing up among the homeless, at least 1,500 ex-servicemen from the present wars have already been identified.

The National Alliance to End Homelessness, based the findings of its report on numbers from Veterans Affairs and the Census Bureau. Data from 2005 estimated that 194,254 homeless people on any given night were veterans.

Daniel Akaka, the chairman of the Senate Veterans’ Affairs Committee, said: “For too many veterans, returning home from battle does not bring an end to conflict. There is no question that action is needed.”

The plight of US veterans is a matter of acute sensitivity for the Bush Administration which has set great store by standing up for – and support from – US troops. This year General Kevin Kiley, the US Army’s Surgeon General, was among senior military officials dismissed for his role

in the mistreatment of wounded veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Newspaper revelations about conditions at the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington became a lightning rod for criticism of the war in general. The outpatient clinic was described as squalid and rat-infested; a maze of red tape left many outpatients – often with severe brain injuries – wandering the corridors without help.

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Neo-Libs & Neo-Cons Gang Up On Ron Paul Supporters

2007-11-15T19:42:00.000-05:00

Kurt Nimmo

TruthNews.US

November 15, 2007

It has all the hallmarks of a concerted effort—the corporate media, in particular Glenn Beck and Bill O’Reilly, are attacking Ron Paul and the 9/11 truth movement at the very moment H.R. 1955, entitled the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007″ (although more accurately entitled the Thought Crime Bill) inches its way toward the Senate, having passed the House of Representatives, that is to say the house of corporate and neocon whores in the District of Criminals. As if to send a strident message they mean business, a Ministry of Homeland Security subcommittee on “terrorism risk assessment” went out of its way on November 6 to conflate so-called jihad terrorism—you know, terrorism engineered by the CIA—with 9/11 truth.

“Under the guise of a bill that calls for the study of ‘homegrown terrorism,’ Congress is apparently trying to broaden the definition of terrorism to encompass both First Amendment political activity and traditional forms of protest such as nonviolent civil disobedience, according to civil liberties advocates, scholars and historians,” writes Jessica Lee. “Many observers fear that the proposed law will be used against U.S.-based groups engaged in legal but unpopular political activism, ranging from political Islamists to animal-rights and environmental campaigners to radical right-wing organizations. There is concern, too, that the bill will undermine academic integrity and is the latest salvo in a decade-long government grab for power at the expense of civil liberties.”

Of course, “political Islamists,” at least here in America, are too intimidated—thanks to the Palmeresque round-up and sadistic abuse of Muslims in the wake of September 11, 2001—to be of serious concern to the neocon-hijacked government. Many of the “animal-rights and environmental campaigners” fall into the category of the big foundation controlled opposition and do not sincerely pose a threat to the neocon “clash of civilizations” agenda abroad and the orchestrated attack against the Bill of Rights at home.

In fact, the only serious threat to the neocons and their neolib partners in crime emanates from the patriot and 9/11 truth movements—and that is why, as increasing numbers of patriotic and politically diverse Americans rally around the Ron Paul presidential campaign, we are witnessing increasingly virulent and desperate attacks against Paul, who is now absurdly conflated with “Islamo-fascist” terrorists.

H.R. 1955 is scary because it does not target actual terrorists but rather “extremist belief systems” and “is not necessarily about violence” but rather the potential “use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence,” according to Alejandro Queral, executive director of the Northwest Constitutional Rights Center. “What is an extremist belief system? Who defines this? These are broad definitions that encompass so much…. It is criminalizing thought and ideology.”
H.R. 1955 is a “form of prior restraint,” explains David Price, a professor of anthropology at St. Martin’s University who studies government surveillance and harassment of dissident scholars. It will prevent people from petitioning the government, lest they find themselves equated with terrorists.

Kamau Franklin, an attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights, is concerned the bill will be used to target peaceful protests. Franklin believes the “Commission’s broad mandate can lead to the ability to turn civil disobedience, a form of protest that is centuries old, into a terrorist act,” thus making it possible “that someone who would have been charged with disorderly conduct or obstruction of governmental administration may soon be charged with a federal terrorist statute…. My biggest fear is that they [the commission] will call for some new criminal penalties and federal crimes…. Activists are nervous about how the broad definitions could be used for criminalizing civil disobedience.”

“There are all sorts of things that activists do that involve little or no risk of hurting people, but their actions get labeled as violent, or even worse, as acts of terrorism,” explains Bron Taylor, a professor at University of Florida. “For example, if 10 activists push themselves into a congressperson’s regional office, make noise, pull out files and make a scene, is that an act of terrorism? It is quite possible that the act could scare the hell out of the secretary and office workers because they don’t know these people or what they intend to do? But is that terrorism? Some people would like to frame it that way.”

Indeed, no doubt “some people” would like to characterize We Are Change—infamous for confronting Giuliani, Romney, Biden, the neocon grand dragon Podhoretz and others—as a terrorist organization that needs to be arrested en masse and shipped to Camp Gitmo or one of those CIA torture dungeons in Poland or Jordan.

“One of the most useful tools for political campaigns today is the use of the internet,” writes Anthony Merola. “Certainly we can see how this has been used over the last few months as Congressmen Paul, as well as other candidates, has used the internet to spread their messages and appeal to new voters, but don’t worry, HR 1955 has taken care of this,” as H.R. 1955 declares the “Internet has aided in facilitating ideologically-based violence and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens.”

With this piece of legislation in congress, my generation will no longer be able to use the internet in a peaceful manner. All activity will certainly be logged, and every letter typed will be scrutinized by the state.

My generation has, without their knowing, been forced into a society in which we cannot choose, where we cannot think, where we cannot be free. This legislation is another step towards an Orwellian society that will create misery and despair for generations to come. We will be forced into more wars, more taxation, and more Statist welfare, and there is nothing we will be able to

do to stop those in power.

That is, unless we elect Congressman Paul. Ron Paul is the only person in our government advocating for personal liberty, and for privacy rights of the Citizens of this country. Sure, Barack Obama may appeal to the youth vote. But, he has made it clear that he is just another member of the Welfare/Warfare state. He has already told us that he cannot promise our troops will be home by the end of his first term. Style and Substance are two completely different things.

Our rulers understand this as well as the youthful Anthony Merola—and that’s why they are pulling out all the stops to pass the “Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007.”

If they are able to successfully characterize Ron Paul as a terrorist and thus sabotage his political campaign, there will be no end to the state-sponsored domestic terrorism they will unleash against the American people stripped of all advocates.

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IAEA: Iran generally truthful on nukes

2007-11-15T19:35:00.000-05:00

By GEORGE JAHN
Associated Press Writer
11-15-07

VIENNA, Austria - A report from the U.N nuclear watchdog agency on Thursday found Iran to be generally truthful about key aspects of its nuclear history, but it warned that its knowledge of Tehran's present atomic work was shrinking.

The White House said it would continue to push for a third round of U.N. sanctions against Iran despite the findings by the International Atomic Energy Agency report.

The IAEA report, released to its 35 board members, also confirmed that Tehran continued to defy the U.N. Security Council by ignoring its repeated demands to freeze uranium enrichment, a potential pathway to nuclear arms.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said the report indicated that Iran has not suspended its enrichment-related activities and continues to defy the international community.

"We believe that selective cooperation is not good enough," she said. "Iran continues to walk away from a deal that has been offered to them. We said they can have a civil nuclear program if they'll just suspend their current activities."

But top Iranian negotiator Saeed Jalili said the report shows that new sanctions would be "illegal action," adding that Iran has answered all the questions by the IAEA and made "good progress" in cooperating with it.

In light of the IAEA report, "many accusations are now baseless," Jalili said, referring to U.S. assertions that Tehran is pursuing nuclear weapons.

"Those powers who base their accusations on this I hope will reconsider what they say," he said.
If new U.N. sanctions are approved, "you should be asking what is the logic in this," Jalili told reporters in Tehran.

Britain's Foreign Office also said it would pursue further sanctions from the Security Council and the European Union.

"If Iran wants to restore trust in its program, it must come clean on all outstanding issues without delay," the statement said. It also said Tehran must restore broader and stronger inspection rights to IAEA teams and mothball its enrichment activities to avoid such penalties.

Much of the 10-page report made available to The Associated Press focused on the history of Iran's black-market procurements and past development of its enrichment technology — and the agency appeared to be giving Tehran a pass on that issue, repeatedly saying it concludes that "Iran's statements are consistent with ... information available to the agency."

A senior U.N. official said that language did not mean that the IAEA's investigation into past enrichment activities was "closed," even though a work plan between the agency and Tehran set

November as the deadline for clearing up the issue.

In Washington, the State Department suggested that China was blocking plans for a new meeting, tentatively set for Monday, of the five permanent members of the Security Council and

Germany to discuss a new sanctions resolution.

"Frankly, what we need now is for the Chinese to play a constructive role in scheduling the meeting, but also to have constructive, effective conversations about the elements of the resolution," spokesman Sean McCormack said.

"We're looking for them to play a constructive role," he said. "They have in the past and we're looking for them to again take up a constructive role in scheduling the meeting and once we have the meeting coming to agreement on the elements and language of the resolution."

McCormack declined to comment specifically on what China had told the other members of the group about the meeting to be held at the political directors level.

Jalili insisted Iran has an irrefutable right to its nuclear program.

"Iran has shown it is working within the framework of the law but at the same time, we want our (nuclear) rights," Jalili said. "We have done everything to have a peaceful nuclear program."

He said the IAEA report listed a "number of articles that refer to Iran's cooperation with the agency" and that this shows claims of nuclear material being used for a military program have been false.

Jalili insisted Iran was enthusiastic about continuing talks with the IAEA, which he said now has "complete supervision" of Iran's uranium enrichment program.

Last week, Iran said it stepped up uranium enrichment activities by fully running 3,000 centrifuges at its nuclear plant in the central city of Natanz. It would take some 54,000 centrifuges to fuel a reactor.

Two rounds of U.N. sanctions have failed to persuade Iran to halt the uranium enrichment, a technology that can be used to produce nuclear fuel to generate electricity or fissile material for a warhead.

LOOSE CHANGE - FINAL CUT (2007)

2007-11-14T02:10:00.000-05:00

LOOSECHANGE911

Loose Change: Final Cut has arrived. Two days ahead of the original schedule, the long awaited final version of the film that took the 9/11 truth movement mainstream is now available to buy on DVD.

The original Loose Change and Loose Change 2nd Edition have been viewed at least 50 million times over the Internet, making it one of the most watched movies in history, but the Final Cut goes above and beyond, making it not simply the third in a trilogy but a completely new film with oodles of unseen footage, commentary, interviews and eyewitness testimony.

In an effort to be the catalyst for a new independent investigation of 9/11, the film features new and exclusive interviews with firefighters, EMT's, first responders and other officials who were all eyewitnesses to multiple secondary explosions in the twin towers and around the ground zero area.

Click here to order Loose Change Final Cut. View the official trailer below.

Part of the revenue from the sales will be donated to 9/11 victim's charities such as The Feal Good Foundation and WTC Families for Proper Burial.

The film will be subject to selected cinematic release in 2008, but many grassroots and selected theatres have already agreed to pick up the movie from December onwards across the U.S and Europe and the Loose Change team are encouraging activists to ask that their local theatre to screen the documentary.

Throughout the year Dylan Avery Jason Bermas and Corey Rowe, have been negotiating with various different producers in Hollywood in hope of securing a mainstream release. However, the team recently decided to forgo such a deal in order to retain full editorial control of the film.

"This just wasn't an option for us, as the integrity of our message is ultimately all that we have, and we feared that 'the machine' would corrupt or squash our film and its movement." an official statement read.

The trio are also extremely proud of the manner in which their initial release of the internet phenomenon documentary has spawned a move that has seen the release of scores of successful independent grassroots films. The team wish to continue to challenge the traditional marketing channels and reinvent the way that films are distributed.

Alex Jones worked with the trio in an executive producer role on the film and has partly financed it's production and distribution.

Other consultants on The Final Cut include Professor David Ray Griffin, author of three widely read studies of the 2001 attacks.

In the coming weeks and months we expect to witness the launch of a fresh wave of attacks against the 9/11 truth movement by neocon hacks such as Bill O'Reilly, who has regularly equated the movement with terrorists, a tactic that has since been echoed by other mainstream gatekeepers.

O'Reilly admits right off the bat that he has not even seen Loose Change, following in the trend of his fellow debunkers who have already arrived at a judgment without even checking the evidence. O'Reilly has made the argument that "Loose Change should be banned just as some books should be banned."

VIDEO PERMALINK (STAGE6)

State of Emergency: Could Bush ever arbitrarily declare martial law like Musharraf has in Pakistan?

2007-11-08T19:14:00.000-05:00

By Justin Finney

OpEdNews.Com

November 7, 2007

President Musharraf’s declaration of martial law in Pakistan has engendered two sorts of reactions in the world: mutiny and uproar from the legislative arm within Pakistan and doleful finger-wagging from most Western governments, nowhere more so than in the US.

Speaking in front of reporters at a press conference beside Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, President Bush expressed disappointment with President Musharraf’s decision. “We expect there to be elections as soon as possible…and the president should remove his military uniform.” But any doubts about the Bush administration’s dependence on Musharraf were quickly dispelled. “We want to continue working with him to fight these terrorists and extremists,” Bush said. In addition, it’s been made clear that cuts in aid are extremely unlikely. “We are reviewing all of our assistance programs, although we are mindful not to do anything that would undermine ongoing counterterrorism efforts,” said Defense Secretary Robert Gates.

Given that the vast majority of arrests in Pakistan since martial law was declared have been lawyers, it’s somewhat ambiguous what President Bush means by “terrorists and extremists.” Of course, Pakistan does have a problem with Islamic extremists who are angry with Musharraf’s turnabout since 9-11. Previous to Musharraf’s deal with Washington— which for his help in Afghanistan lifted sanctions initially enacted over Pakistan’s nuclear defiance and poured in aid which has totaled $10.59 billion currently—he was a critical supporter to the Taliban.

According to a policy paper written by Leon T. Hadara of the CATO Institute, “leading Pakistani political, military, and religious figures and radical Islamic groups were providing direct support in the form of financial resources and military assistance…(to the)…Taliban and al-Qaeda.”

If Washington’s support for Musharraf as he seizes power to forestall a court decision on the legality of his dual power as president and military commander teaches us anything, it’s that democracy promotion is an afterthought in US foreign policy. Or better put, a euphemism for free-market promotion, whether in the cone of South America during the seventies or in Iraq today.

But what about democracy at home? Here in the US? If the Bush administration ever felt desperate enough politically, could it or would it ever arbitrarily declare martial law? A yes answer might not be so far out there, and it would arguably be legal, thanks to a rider inserted in the 2007 Defense Authorization Act.

Defense Authorization Acts are passed every fiscal year to authorize appropriations for the Department of Defense. When the 2007 draft was written, amendments were made to the “Insurrection Act,” a bill passed in 1807 to give the president power to deploy troops in the event of an insurrection or rebellion. The main changes made to the Insurrection Act were primarily in §333. The Defense Authorization Act of 2007 summarized the changes as follows:

[(Sec. 1076) Revises federal provisions allowing the President to utilize the Armed Forces in connection with interference with federal and state law to allow the President to employ the Armed Forces and National Guard in federal service to restore public order in cases of natural disaster, epidemic or other public health emergency, terrorist attack or incident, or domestic violence. Requires the President to notify Congress within 14 days of the exercise of such authority. Authorizes the President, when exercising such authority, to direct the Secretary to provide supplies, services, and equipment to persons affected by the situation.]

So in short, where the original Insurrection Act only permitted the declaration of martial law in the face of a rebellion, the new changes allow the president to declare martial law for virtually anything deemed an emergency.

Also alarming was a phrase added to §334 of the new Insurrection Act.

[Whenever the President considers it necessary to use the militia or the armed forces under this chapter, he shall, by proclamation, immediately order the insurgents or those obstructing the enforcement of the laws to disperse and retire peaceably to their abodes within a limited time.]

“Those obstructing the enforcement of the laws” could of course potentially be interpreted to apply to anyone the administration saw as an obstruction to its policies i.e. peaceably demonstrating activists, opposition political leaders, etc.

So now that the president has new broad powers to declare martial law, and, unlike Pakistan, a supreme court that’s in many ways philosophically aligned with the Bush Administration, the question is: are there any feasible scenarios under which Bush might declare martial law before his term is up? Though the likelihood for such a move might require a fickle time-line of events, it’s probably not as unlikely as some might think.

Imagine the following occurs seven months from now: The Bush Administration is intent on bombing Iran but has been forestalled by a worsening of events in Iraq, perhaps Turkey invades the North. The administration fears a Democrat won’t take care of Iran as they see fit, and polls show the Democratic nominee has a fifteen point lead in the looming election. Then a hurricane devastates the Gulf Coast again. Claiming as its motive a wish to respond quicker than it did with Katrina, Bush declares martial law and suspends the upcoming election. Suddenly, there’s that critical extra time needed to expand the war.

Again, though it requires a darkly fortuitous turn of events for the Bush administration, such reasoning might appeal to them if Vice President Dick Cheney’s reported fascination with expanding the war in the Middle East is threatened by something as burdensome and capricious as the people’s choice for change in the next election. In fact, I would argue that the Bush administration, apparently unbothered by low poll numbers, might see it as a necessity.

So pay special attention to what happens in Pakistan in the coming weeks and months. Despite the multitude of geopolitical reasons that the Bush Administration is supporting President Musharrafs’ usurpation of democracy lays the fact that Bush and Co. might be looking to do the same themselves in a worst-case scenario of their hegemonic scheming. With their track record of deceit at home and corporate crusading in the Middle East, the images we see on television of Pakistani lawyers being thrown into paddy-wagons might be a sneak preview of things to come in the US. Stranger things have happened in the last seven years.

PERMALINK

FOX NEWS: DOLLAR INFLATION GOOD!

2007-11-08T19:00:00.000-05:00

VIDEO LINK:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1MgngVbrAXQ

do any of you still watch this bulls**t channel!?

or any of the ABCNNBCBS propoganda networks...

Olbermann: Does Bush want to remake US into ‘invisible fascist state’?

2007-11-08T18:15:00.000-05:00

David Edwards and Muriel Kane

RawStory.Com

November 6, 2007

MSNBC’s Keith Olbermann delivered a blistering special comment on Monday concerning the true significance of the dispute over waterboarding and the essential role played by torture in maintaining the George W. Bush presidency.

“The presidency of George W. Bush has now devolved into a criminal conspiracy to cover the ass of George W. Bush,” Olbermann began. “All of it is now, after one revelation last week, transparently clear for what it is … the refocusing of our entire nation towards keeping this mock president … and all the others from potential prosecution for having approved or ordered the illegal torture of prisoners being held in the name of our country.”

The revelation to which Olbermann referred was the account of former acting assistant attorney general Daniel Levin, who, when assigned to assess the legality of the administration’s “enhanced interrogation techniques,” decided the most direct method was to have himself waterboarded.

“Have you, Mr. Bush, ever done anything that personally courageous?” Olbermann asked. “Perhaps when you’ve gone to Walter Reed and teared up over the maimed servicemen and then gone back to the White House and confirmed and determined that there would be more maimed servicemen?”

“Daniel Levin should have a statue in his honor in Washington, right now,” Olbermann stated. “Instead, he was forced out as acting assistant attorney general nearly three years ago because he had the guts to do what George Bush could not do in a million years. … They waterboard him, and he wrote that even though he knew those doing it meant him no harm … he could not stop the terror screaming from inside him, could not quell the horror.”

“Waterboarding, he said, is torture,” Olbermann continued. “And he wrote it down … somewhere where it could be contrasted with the words of this country’s 43rd president, ‘The United States of America does not torture.’”

According to Olbermann, Levin was forced to modify his report to suggest that waterboarding might not be torture if it was done carefully and then was fired because of his inability to lie to protect the president. “If it ever got out,” Olbermann noted, once more addressing Bush directly, “you would have been screwed. And screwed you are.”

Olbermann then went on to ask why waterboarding was even used on terrorists when it’s well documented that “torture does not get them to tell the truth.”

“Of course, Mr. Bush,” Olbermann stated, “this isn’t a problem, is it, if you don’t care if the terrorist plots they tell you about are the truth. … If, say, a president simply needed a constant supply of terrorist threats to keep the country scared … if, say, he realized that even terrorized people still need good ghost stories before they will let a president pillage the Constitution — well, heck, Mr. Bush, who better to dream them up for you than an actual terrorist. He’ll tell you everything he ever fantasized of doing.”

“Now, if that’s what this is all about — you tortured not because you’re stupid … but you tortured because you’re smart enough to know it produces really authentic-sounding fiction — well then, you’re going to need all the lawyers you can find, because that crime wouldn’t just mean impeachment, would it, sir? That crime would mean George W. Bush is going to prison.”
That, Olbermann asserted, is the real explanation for the peculiar inability on the part of

Gonzales, Cheney, and Mukasey to agree on a definition of torture — along with “the giddying prospect that maybe you could … remake a nation into a fascist state so efficient and so self-sustaining that the fascism itself would be nearly invisible.

“But ultimately,” Olbermann concluded, speaking of men like Levin, “these patriots will defeat you, and they will return this country to its righteous standards and to its rightful owners — the people.”

The following video is from MSNBC’s COUNTDOWN with Keith Olbermann, broadcast on November 05, 2007

PART 1:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bsM0VUVEZJ8

PART 2:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WyPpuXzccH8

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The American empire is falling with the dollar

2007-11-08T18:06:00.000-05:00

Paul Craig Roberts
Online Journal.Com
November 8, 2007

The US dollar is still officially the world's reserve currency, but it cannot purchase the services of Brazilian super model Gisele Bundchen. Gisele required the $30 million she earned during the first half of this year to be paid in euros.

Gisele is not alone in her forecast of the dollar's fate. The First Post (UK) reports that Jim Rogers, a former partner of billionaire George Soros, is selling his home and all possessions in order to convert all his wealth into Chinese yuan.

Meanwhile, American economists continue to preach that offshoring is good for the US economy and that Bush's war spending is keeping the economy going. The practitioners of supply and demand have yet to figure out that the dollar's supply is sinking the dollar's price and along with it American power.

The macho super patriots who support the Bush regime still haven't caught on that US superpower status rests on the dollar being the reserve currency, not on a military unable to occupy Baghdad. If the dollar were not the world currency, the US would have to earn enough foreign currencies to pay for its 737 oversees bases, an impossibility considering America's $800 billion trade deficit.

When the dollar ceases to be the reserve currency, foreigners will cease to finance the US trade and budget deficits, and the American Empire along with its wars will disappear overnight. Perhaps Bush will be able to get a World Bank loan, or maybe one from the "Chavez bank," to bring the troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Foreign leaders, observing that offshoring and war are accelerating America's relative economic decline, no longer treat the US with the deference to which Washington is accustomed. Ecuador's president, Rafael Correa, recently refused Washington's demand to renew the lease on the

Manta air base in Ecuador. He told Washington that the US could have a base in Ecuador if Ecuador could have a military base in the US.

When Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez addressed the UN, he crossed himself as he stood at the podium. Referring to President Bush, Chavez said, "Yesterday the devil came here, and it smells of sulfur still today." Bush, said Chavez, was standing "right here, talking as if he owned the world."

In his state of the nation message last year, Russian president Vladimir Putin said that Bush's blathering about democracy was nothing but a cloak for the pursuit of American self-interests at the expense of other peoples. "We are aware what is going on in the world. Comrade wolf knows whom to eat, and he eats without listening, and he's clearly not going to listen to anyone." In
May 2007, Putin criticized the neocon regime in Washington for "disrespect for human life" and "claims to global exclusiveness, just as it was in the time of the Third Reich."

Even America's British allies regard President Bush as a threat to world peace and the second most dangerous man alive. Bush is edged out in polls by Osama bin Laden, but is regarded as more dangerous than Iran's demonized president and North Korea's Kim Jong-il.

President Bush has achieved his dismal world standing despite spending $1.6 billion of hard-pressed Americans' tax money on public relations between 2003 and 2006.

Clearly, America's leader and America's currency are poorly regarded. Is there a solution?
Perhaps the answer lies in those 737 overseas bases. If those bases were brought home and shared among the 50 states, each state would gain 15 new military bases.

Imagine what this would mean: The end of the housing slump. A reduction in the trade deficit. And the end of the war on terror.

Who would dare attack a country with 15 new military bases in every state in addition to the existing ones? Wherever a terrorist turned, he would find himself surrounded by soldiers.
All of the dollars currently spent abroad to support 737 overseas bases would be spent at home. Income for foreigners would become income for Americans, and the trade deficit would shrink.

The impact of the 737 military base payrolls on the US economy would end the housing crisis and bring back the 140,000 highly paid financial services jobs, the loss of which this year has cost the US $42 billion in consumer income. Foreclosures and bankruptcies would plummet.

If this isn't enough to turn the dollar around, President Bush's pledge not to appoint an attorney general if Michael Mukasey is not confirmed offers more promise. If the Democrats will defeat Mukasey's nomination, there are other superfluous cabinet departments that can be closed down in addition to the US Department of Torture and Indefinite Detention.

The American empire is being unwound on the battlefields of Iraq and Afghanistan. The year is two months from being over, but already in 2007, despite the touted "surge," deaths of US soldiers are the highest of any year of the war.

The Taliban are the ones who are surging. They have taken control of a third district in Western Afghanistan. Turkey and the Kurds are on the verge of turning northern Iraq into a new war zone, another demonstration of American impotence.

Bush's wars have endangered America's puppet regimes. Bush's Pakistani puppet, Musharraf, is fighting for his life. By resorting to "emergency rule" and oppressive measures, Musharraf has intensified his opposition. When Musharraf falls, thanks to Bush, the Islamists will have nukes.

American generals used to say that the wars Bush started in the Middle East would take 10 years to win. On Oct. 31, General John Abizaid, former commander of US forces in the Middle East, put paid to that optimistic forecast. Speaking at Carnegie Mellon University, Gen. Abizaid said it would be 50 years before US troops can leave the Middle East.

There is no possibility of the US remaining in the Middle East for a half century. The dollar and US power are already on their last legs, unbeknownst to Democratic leaders Pelosi and Reid who are preparing yet another blank check for Bush's latest request for $200 billion in supplementary war funding.

There isn't any money with which to fund Bush's lost war. It will have to be borrowed from China.

The Romans brought on their own demise, but it took them centuries. Bush has finished
America in a mere seven years.

Even as Gisele throws off the dollar's hegemony, Brazil, Venezuela, Ecuador, Bolivia, Argentina, Uruguay, Paraguay, and Columbia are declaring independence from the IMF and World Bank, instruments of US financial hegemony, by creating their own development bank, thus bringing to an end US suzerainty over South America.

An empire that has lost its backyard is finished.

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Blix: I was smeared by the Pentagon

2007-11-08T17:49:00.000-05:00

Hans Blix, the UN chief weapons inspector, lashed out last night at the "bastards" who have tried to undermine him throughout the three years he has held his high-profile post.

In an extraordinary departure from the diplomatic language with which he has come to be associated, Mr Blix assailed his critics in both Washington and Iraq.

Speaking exclusively to the Guardian from his 31st floor office at the UN in New York, Mr Blix said: "I have my detractors in Washington. There are bastards who spread things around, of course, who planted nasty things in the media. Not that I cared very much.

"It was like a mosquito bite in the evening that is there in the morning, an irritant."
In a wide-ranging interview Mr Blix, who retires in three weeks' time, accused:

·The Bush administration of leaning on his inspectors to produce more damning language in their reports;

·"Some elements" of the Pentagon of being behind a smear campaign against him; and
·Washington of regarding the UN as an "alien power" which they hoped would sink into the East river.

Asked if he believed he had been the target of a deliberate smear campaign he said: "Yes, I probably was at a lower level."

Before he had even flown to Iraq to relaunch the sensitive weapons inspections after a four-year hiatus last November, senior US defence department officials were excoriating the septuagenarian as the worst possible choice for the post.

It was just the beginning. By autumn, the happily married father of two was being branded in
Baghdad as a "homosexual who went to Washington every two weeks to pick up [his] instructions".

"The Iraqis were spreading that rumour about me early in the autumn and then I heard the counter-rumour that I had told my wife, Eva, about this rumour and that she said she had never noticed it. My alleged comment to her," he said, breaking into laughter, "was that nor had I."

But the criticism clearly hurt.

A lot of the sniping "surely came" from the Pentagon, said Mr Blix, who has since won plaudits for his handling of the unenviable brief of divining whether Iraq had disarmed.

Staff attached to the UN monitoring and inspection commission, headed by the Swede for the past three years, openly say there is no love lost between hawks in the Bush administration and their mission.

Mr Blix, a former foreign minister, prefers to remain sanguine. "By and large my relations with the US were good," he said, reiterating his belief that the Iraqi regime would likely never have complied with any of the UN resolutions around disarmament had it not been for the presence of 200,000 US troops in the region.

"But towards the end the [Bush] administration leaned on us," he conceded, hoping the inspectors would employ more damning language in their reports to swing votes on the UN security council.

Washington, he claimed, was particularly upset that the UN team did not "make more" of the discovery of cluster bombs and drones in March.

He said Washington's disappointment at not getting UN backing for an attack was "one reason why you find scepticism towards inspectors".

The life-long civil servant -who is looking forward to returning to a shared life with his wife in Stockholm as he turns 75 - said he was convinced that "there are people in this administration who say they don't care if the UN sinks under the East river, and other crude things".

Instead of seeing the UN as a collective body of decision-making states, Washington now viewed it as an "alien power, even if it does hold considerable influence within it. Such [negative] feelings don't exist in Europe where people say that the UN is a lot of talk at dinners and fluffy stuff."

That was especially worrying given President Bush's openly proclaimed belief in the doctrine of pre-emptive strikes. "It would be more desirable and more reasonable to ask for security council authority, especially at a time when communism no longer exists and you don't have automatic vetoes from Russia and China," he said.

Similarly it would be much more "credible" if a team of international inspectors were sent into Iraq instead of the 1,300-strong US-appointed group now conducting the search for weapons of
mass destruction, he said.

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Sarkozy accused of working for Israeli intelligence

2007-11-04T20:26:00.000-05:00

By Gamal Nkrumah

GlobalResearch.CA

Sarkozy’s bad week

As if his marital challenges were not enough cause for concern, “Sarco the Sayan” has suddenly emerged as the most infamous accolade of French President Nicolas Sarkozy. The influential French daily Le Figaro last week revealed that the French leader once worked for — and perhaps still does, it hinted — Israeli intelligence as a sayan (Hebrew for helper), one of the thousands of Jewish citizens of countries other than Israel who cooperate with the katsas (Mossad case-officers).

A letter dispatched to French police officials late last winter — long before the presidential election but somehow kept secret — revealed that Sarkozy was recruited as an Israeli spy. The French police is currently investigating documents concerning Sarkozy’s alleged espionage activities on behalf of Mossad, which Le Figaro claims dated as far back as 1983. According to the author of the message, in 1978, Israeli prime minister Menachem Begin ordered the infiltration of the French ruling Gaullist Party, Union pour un Mouvement Populaire. Originally targeted were Patrick Balkany, Patrick Devedjian and Pierre Lellouche. In 1983, they recruited the “young and promising” Sarkozy, the “fourth man”.

Ex-Mossad agent Victor Ostrovsky describes how sayanim function in By Way Of Deception: The Making and Unmaking of a Mossad Officer. They are usually reached through relatives in Israel. An Israeli with a relative in France, for instance, might be asked to draft a letter saying the person bearing the letter represents an organisation whose main goal is to help save Jewish people in the Diaspora. Could the French relative help in any way? They perform many different roles. A car sayan, for example, running a rental car agency, could help the Mossad rent a car without having to complete the usual documentation. An apartment sayan would find accommodation without raising suspicions, a bank sayan could fund someone in the middle of the night if needs be, a doctor sayan would treat a bullet wound without reporting it to the police.

And, a political sayan ? It’s rather obvious what this could mean. The sayanim are a pool of people at the ready who will keep quiet about their actions out of loyalty to “the cause”, a non-risk recruitment system that draws from the millions of Jewish people outside Israel.

Such talk sends chills down spines, especially Arab and Muslim ones. Indeed, the revelation did not go unnoticed in Arab capitals or come as much of a surprise. Paris can be a sunny place for shady people. When it comes to intelligence gathering on behalf of Israel, a question mark is immediately raised on the moral calibre of the person in question. But, how does this scandal influence France’s foreign and domestic politics?

It is of symbolic significance that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert was on a state visit to France in the immediate aftermath of Le Figaro ’s exposé — ostensibly to discuss Iran’s nuclear agenda and the Palestinian question. Proud and prickly France under its supposedly savvy new president hopes to play a more prominent role in the perplexing world of Middle Eastern politics. On Monday, Sarkozy flew to Morocco, the ancestral home of many of France’s Jewry, soon after his Mossad connection was made public. There is no clear evidence that the revelation is to make France any more unpopular in the Arab world than it already is, especially not in official circles.

On the domestic front, however, there are many conflicting considerations. The Jews of France now display a touch of the vapours, in sharp contrast to the conceited triumphalism with which they greeted his election: “we are persuaded that the new president will continue eradicating anti-Israeli resistance,” Sammy Ghozlan, president of the Jewish Community of Paris pontificated soon after Sarkozy’s election. France is home to 500,000 Jews, mostly Sephardic Jews originally from North Africa and Mediterranean countries.

Sarkozy’s own maternal grandfather Aron Mallah, hailed from Salonika, Greece, and is said to have exercised considerable influence on his grandson. Even though raised as a Roman Catholic, “Sarkozy played a critical role in moving the French government to do what is necessary to address the ill winds that threaten the largest Jewish community in Western Europe,” noted David Harris, the executive director of the American Jewish Committee. Sarkozy, after all, was a political product of the predominantly Jewish elite neighbourhood of Neuilly-sur-Seine, where he long served as mayor.

France’s Muslim minority was far from surprised by Le Figaro ’s revelations, even though some may have feigned disappointment. Others have been more forthright. “France is not run by Frenchmen, but by lackeys of the Zionist International who control the economy,” lamented Radio Islam, of militant Islamist tendencies. When Sarkozy was France’s minister of interior and clamped down hard on Muslim immigrants, calling mainly Muslim rioters “scum” in a widely-publicised interview, they retaliated by calling him “Sarkozy, sale juif [dirty Jew]”. Obviously there is no love lost between the five million-strong French Muslim community, the largest in Western Europe, and the French president. He has grounds for concern. He assiduously courts the Israelis. That much is known.

In the scientific annals of French politics there is a cautionary tale of pantomime. French presidents are not always what they seem. There are, however, two key observations concerning Sarkozy. One, is Sarkozy’s intention of implementing a “new social contract” between employers and employees, capital and labour. This smacks of Thatcherism. His determination to force a “cultural revolution” in the collective national psyche is a trifle farcical. And unprincipled to boot. He recently introduced legislation — in tandem with his pension cuts, calling for genetic profiling of immigrants to ensure any relatives intending to immigrate are linked genetically.

The strategy appears to be to soften the blow of the social security cuts by appealing to xenophobic racism.

The state of race relations in France is an even more muddled picture than the devastating caricatures by French-African comedian Dieudonne suggest. He is notorious for playing the part of a Hassidic Jew who mimics the Nazi salute. Few politicians blame their troubles on cynical comedians, though, and Sarkozy is no exception. His fans point accusing fingers at the “irresponsible press”.

The real magic starts when you power Sarkozy with his ex-model wife. She, after all, played a part in the freeing of the Bulgarian nurses and a Palestinian medical doctor. She, too, is of Spanish-Jewish ancestry. But, that may be nothing but an insignificant aside. France, generally, regarded their bust-up as something of a bad joke. Unlike the Americans, the French do not take the private lives of their presidents terribly seriously. There was the late François Mitterrand, for example. Hardly anyone in all France raised an eyebrow when it transpired that he had an illegitimate daughter. The French are more concerned with the ideological orientation and political affiliation of their president and are not in the least interested in their private affairs — at least not in any political sense.

The interesting twist, however, is that the contest between Cecilia and Nicolas Sarkozy is a comic cross between a lover’s tiff and the battle of the sexes. It appears befuddled French voters are being forced to turn a blind eye to their leaders’ antics. Sarkozy’s divorce follows hard on the heels of the separation of France’s first female presidential candidate Ségolène Royal, the “gazelle” of French politics, from her lifelong lover François Hollande barely a month after she lost the presidential race in May. Moreover, at the tender age of 19, Royal sued her father for his refusal to divorce her mother and pay alimony and child support. That was way back in 1972; barely a decade later she won the case against her father. Ironically, Royal’s own mentor the late French socialist president Mitterrand was notorious for his extra-marital affairs, the most conspicuous being his love affair with Anne Pingeot and subsequent disclosure towards the end of his life that he fathered an illegitimate daughter Mazarine with her.

And, what of the voters? The latest hazard facing the French president has been his socio-economic policies. Sarkozy’s showdown with the trade unions threatens to turn into a deciding moment for France. Foreign policy, too, has come under much scrutiny. France has become fanatically Atlanticist under the presidency of Sarkozy. Although, unlike US President George W Bush, Sarkozy does not make much noise about his own dubious religious convictions. The commonest criticism of Sarkozy is that he is overly conscious of his religious heritage, a trait that is not appreciated by the fanatically secular French political establishment. France is culturally the most irreligious country in Europe, itself the most secular and anti-religious of the world’s continents.

For a politician acclaimed for his acumen, it is startling that Sarkozy has been tripped up by events he should have seen coming. His sagacity obviously failed him this week. Le Figaro let the cat out of the bag. And his wife, too, after shopping with Lyudmila Putin, the Russian first lady, apparently decided that she had had enough of being treated as “part of the furniture” and made their rift very public.

France is now in the awkward position of having no first lady. The 49 year- old former model, lawyer and political advisor is by no means media shy. “I gave Nicolas 20 years of my life,” she told the popular French magazine Elle in a special feature which she asked for personally, despite the awkwardness of its timing. She had long complained of being politically peripheralised. Troubling as that interpretation is, it is in a way a consoling one for Sarkozy. He is now free to handle his opponents without his maverick Cecilia breathing down his neck or, on the contrary, disappearing at crucial moments.

Even with his personal life in tatters, Sarkozy is obliged to hoist the French tricoleur high in the international arena. Which flag is it to be?

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Times: Bush plans to keep Pakistan from being mockery of democracy 'fell apart spectacularly'

2007-11-04T20:21:00.000-05:00

John Byrne
RawStory.Com

In a somewhat sharply worded news analysis in Sunday's editions of The New York Times, the paper of record takes the president to task on his seeming failure to maintain order in Pakistan.
"For more than five months the United States has been trying to orchestrate a political transition in Pakistan that would manage to somehow keep Gen. Pervez Musharraf in power without making a mockery of President Bush’s promotion of democracy in the Muslim world," pens the Times' Sheryl Gay Stolberg and Helene Cooper.

"On Saturday, those carefully laid plans fell apart spectacularly," they continue. "Now the White House is stuck in wait-and-see mode, with limited options and a lack of clarity about the way forward."

Musharraf declared emergency rule Saturday evening, putting the Army in charge of Islamabad. Most of the Supreme Court was disbanded after they refused to certify his decision; Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry was placed under house arrest. Telephone lines were cut and critical media outlets shuttered.

The Times said Pakistan was close to a Bush administration nightmare -- an "American-backed military dictator who is risking civil instability in a country with nuclear weapons and an increasingly alienated public"

Stolberg and Cooper also note that top Al Qaeda leaders and Osama Bin Laden are "believed to be hiding out in the mountainous border region between Pakistan and Afghanistan."

Taken together, these statements could indicate a greater threat to the United States' security than Iran: an "American-backed military dictator who is risking civil instability in a country with nuclear weapons and an increasingly alienated public" on whose border Osama Bin Laden and top Al Qaeda leaders are "believed to be hiding out."

Musharraf was one of Bush's chief allies in the region, despite his all-but-dictatorship. The US has given Pakistan more than $10 billion in aid -- "mostly to the military, since 2001."
Now that military is patrolling the streets of Islamabad, cutting off phone lines and critical media outlets and placing opposition leader Imran Khan under house house arrest.

After Musharraf's decision to suspend the constitution, the Times notes: "there was no immediate action by the [Bush] administration to accompany the tough talk."

Tough talk?

"Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, traveling in the Middle East, called Mr. Musharraf’s move 'highly regrettable,' while her spokesman, Sean D. McCormack, said the United States was 'deeply disturbed.'"

Teresita Schaffer, an expert on Pakistan at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington told the paper Musharraf’s decision was “a big embarrassment” for the administration.

“There’s going to be a lot of visible wringing of hands, and urging Musharraf to declare his intentions,” Schaffer remarked. “But I don’t really see any alternative to continuing to work with him. They can’t just decide they’re going to blow off the whole country of Pakistan, because it sits right next to Afghanistan, where there are some 26,000 U.S. and NATO troops.”

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Shouting at the Devil: “Fuck You, Capitalism!”

2007-10-30T08:38:00.000-04:00

By Jason Miller

BestCyrano.Org

10/29/07

“America touts itself as the land of the free, but the number one freedom that you and I have is the freedom to enter into a subservient role in the workplace. Once you exercise this freedom you’ve lost all control over what you do, what is produced, and how it is produced. And in the end, the product doesn’t belong to you. The only way you can avoid bosses and jobs is if you don’t care about making a living. Which leads to the second freedom: the freedom to starve.”
–Tom Morello of Rage Against the Machine

Does my profanity offend? If so, accept my sincere apologies for having the audacity to use a vulgar expletive in reference to the malignant force that is raping the Earth and murdering its sentient inhabitants. Then take my ‘deeply sincere’ pleas for forgiveness, and with the aid of an unlubricated rod of significant diameter, ram them firmly up the collective asses of the plutocratic bags of shit who comprise the ruling elite in the United States.
Capitalism, capitalism. How do I loath thee? Let me count the ways….
1. Few would argue with the conclusion that greed, selfishness, ruthlessness, and egocentrism are qualities that all of us humans possess, to varying degrees of course. Equally compelling is the argument that nearly all of us are capable of acting with kindness, compassion, justice, honesty, generosity, and empathy. Yet despite the sweeping epidemic of unnecessary suffering caused by torrential waves of avarice, self-centeredness, and brutality, our filthy moneyed elite, their well-compensated sycophants, and countless millions of deeply inculcated members of the working class defend the sacred cow of capitalism with the zeal of the Siccari. What a brilliant way to conduct human affairs and organize ourselves socioeconomically! Not only do we embrace the inevitability of our human frailties; we willfully and perpetually embrace a system that ensures that the worst elements of the human psyche will predominate AND which amply rewards those who act the most reprehensibly.

2. One of the idiocies advanced as a logical argument to justify the continued existence of the abomination of capitalism is that while it may be flawed, it is still better than any alternative. If capitalism is the best humanity can do, it’s time to cash in our chips and leave Earth to our non-human animal counter-parts. They may not have opposable thumbs and formidably sized frontal lobes, but at least they don’t engage in the systematic destruction of themselves and the rest of the planet. However, before we act too hastily and engage in mass Seppuku, perhaps it would make more sense to implement a mass reorganization of our socioeconomic structure, basing the new paradigm on far more egalitarian, sustainable, democratic, just, and rational principles. Or we could just keep destroying each other and the fucking planet….
3. Capitalismo has raped Central and South America nearly to death. Unlike the “Land of the Free,” most of those horribly victimized nations have a vibrant, thriving, and well-organized Left to stand in opposition to the scourge of humanity and the Earth. US-sponsored death squads, torture, disappearances, privatization, “free” trade, deregulation, union busting, evisceration of social programs, coups, and vilification of leaders with the audacity to defy the status quo of avarice on steroids have assailed our southern neighbors since we in the United States (the self-appointed champions of capitalism) began our wholesale exploitation, imperialism, and neoliberalism by “acquiring” half of Mexico. Let’s see now. Remind me again. How many invasions has that “dire threat” to humanity named Hugo Chavez launched? How much “collateral damage” has he inflicted?

4. Capitalism is an anachronism that long ago out-lived its usefulness (except to the morally rotten parasites comprising our de facto aristocracy) and has proven itself to be an abject failure as a means of human interaction and organization. It’s one step removed from feudalism, for Christ’s sake! (Oops! Sorry, I forgot about mercantilism—the transition to capitalism made such a difference). One of humanity’s strengths is our capacity to evolve. Given that, why in the hell do we stubbornly cling to a system that enables a fraction of a percent of the population to live in OBSCENE opulence while 35,000 of our fellow human beings die of starvation-related causes each day? Are the rest of us truly inane enough to believe that asinine myth that any of us has a REALISTIC chance of becoming the next Bill Gates, if we “just work hard enough.” Or that there is an ounce of moral virtue in pursuing the accumulation of excessive wealth?
5. Resting upon the “pillars” of greed, selfishness and hyper-competitiveness, capitalism is irrational and unstable. Crisis and resource wars are chronic and inevitable. How could we expect it to be otherwise? Unleashing some of the ugliest aspects of the human spirit and creating artificial shortages in a world of abundance (by allowing a select few to hoard most of the resources as “their property”), capitalism doesn’t exactly engender an environment of peace and brotherly love. While our filthy ruling plutocracy has allowed a degree of socialism to diminish their power to rape, pillage and plunder, they only did so to quell social unrest during times of serious instability (i.e. The New Deal). Meanwhile, reactionary elements in our “democracy” are consistently scheming to eliminate the use of public monies to actually benefit the public. Witness George Bush’s ongoing demands for an open purse to fund our insanely bloated military and the war crimes we are committing in Iraq. Compare that to his recent refusal to spend an additional $35 billion to provide health care for 3.9 million children. Bush and the moneyed interests for whom he is fronting are inflicting gaping, cankerous wounds upon humanity and the Earth. How much more obvious could it be? (And this administration isn’t an aberration; they are simply bold enough to reveal their agenda—that’s the scary part).
6. Thanks to our slightly adulterated yet plenty virulent infestation of capitalism, the United States is not the “Christian nation” it touts itself to be. While we certainly abide by the Golden Rule in the sense that “he who has the gold makes the rules,” there is little about the manner in which we conduct ourselves as a nation (particularly in terms of foreign policy) of which the person meeting the Biblical description of Jesus Christ would have approved. Let’s just run through a few highlights. We have killed millions of Iraqis via two invasions and barbaric economic sanctions (the sanctions alone killed over half a million children—they’re on your tab, Bill Clinton)—and these are people who NEVER attacked us nor posed a true threat to our “national security.” We arm and support Israel, the diseased enforcer of the mental illness known as Zionism. Ethnic cleansing. Now there’s a spiritually nourishing Christian pastime for you. We revere, idolize, and empower talented, “beautiful” people whose moral evolution came to a screeching halt at about age five. They are our CEOs, politicians, celebrities, athletes, billionaires, pundits, and Wall Streeters whose smug, hubristic “all-American” mugs, talking heads, and ‘surgically enhanced’ bodies are blasted into our homes 24/7 via Fox, CNN, ABC, and a host of other disseminators of the fetid garbage of infotainment. Sorry folks. Calvinism is about as close as our culture comes to the compassion and love modeled by Christ. And with John Calvin in the saddle, we fall significantly short of that mark. As his unwitting disciples, we are imbued with cynicism and self-hatred (we are, after all, “original sinners”), a sadistic desire to inflict ample doses of punishment for the smallest of transgressions (hence the US having the largest prison population in the world—comprised largely of non-violent drug offenders) and the notion that being rich means one has acquired God’s stamp of approval. (Thoughts of camels, needles, and kingdoms of heaven keep throwing me into a horrid state of cognitive dissonance in my desperate efforts to be a good little capitalist by embracing Part III of the Calvinist doctrine…..). Somehow I don’t think Christ had capitalism in mind when he preached the Sermon on the Mount…..
7. Let’s consider sustainability and consumerism for a moment, shall we? Two more of capitalism’s noxious, life-extinguishing qualities are its demand for infinite growth and its unavoidable “dilemma” of excess production. Problem number one is insoluble, but we can simply let our grandchildren worry about our insane insistence on maintaining a system demanding infinite resources from a finite world. As for excess production, that one is simple. We have the most advanced agitprop industry (Madison Avenue) and the most powerful delivery devices (the mainstream media) in the history of humanity churning out alluring appeals to consumers to buy what they don’t need, can’t really afford, and may never even use. Surplus schmurplus….
8. As an “added bonus” to the wounds it inflicts upon humanity as a collective, capitalism also causes serious character malformations in individuals. As infants and young children, human beings naturally believe themselves to be the center of the universe. In order to “succeed” (and sometimes just survive) in the rat race of capitalism, as we mature we begin viewing our narcissism as an attribute. Rather than shedding it, we nurture it with the tenderness of the most devoted of mothers. Looking out for number one, careerism, an obsession with winning, acquisitiveness, and putting money and appearances ahead of principles and people are considered to be virtues in this violently seething cesspool we euphemistically call a culture.
9. Perhaps most disturbing of all is the way in which capitalism’s relentless advocates have managed to bamboozle billions of people into equating it with democracy. Diabolical to its core, but sheer genius nonetheless. Concluding that capitalism and democracy are somehow synonymous is a bit like saying that Dick Cheney and the milk of human kindness relate to one another in even a very remote fashion. (Have you seen the myriad pictures of his evil grimaces floating around the Internet? Despicable creature that he is, he doesn’t even attempt to mask his malevolence). Capitalism is naturally hierarchal, authoritarian, and brutal. Corporations, the legal vehicles for the plutocracy to maximize their profits while minimizing liability, are structured as tyrannies. What the hell is democratic about dog eat dog, law of the jungle, and every man for himself? Besides, if we uber-capitalists here in the United States are truly “democratic,” and we “elected” a depraved idiot like W to what is ostensibly the most powerful position in the world, what does that say about us?

George Bush, Dick Cheney, et al aren’t anomalies or accidents. They are the naked face of savage capitalism evolved to its ultimate and inevitable state, which is embodied by corporatism, monopolism, cronyism, imperialism, and fuck-everyone-but-the-rich-ism.
Slice it, it dice it and spice it any way you prefer. A pile of shit is a pile of shit by any other name. Capitalism is just that from the standpoint of compassionate, moral, and intelligent human beings. One exceptionally virtuous person, Archbishop Don Helder Pessoa Camara, who was a progenitor of Liberation Theology and an unwavering champion of the poor, once remarked, “To examine capitalism is to indict it.”

Unfortunately, capitalism remains the 800 pound gorilla in the room. There is little doubt that its countless millions of fiercely loyal minions amongst the working class and poor will continue heeding their indoctrination, daring us to pry their copies of Atlas Shrugged “from their cold dead hands.” And we can count on the fact that the likes of the Mars heirs, Richard Mellon Scaife, and their ilk are not destined to experience profound spiritual awakenings anytime soon.
Yet there is hope. Capitalism exists in a state of perpetual crisis. Inequality is on the rise, globally and domestically. Our lords and masters are beginning to fall victim to their own hubris as they practice their predations more and more overtly. Palliatives can only delay the system’s inevitable collapse for so long. Sooner rather than later the deepening undercurrent of social unrest will burst the levees of injustice asunder.

Relative to what’s coming, the Great Depression was a mere warm-up. Yet in adversity there lies opportunity. Our US gulag, often referred to as the prison industrial complex, will serve as excellent quarters for the irredeemable scum stalking the corridors of power in DC, the Walton clan, Larry Ellison, and the rest of the parasites atop the capitalist pyramid.

Or perhaps things will take a more Jacobin turn and we won’t need to waste any more precious resources on these predatory sociopaths….

Fuck you, capitalism; fuck you…..

Jason Miller is a wage slave of the American Empire who has freed himself intellectually and spiritually. He is Cyrano’s Journal Online’s associate editor (http://www.bestcyrano.org/) and publishes Thomas Paine’s Corner within Cyrano’s at http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/. You can reach him at JMiller@bestcyrano.com

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Top US general praises man who got US into Iraq, WMD fabricator Ahmad Chalabi

2007-10-29T20:26:00.000-04:00

By Nick Juliano

Oct 29, 2007

RawStory.Com

Chalabi, fomer dissident who pushed bogus WMD claims, assumes a new post in Iraq's government

At least Ahmad Chalabi seems to be taking the "Pottery Barn rule" to heart.

The controversial Iraqi politician and alleged Iranian intelligence asset -- perhaps as responsible as anyone in drumming up false pre-war claims about Saddam Hussein's weapons capabilities -- has reemerged as a central figure in the latest US attempts to put his broken country back together.

Chalabi's latest job, according to McClatchy Newspapers, is lobbying Iraq's central government to build on security gains to provide "better electricity, health, education and local security services to Baghdad neighborhoods."

"The key is going to be getting the concerned local citizens — and all the citizens — feeling that this government is reconnected with them," Gen. David Petraeus, the top military commander here, told McClatchy. Chalabi "agrees with that."

Iraqis are skeptical of the central government's ability to help them. Government critics say local tribal leaders and residents have reinvigorated neighborhoods by pushing insurgents off the streets, but US officials believe it is the central government's responsibility to provide long-term stability by providing reliable electricity, putting doctors back in neighborhoods and establishing permanent schools and police departments.

Before the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003, Chalabi was a primary merchant of bogus intelligence that inflated the country's weapons capabilities and ties to terrorists. His top customers were the White House, Pentagon and American journalists.

Most surprising, perhaps is his alleged associations with Iran. According to a 2004 report in the

UK Guardian, US intelligence has "hard evidence" that Chalabi passed US secrets to Iran.
"Some intelligence officials now believe that Iran used the hawks in the Pentagon and the White House to get rid of a hostile neighbor, and pave the way for a Shia-ruled Iraq," the paper said.
Chalabi is also has been sentenced to 22 years in jail in Jordan for embezzling $300 million at a bank he created.

In the wake of the 2003 US invasion, Chalabi oversaw efforts to dismantle Saddam's government through de-Baathification, served as deputy prime minister and chaired several

investigative committees.

Now, he's in charge of the services committee, which comprises eight service ministries and two Baghdad city commissions and is in charge of providing services to Baghdad. Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki appointed Chalabi to the post in early October.

A Petraeus spokesman told McClatchy that Chalabi "is an important part of the process" and "has a lot of energy."

US military commanders fear any tactical progress from President Bush's troop surge this year

will dissipate without strong intervention from Iraq's central government. America's military might was able to expel al Qaeda troops from some neighborhoods when Bush sent 30,000 extra troops to Iraq this summer, but with the Pentagon unable to maintain so many troops in Iraq much longer, the same vacuum that al Qaeda stepped into before threatens to open again.

"Right now, it's a Band-Aid. ...But boy it would be nice if we got the government's help," said Lt. Col. Ken Adgie, who is in charge of controlling a souther Sunni Baghdad neighborhood long controlled by al Qaeda. "We refuse to let al Qaeda creep back in. ...You can't let up. It's slow constant pressure."

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Israel: The First Nation to Legalize Torture

2007-10-29T19:37:00.000-04:00

By Lisa Hajjak
CounterPunch.Com
Oct 29, 2007

Should the United States, seeking to recalibrate the balance between security and liberty in the "war on terror," emulate Israel in its treatment of Palestinian detainees?

That is the position that Guantanamo detainee lawyers Avi Stadler and John Chandler of Atlanta, and some others, have advocated. That people in U.S. custody could be held incommunicado for years without charges, and could be prosecuted or indefinitely detained on the basis of confessions extracted with torture is worse than a national disgrace. It is an assault on the foundations of the rule of law.

But Israel's model for dealing with terrorism, while quite different from that of the U.S., is at least as shameful.

Long before the first suicide bombing by Palestinians in 1994, Israel had resorted to extrajudicial killings, home demolitions, deportations, curfews and other forms of collective punishment barred by international law.

Imprisonment has been one of the key strategies of Israeli control of the Palestinian population, and since 1967 more than half a million Palestinians were prosecuted through military courts that fall far short of international standards of due process.

Most convictions are based on coerced confessions, and for decades Israeli interrogation tactics have entailed the use of torture and ill-treatment. Tens of thousands more Palestinians were never prosecuted, but were instead held in administrative detention for months or years.
Israel had the ignominious distinction of being the first state to publicly and officially "legalize" torture. Adopting the recommendation of an Israeli commission of inquiry, in 1987 the government endorsed the euphemistically termed "moderate physical pressure," and tens of thousands of Palestinians suffered the consequences.

In 1999 the Israeli High Court prohibited the routine use of "moderate physical pressure." But the ruling left open a window for torture under "exceptional circumstances."

These tactics, many of which have been used by American interrogators against foreign prisoners, include painful shackling, stress position abuse, protracted sleep deprivation, temperature and sound manipulation, and various forms of degrading and humiliating treatment. In an interview with three Israeli interrogators published in the Tel Aviv newspaper Ma'ariv in July 2004, one said the General Security Service "uses every manipulation possible, up to shaking and beating."

About 10,000 Palestinians are imprisoned inside Israel and more than 800 are administratively detained. Their families in the West Bank and Gaza Strip are barred entry to Israel, so Palestinian detainees are, in that sense, as isolated as prisoners in Guantanamo. Just last week, the Israeli Supreme Court had to order one of the most notorious detention facilities to allow prisoners 24-hour access to toilets.

The Israeli military court system compares to the U.S. military tribunal system established for Guantanamo in ways that U.S. lawyers like Stadler and Chandler deplore.

In addition to the reliance on coercive interrogation to produce confessions and to justify continued detention, prisoners in Israeli custody can be held incommunicado for protracted periods, and lawyers face onerous obstacles in meeting with their clients.

While it is true that detainees are brought before an Israeli military judge at some point, this process is hardly impartial. Such hearings tend to be used to extend detention and often take place in interrogation facilities, not courts. Detainees are rarely represented by lawyers or apprised of their rights, including a right to complain about abuse or to assert innocence. Failure to assert innocence at this hearing can be used as evidence of guilt.

Any information, including hearsay and tortured accounts from other prisoners, can be used to convict or administratively detain Palestinians.

If we learn anything, then, from the Israeli experience, perhaps it should be that torture and arbitrary or indefinite detention exacerbate a conflict and endanger civilians.

Americans should be proud of the noble work that Guantanamo lawyers are doing to press for a restored commitment to the rule of law by the U.S. government. If these lawyers wish to identify an apt model from Israel, it is not the government or the military court system.
Rather it is the Israeli and Palestinian human rights communities who have been working for decades to establish respect for human rights and the rule of law.

Lisa Hajjaris associate professor and chair of the Law and Society Program at the University of California, Santa Barbara, and author of "Courting Conflict: The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza" (University of California Press, 2005).

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No evidence Iran is making nuclear weapons: ElBaradei

2007-10-29T19:28:00.000-04:00

by Jitendra Joshi
Oct 28, 2007

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Chief UN atomic watchdog Mohamed ElBaradei said Sunday he had no evidence that Iran is building nuclear weapons and accused US leaders of adding "fuel to the fire" with recent bellicose rhetoric.

"I have not received any information that there is a concrete active nuclear weapons program going on right now," the director of the International Atomic Energy Agency told CNN.

"Even if Iran were to be working on a nuclear weapon ... they are at least a few years from having such a weapon," he said, citing assessments by US officials themselves.

"At this stage we need to continue to work through creative diplomacy ... as I don't see any other solution than diplomacy and inspections," ElBaradei said.

The White House Friday rejected any parallels between its Iran rhetoric and the run-up to the Iraq invasion, after fresh sanctions on Tehran and escalating US warnings fueled comparisons to the months before the 2003 invasion.

"We are absolutely committed to a diplomatic process," spokesman Tony Fratto told reporters.
"We would never take options off the table, but the diplomatic process is what we want to move forward with," he said, calling it "unwise" to rule out the use of force.

His comments came as US President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney have been sharply ramping up their rhetoric about Iran, leading some critics to draw parallels with the late 2002 verbal escalation against Iraq.

In recent months, Bush has predicted "nuclear holocaust" and "World War III" if Tehran gets atomic weapons, while Cheney has warned of "serious consequences" for Iran if it defies global demands to freeze uranium enrichment -- echoing the UN resolution that Washington says authorized war in Iraq.

ElBaradei said if the United States had more information on Iran's nuclear drive than the IAEA, "I would be very happy to receive it and go forward."

He said "we cannot give Iran a pass right now, because there is still a lot of question marks."
"But have we seen Iran having the nuclear material that can readily be used into a weapon? No. Have we seen an active weaponization program? No," he said.

Merely "exchanging rhetoric" would not resolve the Iranian nuclear case, ElBaradei said, pointing to ongoing negotiations with North Korea as an example of dealing with the Islamic republic.

Under six-nation talks, North Korea has agreed to dismantle its nuclear weapons programs in return for a broad package of economic and diplomatic incentives.

ElBaradei said it is time "to stop spinning and hyping the Iranian issue," warning that military force could spark a global "conflagration."

"It could even accelerate a drive by Iran, even if they are not working on a nuclear weapon today, to go for a nuclear weapon," the IAEA chief added.

"So we can talk about use of force if and when we exhausted diplomacy ... but we are far, far away from that stage."

The six major powers involved in talks about Iran's nuclear program will meet in Europe in early November to discuss strengthened UN sanctions against Tehran, US State Department spokesman Sean McCormack announced Friday.

Political directors from the foreign ministries of France, Britain, Russia, China, Germany and the United States will meet "toward the end of next week," McCormack told reporters.

Diplomatic sources said the meeting could take place Friday in London.

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Israeli Foreign Minister: Iran Nukes Do Not Pose Threat to Israel

2007-10-27T17:21:00.000-04:00

Via Haaretz
October 25, 2007

Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni said a few months ago in a series of closed discussions that in her opinion that Iranian nuclear weapons do not pose an existential threat to Israel, Haaretz magazine reveals in an article on Livni to be published Friday.

Livni also criticized the exaggerated use that Prime Minister Ehud Olmert is making of the issue of the Iranian bomb, claiming that he is attempting to rally the public around him by playing on its most basic fears. Last week, former Mossad chief Ephraim Halevy said similar things about Iran.

The article also reveals for the first time a document Livni prepared and sent to Olmert a few months after the Second Lebanon War proposing a new division of labor between the two.

“Enclosed is a proposal for work procedures between us, with the aim of providing an answer to Israel’s strategic needs and facilitating early planning and the formulation of coordinated Israeli positions … within the framework of cooperative relations, full transparency and continuous mutual updates,” wrote Livni.

She described in the document a number of required arrangements: “The prime minister and the foreign minister will hold regular work meetings at least once a week.” In an allusion to her absence form critical discussions during the war in Lebanon, she wrote: “The foreign minister will be invited to meetings with the prime minister on security matters and other meetings with serious implications.”

The most important part of the document relates to the talks with the Palestinians. Livni wrote: “The foreign minister shall represent the prime minister and the government of Israel, and will act on their behalf as the director of the dialogue with the relevant Palestinian representatives, and in accordance with the policy and methods to be coordinated in advance with the prime minster, while keeping him informed.”

It is reasonable to assume that Olmert’s decision to appoint Livni as head of the negotiating team with the Palestinians at the Annapolis summit is connected to the document.

The Haaretz article also reveals for the first time a draft of a document prepared for Livni by her advisor, Dr. Tal Becker of the Foreign Ministry, who is slated to serve as a senior member of the negotiating team with the Palestinians. The draft, named the Diplomatic Horizon, is pessimistic about the chances of reaching a permanent solution in the near future.

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Poisoned ex-Russian spy Litvinenko WAS a paid-up MI6 agent

2007-10-27T17:12:00.000-04:00

STEPHEN WRIGHT and DAVID WILLIAMS

UK Daily Mail

Saturday October 27, 2007

The former Russian spy poisoned in a London hotel was an MI6 agent, the Daily Mail can reveal.
Alexander Litvinenko was receiving a retainer of around £2,000 a month from the British security services at the time he was murdered.

The disclosure, by diplomatic and intelligence sources, is the latest twist in the Litvinenko affair, which has plunged relations between London and Moscow to their lowest point since the Cold War.

On the day of the poisoning, November 1, former KGB agent Mr Litvinenko met prime suspect Andrei Lugovoy at the Millennium Hotel in Grosvenor Square, London.

Mr Lugovoy claims that Mr Litvinenko tried to recruit him to supply information to MI6.
The businessman, another former KGB agent, also alleged that his ex-colleague asked him to find candidates for political asylum here. He left Britain for Russia soon after, and has never returned.

Mr Litvinenko had defected to Britain in 2000 and was granted political asylum the following year with his wife Marina, 44, and son Anatoly, 12.

It is understood that Sir John Scarlett, now the head of MI6 and once based in Moscow, was involved in recruiting him to the Secret Intelligence Service. The fact that the 43-year-old ex-Russian spy was actually working for Britain when he died could provide the key to his extraordinary killing.

After an exhaustive Scotland Yard investigation, the Crown Prosecution Service announced earlier this year that there was sufficient evidence to charge Mr Lugovoy with 'deliberate poisoning'.

Britain has called for his extradition so he can stand trial at the Old Bailey, but the Kremlin refused the request in July.

In an echo of the Cold War era, Britain then expelled four Russian diplomats from London.
Days later, Moscow responded with a tit-for-tat expulsion of four Britons.

Intelligence sources have told the Daily Mail that they do not expect a trial will ever take place.
They also said there remains a 'perceived threat' against Mrs Litvinenko, who lives with her son at a safe house in the Home Counties.

Mr Litvinenko died in hospital on November 23 after three agonising weeks in which his hair fell out, his skin turned yellow and his organs failed.

A photograph taken on his deathbed shows the devastating effect the poison had on his body.
Investigators believe that a fatal dose of radioactive polonium 210 was slipped into a teapot when the two men met at the hotel.

Significant traces of polonium were found on at least one aircraft boarded by Mr Lugovoy around the time of the murder, as well as in some of the hotel rooms where he stayed.
Mr Litvinenko was very critical of Vladimir Putin, and in the days before he died he accused the Russian President - another former KGB officer - of ordering his killing.

Moscow denies the claim.

Mrs Litvinenko flew to Portugal last Thursday, on the eve of the EU-Russia summit, to call on European leaders to put pressure on Russia to hand over Mr Lugovoy.

'President Putin is providing Mr Lugovoy with his personal endorsement and backing in the eyes of the world,' she said.

'This indicates that Russia has something to hide and adds credence to Alexander's deathbed statement naming Mr Putin as the instigator of his murder.'

Associates of Mr Litvinenko have suggested his slow and painful death was a deliberate 'message' from the Kremlin to those in exile - warning them there could be no hiding place.

Moscow has accused Britain of harbouring some 16 Russian emigres including billionaire Boris Berezovsky, a fierce critic of the current Russian government.

He provided Mr Litvinenko with a home after his defection.

Mr Litvinenko fled to Britain after accusing the Russian security service of involvement in the 1999 bombings of two apartment buildings, in which 300 people died.

He had also been investigating the murder of Russian journalist Anna Politkovskaya, who spoke out against the Putin government.

Mr Lugovoy has admitted meeting Mr Litvinenko, a former lieutenant colonel in the FSB, the re-styled KGB, several times in the months before his death.

But he claimed he was being made a scapegoat for the death.

He said that he believes MI6 was involved in the murder because agents had been unhappy at the way Mr Litvinenko had boasted of his links to them.

Mrs Litvinenko has dismissed the claim as 'nonsense' and also denied that her late husband was working for MI6.

A book about the murder, Death of a Dissident: The Poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko and the Return of the KGB, written by Mrs Litvinenko and a friend of her husband, Alex Goldfarb, was released this week. A film version is planned.

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"Thought Crime Bill" Could Ensnare Peaceful Activists

2007-10-26T20:50:00.000-04:00

By Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.Com
Oct 26, 2007

Fears that government could define "Internet radicalization" and criticism as terrorism mount, violent comments left on messageboards by trolls could be exploited to entrap peaceful 9/11 truthers

A new bill that recently passed the House and is headed for Senate approval has online activists worried that the vague definitions used for defining the Internet's contribution to radicalization of potential terrorists could lead to a government crackdown on talk radio, free speech and the 9/11 truth movement.

The bill is H.R. 1955: Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act of 2007 and passed Congress after a bipartisan vote on October 23rd.

Ostensibly, the bill targets United States citizens because of its constant reference to basic Constitutional protections, but this has led some to fear that it is intended to shut down free speech on the Internet and stifle patriot and alternative talk radio networks.
The bill defines "violent radicalization" as "The process of adopting or promoting an extremist belief system for the purpose of facilitating ideologically based violence to advance political, religious, or social change."

It further defines "homegrown terrorism" as "The use, planned use, or threatened use, of force or violence by a group or individual born, raised, or based and operating primarily within the United States or any possession of the United States to intimidate or coerce the United States government, the civilian population of the United States, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives."

The term "planned use" has caused concerns that "thinking about violence," ie thought crime, could be considered a terrorist act. But since to plan violence must involve some form of planning, whether that be drawing up bomb diagrams or making violent statements, the real threat seems to have been overlooked.

A disturbing trend in recent months has been the proliferation of violent postings on messageboards of websites affiliated with peaceful 9/11 truth organizations.

These messages are being posted by shameless trolls, COINTELPRO operatives and their stooges in a clear effort to discredit the 9/11 truth movement by making us all appear to be crazy nutcases who plan to commit terrorist acts.

Establishment media hacks like Glenn Beck have then seized upon the idea to spew propaganda about how the next Timothy McVeigh will come from the truth movement, despite the fact that the leadership of the truth movement have practiced what they preach all along, by engaging in completely peaceful protests and other forms of non-violent educational activism.

The bill's reference to how "The Internet has aided in facilitating violent radicalization, ideologically based violence, and the homegrown terrorism process in the United States by providing access to broad and constant streams of terrorist-related propaganda to United States citizens," is shocking.

Remember, the bill is not aimed at "Al-Qaeda" websites or arabic forums that post alleged Bin Laden video tapes, it is aimed at American citizens using American based websites, like the very one you're reading now.

The opportunity for the state to seize upon violent posts left by trolls and use them to entrap peaceful 9/11 truthers under the guise that they "promoted violence" should be a major concern for us all.

Our message is simply this - don't even try it.

We have preached a doctrine of absolute non-violence from the very beginning and we will continue to do so. Anyone who calls for violence in a messageboard post is either a Fed, a Mom's basement dwelling troll who spends their entire day attempting to debunk the 9/11 truth movement, or a completely deluded moron who is unrepresentative of the vast majority of the 9/11 truth movement.

Those individuals who advocate violence should be sought out and investigated individually. Any plans to try and entrap prominent 9/11 truth movement figures using guilt by association should be abandoned immediately and we will ceaselessly emphasize this point until this current wave of propaganda subsides.

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Putin gives stark missile warning

2007-10-26T20:43:00.000-04:00

BBC News
Oct 26, 2007

Russian President Vladimir Putin says US plans for a missile shield could precipitate a situation similar to the Cuban missile crisis of the 1960s.

Mr Putin was speaking after a summit with EU leaders in Portugal. The US said there was no comparison "in any way, shape or form".

Russia has long opposed US plans to build missile bases in European states once in the Soviet sphere of influence.

The Cuba crisis saw the US and Soviet Union go to the brink of nuclear war.
The 1962 stand-off was triggered when US spy planes discovered Soviet missile bases in Cuba, within striking distance of the American mainland.

Moscow's decision to deploy these weapons in Cuba was at the time seen as a response to the build-up of powerful US missiles in Europe.

Tensions were only defused when Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev agreed to dismantle the bases in return for guarantees that Washington would not attack communist Cuba.

'Similar situation'
US President George W Bush has said there is a "real and urgent" need for a missile shield in Europe as a defence against possible attack by Iran and countries in the Middle East.
His defence secretary suggested this week that the development of the bases in countries such as the Czech Republic and Poland could be slowed while Russian concerns were addressed.
President Putin said the threat to Russia's borders was akin to that faced by the US during the Cuban crisis.

"Let me recall how relations shaped up in a similar situation in the mid-1960s.

"Similar actions by the Soviet Union, when it deployed missiles in Cuba, provoked the Caribbean crisis. For us, technologically, the situation is very similar."
He added that current tensions had not reached the pitch attained during the Cuban crisis.

"I agree completely with President Bush when he says that Russia and the US are not enemies
anymore... we are partners. I am fully justified in saying that just as he calls me a friend, I can call him a personal friend too."

Mr Putin said Russia had put forward proposals in the area of security but "we have unfortunately not yet received any answers".

US state department spokesman Sean McCormack said there were "clear historical differences" with the Cuban crisis.

"I don't think that they are historically analogous in any way, shape or form."

Simmering tensions
EU leaders at the Portugal summit were hoping to speed progress towards a long-term agreement with Russia, that would extend to sensitive areas such as energy supplies.
The EU depends on Russia for a third of its energy needs and has seen gas supplies disrupted for two successive winters.

European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso confirmed a deal had been reached on sharing information on energy supplies to pre-empt sudden shortages.

"We have agreed today on a specific early warning mechanism to deal with problems in supply before they become a possible crisis," he said.

An agreement was also reached in Portugal on working together to curb the trafficking and consumption of illicit drugs and on raising the quota for Russian steel exports to the EU.
Disagreements with Russia over human rights and foreign policy overshadowed the start of the summit, with Russia's envoy to the EU warning that Moscow didn't "want to listen to any lectures".

In separate appeals, both Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have urged EU leaders to speak firmly and with one voice about what the groups call the Kremlin's worsening human rights record.

The Kremlin also opposes the stance pursued by several EU members on Kosovo and Iran.
Russia opposes independence for the Serbian province of Kosovo and has also criticised recent moves to impose sanctions on Iran.

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President Bush turns the screw on Iran with sanctions against its military elite

2007-10-26T20:33:00.000-04:00

By Tim Reid
TimesOnline.Co.Uk
October 26, 2007

President Bush imposed the harshest sanctions on Iran for a generation and branded its military a supporter of terrorism yesterday, fuelling claims that he is preparing possible air strikes against Tehran.

Condoleezza Rice, the Secretary of State, accused the Iranian Revolutionary Guard of being a proliferator of weapons of mass destruction and its elite al-Quds Force of supporting terrorism, particularly in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The new sanctions, the first time that the US has sought to punish another country’s military, cap a concerted effort by the Bush Administration in recent weeks to recast the Iraq war as a wider battle against the threat of a nuclear-armed Iran.

President Bush has repeatedly accused Iran of providing weapons, funding and training for Iraqi militia who are killing US troops. In particular, his Administration has singled out the al-Quds Force – the 15,000-strong military wing of the Revolutionary Guard – of providing the sophisticated roadside bombs that are the biggest killer of US troops in Iraq.

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Administration officials say that the Revolutionary Guard, formed in 1979 to safeguard the Islamic revolution in Iran, now runs vast swaths of the country’s international business interests, including front companies that procure nuclear technology for what the West claims is a covert nuclear weapons programme. Tehran insists that the programme is for civilian use.

The new financial sanctions, which also target three state-run banks and the Iranian Defence Ministry, reflect growing frustration inside the White House over the failure to get a third, tough new set of UN sanctions to punish Tehran for its nuclear programme.

The sanctions will cut off more than 20 Iranian entities, including individuals and companies owned or controlled by the Revolutionary Guard, from the US financial system. Companies outside America were also put on notice that doing business with the designated groups could put them at risk of a US financial penalty.

Dr Rice said that America was still committed to diplomacy to resolve the nuclear stand-off. But she said that the sanctions were part of a “comprehensive policy to confront the threatening behaviour of the Iranians”.

In testimony to Congress on Wednesday she described Iran as “perhaps the greatest challenge for American security interests in the Middle East, and possibly around the world.”
President Putin of Russia led opposition to the strategy. “Why worsen the situation?” he said. Referring to the sanctions, he added: “It’s not the best way to resolve the situation by running around crazily like a man with a blade in his hand.”

Press TV, Iran’s new English-language satellite channel, called the sanctions “Washington’s new plot against Tehran”.

Mr Bush says that he is committed to seeing a diplomatic resolution. Critics of the Administration, however, are becoming increasingly alarmed by the aggressive new rhetoric against Tehran. It comes as Iran has suddenly eclipsed Iraq as the main foreign policy topic on Capitol Hill and among the 2008 presidential candidates.

Mr Bush last week suggested that a nuclear-armed Iran could trigger “World War Three”. On Sunday Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, said in a rare speech that there would be serious consequences if Iran did not end its enrichment programme. This month David Petraeus, the US ground commander in Iraq, accused Tehran’s Ambassador to Baghdad of being part of the al-Quds Force and implicated Tehran in the assassinations of provincial Iraqi governors.
Critics of the White House say that the sudden and aggressive focus on Tehran by the White House resembles the rhetorical drumbeat against Saddam Hussein that presaged the invasion of Iraq in March 2003.

The decision to target the Revolutionary Guard and al-Quds Force for its actions inside Iraq has increased fears among Mr Bush’s opponents that he is considering limited “defensive” airstrikes against Revolutionary Guard targets inside Iran. Last month the US Senate labelled the Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organisation.
Strained relations

1953 Democratically elected Prime Minister, Muhammad Mussadeq, overthrown in US-backed coup
1979-80 Hostage Crisis: Iranian students take over US Embassy in Tehran
1980 US breaks off diplomatic relations with Iran, April
1985-86 Iran-Contra Affair: US holds secret talks with Iran, making an arms deal in exchange for Iranian assistance for the release of US hostages in Lebanon
1993 US announces “dual containment” policy aimed at isolating Iran and Iraq
2002 US-Iranian relations reach a new low, with President Bush labelling Iran as part of his “Axis of Evil”
2005 Mahmoud Ahmadinejad elected President. IAEA accues Iran of violating the Nuclear NonProliferation Treaty
2006 Tehran offers direct talks on Iraq, which are immediately rebuffed by the US Administration. UN imposes sanctions
2007 US accuses Iran of assisting Iraqi insurgents. US Ambassador to Iraq meets Iranian officials at Iraq neighbours’ conference in March

Source: Times Database

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Attack Iran and you attack Russia

2007-10-26T20:19:00.000-04:00

By Pepe Escobar
ATimes.Com
Oct 26, 2007

The barely reported highlight of Russian President Vladimir Putin's visit to Tehran for the Caspian Sea summit last week was a key face-to-face meeting with Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

A high-level diplomatic source in Tehran tells Asia Times Online that essentially Putin and the Supreme Leader have agreed on a plan to nullify the George W Bush administration's relentless drive towards launching a preemptive attack, perhaps a tactical nuclear strike, against Iran. An American attack on Iran will be viewed by Moscow as an attack on Russia.

But then, as if this were not enough of a political bombshell, came the abrupt resignation of Ali Larijani as top Iranian nuclear negotiator. Early this week in Rome, Larijani told the IRNA news agency that "Iran's nuclear policies are stable and will not change with the replacement of the secretary of the Supreme National Security Council [SNSC]." Larijani will keep attending SNSC meetings, now as a representative of the Supreme Leader. He even took time to remind the West that in the Islamic Republic all key decisions regarding the civilian nuclear program are made by the Supreme Leader. Larijani actually went to Rome to meet with the European Union's Javier Solana alongside Iran's new negotiator, Saeed Jalili, a former member of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC), just like President Mahmud Ahmadinejad.

In itself, the Putin-Khamenei meeting was extraordinary, because the Supreme Leader rarely receives foreign statesmen for closed talks, even one as crucial as Putin. The Russian president, according to the diplomatic source, told the Supreme Leader he may hold the ultimate solution regarding the endlessly controversial Iranian nuclear dossier. According to IRNA, the Supreme Leader, after stressing that the Iranian civilian nuclear program will continue unabated, said. "We will ponder your words and proposal."

Larijani himself had told the Iranian media that Putin had a "special plan" and the Supreme Leader observed that the plan was "ponderable". The problem is that Ahmadinejad publicly denied the Russians had volunteered a new plan.

Iranian hawks close to Ahmadinejad are spinning that Putin's proposal involves Iran temporarily suspending uranium enrichment in exchange for no more United Nations sanctions. That's essentially what International Atomic Energy Agency chief Mohammad ElBaradei has been working on all along. The key issue is what - in practical terms - will Iran get in return. Obviously it's not the EU's Solana who will have the answer. But as far as Russia is concerned, strategically nothing will appease it except a political/diplomatic solution for the Iranian nuclear dossier.

US Vice President Dick Cheney - who even Senator Hillary Clinton now refers to as Darth Vader - must be foaming at the mouth; but the fact is that after the Caspian summit, Iran and Russia are officially entangled in a strategic partnership. World War III, for them, is definitely not on the cards.

Let's read from the same script
The apparent internal controversy on how exactly Putin and the Supreme Leader are on the same wavelength belies a serious rift in the higher spheres of the Islamic Republic. The replacement of Larijani, a realist hawk, by Jalili, an unknown quantity with an even more hawkish background, might spell an Ahmadinejad victory. It's not that simple.

The powerful Ali Akbar Velayati, the diplomatic adviser to the Supreme Leader, said he didn't like the replacement one bit. Even worse: regarding the appalling record of the Ahmadinejad presidency when it comes to the economy, all-out criticism is now the norm. Another former nuclear negotiator, Hassan Rowhani, told the Etemad-e Melli newspaper, "The effects of the [UN] sanctions are visible. Our situation gets worse day by day."

Ahmadinejad for the past two months has been placing his former IRGC brothers-in-arms in key posts, like the presidency of the central bank and the Oil, Industry and Interior ministries. Internal repression is rife. On Sunday, hundreds of students protested at the Amir-Kabir University in Tehran, calling for "Death to the dictator".

The wily, ultimate pragmatist Hashemi Rafsanjani, now leader of the Council of Experts and in practice a much more powerful figure than Ahmadinejad, took no time to publicly reflect that "we can't bend people's thoughts with dictatorial regimes".

This week, the Supreme Leader himself intervened, saying, "I approve of this government, but this does not mean that I approve of everything they do." Under the currently explosive circumstances, this also amounts to a political bombshell.

As if anyone needed to be reminded, the buck - or rial - stops with the Supreme Leader, whose last wish on earth is to furnish a pretext for the Bush administration to launch World War III. If Ahmadinejad now deviates from a carefully crafted strategic script, the Supreme Leader may simply get rid of him.

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ENDGAME

2007-10-26T20:10:00.000-04:00

WATCH ENDGAME NOW

FBI: al-Qaeda detainee spoke of fire plot (hahaha!!)

2007-10-24T20:50:00.000-04:00

PHOENIX (AP) — The FBI alerted law enforcement agencies last month that an al-Qaeda terrorist now in detention had talked of masterminding a plot to set a series of devastating forest fires around the western United States.

Rose Davis, a spokeswoman for the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise, told The Associated Press that officials there took note of the warning but didn't see a need to act further on it.

The contents of the June 25 memo from the FBI's Denver office were reported Friday by The Arizona Republic. Davis declined to share a copy of the memo and an FBI spokeswoman in Denver didn't immediately return a telephone call.

The Republic reported that the detainee, who was not identified, said the plan involved three or four people setting wildfires using timed devices in Colorado, Montana, Utah and Wyoming that would detonate in forests and grasslands after the operatives had left the country.
The memo noted that investigators couldn't determine whether the detainee was telling the truth.

The newspaper said many forest law enforcement officers it contacted had no idea the warning had been issued.

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Iraq: US involved in terrorist acts

2007-10-22T23:30:00.000-04:00

A report by Iraq's parliament confirms that the US military had cooperated with terrorists in a raid on a village in Diyala province.

Ali Adib, an MP form the United Iraqi Alliance, in a report to the Iraqi National Assembly on Sunday said that a probe launched by the parliament into the incident had proved that the US army helped terrorists attack the Shia village of Jizani al-Imam on October 15.

At least 26 civilians, including women and children, were killed in the raid, one of the bloodiest massacres since the US invasion of Iraq.

According to IRNA, after the report, Iraqi MP's considered a bill to end the presence of foreign forces in Iraq.

The report and the decision by the MPs represent another challenge to the embattled Bush's administration which is under fire over the unpopular war in Iraq.

The Iraqi parliament also condemned an attack on Baghdad's Sadr city by the US military which left 49 civilians dead.

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Ron Paul Wins Another GOP Fox Debate - Hannity Denies It

2007-10-22T10:35:00.000-04:00

FreeMarketNews.Com
October 21, 2007

Fox News media star Sean Hannity once again contradicted a clear victory by presidential candidate Ron Paul of Fox’s own post-debate poll in the aftermath of Sunday night’s Fox-sponsored GOP presidential debate. The post-debate poll showed that Ron Paul won with 34 percent of the viewer vote.

At one point, with results showing Ron Paul winning the informal “cell phone” poll, Hannity burst out with a definitive statement, “Ron Paul did not win the debate tonight,” even though the poll showed that he was winning by a wide margin. Hannity also said bluntly that Ron Paul supporters were “stacking” the poll. This is the same sort of statement he made during a previous Fox sponsored debate which Ron Paul also won.

Hannity later interviewed Ron Paul and asked if he would support Hillary Clinton. He also asked a question that seemed to imply that Ron Paul sided with one fifth of Democrats polled who hoped the US would lose the Iraq war. He spent a good deal of time investigating whether Ron Paul would support the Republican candidate for president, if it were not to be him. Ron Paul, however, declined to provide a blanket endorsement.

Ron Paul also indicated, during the same post-debate TV interview that the reason he was not scoring well in polling was because the pollers were not “including” him. He also said the campaign had a good deal of work to do to raise his profile, and that he intended to spend down at least some of the $5 million he had raised in the third quarter and funds he expected to raise in the 4th quarter – an amount he seemed to imply might come to about $10 million.

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SAS raiders enter Iran to kill gunrunners

2007-10-22T10:27:00.000-04:00

By Michael Smith
TimesOnline.Co.Uk
October 21, 2007

British special forces have crossed into Iran several times in recent months as part of a secret border war against the Iranian Revolutionary Guard’s Al-Quds special forces, defence sources have disclosed.

There have been at least half a dozen intense firefights between the SAS and arms smugglers, a mixture of Iranians and Shi’ite militiamen.

The unreported fighting straddles the border between Iran and Iraq and has also involved the Iranian military firing mortars into Iraq. UK commanders are concerned that Iran is using a militia ceasefire to step up arms supplies in preparation for an offensive against their base at Basra airport.

An SAS squadron is carrying out operations along the Iranian border in Maysan and Basra provinces with other special forces, the Australian SAS and American special-operations troops.

Related Links
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Ruling Shia parties linked to smuggling of terrorists from Iran

They are patrolling the border, ambushing arms smugglers bringing in surface-to-air missiles and components for roadside bombs. “Last month, they were involved in six significant contacts, which killed 17 smugglers and recovered weapons, explosives and missiles,” a source said. It was not clear if any of the dead were Iranian.

Last week, Bob Ainsworth, the armed forces minister, said the Ministry of Defence was unable to say whether British troops had killed or captured any Iranians in Iraq. The ministry declined to comment, but privately officials insisted British troops never carry out hot pursuit across the border.

There have been persistent reports of American special-operations missions inside Iran preparing for a possible attack. But the sources said British troops were solely stopping arms smuggling.

The fighting comes amid an increase in US and British intelligence operations against Iran. Britain’s forces have more than 70 Farsi experts monitoring Iranian communications, and the intelligence is shared with the United States.

Seven American U2 spy planes have passed through RAF Fairford in Gloucestershire this year on their way to Akrotiri in Cyprus or Al-Dhafra in Abu Dhabi, the bases for flights over Iran.
The Al-Quds force has been increasing its arms supplies to both the Shi’ite militias in Iraq and the Taliban in Afghanistan. Officially, Britain has been careful not to blame the Iranian government.

But senior British officials have confirmed to The Sunday Times that it would not happen without the backing of the Iranian leadership.

They pointed out that Gen Qassem Suleimani, the head of the Al-Quds force, has direct access to Ayatollah Khamenei, supreme leader of Iran

Liam Fox, the Conservative defence spokesman, said: “Increasingly Iran poses a direct threat to our armed forces and our wider interests . . . they are playing a very dangerous game.”

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Only Ron Paul Can Beat Hillary Clinton

2007-10-21T19:28:00.000-04:00

Only Ron Paul can beat Hillary, so says Gambling911.com Special Contributor, Jennifer Reynolds. Hillary Clinton remains the even favorite to become the next US President.

"All the Republicans I have spoken to would vote for Hillary Clinton if they were not happy with their own party nomination," Tyrone Black of Gambling911.com stated. Black is an active member of the Republican party in his home state of New York.

And just as Republicans would be willing to vote for Hillary, so too would Democrats be willing to vote for Ron Paul.

This became a hot button issue here at Gambling911.com following Reynolds piece regarding new voting rules particularly with the controversy surrounding New Hampshire.

By Jennifer Reynolds

Gambling911.com

October 10, 2007

One thing that struck me with the Michigan debate the other night was just how afraid all of the candidates seemed to be of Hillary Clinton. They brought her name up over an over. As Joe Dumas writes: If it comes down to Hillary Clinton vs. any of the "establishment" Republican candidates, she wins by default. Ron Paul is the only man who can list numerous supporters who from Independents, to Democrats, to Libertarians, and Undeclareds and that large group of disenfranchised people who haven't voted for anyone in years. Ron Paul draws supporters from all over and as the Democratic leading contenders back away from their promises, Ron Paul appears to be the only viable candidate who will actually end this awful war in Iraq.

Once again for two hours we were subjected to a biased debate put on by MSNBC, CNBC and the Wall Street Journal. The moderators let their favorites go long on nearly every question, came back to them again and again, and even gave them follow up questions. Meanwhile, all of those contenders have campaigns that are on the down slope. The man the people want to hear from, the man who has increased supporters, the man who speaks to the hearts and wallets of the American people, Ron Paul, was given barely seven minutes out of a two hour debate. I don't have the exact figure, but it wasn't much.

Third quarter figures show that Ron Paul's campaign is on the rise. He raised over double what he had in the second quarter, coming in at just over five million dollars. It is funny to watch the pundits try to spin this as a totally shocking figure, meanwhile, the news came as no surprise to the Ron Paul supporters who always knew they were real and not just a few spammers. In fact, the Ron Paul campaign is claiming that they are receiving over 20,000 new volunteer offers a day.

Sadly, once again, the man of the people, the man for the people, was not given much time to speak to the people. As the debates go on, the difference between Ron Paul and the "others" widens. When discussing the Constitutional requirement to go to Congress to get a declaration of war before attacking a country, most of the men on stage said they would have to consult their lawyers or ignore Congress all together. Congress represents us, the people. Congress may not be doing a very good job of it right now, but they are supposed to be our voice in this political process, which is why they have a say when a President wants to go to war. The war mongers on that stage seemed to think that the American people work for them, not the other way around, and had no interest in letting the wishes of the people stand in their way when they want to act.

Only Ron Paul had the strength to to call out the others on the war issue. He said, you don't need to ask your lawyers if you can go to war, you just have to open the Constitution to see that you MUST seek a declaration of war from Congress. This country has become upside down, with the people being there to support the government and the government being free to do anything it likes.

It was quite amusing to hear another common theme among the candidates. I call it the Annie theme. When asked about an economy that is rapidly going down the drain for the poor and the middle class, about the only repeating message was that you have to have hope and believe that the "sun will come out tomorrow." We don't need rosy phrases when we are losing our jobs, we don't need to be told to smile while prices are going through the roof (you try buying groceries these days) we don't need a bunch of people who are doing just fine to tell us not to worry our pretty little heads about things. We need a man who will tell us the truth.

Ron Paul dared to speak that truth in the debate. He spoke about a failing economy, the reason it is happening, and the financial crisis on the poor and middle class. But more than that, he actually had a real answer for it. He didn't speak in pretty little phrases, he spoke cold hard truth. He explained how as our foreign policy spreads further and further across the globe we need to find a place to get all that money to pay for it. That money gets printed out of thin air by the Federal Reserve. The consequences are the same as if an illegal counterfeiter were dumping trillions into our economy: our money becomes worth less and less and prices go up more and more. Oh sure, some folks on Wall Street are doing great because they get the dollars as they come off the printing press before they have lost their value, but as soon as the money begins to circulate, those of us that didn't get sixty million dollar bonuses, start to discover that we work harder and it buys less.

Ron Paul is the only man who seemed to understand what the job of a President is - it is to protect the American people from foreign invaders by having troops on our soil; it is to protect our savings and our livelihoods by having a currency that is worth something; it is to keep the American people safe from prying eyes and to have government be the one that has to let US know what it is doing at all times instead of the other way around. Ron Paul is the only man that believes in the Constitution and would follow it.

The Constitution was written to protect the people from the government, not to give the government unlimited powers. Our founders knew that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely and so they did their best to hogtie the Federal Government from taking away our rights and freedoms. All that is slipping away from us and no amount of singing a cheery song will change that. We are not idiots. We know who tells truth and who tells sound bites. Most of the night I would replay the answers over and over trying to find anything that constituted an actual answer. It is amazing how these men are so good at saying absolutely nothing over and over.

Too bad the American people only got a tiny taste of Ron Paul. Once again, we will have to turn to the Internet for the real news and find stories where he is given more than twenty seconds to respond. Once again, we are left clamoring for more information from the man with integrity, the man who actually wants to work for the people instead of figuring out more ways for us to work for him. CNBC had a poll after the debate that asked who won the debate. They pulled it off the Internet after Ron Paul ran away with it with 79% of the vote. Perhaps they were afraid if they left it up their servers would crash will all the Ron Paul Support. And people wonder why Ron Paul doesn't appear to be doing well in polls? The polls he is winning are removed or called unscientific and the scientific polls don't offer his name as a choice. It is hard to do well in a poll when your name is not listed.

Ron Paul offers the only chance to change the course and return to the basics that this country was founded upon. He offers freedom from government interference, freedom from global domination at the expense of those here at home, and freedom from government spying on all its citizens. Isn't it time we got back on track? You have a choice, vote for any other Republican and Hillary Clinton becomes President. Vote for Ron Paul and we return this country to the great land of liberty and prosperity that millions have died to protect. Support the troops by supporting the candidate who receives the most donations by the troops. They want him as President and so should we - unless you are a multi billion dollar hedge fund manager, then you might not be too thrilled with Ron Paul.

Ron Paul is the Thomas Jefferson of our time. The only man for the people, not the corporations, and certainly not for bigger government. He wants to return your money to you instead of giving it all to Washington D.C.

Dare to dream. It can happen. Register Republican today and vote for Ron Paul in the primaries. The government still has to listen us a little, vote for him while a vote still counts for something.

"Commerce with all nations, alliance with none, should be our motto." Thomas Jefferson

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Why I know weapons expert Dr David Kelly was murdered, by the MP who spent a year investigating his death

2007-10-20T13:59:00.000-04:00

By NORMAN BAKER, DailyMail.Co.UK

20th October 2007

For Tony Blair it was a glorious day. He was in the United States being feted by the U.S. Congress and President Bush.

Their adulation was such that he was being offered the rare honour of a Congressional Gold Medal.

Naturally enough, Bush and his administration were hugely grateful for Blair's decision to join the United States in its invasion of Iraq.

That invasion was supposed to lead to the discovery and disposal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD) and make the world a safer place.

But as Blair was lapping up the grateful plaudits from the U.S. Congress on July 17, 2003, the man who had done more than almost any other individual on earth to contain the threat from WMD lay dead in the woods at Harrowdown Hill in Oxfordshire.

For Dr David Kelly, the UK's leading weapons inspector, there was to be no adulation, no medal, no standing ovation.

His life ended in the cold, lonely wood where he was found the next morning, his left wrist cut open, and three nearly-empty blister packs of painkillers in his jacket pocket.

His death was, of course, sensational front-page news. Dr Kelly, unknown to almost everybody at the beginning of that July, had in recent days barely been absent from media headlines.

Much to his chagrin he had been thrust into the harsh glare of publicity, accused of being the mole who expressed to the BBC deep concerns about the Government's "sexing up" of its dossier on weapons of mass destruction.

For Blair - accused of misusing, exaggerating or even inventing intelligence in order to justify the overthrow of Saddam Hussein - the stakes could not have been higher.

This was undoubtedly the greatest crisis of his premiership to date.

To add fuel to the flames, his director of communications, Alastair Campbell, had launched an unprecedented and vitriolic attack on the BBC, questioning its integrity and professionalism in the way it reported the story.

Suddenly finding himself under tremendous personal pressure, it seemed that Dr Kelly had buckled and decided to commit suicide.

That, at least, was the official version of events, as decided by the Hutton inquiry, set up by the Government with lightning speed within hours of Dr Kelly's body being found.

The media, the political establishment, indeed almost everybody accepted Lord Hutton's verdict. But the more I examined it, the more it became clear to me that Hutton's judgment was faulty and suspect in virtually all important respects.

I was not alone in these suspicions. Letters began to appear in the press from leading medical specialists, in which they queried the suicide verdict.

The letters were well argued, raising profound and disturbing questions that remain unanswered to this day.

Increasingly concerned, I decided to give up my post on the Liberal Democrat front bench to look into Dr Kelly's death.

My investigations have since convinced me that it is nigh- on clinically impossible for Dr Kelly to have died by his own hand and that both his personality and the other circumstantial evidence strongly militate against suicide.

Adulation: Tony Blair in Iraq

Given that his death was clearly not an accident, that leaves only one alternative - that he must have been murdered.

This is not a conclusion I have come to lightly. I simply set out to examine the facts, to test the evidence, and to follow the trail wherever it took me.

The account I give in this series may not be correct in all respects, but I suggest that it is rather more credible than the verdict reached by Lord Hutton.

I certainly believe there are enough doubts, enough questions, enough of a smell of stinking fish to justify re-opening this episode officially.

My investigations have been a journey into the unknown, and one that has taken many peculiar turns. Perhaps the most sinister came soon after starting my inquiries last year.

After writing a newspaper article outlining my early concerns, I found myself on a train speeding towards Exeter to see a man who had agreed to meet me only on condition of anonymity and after some rather circuitous arrangements.

These involved much complicated use of public telephone boxes to minimise the chance that his contact with me could be traced.

Finally, we talked over a glass of wine in a rather nondescript club.

He told me that he had recently retired but had connections to both the police and the security services, a claim which I subsequently verified through careful checks.

Like me, he had many doubts about the true circumstances surrounding Dr Kelly's death and he had begun making his own surreptitious inquiries around Southmoor, the Oxfordshire village which was Dr Kelly's home.

Posing as a freelance journalist, he had attempted to contact the key policemen involved in investigating the case. In this he was unsuccessful but within an hour he received an unexpected return call.

The person on the other end of the line did not bother with formalities, but instead cut to the quick. How would my contact welcome a full tax inspection of his business, VAT, national insurance, the lot?

Life could be made very difficult, he was told. How did he fancy having no money?

Naturally, this prospect did not appeal, and there he left matters until, at a wedding, he chanced upon an old friend whom he described to me initially as a very senior civil servant, but later as a "spook" from MI6.

He told his friend of his interest in the Kelly affair and also of the threatening phone call he had received.

His friend's reply was a serious one: he should be careful, particularly when using his phone or his computer. Moreover, he should let the Kelly matter drop.

But my contact did not do so. Two weeks later he met his friend again, this time in a pub, and pressed him on the matter.

His friend took him outside, and as they stood in the cool air, told him Dr Kelly's death had been "a wet operation, a wet disposal".

He also warned him in very strong terms to leave the matter well alone. This time he decided to heed the warning.

I asked my contact to explain what he understood by the terms his friend had used. Essentially, it seems to refer to an assassination, perhaps carried out in a hurry.

A few months later, I called my contact to check one or two points of his story. He told me that three weeks after our meeting in Exeter, his house had been broken into and his laptop - containing all his material on Kelly - had been stolen. Other valuable goods, including a camera and an LCD television, had been left untouched.

It was sobering to be given such a clear indication that Dr Kelly had been murdered, but the scientist himself appears to have been fully aware that his work made him a target for assassins.
British diplomat David Broucher told the Hutton inquiry that, some months before Dr Kelly's death, he had asked him what would happen if Iraq were invaded.

Rather chillingly, Dr Kelly replied that he "would probably be found dead in the woods".

At the inquiry, this was construed as meaning that he had already had suicidal thoughts. That, of course, is patently absurd.

Nobody can seriously suggest that he was suicidal at the time the meeting took place - yet Lord Hutton seems to have made his mind up about the way in which DrKelly died before the inquiry even began.

The result is a series of gaping, unresolved anomalies.

Crucially, in his report, Hutton declared that the principal cause of death was bleeding from a selfinflicted knife wound on Dr Kelly's left wrist.

Yet Dr Nicholas Hunt, the pathologist who carried out the post-mortem examination on DrKelly, stated that he had cut only one blood vessel - the ulnar artery.

Since the arteries in the wrist are of matchstick thickness, severing just one of them does not lead to life-threatening blood loss, especially if it is cut crossways, the method apparently adopted by DrKelly, rather than along its length.

The artery simply retracts and stops bleeding.

As a scientist who would have known more about human anatomy than most, DrKelly was particularly unlikely to have targeted the ulnar artery. Buried deep in the wrist, it can only be
accessed through the extremely painful process of cutting through nerves and tendons.

It is not common for those who commit suicide to wish to inflict significant pain on themselves as part of the process.

In Dr Kelly's case, the unlikelihood is compounded by the suggestion that his chosen instrument-was a blunt pruning knife.

This would only have increased the pain and would have failed to cut the artery cleanly, thereby hastening the clotting process.

Statistics bear out the extremely low incidence of individuals dying by cutting the ulnar artery, with only one recorded case in Britain during the entire year of Dr Kelly's death.

Year long investigation: Norman Baker

Given that the average human body contains ten pints of blood, and that about half of these must be lost before death ensues, we must also ask ourselves why there were clear signs at the postmortem-that Dr Kelly had retained much of his blood.

We cannot be sure exactly how much since, inexplicably, the pathologist's report does not provide an estimate of the residual volume, but what he did record was the appearance of "livor mortis" on Dr Kelly's body.

This purplish-red discolouration of the skin occurs when the heart is no longer pumping and blood begins to settle in the lower part of the body. But if Dr Kelly had bled to death, as we are led to believe, then significant livor mortis would not have occurred. Put simply, there would not have been enough blood in his body.

More significant still, while the effects of five pints of blood spurting from a body could not easily be hidden, the members of the search party who found his body did not even notice that Dr

Kelly had apparently incised his wrist with a knife.

Their arrival was followed by that of paramedics who pointedly referred to the fact that there was remarkably little blood around the body.

If the idea that blood loss brought about Dr Kelly's death is flawed, still less plausible is the suggestion that he chose an overdose to quicken his end.

Mai Pederson, a close friend of DrKelly's, has confirmed that he hated all types of tablets and had an aversion even to swallowing a headache pill.

Yet we are told that he removed from his house three blister packs, each containing ten of the co-proxamol painkillers which his wife Janice took for her arthritis.

Each of these oval pills was about half an inch long. Since there was only one tablet left, the implication is that he had swallowed 29 of them. If this is right, we are being asked to believe that Dr Kelly indulged in a further masochistic act in an attempt to take his life.

A further objection is that police evidence states there was a halflitre bottle of Evian water by the body which had not been fully drunk.

Common sense tells us that quite a lot of water would be required to swallow 29 large tablets. It is frankly unlikely, with only a small bottle of water to hand, that any would have been left undrunk.

Stranger still, tests revealed the presence of only the equivalent of a fifth of one pill in Dr Kelly's stomach.

Even allowing for natural metabolising, this cannot easily be reconciled with the idea that he swallowed 29 of them.

Forensic toxicologist Alexander Allan told the Hutton inquiry that although the levels of co-proxamol in Dr Kelly's blood were higher than therapeutic levels, they were less than a third of what would normally be found in a fatal overdose.

Furthermore, it is generally accepted that concentrations of a drug in the blood can increase by as much as tenfold after death, leaving open the possibility that he consumed only a thirtieth of the dose necessary to kill him.

As for Dr Kelly's state of mind, in the eyes of those who knew him well he was the last person who might be expected to take his own life.

A recent convert to the Baha'i faith which expressly forbids suicide, he was a strong character who had survived many difficult situations in the past.

Just a day before his 20th birthday in May 1964, his own mother had killed herself with an overdose. Though this had naturally affected him deeply at the time, there was nothing to suggest that it was on his mind at this point in his life.

His friend Mai Pederson recalled a conversation they once had about his mother's death. Would he ever contemplate suicide himself, she asked. 'Good God no, I couldn't ever imagine doing that," he is said to have replied. "I would never do it."

Later many people would conclude that the seeds of his suicide lay in his uncomfortable appearance before MPs on the Foreign Affairs Committee on Tuesday, July 15, just three days before his death.

Grilled for more than an hour during this televised hearing, he was clearly under considerable pressure and yet one journalist recalled him smiling afterwards.

By the time he gave evidence before the Intelligence and Security Committee the following day, he was even managing to crack a joke or two.

His emotional state certainly did not appear to give any major cause for alarm on the morning of the Thursday he disappeared.

His wife Janice later described him as "tired, subdued but not depressed" and the e-mails he sent from his home during those hours suggested that his mood, if anything, was upbeat.

"Many thanks for your thoughts," he wrote to one colleague. "It has been difficult. Hopefully will all blow over by the end of the week and I can travel to Baghdad and get on with the real work."

Indeed, so keen was Dr Kelly to get back to Iraq that he spoke to Wing Commander John Clark at the Ministry of Defence about when he could return.

A trip was booked for him the following Friday and his diary, recovered by the police, shows that the trip had been entered for that day. People about to kill themselves do not generally first book an airline ticket for a flight they have no intention of taking.

Since none of this fits the profile of a man about to commit suicide, we are faced with an obvious question. If Dr Kelly did not kill himself, then who might have been responsible for his death?

There are, it must be admitted, a number of possible suspects. In the course of a long career in the shadowy world of arms control, Dr Kelly had made powerful enemies.

Back in 1991, for example, he was part of a team that exposed Russia's tests of biological weapons for offensive purposes - a field in which they had invested huge sums of money. This could easily have sparked a desire for revenge, if not from the state itself then from individual Russians.

Dr Kelly also had intimate knowledge of biological weapons research in apartheid-era South

Africa that some might have preferred not to see the light of day.

It has also been suggested that he had dealings with Mossad, the Israeli secret service, about illegal bacterial weapon activity.

But it seems very unlikely that the anger of old foes would have simmered for years and then exploded just as Dr Kelly emerged in the political spotlight in 2003.

Quite simply, it would qualify as an astonishing coincidence if the cause of his death were not rooted in the furore over Iraq.

At this point, it has to be asked whether there were elements in the British intelligence services, or indeed within 10 Downing Street itself, who would have wanted Dr Kelly dead.

This is a possibility I have seriously considered. But it is difficult, frankly, to think that anyone in the Government could have thought DrKelly's death to be in their interest, even were they morally prepared to bring it about.

After all, the death of Dr Kelly presented Tony Blair with his greatest political challenge, and put the political focus firmly onto the whole Iraq debacle, which cannot be where the Government would have wanted it.

The more I investigated this affair, the more I realised that people who had worked with David

Kelly suspected some kind of link with the Iraqis themselves.

Diplomat David Broucher told the Hutton inquiry that he interpreted Dr Kelly's remark about being found "dead in the woods" to mean that "he was at risk of being attacked by the Iraqis in some way".

Dr Kelly's friend Mai Pederson confirmed to the police that the scientist had received death threats from supporters of Saddam Hussein, who regarded him as an enemy on account of his past success at uncovering their weapons programmes.

This was something Dr Kelly privately acknowledged but refused to be cowed by, in a very

British, stiff upper lip kind of way.

The theory that he may have been murdered by elements loyal to Saddam is supported by Dick Spertzel, America's most senior biological weapons inspector, who worked closely with Dr Kelly in Iraq.

"A number of us were on an Iraqi hit list," he told me matter-of-factly. "I was number three, and David was a couple behind that."

But Saddam loyalists are not the only Iraqis we need to consider. There are others, too, with rather closer links to the West.

Much of the information about Saddam's supposed weapons of mass destruction, on which Britain and America based their case for war, was provided by Iraqi dissidents eager to see his overthrow.

This information was sensational and, as events turned out, wildly distorted and in most regards plain false.

One of the central figures here was Ahmed Chalabi, leader of the so-called Iraqi National

Congress and the CIA's favourite Iraqi opposition politician.

A financier with a decidedly chequered past - he was found guilty of embezzlement and forgery after $158 million disappeared from a bank he founded in Jordan - Chalabi made no secret of his wish to drag the United States into war with Saddam and was apparently prepared to say anything to achieve that end.

A key Iraqi informer codenamed "Curveball" - who claimed to have led a team equipping mobile laboratories to produce biological weapons for Saddam, but was later entirely discredited - is believed to have been the brother of one of Chalabi's aides.

Chalabi's fingerprints can also be found on the now notorious claims by another defector that Saddam had 20 or more secret sites where weapons of mass destruction could be found.

Subsequent searches showed this allegation to be utterly without foundation.

Alastair Campbell: 'Unprecedented and vitriolic attack on the BBC'

Naturally, those like Dr Kelly who, by sticking to the facts, weakened the case for invasion

beforehand and discredited those who had exaggerated it afterwards, were unhelpful to Chalabi and his colleagues. The last thing they wanted was the sober truth to prevail.

Another important figure here is Iyad Allawi, leader of the Iraqi National Accord, another
organisation created to oppose Saddam. Before they parted ways, he was Saddam's supporter and friend.

There are many who tell of Allawi's violent history. As a young man, he is alleged to have been present at the torture of Iraqi communists who were hung from the ceiling and beaten.

While living in London in the Seventies, he was allegedly the head of Iraq's intelligence operation in Europe, informing on opponents of Saddam who will have faced torture and death when they returned home.

Allawi went on to develop a fruitful relationship with MI6 and the CIA. After the Iraq invasion, he was appointed Prime Minister in the country's interim government - only to face allegations (which he strongly denied) that he had personally shot seven insurgents in the head with a pistol at Baghdad's Al-Amariyah security centre.

"This is how we must deal with terrorists," Allawi is alleged to have told a stunned audience of close to 30 onlookers. "We must destroy anyone who wants to destroy the Iraqi people."

The new Prime Minister's actions are said to have prompted one U.S. official to comment:

"What a mess we're in - we got rid of one son of a bitch only to get another."

The Americans apparently referred to Allawi as "Saddam lite".

Before the Iraq invasion, Allawi's organisation - just like Ahmed Chalabi's - was responsible for eye- catching but groundless intelligence exploited by supporters of war. #

In the case of Allawi's group, it was reports passed to MI6 in the spring and summer of 2002, including the false claim that Saddam had weapons of mass destruction which he could deploy at 45 minutes' notice.

This now infamous "45-minute claim" fed through to the dossier of intelligence which was used as the justification for our involvement in the invasion of Iraq.

It was this dossier, and the 45-minute claim in particular, that David Kelly challenged in his crucial interview with the BBC.

By doing so, did he sign his own death warrant?

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Iraq whistleblower Dr Kelly WAS murdered to silence him, says MP

2007-10-20T13:51:00.000-04:00

By FIONA BARTON

DailyMail.Co.UK

20th October 2007

Weapons expert Dr David Kelly was assassinated, an MP claims today.

Campaigning politician Norman Baker believes Dr Kelly, who exposed the Government's "sexed-up" Iraq dossier, was killed to stop him making further revelations about the lies that took Britain to war.

He says the murderers may have been anti-Saddam Iraqis, and suggests the crime was covered up by elements within the British establishment to prevent a diplomatic crisis.

The LibDem MP, who gave up his front bench post to carry out his year-long investigation, makes his claims in a book serialised exclusively in the Daily Mail today and next week.

The official Hutton Inquiry into the death of Dr Kelly ruled in 2004 that he slashed one of his wrists with a garden knife and took an overdose after being "outed" as the mole who revealed the flawed argument for invading Iraq.

But Norman Baker is convinced the scientist was murdered.

He says he was told by a secret informant that British police knew about the plot but failed to act in time and that the death was later made to look like a suicide to prevent political and diplomatic turmoil.

The highly-respected MP's personal quest to uncover the truth about Dr Kelly's death was prompted by deep concerns over the circumstances surrounding the apparent suicide.
He - and a group of eminent doctors - were greatly troubled by the evidence presented to Lord Hutton.

They claimed medical evidence proved that the alleged method of suicide - the cutting of the ulnar artery in the wrist and an overdose of co-proxamol painkillers - could not have caused the scientist's death.

Mr Baker said: "The more I examined [Lord Hutton's verdict], the more it became clear to me that Hutton's judgment was faulty and suspect in virtually all important respects."
His findings are today revealed in the first extract from his book The Strange Death of David Kelly. In it, he claims:

• No fingerprints were found on the gardening knife allegedly used by the scientist to cut one of his wrists;

• Only one other person in the whole of the British Isles committed suicide in the same way as the scientist allegedly did in 2003;

• There was an astonishing lack of blood at the scene despite death being officially recorded as due to a severed artery;

• The level of painkillers found in Dr Kelly's stomach was "less than a third" of a normal fatal overdose.

The Lewes MP also suggests that the knife and packs of painkillers found beside Dr Kelly's body were taken from his home in Southmoor, Oxfordshire, during a police search after his death and later planted at the scene.

He tells in his book how he was contacted by "informants" during his "journey into the unknown".

One is alleged to have told him Dr Kelly's death had been "a wet operation, a wet disposal".
Mr Baker explains: "Essentially, it seems to refer to an assassination, perhaps carried out in a hurry."

Another secret contact told him that a group of UK-based Iraqis had "named people who claimed involvement in Dr Kelly's death".

The informant was later the victim of "an horrific attack by an unknown assailant".
The MP, who has repeatedly called for the police to re-open the case, alleges that the scientist had "powerful enemies" because of his work on biological weapons. A colleague of Dr Kelly, Dick Spertzel, America's most senior biological weapons inspector, confirmed to Mr Baker that the scientist was "on an Iraqi hit list".

Mr Baker alleges that opponents of Saddam Hussein feared Dr Kelly would "discredit" them by revealing "misinformation" they had deliberately planted to bolster the case for Britain and America's intervention in Iraq.

The MP claims Kelly's integrity might have "signed his own death warrant".

The book also alleges that British police "had got wind of a possible plan to assassinate Dr Kelly but were too late to prevent his murder taking place".

The MP suggests that the police may have tried to make the killing appear to be a suicide "in the interests of Queen and country" and to prevent any destabilisation of the sensitive relationship between the Allies and Iraq.

Mr Baker adds: "It is all too easy to dismiss so-called conspiracy theories. But history shows us that conspiracies do happen - and that suicide can be staged to cover murderers' tracks.

"All the evidence leads me to believe that this is what happened in the case of Dr Kelly."

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WWIII – Bring It On

2007-10-20T12:49:00.000-04:00

by Gordon Prather
AntiWar.Com

Five years ago, in a new National Security Statement, President Bush announced that;

"The United States has long maintained the option of preemptive actions to counter a sufficient threat to our national security.

"The greater the threat, the greater is the risk of inaction – and the more compelling the case for taking anticipatory action to defend ourselves, even if uncertainty remains as to the time and place of the enemy's attack.

"To forestall or prevent such hostile acts by our adversaries, the United States will, if necessary, act preemptively."

On August 26, 2002, in a major address to the Veterans of Foreign Wars, Vice-President Cheney developed the theme.

"On the nuclear question, many of you will recall that Saddam's nuclear ambitions suffered a severe setback in 1981 when the Israelis bombed the Osirak reactor."

Nuclear ambitions? The Israelis launched a "pre-emptive" attack on a small French-built research reactor – safeguarded by the International Atomic Energy Agency – because of their assessment of Saddam's "nuclear ambitions"?

The UN Security Council "strongly condemned" the Israeli attack as constituting a clear violation of the UN Charter, and "a serious threat to the entire IAEA safeguards regime, which is the foundation of the Non-Proliferation Treaty."

Cheney continues;

"But we now know that Saddam has resumed his efforts to acquire nuclear weapons. Among other sources, we've gotten this from the firsthand testimony of defectors -- including Saddam's own son-in-law, who was subsequently murdered at Saddam's direction."

Cheney lied. Contrarily, Saddam's son-in-law had provided the CIA documentary evidence in 1995 that all of Saddam's "weapons of mass destruction" and their means of production had been destroyed, either in the Gulf War or on Saddam's orders in the immediate aftermath. And UN inspectors had since confirmed that Saddam had made no effort to reconstruct them.

Nevertheless, quoth Cheney,

"Many of us are convinced that Saddam will acquire nuclear weapons fairly soon."

From the Tooth Fairy?

"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction. There is no doubt he is amassing them to use against our friends, against our allies, and against us. And there is no doubt that his aggressive regional ambitions will lead him into future confrontations with his neighbors – confrontations that will involve both the weapons he has today, and the ones he will continue to develop with his oil wealth."

How to thwart Saddam's alleged "aggressive regional ambitions"?

Well, how about launching a preventive attack, depriving him of ambitions – as well as "his oil wealth"?

Okay, but in the six months it took Bush to get the necessary invasion force amassed on Iraqi borders, those pesky UN inspectors had reentered Iraq and were reporting to the Security Council that Cheney was wrong – the Tooth Fairy had not supplied Saddam any nuclear weapons after all.

Bummer.

Worse still, China and Russia had made it clear to Bush that the UN Security Council Resolution [1441] they had allowed to pass did not authorize the use of force against Iraq. Furthermore, they would not allow any resolution to pass that did.

Nevertheless, Bush launched his war of aggression against Iraq, anyway.

Back in 2002, all the while he was preparing to invade and occupy Iraq, Bush insisted he wanted a "diplomatic" solution to the alleged Iraqi nuke threat.

And since 2003 Bush has been insisting that he wants a "diplomatic" solution to the alleged Iranian nuke threat.

The problem is that all Iranian nuclear programs were – and are – subject to IAEA Safeguards and Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei keeps reporting that "all the declared nuclear material in Iran has been accounted for, and therefore such material is not diverted to prohibited activities."

In late 2004, Iran voluntarily entered into negotiations with the British, French, and Germans [E3], who purported to be negotiating on behalf of the European Union. Iran voluntarily suspended for the duration of the negotiations all uranium-enrichment activities.

The negotiations were undertaken by the Iranians in the hope they could obtain "objective guarantees" that the EU would defy the United States, would re-establish normal diplomatic and trade relations, and would, inter alia, respect both Iran's "inalienable" rights and European obligations under the NPT.

Iranian officials made it clear (a) at the IAEA Board of Governors meetings in March and June, (b) at the Seventh Review Conference of the Treaty in April, and (c) in their Note Verbale to the IAEA of August 1st, 2005, that any attempt by the EU/E3 to turn their voluntary suspension of uranium enrichment activities into a cessation or long term suspension would be "incompatible with the letter and spirit of the Paris Agreement and therefore unacceptable to Iran."

But that is exactly what Bush has been attempting to do – using the strong-arm tactics he terms "diplomacy" – ever since, denying Iran its "inalienable rights," corrupting, in the process, the IAEA Board of Governors and the UN Security Council, itself.

Up until now the Russians and the Chinese have limited themselves to making it clear that failure by the Iranians to fully comply with the resolutions of the IAEA Board or Security Council could not be used by Bush as a pretext to launch another war of aggression.
Then, last week, Iran hosted a "summit" of leaders of the Caspian Sea littoral states – Russia, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Azerbaijan and Iran.

Russian President Putin met with Iranian President Ahmadinejad, and afterwards declared that "Iran is an important regional and global power." Putin also said that he had seen no evidence that Iran was pursuing a nuclear weapons program and announced that Russia would go ahead and complete the Iranian nuclear power plant at Bushehr.

The summit, itself, resulted in a number of "milestone" agreements, including one prohibiting other countries – such as the United States – from using territory or facilities of one or more Caspian Sea littoral states for attacks on another "in any circumstances," and another "disallowing" the passage on the Caspian Sea of any ship not flying the national flag of a littoral state.

Bush's promptly convened an unusually lengthy press conference, in which to get off zingers like this one.

"We've got a leader in Iran who has announced that he wants to destroy Israel."

"So I've told people that, if you're interested in avoiding World War III, it seems like you ought to be interested in preventing them from having the knowledge necessary to make a nuclear weapon."

So, if Bush is to be believed, he's recently told Putin that he is willing to start World War III, not because Iran allegedly has nukes with which to allegedly attack Israel, or not because Iran has the capability of making the material to make nukes with which to allegedly attack Israel, or not even because Iran allegedly wants to make nukes with which to allegedly attack Israel. Now all it takes to start WWIII is some Iranians knowing how to make a nuke.

Well, since many Iranians have access to the internet, WWIII – bring it on!

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Putin calls on U.S. to set pullout date in Iraq

2007-10-19T16:04:00.000-04:00

MOSCOW, Russia (CNN)

October 18, 2007

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Thursday called on the United States to set a date for withdrawal from Iraq, saying the U.S. military campaign had become a "pointless" battle against the Iraqi people.

Russian President Vladimir Putin takes questions Thursday on his annual "call-in show."

Putin used a live Russian TV and radio broadcast to criticize U.S. policy in Iraq, which he said was aimed in part at seizing oil reserves.

The Russian leader's latest broadside against U.S. foreign policy came during his annual question-and-answer session with the Russian people.

Putin said the American battle in Iraq was "useless" and "totally counterproductive" because it was against the Iraqi people.

Putin said he agreed with President Bush that U.S.-led coalition forces should only withdraw once the Iraqi government was in full control of the country.

However, he said the lack of a deadline for withdrawal meant there was no impetus for the Iraqi leadership to take control of the security situation. "It's totally unacceptable to keep occupation forces there forever," he added.

He also repeated his warning against U.S. efforts to put elements of a missile defense system in Eastern Europe and confirmed his plans to step down from the presidency next year.

Broadcast on state-run television, the annual "call-in show," as it was termed in the Russian media, featured Putin answering questions put to him by Russians citizens.

Putin was asked about comments attributed to former U.S. Secretary of State Madeleine Albright suggesting that Siberia had too many natural resources to belong to one country.
Putin called those remarks "a kind of political erotica" and compared the situation with Iraq.

"It's a small country which is not quite able to protect itself but which has tremendous oil reserves. So what's going on there? We see perfectly well that they're good at shooting but not too good at establishing order," he said.

The broadcast was well-received in Russia, where Putin has used the call-ins to project the image of a leader responding directly to voters' concerns.

One Muscovite said: "I've watched the news, and I liked what Putin said. I think he's a brave and noble man."

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Establishment Media Finally Admits Ron Paul Is Top Tier Candidate; Could Win Nomination

2007-10-19T15:02:00.000-04:00

Ron Paul has mandate for equal time during Fox News debate

by Marty Eels

USADaily.Com

10/18/2007

Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul has broken through to the top tier of Republican candidates running for president. He knows it, GOP voters know it, and as previously reported; media outlets are grudgingly admitting it.

Ron Paul commented on the issue in a message to supporters, ?The blackout is ending; our campaign is starting to get mainstream media attention, thanks to growing donations and volunteers.? Ron Paul continued in his message to supporters:

"All over America, our support is wide and deep and growing, and young people are joining like never before. After the Dearborn debate, I went to the University of Michigan for a rally. 2,000 students turned out, something that has happened to no other candidate this year."

It is a remarkable fact that Ron Paul has consistently drawn crowds all across the country that continuously seem to dwarf those of his opponents. Given the scant media coverage Paul has received it is a testament that his message is resonating.

The Republican Party appears to be recognizing that Ron Paul has a chance of winning the nomination. Paul said to supporters:

"After all the aggressive wars, the assaults on our privacy and civil liberties, the oppressive taxation, and the crazed spending and deficits, I believe that many Republican voters are ready to return to our roots. And the big boys feel it too.It is no coincidence that the Republican National Committee invited me to a fundraising dinner involving only top-tier candidates."

Commenting on Alan Greenspan's recent interview on the Fox Business Channel Paul said:

"The reporter asked if we really needed a central bank. Greenspan looked stunned, and then said that was a good question; he actually talked about fiat money vs. a gold standard. Now, the ex-Fed chairman is not about to endorse our sound monetary policy, but you know our Revolution is working when such a question is asked in the mainstream media, and this powerful man gives such an answer."

He continued on about the crowd of 2000 at his campaign's Dearborn rally:

"They cheered all our ideas, but especially our opposition to the Federal Reserve, and our support for real money of gold and silver, as the Constitution mandates, instead of prosperity-wrecking fiat money. American politics hasn't seen anything like this in many decades. It is truly revolutionary."

Ron Paul's campaign does not appear to be willing to sit in the background of the presidential race any longer and made that very clear Wednesday during a press conference. Paul's campaign pointed out that only four candidates remain viable at this time in the Republican field.

Paul's campaign highlighted that according to the financial reports, the indication is that the only viable candidates where Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson, and Ron Paul. Mitt Romney's campaign is viable as long as he continues to spend his personal wealth.

Ron Paul's campaign may do many things in this election but it has already made media polls irrelevant suggesting them to be an outdated obsolete method of rating candidates. If the polls were accurate Dr. Paul should not be in third place in the GOP money race.

The cable networks have been giving a disproportionate amount of time in televised debates to what they believed to be the top tier of candidates (Giuliani, Romney, Thompson, and McCain).
Expect a reshuffling of that order, replacing McCain with Paul during the Fox News debate in Orlando Florida this Sunday, or viewers may see a flashback to the famous Ronald Reagan line from a presidential debate, when he said,

"I'm paying for this microphone" but instead, Paul might say, "the American people have paid for this microphone."

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Why, Even If You Have Nothing To Hide, Government Surveillance Threatens Your Freedom

2007-10-19T14:52:00.000-04:00

The Case Against Expanding Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act Powers
Friday, Oct. 19, 2007
By JOHN W. DEAN
Writ.News.Findlaw.Com

"I've got nothing to hide, so electronic surveillance doesn't bother me. To the contrary, I'm delighted that the Bush Administration is monitoring calls and electronic traffic on a massive scale, because catching terrorists is far more important that worrying about the government's listening to my phone calls, or reading my emails." So the argument goes. It is a powerful one that has seduced too many people.

Millions of Americans buy this logic, and in accepting it, believe they are doing the right thing for themselves, their family, and their friends, neighbors, community and country. They are sadly wrong. If you accept this argument, you have been badly fooled.

This contention is being bantered about once again, so there is no better time than the present to set thinking people straight. Bush and Cheney want to make permanent unchecked Executive powers to electronically eavesdrop on anyone whom any President feels to be of interest. In August, before the summer recess, Congress enacted the Protect America Act, which provided only temporary approval for the expanding Executive powers under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). These temporary powers expire in February 2008, so Congress is once again addressing the subject.

The FISA Amendments: The Administration Is Seeking Immunity for Miscreants

Because of the way electronic traffic is directed from foreign countries through the United States, the FISA Court had previously rejected requests to intercept certain foreign-person- to-foreign-person communications in the United States. It was a technical problem, arising from the fact that FISA was written before modern data routing had been designed, and FISA thus needed fixing. On this, everyone agreed.

However, when the Bush Administration asked for the necessary fix to FISA, it also requested much more, including immunity under the existing laws for all the telecommunications companies that have been assisting the government in its illegal warrantless surveillance. Significantly, this practice - justified by reference to the "war on terror" - apparently started well before 9/11 under the Bush Administration.

Ironically, in requesting this immunity, the Bush White House has refused to disclose exactly what type of activities Congress would be retroactively immunizing. Preliminary congressional inquiry has revealed that a massive amount of electronic surveillance of Americans has gone on under the Bush/Cheney Administration. For example, one of the telecom giants, Verizon, reported that between January 2005 and September 2007 they provided information on 94,000 occasions. These numbers suggest that Verizon was operating as merely another (and a secret) extension of the federal intelligence establishment.

Many of the companies appear to be violating a number of federal criminal statutes - such as 18 U.S.C. 2511, which requires a warrant for such surveillance and 18 U.S.C. 2702, which prohibits any "entity providing an electronic communication service to the public" from knowingly divulging "to any person or entity the contents of a communication" without a court order.
Currently, the telecoms are not likely to be particularly worried about being prosecuted by the very same government that instructed them to violate the law, and is leading the way in doing so itself.

But what about under the next Administration? The five-year statute of limitations will make them potentially criminally liable after Bush is gone - at least, unless the Bush Administration gains for them retroactive and future immunity. In a new Administration, the telecoms may be viewed not as cooperative patriots, but rather as criminal co-conspirators.

Civil Liability Appears To Be Driving the Immunity Request

Meanwhile, civil liability for these companies is also a realistic prospect. For example, in a San Francisco federal court, AT&T customers are seeking to protect their privacy with actions under laws like 18 U.S.C. 2520, which provides a civil remedy and hefty damages -- ranging up to $10,000 per day per violation. Since it is possible that, over five-plus years, there have been tens upon tens of thousands of such violations, the, if liable telecoms could be looking at hundreds upon hundreds of millions of dollars of damages.

The Bush Administration clearly wants to help its partners in crime; it also wants to avoid accountability for what it has done and is still doing. If the civil litigation proceeds - and one judge already ruled that the "state secrets" privilege does not prevent the plaintiffs from going forward - the Bush Administration faces the risk of a federal court's forcing it to disclose its unsavory surveillance activities.

Privacy advocates are horrified at the prospect of Congress's potentially protecting this activity through immunity legislation. Yet, in sharp contrast, most people could care less. Indeed few people seem to care about their loss of privacy, notwithstanding the fact that, like an invisible pollutant to our air or water, it is increasingly eroding our freedom. Unfortunately, it seems that the invasion of our privacy, like the destruction of our atmosphere, may be tolerated until it is too late to fix it.

One of the leading causes of both problems is ignorance. Privacy is a highly complex issue, so people easily accept the claims of those who assert that, if you are not doing anything illegal, you have nothing to be concerned about government surveillance, and if you are, you have no right to privacy to break the law.

Understanding the Misunderstanding about Privacy

For several years I have been reading the work of George Washington University Law School Professor Daniel J. Solove, who writes extensively about privacy in the context of contemporary digital technology. The current apathy about government surveillance brought to mind his essay "'I've Got Nothing To Hide' And Other Misunderstandings of Privacy."

Professor Solove's deconstruction of the "I've got nothing to hide" position, and related justifications for government surveillance, is the best brief analysis of this issue I have found. These arguments are not easy to zap because, once they are on the table, they can set the terms of the argument. As Solove explains, "the problem with the nothing to hide argument is with its underlying assumption that privacy is about hiding bad things." He warns, "Agreeing with this assumption concedes far too much ground and leads to an unproductive discussion of information people would likely want or not want to hide." Solove's bottom line is that this argument "myopically views privacy as a form of concealment or secrecy."

In his work, Solove addresses the reality that privacy problems differ: Not all are equal; some are more harmful than others. Most importantly, he writes, "to understand privacy, we must conceptualize it and its value more pluralistically." Through several years of work, Solove has developed a more nuanced concept of privacy that rebuts the idea that there is a "one-size-fits-all conception of privacy."

The concept of "privacy" encompasses many ideas relating to the proper and improper use and abuse of information about people within society. Privacy protects information not only because it would cause others to think less of the person at issue, but also simply to give us all breathing room: "Society involves a great deal of friction," Solove writes, "and we are constantly clashing with each other. Part of what makes a society a good place in which to live is the extent to which it allows people freedom from the intrusiveness of others. A society without privacy protection would be suffocation, and it might not be a place in which most would want to live."

Professor Solove's work - much of which he makes available online - helps clarify thinking about privacy in its fuller context, and helps explain what is wrong with reductive dismissals of privacy using the mantra, "I've got nothing to hide." Before rushing to give the Bush Administration more ways to invade our privacy, not to mention absolving those who have confederated with him to engage in the most massive invasion of America privacy ever, members of Congress should look at Solove's work. Too many of them have no idea what privacy is all about, and grossly underestimate the value of this complex and essential concept.

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We're In A Lot Of Trouble

2007-10-19T14:22:00.000-04:00

From "Network" 1976

Paddy Chayefsky warned us!...

UN: Action to be taken against interpreter for false report that Syria has a nuclear facility

2007-10-19T14:18:00.000-04:00

The Associated Press
October 17, 2007

UNITED NATIONS: The United Nations said Thursday action would be taken against the interpreter responsible for an erroneous report that Syria has a nuclear facility.

Syria denied that one of its representatives told the U.N. General Assembly's committee that deals with disarmament on Tuesday that Israel had attacked a Syrian nuclear facility. It said the representative was misquoted, demanded a correction, and insisted that "such facilities do not exist in Syria."

After more than seven hours of investigation Wednesday, U.N. officials agreed the Syrian delegate was misquoted. "There was an interpretation error," U.N. associate spokesman Farhan Haq said. "There was no use of the word nuclear."

The U.N. expressed regret for the incident.

The mistake made headlines in the Middle East and heightened concerns over Damascus' nuclear ambitions. Those ambitions were under scrutiny following a Sept. 6 Israeli airstrike on an unknown target in northeastern Syria near the border with Turkey. Widespread reports say it may have been a nascent nuclear facility, a claim Syria has denied.

The incident started Tuesday night with a U.N. press summary in English of the disarmament committee's proceedings that paraphrased the Syrian representative as saying, "Israel was the fourth largest exporter of weapons of mass destruction and a violator of other nations' airspace, and it had taken action against nuclear facilities, including the 6 July attack in Syria."

The Syrian representative spoke in Arabic, but Haq said Thursday the problem was not the translation from Arabic. An interpreter who worked from Arabic into French was fairly accurate, he said.

The problem occurred when interpreter translated the statement into English from French, Haq said.

"Action will be taken against that freelance interpreter to the fullest extent of the U.N. rules and regulations," Haq said, refusing to comment further on what that action might be.

Other U.N. staffers familiar with the rules said the freelance interpreter likely works on some kind of contract with the U.N. translation service that will not be renewed. The staffers spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

Earlier Thursday, U.N. spokeswoman Michele Montas told reporters: "We regret the error and the department that deals with General Assembly affairs is looking further into the incident."
She confirmed that the Syrian Mission had discussed the matter with the Department of General Assembly and Conference Management. She added that any reporter who spoke Arabic and listened to the original tape recording of the Syrian delegate would realize the mistake.

According to the corrected text, the Syrian representative said: "...the (entity) that is ranking number four among the exporters of lethal weapons in the world; that which violates the airspace of sovereign states and carries out military aggression against them, like what happened on Sept. 6 against my country, such entity with all those characteristics and even more, has no right for its representative to go on lying without shame..."

The Syrian representative was replying to a speech to the committee on Monday by Israeli Ambassador Miriam Ziv, deputy director general for strategic affairs in the Foreign Ministry, who accused Syria of continuing to transfer weapons to Hezbollah fighters in Lebanon.

PERMALINK

•°o.O see no evil O.o°•

2007-10-14T21:30:00.000-04:00

The Teflon Alliance with Israel

By KATHLEEN and BILL CHRISTISON
CounterPunch.org
September 28, 2007

Two recent offhand comments, both widely publicized, have seriously undermined whatever progress might have been made in exposing the fact that the Iraq war was initiated at least in large part to guarantee Israel's safety and regional dominance in the Middle East.

In late August, Lawrence Wilkerson, who served as Colin Powell's chief of staff when he was secretary of state, told Gareth Porter of Inter Press Service that, when Israel first got wind of U.S. planning for a war against Iraq, a wide range of Israelis, including political and intelligence officials, began warning against such a war. "Israelis were telling us Iraq is not the enemy -- Iran is the enemy," Wilkerson said. Israeli warnings against an attack on Iraq were "pervasive" in Israeli communications with the administration during early 2002, according to Wilkerson.

This story garnered a fair amount of publicity and in at least one instance was used by a radio talk show host to shut off discussion of the John Mearsheimer-Stephen Walt book on the influence of the Israel lobby, The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy. Just a few days after the Wilkerson story came out and also only days after release of the Mearsheimer-Walt book, a caller to the Thom Hartmann radio program commended the book, urged Hartmann and his guest at the time, Senator Bernie Sanders, to read it, and asked Sanders to address the issue of Israel's and the lobby's support for the Iraq war. Hartmann shut the caller off with a comment that "we don't hype books on this program" (after having just allowed another caller to hype another book). Sanders then proceeded to denounce "conspiracy theories" such as the notion that Israel had anything to do with the war, and Hartmann finished off with a remark that, "besides," a report just came out --obviously meaning the Wilkerson story -- that demonstrates there was no Israeli link to the war.

In fact, the Wilkerson report does not refute the notion of an Israeli link; he addresses only Israeli-U.S. contacts in early 2002, whereas by later in 2002 and 2003 the evidence is overwhelming that Israel and particularly the Israel lobby were pushing hard for the war. But this is the way myths are born: Hartmann and Sanders were able to use perhaps 90 seconds on a nationally broadcast radio program to tout an incomplete report reinforcing their own misconceptions and to dismiss a thoroughly researched book disproving those misconceptions. Never again, mostly likely, will they or any of the choir they were broadcasting to, who do not want to have to deal with Israel anyway, even think about the issue.

The Wilkerson assertions were followed in mid-September by the highly publicized single-sentence statement by former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan in his just-released memoir, The Age of Turbulence, that "it is politically inconvenient to acknowledge what everyone knows: the Iraq war is largely about oil." When the media pounced on this statement, which stands virtually alone and unelaborated in a 500-page book, Greenspan gave several interviews supposedly intended to clarify his statement. To AP he said -- in an obvious sop to the administration and the right, which clearly do not want to own up to such a crass motivation for the war as oil -- that he had not intended to imply that oil was "the administration's motive. I'm just saying that if somebody asked me, 'Are we fortunate in taking out Saddam?' I would say it was essential" for economic reasons. He had come to fear, he explained, that "Saddam, looking over his 30-year history, very clearly was giving evidence of moving towards controlling the Straits [sic] of Hormuz, where there are 17, 18, 19 million barrels a day" passing through. The war was not an oil grab, Greenspan said, but "taking Saddam out was essential" because it assured the continued smooth operation of the oil market.

A week later, on Amy Goodman's "Democracy Now!," Greenspan, repeating that he had been watching Saddam Hussein for 30 years, said that he had feared that Saddam would acquire a nuclear weapon, that this would give him control over the Strait of Hormuz, and that he therefore had to be removed. Greenspan said he believed the "size of the threat" that Saddam posed "was scary" because "he could have essentially also shut down a significant part of economic activity throughout the world."

The logic here is really quite strange and indicates at least that whatever economic genius Greenspan possesses does not extend to military strategizing or political analysis. One wonders, for instance, how exactly Saddam could have controlled the Strait of Hormuz with a nuclear or any other type of weapon when Iraq does not border this key waterway at the opening of the Persian Gulf and has no navy of any significance. One also wonders why Saddam's future possession of a nuclear weapon was more worrisome than the likelihood that Iran, which does have a navy and does geographically control the strait, might close it. Greenspan's statements further raise the question of why, given his claimed knowledge of Saddam's "30-year history" and given the interest of earlier administrations in Iraq's nuclear ambitions, he began to feel Saddam's removal was "essential" only when the Bush administration began planning for war. And none of what Greenspan said explained why Iraq would have shut down its economy by blocking its own oil exports.

Greenspan's fumbling explanations seem at a minimum to be in the nature of meandering remarks by a man concentrated on economics with little political acumen, who went along with the war because of its presumed benefits in safeguarding oil markets but with no concern about the broader consequences of the war and little or no interest in its political motivations or its geostrategic implications beyond what he saw as its global economic goal.

It remains open to question whether Greenspan in addition intended to divert attention from the clear evidence that Israel and its U.S. supporters, both among Jewish American organizations and among neocon policymakers inside the administration, pushed hard for the war, among other reasons to guarantee Israel's security in the Middle East and its regional domination. But whatever his intent, this has been the effect of his concentration on oil. It reinforces the assumptions of those, primarily on the left, who have always contended that the war was "all about oil," and only about oil. The left's refusal to acknowledge that a desire to secure Israel in the region had anything to do with the Bush neocons' war planning is difficult to fathom, since many on the left are notable critics of Israeli policy. But, again, whatever their intent in quashing discussion of the Israeli link, the effect has been to contribute to silencing domestic debate on a critical U.S. policy issue.

Neither is it clear in Wilkerson's case whether he intended, by discussing Israeli representations against going after Iraq, to divert attention from Israel's actual interest in Iraq. But once again, diverting and silencing discussion has been the effect of his brief remarks.

Without closer examination, both Greenspan's and Wilkerson's statements seem to let Israel and its U.S. lobbyists off the hook, something that in differing ways serves the interests of Israel and the lobby, of the right in the U.S., and of the left. Israel's U.S. supporters -- fearful that Jews will be blamed for leading the U.S. into the debacle that Iraq has become and fearful of reviving old anti-Semitic canards about Jews exerting undue power -- roundly deny any Israeli connection to the war. Israel itself, although not as fearful as its American acolytes of anti-Semitism, has remained silent, obviously not affirming a role in instigating the war and letting its supporters do the denying. The U.S. political right does not, of course, want to acknowledge that the relationship with Israel has grown so close that the U.S. would actually go to war at the behest of or for the benefit of Israel. Nor does it want to own up to any of the other actual motivations for the war -- neither, as previously noted, to a motivation like oil nor to a baldly imperial motivation promising (and already providing) great profits for the joint U.S.-Israeli military-industrial complex.

The left, on the other hand, very much wants to believe that oil, and perhaps secondarily the imperial drive, constituted the only motivations, and that Israel played no role at all. The left is as skittish as anyone, and perhaps more so than anyone else, about being seen to criticize Israel except occasionally regarding the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories. It is much more comfortable for the left to believe that the U.S. is evil and Israel is at worst a hapless tool of Washington. The thought that the tail might wag the dog is rarely taken seriously.

So the weight of public discourse since before the Iraq war was launched has been that any Israeli role in inspiring or pushing for it is at best a silly invention and at worst a vile anti-Jewish lie, and both the Wilkerson and the Greenspan statements play into this impression. Until these statements, the knowledge of an Israeli connection had begun to gain some greater currency thanks to a few valiant souls who have dared raise the subject, including people like Chris Hedges, Scott Ritter and, most recently, John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt. In July, Hedges wrote a hard-hitting article for Truthdig, subsequently widely circulated, saying that the war "was strongly shaped by the notion that what is good for Israel is good for the United States," and Israel and its neocon supporters wanted Iraq neutralized. Hedges also acknowledged a "desire for American control of oil" as a major driver of the war, along with "the belief that Washington could build puppet states in the region."

Scott Ritter, who served as a weapons inspector in Iraq during the 1990s, paints a somewhat more complex picture in his 2006 book Targeting Iran. He makes it clear, supporting Wilkerson's statement, that over the years of weapons inspections, Israel had come to regard Iraq as a diminishing threat (unlike Greenspan, apparently), whereas Iran was increasingly viewed as a new looming danger. By August 2002, according to Ritter, when the Israelis passed intelligence about the threat from Iran to the Bush administration, "there was barely a reaction in Washington" because "all eyes were on Baghdad, not Tehran." But Israel's Ariel Sharon was, in Ritter's words, "quick to catch on," and in those last several months of 2002 -- the critical months of war planning, coming well after the early 2002 period that Wilkerson was discussing -- Israel jumped on the Iraq war bandwagon, publicly and privately, and began to press for and justify a U.S. invasion. Sharon assigned a senior Israeli military intelligence official to give the U.S. Israeli intelligence assessments on Iraqi WMD activity, according to Ritter, and at the same time, with an eye to later broadening the conflict to Iran and beyond, Israeli intelligence "pressed home to [the U.S.] the notion that the upcoming U.S. invasion of Iraq must serve as a springboard for a larger transformation within the Middle East, one that swept away not only Saddam Hussein, but also anti-Israeli elements in Syria, Palestine, and, of course, Iran."

This dovetails precisely with the neocon agenda, which was ultimately the operative ingredient in determining whether there would be war or not. This agenda was laid out publicly in the mid-1990s in the now infamous "Clean Break" paper, written in Israel for then-Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu by a group of Israelis and Americans, three of whom later entered the Bush administration and began planning for the attack on Iraq. The principal elements of the paper involved overturning the Palestinian-Israeli peace process to save Israel from having to make any territorial concessions and then sparking massive changes, through force if necessary, in Iraq, Syria, and Iran, leading to an era of peace in which Israel and the U.S. jointly dominated a transformed and intimidated Middle East.

In their book on the lobby, Mearsheimer and Walt provide overwhelming evidence for an Israeli link to the war that completely undermines the public myths revived by Wilkerson's and Greenspan's statements, and they build a convincing case against the notion that the war was "all about oil." They are the first who have done the extensive research necessary to bring the mountain of evidence together.

The two authors devote more than 30 pages and a remarkable 175 footnotes to constructing an irrefutable case for an Israeli role in helping plan, and a large lobby role in pressing for, the war. Although they do not claim that the effort to guarantee Israeli security was the sole reason for the U.S. invasion of Iraq, they demonstrate clearly -- citing public and privates statements by Israeli military and political officials, informed commentary in both Israel and the U.S., and analysis by foreign policy experts -- that "Israeli leaders, neoconservatives, and the Bush administration all saw war with Iraq as the first step in an ambitious campaign to remake the Middle East" in order to "make it a more friendly environment for America and Israel." Israel and the lobby "played crucial roles in making that war happen." Without the lobby and particularly the core of neocon policymakers inside government and neocon commentators and think-tank analysts on the sidelines, Mearsheimer and Walt conclude bluntly, "the war would almost certainly not have occurred" and "America would probably not be in Iraq today."

On the question of oil as a principal driver in the war, the authors demonstrate that in fact, although the oil industry was clearly happy to obtain lucrative concessions in post-Saddam Iraq, the argument that the industry pushed for the war in order to enhance profits is counter-intuitive. The disadvantages to the industry of turmoil in the region are evident. Energy companies, they make clear, do not like wars in oil-rich areas. Nor do they like such other recent "staples of U.S. Middle East policy" as sanctions and regime change, because each of these actions "threatens access to oil and gas reserves and thus [the oil companies'] ability to make money." Mearsheimer and Walt point out that Vice President Cheney opposed sanctions on Iran while he was president of Halliburton in the mid-1990s and complained about the "sanctions happy" policies of the U.S. Instability is rarely in the interests of the oil companies. In the end, the authors conclude, the "wealthy Arab governments and the oil lobby exert much less influence on U.S. foreign policy than the Israel lobby does, because oil interests have less need to skew foreign policy in the directions they favor and they do not have the same leverage."

It is fair to ask why it matters whether the U.S. went to war solely for oil, or solely for Israel, or out of an imperial drive -- or, as is much more likely the case, for some combination of these motivations. It matters, most fundamentally, because, if there is ever to be a course correction and a return to some kind of policy sanity that will prevent similar future disasters, it is necessary to understand how this disaster arose in the first place. All of these motivations, together and separately, are unacceptable reasons for launching an unprovoked aggression against another sovereign nation, for killing up to a million of its innocent citizens, and for fostering chaos throughout the region. Global sanity and global security demand that the U.S. not invade other countries to obtain control over their natural resources or gain huge corporate profits through oil concessions. Global sanity and security also demand that the U.S. cease trying to expand its imperial reach. And, perhaps most important, it is absolutely vital that the U.S. not so subordinate what should be its true interests to those of another nation that it can be led into wars anywhere, but particularly in the most sensitive area of the world, at the behest or for the benefit of Israel. If going to war to secure huge profits for oil companies is obscene, how much more obscene is going to war for the benefit of a foreign power because we are no longer able to distinguish our interests from theirs?

It has become almost trite to quote George Washington's farewell speech urging moderation in foreign attachments, but his injunctions 200 years ago have an eerie applicability to the U.S. relationship with Israel today. Warning against "a passionate attachment of one nation for another," Washington observed that this creates "a variety of evils. Sympathy for the favorite nation, facilitating the illusion of an imaginary common interest in cases where no real common interest exists, and infusing into one the enmities of the other, betrays the former into a participation in the quarrels and wars of the latter without adequate inducement or justification."

The U.S. alliance with Israel has unquestionably led to a gross distortion of U.S. policy in exactly the way in which Washington predicted, creating the illusion of a common interest where none exists and injecting Israel's enmities into the U.S. with little or no justification. If the U.S. cannot distinguish its own interests from those of Israel and Israel's lobby, then it simply cannot act, as it should, purely in its own interest. Those who minimize the role of the Israel lobby in influencing U.S. policy choices, and who refuse or fail to recognize the part Israel and the lobby have played in leading the U.S. into disastrous foreign adventures, pose an incalculable danger to the U.S., for a failure to recognize the reason for a misguided policy will inevitably doom us to repeat it.

Kathleen Christison is a former CIA political analyst and has worked on Middle East issues for 30 years. She is the author of Perceptions of Palestine and The Wound of Dispossession. She can be reached at kathy.bill.christison@comcast.net.

Bill Christison was a senior official of the CIA. He served as a National Intelligence officer and as director of the CIA's Office of Regional and Political Analysis.

They can be reached at kathy.bill.christison@comcast.net.

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•°o.O AIPAC: war with iran for israel O.o°•

2007-10-14T21:03:00.000-04:00

AIPAC Pushing for War With Iran for Israel
NeconZionistThreat.Blogspot.Com

See Video:

"There are pro-Israel groups, not just Jewish - many of them are Christian fundamentalists, that believe in supporting the Israeli government no matter what it does and no matter what it wants. These people are all upset and excited about Iran and are pushing hard for a confrontational stance." -Barbara Slavin

Barbara Slavin discusses her book, "Bitter Friends, Bosom Enemies: Iran, the U.S. & the Twisted Path to Confrontation," as well as the current U.S. stance toward Iran and her thoughts on how to deal with the country and its president.

The fact is, Israel attacked the USS Liberty. "It's time for the truth to come out," declared Boston, who is now 84. "There have been so many cover-ups." - N ew revelations in attack on American spy ship Veterans, documents suggest U.S., Israel didn't tell full story of deadly '67 incident By John Crewdson Tribune senior correspondent.

Also see: AIPAC is pushing us to war with Iran for Israel

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•°o.O williams: attack on iran = world war O.o°•

2007-10-14T20:29:00.000-04:00

On Fox News Sunday, right-wing pundit Bill Kristol continued to beat the war drums for a strike against Iran. “I hope the administration is willing to do what it takes to back Iran off,” he said, adding that “we may need to do stuff across the border.”

NPR’s Mara Liasson claimed that the Bush administration could politically “withstand” an attack against Iran, and that a bombing raid inside Iran would not count as “an all-out war.”

NPR’s Juan Williams noted that Liasson and Kristol were in effect condoning “the next world war”:

WILLIAMS: I think what Bill Kristol is saying is he wants some action against Iran in a way that Israel apparently took action against Syria. And I think what you’re looking at then is the next world war. […]

And if we now say the U.S. is going to take action against Iran, and it’s not as a result of some specific provocative action, then you’re talking about spreading war.

Kristol responded by citing the recent Israeli airstrike on Syria as evidence for his claim that a strike on Iran would not have deeper consequences. “Has the Israeli action against Syria spread war? Has that destabilized the region?” Kristol asked. Watch it:

Last year, Williams told Kristol: “You just want war, war, war, and you want us in more war. ”
Neither Liasson nor Kristol should fool themselves about the consequences of striking Iran. Former National Security Advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski recently said “that Iran would likely react to an American attack ‘by intensifying the conflict in Iraq and also in Afghanistan, their neighbors, and that could draw in Pakistan. We will be stuck in a regional war for twenty years.’”

Transcript:

KRISTOL: And Dave Petraeus and Ryan Crocker understand exactly that, and they are pursuing a very sophisticated political-military strategy of classic counterinsurgency. But Charles is absolutely right. It requires security.

You cannot get people to invest politically until they feel that we’re not going to betray them and they’re not going to be left in the mercies of Al Qaida on the one hand or Iranian-backed militias on the other.

That’s why the one thing — the only thing I now think that stands in the way of success is Iran, and I’m worried — General Petraeus is clearly alarmed by the degree of Iranian support, training, weapons providing, to the extreme Shia militias, to the extreme elements, the special elements, Jaish al Mahdi.

I hope the administration is willing to do what it takes to back Iran off. I think if the Bush administration does that, we’ll be…

HUME: Well, that’s the question. What will that take?

KRISTOL: Well, I think we’ve warned them. We’re being very aggressive against them in the country.

We have not done anything across the — we have not succeeded in getting them, apparently, to slow down the flow of advanced arms or the training of Iraqis in Iran, which is doing real damage to U.S. forces and which makes it harder for the Shia to do exactly what Charles is talking about…

HUME: What would happen…

KRISTOL: … to flip over to our side. We may need to do stuff across the border.

HUME: What would happen, Mara, in your judgment politically if the administration took action against Iran inside Iran?

LIASSON: I think it would depend on what kind of action. I mean, I think it would…

HUME: Well, sent a bombing raid on a training camp.

LIASSON: A bombing raid on a training camp?

HUME: Or a series of them.

LIASSON: I think it could withstand that. I think the that the Democrats — there would be some calls that this is war and you needed congressional approval. There would certainly be that.

But I think that if it was limited, if it wasn’t kind of an all- out war with Iran…

HUME: So you don’t think all hell would break loose.

LIASSON: No. I think there would be…

HUME: What do you think, Juan?

LIASSON: There would be criticisms, but, no, I think that…

WILLIAMS: I think what Bill Kristol is saying is he wants some action against Iran in a way that Israel apparently took action against Syria. And I think what you’re looking at then is the next world war.

LIASSON: That’s kind of different. Oh, striking nuclear facilities? I thought we’re talking about just training camps…

WILLIAMS: Well, no, but that’s what happened with Israel and Syria. And if we now say the U.S. is going to take action against Iran, and it’s not as a result of some specific provocative action, then you’re talking about spreading war.

KRISTOL: Has the Israeli action against Syria spread war? Has that destabilized the region?

•°o.O gore gets a cold shoulder O.o°•

2007-10-13T21:35:00.000-04:00

Steve Lytte

SMH.Com.AU

October 14, 2007

ONE of the world's foremost meteorologists has called the theory that helped Al Gore share the Nobel Peace Prize "ridiculous" and the product of "people who don't understand how the atmosphere works".

Dr William Gray, a pioneer in the science of seasonal hurricane forecasts, told a packed lecture hall at the University of North Carolina that humans were not responsible for the warming of the earth.

His comments came on the same day that the Nobel committee honoured Mr Gore for his work in support of the link between humans and global warming.

"We're brainwashing our children," said Dr Gray, 78, a long-time professor at Colorado State University. "They're going to the Gore movie [An Inconvenient Truth] and being fed all this. It's ridiculous."

At his first appearance since the award was announced in Oslo, Mr Gore said: "We have to quickly find a way to change the world's consciousness about exactly what we're facing."
Mr Gore shared the Nobel prize with the United Nations climate panel for their work in helping to galvanise international action against global warming.

But Dr Gray, whose annual forecasts of the number of tropical storms and hurricanes are widely publicised, said a natural cycle of ocean water temperatures - related to the amount of salt in ocean water - was responsible for the global warming that he acknowledges has taken place.
However, he said, that same cycle meant a period of cooling would begin soon and last for several years.

"We'll look back on all of this in 10 or 15 years and realise how foolish it was," Dr Gray said.
During his speech to a crowd of about 300 that included meteorology students and a host of professional meteorologists, Dr Gray also said those who had linked global warming to the increased number of hurricanes in recent years were in error.

He cited statistics showing there were 101 hurricanes from 1900 to 1949, in a period of cooler global temperatures, compared to 83 from 1957 to 2006 when the earth warmed.

"The human impact on the atmosphere is simply too small to have a major effect on global temperatures," Dr Gray said.

He said his beliefs had made him an outsider in popular science.

"It bothers me that my fellow scientists are not speaking out against something they know is wrong," he said. "But they also know that they'd never get any grants if they spoke out. I don't care about grants."

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•°o.O :) the government loves you! O.o°•

2007-10-11T23:00:00.000-04:00

in a spirit of GRATITUDE to your government, i encourage you to review their operations and projects which have made america what it is today....
go to this search engine

and run a search for some of these WONDERFUL socio-political programs!

operation northwoods
operation gladio
operation mockingbird
operation ajax
operation paperclip
project mkultra
project bluebird
project artichoke
project monarch
cointelpro
Presidential Directive W199-eye

to finish off this pleasent exercise, sit back and relax while you look forward to the socio-political program coming to a borough near you!

•°o.O iran, the inflatable bogey O.o°•

2007-10-10T22:03:00.000-04:00

The Big Lie: ‘Iran Is a Threat’

by Scott Ritter

CommonDreams.org

October 8, 2007

Iran has never manifested itself as a serious threat to the national security of the United States, or by extension as a security threat to global security. At the height of Iran’s “exportation of the Islamic Revolution” phase, in the mid-1980’s, the Islamic Republic demonstrated a less-than-impressive ability to project its power beyond the immediate borders of Iran, and even then this projection was limited to war-torn Lebanon.

Iranian military capability reached its modern peak in the late 1970’s, during the reign of Reza Shah Pahlevi. The combined effects of institutional distrust on the part of the theocrats who currently govern the Islamic Republic of Iran concerning the conventional military institutions, leading as it did to the decay of the military through inadequate funding and the creation of a competing paramilitary organization, the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Command (IRGC), and the disastrous impact of an eight-year conflict with Iraq, meant that Iran has never been able to build up conventional military power capable of significant regional power projection, let alone global power projection.

Where Iran has demonstrated the ability for global reach is in the spread of Shi’a Islamic fundamentalism, but even in this case the results have been mixed. Other than the expansive relations between Iran (via certain elements of the IRGC) and the Hezbollah movement in Lebanon, Iranian success stories when it comes to exporting the Islamic revolution are virtually non-existent. Indeed, the efforts on the part of the IRGC to export Islamic revolution abroad, especially into Europe and other western nations, have produced the opposite effect desired. Based upon observations made by former and current IRGC officers, it appears that those operatives chosen to spread the revolution in fact more often than not returned to Iran noting that peaceful coexistence with the West was not only possible but preferable to the exportation of Islamic fundamentalism. Many of these IRGC officers began to push for moderation of the part of the ruling theocrats in Iran, both in terms of interfacing with the west and domestic policies.

The concept of an inherent incompatibility between Iran, even when governed by a theocratic ruling class, and the United States is fundamentally flawed, especially from the perspective of Iran. The Iran of today seeks to integrate itself responsibly with the nations of the world, clumsily so in some instances, but in any case a far cry from the crude attempts to export Islamic revolution in the early 1980’s. The United States claims that Iran is a real and present danger to the security of the US and the entire world, and cites Iranian efforts to acquire nuclear technology, Iran’s continued support of Hezbollah in Lebanon, Iran’s “status” as a state supporter of terror, and Iranian interference into the internal affairs of Iraq and Afghanistan as the prime examples of how this threat manifests itself.

On every point, the case made against Iran collapses upon closer scrutiny. The International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), mandated to investigate Iran’s nuclear programs, has concluded that there is no evidence that Iran is pursuing a nuclear weapons program. Furthermore, the IAEA has concluded that it is capable of monitoring the Iranian nuclear program to ensure that it does not deviate from the permitted nuclear energy program Iran states to be the exclusive objective of its endeavors. Iran’s support of the Hezbollah Party in Lebanon - Iranian protestors shown here supporting Hezbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah during an anti-Israel rally - while a source of concern for the State of Israel, does not constitute a threat to American national security primarily because the support provided is primarily defensive in nature, designed to assist Hezbollah in deterring and repelling an Israeli assault of sovereign Lebanese territory. Similarly, the bulk of the data used by the United States to substantiate the claims that Iran is a state sponsor of terror is derived from the aforementioned support provided to Hezbollah. Other arguments presented are either grossly out of date (going back to the early 1980’s when Iran was in fact exporting Islamic fundamentalism) or unsubstantiated by fact.

The US claims concerning Iranian interference in both Iraq and Afghanistan ignore the reality that both nations border Iran, both nations were invaded and occupied by the United States, not Iran, and that Iran has a history of conflict with both nations that dictates a keen interest concerning the internal domestic affairs of both nations. The United States continues to exaggerate the nature of Iranian involvement in Iraq, arresting “intelligence operatives” who later turned out to be economic and diplomatic officials invited to Iraq by the Iraqi government itself. Most if not all the claims made by the United States concerning Iranian military involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan have not been backed up with anything stronger than rhetoric, and more often than not are subsequently contradicted by other military and governmental officials, citing a lack of specific evidence.

Iran as a nation represents absolutely no threat to the national security of the United States, or of its major allies in the region, including Israel. The media hype concerning alleged statements made by Iran’s President Ahmadinejad has created and sustained the myth that Iran seeks the destruction of the State of Israel. Two points of fact directly contradict this myth. First and foremost, Ahmadinejad never articulated an Iranian policy objective to destroy Israel, rather noting that Israel’s policies would lead to its “vanishing from the pages of time.” Second, and perhaps most important, Ahmadinejad does not make foreign policy decisions on the part of the Islamic Republic of Iran. This is the sole purview of the “Supreme Leader,” the Ayatollah Khomeini. In 2003 Khomeini initiated a diplomatic outreach to the United States inclusive of an offer to recognize Israel’s right to exist. This initiative was rejected by the United States, but nevertheless represents the clearest indication of what the true policy objective of Iran is vis-à-vis Israel.

The fact of the matter is that the “Iranian Threat” is derived solely from the rhetoric of those who appear to seek confrontation between the United States and Iran, and largely divorced from fact-based reality. A recent request on the part of Iran to allow President Ahmadinejad to lay a wreath at “ground zero” in Manhattan was rejected by New York City officials. The resulting public outcry condemned the Iranian initiative as an affront to all Americans, citing Iran’s alleged policies of supporting terrorism. This knee-jerk reaction ignores the reality that Iran was violently opposed to al-Qaeda’s presence in Afghanistan throughout the 1990’s leading up to 2001, and that Iran was one of the first Muslim nations to condemn the terror attacks against the United States on September 11, 2001.

A careful fact-based assessment of Iran clearly demonstrates that it poses no threat to the legitimate national security interests of the United States. However, if the United States chooses to implement its own unilateral national security objectives concerning regime change in Iran, there will most likely be a reaction from Iran which produces an exceedingly detrimental impact on the national security interests of the United States, including military, political and economic. But the notion of claiming a nation like Iran to constitute a security threat simply because it retains the intent and capability to defend its sovereign territory in the face of unprovoked military aggression is absurd. In the end, however, such absurdity is trumping fact-based reality when it comes to shaping the opinion of the American public on the issue of the Iranian “threat.”

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•°o.O ron paul lays down the law in michigan O.o°•

2007-10-10T00:09:00.000-04:00

Mitt Romney Goes All Alberto Gonzales on the Constitution

By John Nichols, The Nation

Call it the Alberto Gonzales approach to the system of checks and balances.

Asked whether he would obey the Constitution and consult Congress before sending U.S. troops into combat, former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney says he would consult his lawyers first.

Just as President Bush turned to Gonzales for legal opinions that the disgraced former White House counsel and Attorney General wrote with the purpose of absolving the commander-in-chief of any duty to uphold the Constitution, so Romney says that he would take his cue from contemporary counselors rather than the Founders of the American experime.

The question in Tuesday's Republican presidential debate in Michigan came from MSNBC host Chris Matthews, who asked, "Governor Romney... if you were president of the United States, would you need to go to Congress to get authorization to take military action against Iran's nuclear facilities?"

Romney's responded, "You sit down with your attorneys and (they) tell you what you have to do. But obviously the president of the United States has to do what's in the best interest of the United States to protect us against a potential threat. The president did that as he was planning on moving into Iraq and received the authorization of Congress..."

Matthews interjected: "Did (President Bush) need (a go-ahead from Congress)?"

"You know," Romney replied, "we're going to let the lawyers sort out what he needed to do and what he didn't need to do."

Most of the other GOP contenders paid at least a measure of lip service to Constitutional niceties, with Arizona Senator John McCain and former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson displaying relative respect for the separation of powers while former Arkansas Governor Mike
Huckabee adopted the mad-bomber line.

When all was said and done, however, only Texas Congressman Ron Paul actually challenged Romney's disregard of the essential document.

Matthews asked, "Congressman Paul, do you believe the president needs authorization of Congress to attack strategic targets in Iran, nuclear facilities?"

"Absolutely," said Paul, who in 2002 was one of six House Republicans to vote against authorizing Bush to attack Iraq. "This idea of going and talking to attorneys totally baffles me. Why don't we just open up the Constitution and read it? You're not allowed to go to war without a declaration of war."

Paul went on to dismiss the whole notion that Iran poses a threat to the U.S. "The thought that the Iranians could pose an imminent attack on the United States is preposterous. There's no way. This is just... war propaganda, continued war propaganda, preparing this nation to go to war and spread this war not only in Iraq, but into Iran, unconstitutionally. It is a road to disaster for us as a nation. It's a road to our financial disaster if we don't read the Constitution once in a while."

Later, Paul would attempt to explain to Rudy Giuliani that the September 11, 2001, attacks
were carried out by terrorists, rather than a foreign government. When the former New York mayor again attempted to use the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon as justification for preemptive attacks on sovereign states, Paul explained with regard to September 11: "That was no country. That was 19 thugs. That had nothing to do with a country."

Giuliani wasn't having any of it. "So imminent attack is a possibility, and we should be ready for it," the Republican front runner ranted, before declaring that "we have to be willing to use a military option" against Iran.

That dust-up may explain one of the more intriguing exchanges of Tuesday night's debate.
"Congressman Paul," moderator Matthews asked, "do you promise to support the nominee of the Republican Party next year?"

"Not right now I don't," Paul replied. "Not unless they're willing to end the war and bring our troops home. And not unless they are willing to look at the excess in spending. No, I'm not going to support them if they continue down the path that has taken our party down the tubes."

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•°o.O life's NOT a campaign! O.o°•

2007-10-08T18:33:00.000-04:00

Stewart tells MSNBC host: Your book is a 'recipe for sadness'

Mike Aivaz and Nick Juliano
RawStory.com
October 3, 2007

On Tuesday night's Daily Show, MSNBC host Chris Matthews got an in-person taste of Jon Stewart's penchant for mocking the mainstream media and the conventional wisdom it espouses. Matthews, appearing to promote his new book Life's a Campaign, said he had endured the "interview from hell" after Stewart panned the new book as a Machiavellian "recipe for sadness."

The following video is from Comedy Central's Daily Show with Jon Stewart, broadcast on October 2, 2007. (Article continues below).

"What you are saying is, people can use what politicians do in political campaigns to help their lives. ... That strikes me as fundamentally wrong," Stewart said at the opening of the interview.

"It strikes me as a self-hurt book, if you will. Aren't campaigns fundamentally contrivances?"

Matthews extolled the virtues of listening and insisted that people can learn much about success from the tools employed in successful political campaigns.

"It's always a campaign," Matthews said. "It's a campaign to get the girl of your dreams; it's a campaign to do everything you want to do in life."

"But there has to be some core of soul in there," Stewart retorted. "What campaigns are, are photo opportunities that are staged, and there's nothing in this book about, 'Be good; be competent.'"

Matthews said that information was in the Bible -- "it's been written," he said.

"This book has been written too, it's called The Prince," Stewart retorted, referring to Machiavelli's treatise. "I thought that (your book) was a recipe for sadness. ... If you live this book, your life will be strategy, and ... you'll be unhappy."

As the interview became more heated, Matthews invited Stewart to a tete-a-tete on his home turf, Hardball, which Stewart declined. "I don't troll," he said.

"You are unbelievable," an exasperated Matthews said. "This is a book interview from hell; this is the worst interview I've ever had in my life. This is the worst. You are the worst."

"There's something in here that you fear," Matthews charged.

"Like fascism; I fear fascism," Stewart retorted.

Given one last opportunity to talk up his tome's "good values," Matthews gave up and tossed the book on Stewart's desk after the host couldn't contain his laughter.

At the end of the segment, Stewart offered to go on Hardball "and you can yell at me." He then extended his hand, "Friends?"

The two men shook hands before the show went to commercial.

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•°o.O ron paul: dollar could fall to 0 O.o°•

2007-10-08T11:49:00.000-04:00

Congressman: Dollar Could Collapse To Absolute Zero

Paul Joseph Watson
PrisonPlanet.com
October 8, 2007

Presidential candidate Ron Paul has made a dire prediction that the dollar could collapse to absolute zero - precipitating hyper inflation, soaring oil prices and a global economic depression if current policies are continued.

“Once they realize the American people have awakened to the con game that’s been going on - I think those people running the banking and monetary system aren’t going to be too happy,” Paul told the Alex Jones Show on Friday.

The Texas Congressman forecasts that if current policies are prolonged, the dollar could crash all the way to nothing and be forced to start over.

“If Bush is foolish enough to start bombing Iran, that might precipitate such a crisis as oil going to $200 dollars a barrel and really dampening the enthusiasm of the whole dollar,” said Paul.

“If they continue what they’re doing, it’s gonna go to zero, we’re gonna have runaway inflation,
all paper currencies eventually self-destruct and are ruined, and we’re in uncharted waters right now - this is the first time in the history of man you’ve had no solid currencies around the world and this has been going on for 35 years.”

Paul agreed that elitists would seize upon a global depression by posing as the saviors and offering more control, police state and big government as the solution.

“This was the whole thing that started in the last depression,” said Paul, “Scare people to death instead of blaming the Federal Reserve for the depression and the financial bubble of the 20’s, they said ‘well capitalism failed, it was that stupid gold standard’, therefore we have to have welfare and of course everything they did prolonged the depression.”

Paul said his warnings about the impending collapse of the U.S. economy, which stretch back years, were helping his campaign gain credibility due to the unfolding crises in the market and the credit crunch.

“When the people understand how the Fed screws up the economy and causes all the bubbles and all the changes that have to come from that, I’m getting a lot more calls,” said Paul. The Congressman also discussed the continued success of his campaign and the establishment’s attempts to stifle its importance.

The presidential candidate said the reason that the Democrats and Republicans are trying to speed up the primaries is because they don’t like competition from third party and grass roots candidates and are trying to prevent them from gaining traction.

“The move right now is to try to close the primaries - do you think they’re sincere when they
say they want to have a big tent and invite new people in? They can invite a lot of new people in but they don’t want constitutionalists evidently because they want to make it tough to vote in a Republican primary,” said the Congressman.

“It confirms the fact that the control of this whole system has been one party so to speak, it’s one group of people that control both parties and right now I think the people are getting disgusted with it and they’re starting to wake up,” he added.

The Congressman stated that the popularity of his campaign outstripped even his expectations and slammed the establishment networks for attempting to skew Paul as a fringe candidate.

“It doesn’t discourage our supporters, it enrages them,” said Paul, “They always claimed that there were just a few of us out there that cared and that they were bloggers manipulating the Internet - well you can’t manipulate to the point where you get 35,000 new donors who average about $40 dollars a piece and raise $5 million dollars and outpace many of the other candidates.” Paul said the other candidates had initially tried to ignore his platform, before ridiculing it, to the point where they are now being forced to adopt constitutionalist rhetoric in order to compete with his burgeoning popularity.

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•°o.O the ron paul breakthrough O.o°•

2007-10-08T11:36:00.000-04:00

Antiwar Message is the Key to Paul's Burgeoning Success

By Jason Raimondo
AntiWar.com
October 8, 2007

Ron Paul is breaking through. His call to return to the vision of the Founders, and the principles embodied in the Constitution, is piercing the wall of silence that surrounds the conduct of our disgraceful foreign policy. Andrea Mitchell proclaims him the new Howard Dean, network television takes note of his fundraising prowess and the resonance of his message, and then we have this very favorable piece on CNN, not to mention this, this, and this – all of which points to the appearance – or, rather, reappearance – of a resurgent political movement on the horizon: an anti-interventionist wing of the GOP.

Commentators, including those who most definitely look on Paul's success with a very jaundiced eye, are baffled. Why is this happening? How could a mere blip on the electoral screen, a man nobody thought was worth even a footnote in the story of this presidential campaign, suddenly catapult into prominence?

The answer is illustrated in a recent poll, which shows that the majority of Iowa Republicans want us out of Iraq in six months – a far more radical proposition than any of the major Democrats has yet to offer. It's no accident that Paul's political breakthrough is occurring just as the dissatisfaction of the GOP rank and file over the Iraq war issue reaches the breaking point. As the sole antiwar candidate in the Republican field, it makes perfect political sense that Paul's campaign is in the ascendancy.

Yes, of course, there are other issues in this race: the sellout of the conservative agenda on fiscal policy, a wholesale and unrelenting assault on the Bill of Rights, the immigration mess, the spectacle of a "socially conservative" party with a putative presidential front-runner whose private life is neither private nor an example of Christian virtue. Paul has some appeal to GOPers who can't stomach one – or any – of these ideological anomalies.

Yet most of these issues would not be relevant without the single most important question in this election, the answer to which underlies the basic approach of all the presidential candidates, and that is the war – not just the war in Iraq, but the one to come in Iran, as well as the broader "war on terrorism" that has eaten up so much of our attention and resources since 9/11.

For surely Giuliani would have been considered a long shot for the GOP nomination in a world where 9/11 never happened. What would he have run on, without his status as the vaunted hero of 9/11 to constantly fall back on and refer to? His entire campaign is based on the synchronicity of his being in Gracie Mansion as the Twin Towers fell: without that, he'd be somewhere between Mike Huckabee and Tom Tancredo in the polls.

The massive erosion of our civil liberties, the fiscal crisis staring us in the face, and even the immigration quandary have all been either brought to the fore out of relative obscurity or else greatly exacerbated by the post-9/11 hysteria that has so deformed the national consciousness and, consequently, our politics. Underlying all these disparate issues is the foreign policy question, and only Ron Paul is giving Republican voters an answer quite different from, say, Giuliani's – to take a cartoonishly extreme example of the pro-war view.

The media-anointed "front-runner" has problems other than having to explain himself to social conservatives. After all, how many Americans, even including Republicans, really want to see Norman Podhoretz ensconced in the Department of State? Once they hear Poddy's plea to President Bush to please, pretty please start bombing Iran, I'd venture to say not many.

As for the other GOP hopefuls, McCain has run out of gas, with his campaign stalled and his fundraising in free-fall. Why? McCain has been dragged down by the albatross of his more-royalist-than-the-king position on the Iraq war, his signature issue and the one he – mistakenly – built his entire campaign around. Fred Thompson has proved a dud, even less inspiring than the Stepford candidate, with all of Reagan's vagueness and none of his charm or acumen. The second- and third-tier candidates display an alarming lack when it comes to having either a clear ideological message or any particular brand of charisma (except for Alan Keyes, whose brand of charisma, like his ideology, is so idiosyncratic that it cancels itself out). Huckabee should announce he's running for vice president and be done with it, and the others amount to little more than vanity campaigns. By means of a simple process of elimination, Republicans are left with Ron Paul as the only alternative to ideological bankruptcy and looming political disaster.

The approach the chattering classes have taken to the Ron Paul phenomenon has been classic, rather along the lines of Gandhi's famous aphorism: first they ignore you, then they ridicule you, then they fight you, then you win.

The "let's ignore him and maybe he'll go away" phase ended right after the contretemps with Giuliani over the theory of "blowback." Giuliani's verbal assault on Paul condensed the ridicule-fight-victory process into a single, signal incident. What Giuliani and his enablers in the media failed to realize is that Paul's calm, considered, and thoughtful answer resonated with many voters.

The Iraq war has opened this entire question up as it relates to 9/11, a subject that was previously taboo, as Susan Sontag, Bill Maher, the Dixie Chicks, and any number of Andrew Sullivan's enemies, both real and imagined, learned to their sorrow. The war dramatized exactly what the critics of American foreign policy had been pointing out, to little effect, for years: that hostility toward America and the gathering terrorist threat were blowback from our actions overseas.

Rudy Giuliani is going around the country hectoring audiences with his Podhoretzian message of a civilizational war between the U.S. empire and international Islam: They hate us, he yells, they really hate us for who we are! Yes, but who are "we," exactly? If we're starting with the speaker of those words, then no wonder they hate us, but, aside from that, what's the problem? Is it our obsession with Britney Spears – or is it the bombs raining down on the Arab world, the propping up of killer regimes like Hosni Mubarak's in Egypt and the House of Saud, and our unconditional support for Israeli aggression (and not just against the Palestinians)?

Ron Paul has an answer quite different from the one usually given – or, I should say, the one allowed – by the self-appointed arbiters of political correctness: the debate "moderators," the pundits and television talkers, the "analysts" and "experts" who, like ancient seers examining the entrails of goats, interpret the meaning of political actors and events for us.

We have, however, outgrown such superstitions and no longer need or want the guidance of the gatekeepers, who have traditionally guarded the door to social and political "legitimacy" with jealous vigor. All their vigor and jealousy failed against a technology that simply outflanked them, took them by surprise, and laid siege to their journalistic fortress. These mandarins hid behind the Times-Select wall to the bitter end but couldn't keep it up indefinitely: there is no better symbol of the gatekeepers' fall. It was only a matter of time before that wall came down – and, with it, the whole concept of "mainstream" thought presided over by guardians of the permissible. The leveling of the playing field, made possible by the cybernetic revolution, has ended the intellectual and political monopoly of the elites. It's no wonder that the Paul campaign has such a massive online presence.

Furthermore, the existence of the Internet, far from destroying journalism, as predicted by some die-hard dead-tree'ers, has forced the "mainstream" media to be more responsive and flexible. That's why they're now paying attention to the Paul campaign: Ron is news, big-time political news. He's drawing thousands to his campaign rallies, a boast not many presidential candidates of either party can credibly make. And he's raking in the money. This quarter, he's brought in almost as much as McCain, and he's third – behind Giuliani and Romney – in the cash-on-hand sweepstakes. Money talks – and now they have to take him seriously.

The establishment has fallen back on their second line of defense: they ridicule him as a "kook," a "loon," and even a "bigot" – in short, they're trotting out the same attack strategy they used to target another rebel against the party establishment, true-blue conservative-slash libertarian Barry Goldwater.

Back in 1964, when the electorate was still in thrall to the gatekeepers' media machine, this tactic was quite effective. Today, however, this ploy has the effect of underscoring the depth of Paul's challenge to the political status quo, thereby enhancing his appeal. It works rather like the concept of blowback in the foreign policy realm: just as U.S. military intervention invites an equal and opposite reaction from its overseas victims, so the intervention of our political elites against the rising Paulian grassroots insurgency guarantees his base of support will expand.

Ignore, ridicule, attack – we're about into the third phase, and I expect that will commence shortly. Perhaps as shortly as the next GOP debate, and certainly right after. The neoconservatives have been the target of Paul's scorn on several occasions, and he is likely to receive it back in kind before long. Aside from Jonah Goldberg's ill-informed renunciation of Robert A. Taft and a few bouts of snickering at The Corner, National Review has so far kept its trap shut tight about the Texas troublemaker, even going so far as to exclude him from their daily compilation of stories about the GOP primary campaign. I have the feeling, however, that their silence is about to end, and Ron is about to join the ranks of the "unpatriotic conservatives." After all, the neocons have to somehow stop the erosion of their base at the hands of someone who so clearly understands the role of neoconservatism as a cancer eating away at the heart of the GOP and the conservative movement.

In their view, Paul is falling for the line of the "Left" that America is fighting a futile war against forces it neither understands nor has any hope of controlling, and yet if this was truly a "leftist" idea one would imagine that the Left would come to Paul's defense – but, no. The same "Ron is nuts" meme being spread by neocon snarkers on the right side of the blogosphere is being echoed by the "center" liberal-left. You see, anyone who opposes the system that makes imperialism possible – the mercantilist, state-capitalist system of corruption that enriches the few at the expense of the many – is "crazy."

Maybe he's just crazy enough to think our rulers will let him, or anyone with a major public platform, get away with exposing the full extent of their corruption – and thank God for that.

The Good Doctor is not alone in prescribing a change – a radical change – in our stance toward the rest of the world. You're hearing it not only on the Washington cocktail party circuit, but around the office water cooler: it's time to start disengaging from the mess our interventionist policymakers have created, starting in the Middle East. In carrying this stance into the arena of GOP presidential politics, Ron is a libertarian-noninterventionist gladiator taking on several lions at once. The resulting knockdown drag-out battle, regardless of its outcome, is going to be fun to watch.

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•°o.O george bush, holocaust denier O.o°•

2007-10-07T21:44:00.000-04:00

White House: Bush recognizes 1915 events but doesn’t rank them genocide

PanARMENIAN.Net

Gordon Johndroe, a White House spokesman, said President Bush "reiterated his opposition to the Armenian Genocide resolution, the passage of which would be harmful to U.S. relations with Turkey." Johndroe said Bush believes the Armenian episode ranks among the greatest tragedies of the 20th century, but the determination whether "the events constitute a genocide should be a matter for historical inquiry, not legislation."

Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around the time of World War I, an event widely viewed by genocide scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century. Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide.

At the U.S. State Department, the senior official who deals with Turkish relations said the United States position is not to deny or accept that genocide occurred. Nevertheless, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried said, "We do not believe this bill would advance either the cause of historical truth or Turkish-Armenian reconciliation or the interests of the United States."
The Turkish reaction to passage of the bill would be extremely strong, Fried said. It would do "grave harm" to relations with Turkey, a NATO ally, and damage the U.S. war effort in Iraq, Turkey’s neighbor.

The resolution is largely symbolic and would not be binding on foreign policy. Similar measures have been offered before and never passed, but it appears to have a good chance of passage in the Democratic-controlled House if it is brought to a vote, The Associated Press reports.

H.RES.398 - RECOGNITION OF THE ARMENIAN GENOCIDE - contact your congressman please

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•°o.O mahatir: 9/11 coverup & war O.o°•

2007-10-07T19:52:00.000-04:00

No Place For War Criminals

By Shahanaaz Habib & Lisa Goh

Perdana4 Peace.org

KUALA LUMPUR: People should use their power and make leaders found guilty by the War Crimes Tribunal “unwelcome wherever they go”, Tun Dr Mahathir Mohamad said.

“They (the war criminals) should be literally hounded,” the former prime minister said in his keynote address at the three-day Expose War Crimes – Criminalise War Conference here yesterday.

“They should have their full frontal and profile pictures put up everywhere as war criminals. And historians should always refer to them as war criminals in history books.

”He said all leaders, especially those from powerful nations, wanted to go down in history as great men – identified with great deeds and not as war criminals.

“History should remember (British Prime Minister Tony) Blair and (US President George W.) Bush as the Killers of Children or as the Lying Prime Minister and President. What Blair and Bush have done is worse than what Saddam (Hussein) had done,” he added.

He proposed the setting up of a permanent tribunal to criminalise war, which would be empowered by victims of aggression and right-minded people, to hear charges levelled at war-mongers, leaders and governments of aggressor nations to determine their innocence or guilt.

He said it should be made up of international jurists of repute with no personal or national interest in matters referred to them so that their judgments would be based on evidence and not sentiment.

Admitting that the tribunal might not have the power to enforce its decisions because the people on trial might be too powerful, he said: “We should find ways and forms of punishments that are within our capacity."

“The jurists should have no qualms about the unorthodox laws they should draft or the kind of punishment they should prescribe.”

Wars, Dr Mahathir pointed out, are nothing more than “legitimised terror.”

“Wars are crimes against humanity. The terror caused by powerful countries with their rockets, missiles and bombs cannot be said to be less than that caused by a suicide bomber. Powerful countries are much more terrorists than the suicide bombers,” he said.

Dr Mahathir noted that while the suicide pilots in the Sept 11, 2001, terror attack on the United States killed 3,000 people, 600,000 Afghans and Iraqis have been killed and continue to be killed by their “powerful oppressors” (the West).

“Sending in more troops simply creates more targets,” he added.

Unless war is made illegal, he said, the whole world would have to endure an endless state of war between the powerful and the weak.

Later, during a question-and-answer session, Dr Mahathir said he had doubts that the collapse of the World Trade Centre in New York was actually caused by terrorists crashing planes into the towers.

He said the buildings had collapsed in an orderly manner with such military precision that it all seemed well planned.

“I can believe that they (the United States) would kill 3,000 of their own to have an excuse to kill 650,000 Iraqis. These are the kind of people we are dealing with. Please don't think this is fiction.”

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•°o.O how zionists win debates O.o°•

2007-10-07T12:04:00.000-04:00

1. Bribe.
when that doesn't work,
2. Intimidate.
when that doesn't work,
3. Threaten.
when that doesn't work.
4. Punish.It's that simple.

Dissenting at Your Own Risk

By Cecilie Surasky

Star-Telegram

Some glaring examples of the above techniques applied:

Why is Israel's increasingly brutal 40-year occupation of Palestinian land regularly debated in the mainstream media abroad, including in Israel, but not here?

Last year, I agreed to speak to a Jewish youth group about my organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, and our opposition to Israel's occupation. My talk was to follow one from a member of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which calls itself "America's pro-Israel Lobby."
A week before, a shaken program leader said the AIPAC staffer had threatened to get the entire youth program's funding canceled if I was allowed in the door. The threat worked, and in disgust, they canceled the whole talk.

Pundits will surely argue for years about professors Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer's explosive new book, The Israel Lobby, which blames poor U.S. policy in the Middle East on a loose network of individuals and pro-Israel advocacy groups.

But the book, and the response to it, opens up another controversy: the stifling of debate about unconditional U.S. support for Israeli policies.

Why is Israel's increasingly brutal 40-year occupation of Palestinian land regularly debated in the mainstream media abroad, including in Israel, but not here? And why is there an almost total lack of discussion among presidential candidates about the dollars that subsidize this occupation and the American diplomatic support that makes it possible?

In a society built on the free exchange of ideas, as Walt and Mearsheimer point out, one answer can be found by looking at the many self-appointed gatekeepers, such as Abraham Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League, or Harvard law professor Alan Dershowitz, who use their Jewish identity as both a shield and cudgel. They work diligently to silence those who question ill-conceived policies of the Israeli and U.S. governments.

Non-Jewish critics, even former President Carter, are denounced as anti-Semites. Special ire is reserved for Jewish dissenters, who are branded as "self-hating" or "marginal," while Muslim and Arab-Americans are easily smeared and even criminalized with charges of supporting terrorism.

Stunned by the stifling of dissent, we decided to start a Web site, Muzzlewatch, to track the incidents. Just as we launched, Stanford Middle East Studies Professor Joel Beinin was disinvited from a speaking engagement at a high school with just 24 hours' notice.
After an unprecedented campaign of outside interference waged by Dershowitz, Professor Norman Finkelstein was refused tenure by DePaul University because of his criticism of U.S.-Israeli policy. Palestinian-American anthropologist Nadia Abu El-Haj is fighting a political campaign to deny her tenure at Barnard.

Even Walt and Mearsheimer, who are getting plenty of exposure, couldn't have asked for better proof of their point that the lobby works to stifle dissent when an embarrassed head of the Chicago Council on Global Affairs told them that their scheduled speech was canceled. (They did speak before the World Affairs Council of Dallas/Fort Worth on Sept. 17.) This was apparently because Foxman was not available that day to "balance" their talk.

(They had initially been booked by themselves. The talk was not rescheduled.)

Many groups that started with the important work of fighting real anti-Semitism now rely on anti-Semitism to insist that to show one's love of Jews, one must offer uncritical support to Israel. They are especially displeased by Jews who believe that enabling Israeli violations of Palestinian human rights is not good for anyone.

Unless this atmosphere of intimidation is confronted, Americans will continue to lack access to information and perspectives necessary to formulate effective Middle East policies, virtually ensuring that Israel and the United States will be at war for many years to come.

And this is just a short list.

Zionist attacks against anyone who dares criticize israel are legion.

ter·ror·ism [ter-uh-riz-uhm]–noun
1. the use of violence and threats to intimidate or coerce, esp. for political purposes.
2. the state of fear and submission produced by terrorism or terrorization.
3. a terroristic method of governing or of resisting a government.

How much longer are Americans going to let zionists terrorize into silence anyone and everyone who stands in the way of their political plans?

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•°o.O it all starts in the head O.o°•

2007-10-07T10:57:00.000-04:00

Iraq Redux: Bush Thinks God is Telling Him to Invade Iran

By Igor Volsky on BodyPolitik.org

In this week’s New Yorker, investigative reporter Seymour Hersh writes that there has been “a significant increase in the tempo of attack planning” for war with Iran inside the Bush administration. Hersh reported that the administration has shifted focus “from a broad bombing attack against Iran’s nuclear facilities to “surgical” strikes again Revolutionary Guard Corps facilities in Tehran and elsewhere."

Today, in an interview with journalist Jon Wiener, Hersh suggested that “the president is essentially messianic” about regime change in Iran.

He sees this as his mission. It could be because God is telling him to do it. It could be because his daddy didn’t do it. It could be because it’s step 13 in a 12-step program he was in. I just don’t know.”

Hersh may be on to something. In 2005, the Guardian reported that “Bush has claimed he was on a mission from God when he launched the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, according to a senior Palestinian politician.” According to the Palestinian source Bush said:

‘I am driven with a mission from God’. God would tell me, ‘George go and fight these terrorists in Afghanistan’. And I did. And then God would tell me ‘George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq’. And I did. And now, again, I feel God’s words coming to me, ‘Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East’. And, by God, I’m gonna do it.

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Mike Rivero's take:

Sorry, but anyone "hearing voices in their head" needs immediate medical and psychiatric attention.

And they should absolutely not have the "nuclear football anywhere under their control.
The problem for the US right now is this.

Even if the congress collectively had the "male attributes to invoke the 25th Amendment on the president, the vice-president who would replace him wouldn't hesitate using nukes on Iran.

This is but not because of any religious convictions, but simply if such an attack it makes great financial sense for the companies with which he is still afiliated..

When you talk to God, that's prayer.

When God talks back, that's schizophrenia.

•°o.O ron paul presidency odds: 6/1 O.o°•

2007-10-06T21:43:00.000-04:00

Ron Paul Odds Have Been Slashed to 6 to 1: Now Favored Over Romney

By Christopher Costigan Gamling911.com

Public pushes Ron Paul odds down even further this week

Forget those political polls. Throughout time (at least the last decade), oddsmakers have had an uncanny knack for predicting political races. It's not so much that they have a crystal ball, rather the lines adjust based on public action. When it comes to political betting, the public action is presumed to represent votes. The theory being that someone who is likely to vote on Mitt Romney probably won't bet on Ron Paul winning.

The gambling public seems to believe that 2008 Presidential candidate Ron Paul stands a very good chance of winning, so much so that this past week odds on Dr. Paul have been slashed further from 8 to 1 down to 6 to 1, with the potential payout of $600 for every $100 bet. (see betting odds at Sportsbook.com).

This gives Ron Paul shorter odds than Mitt Romney. He's only slightly trailing behind John McCain (5 to 1 odds) and Rudy Giuliani (5 to 1 odds). Fred Thompson is the favorite among Republicans with odds of 4 to 1.

We'll put an asterisk on this one since so much of the betting action on Ron Paul has been prompted by Gambling911.com readers. Still, it is a reflection of ardent support for their favorite candidate.

"These short odds represent the folks at Sportsbook.com reacting to all the betting action generated as a result of articles that have appeared on the Gambling911.com website over the past few months," points out Carrie Stroup, Gambling911.com reporter and this month's FHM Magazine featured babe.

The Gambling911 site was one of the first to break the news about Ron Paul drafting legislation to make tips exempt, thus prompting an effort by his massive legion of supporters to target the service industry with Ron Paul sermons.

"If I were a bartender, I would vote for Ron Paul," admits Payton O'Brien, Senior Editor of Gambling911.com, who in recent months has been following the Paul campaign with interest. She is a Democrat.

Gambling911.com reporter, Jenny Woo, who has stripped once or twice in her past life, believes that strippers, bartenders, wait staff, casino dealers and those who depend heavily on tips will lean towards a Ron Paul vote.

"We work hard for the money and it's that drive that is a characteristic also found in the voter mentality," Woo says.

The Ron Paul supporters are yet to hit competing online gambling websites whose Presidential betting odds have not been promoted by Gambling911.com.

"Now is the time for Ron Paul supporters to start banging sites like World Sports Exchange, which still have Paul with +2400 odds for a payout potential of $2400 on every $100 bet when he wins," O'Brien recommends. World Sports Exchange betting odds on Dr. Paul can be found here. "They (WSEX) even have Huckabee ahead of Paul. If I were a Ron Paul supporter, I would be outraged and let them have it, even with a $5 bet!"

World Sports Exchange actually lets you see how many bets are being placed on each candidate.

"Your money is safe with World Sports Exchange even though they do not advertise here," reassured O'Brien. "So let's hammer them!"

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•°o.O 1987 london times exposé O.o°•

2007-10-06T01:39:00.000-04:00

Smallpox vaccine 'triggered Aids virus'

By Pearce Wright, Science Editor
London Times
May 11, 1987

The Aids epidemic may have been triggered by the mass vaccination campaign which eradicated smallpox. The World Health Organization, which masterminded the 13-year campaign, is studying new scientific evidence suggesting that immunization with the smallpox vaccine Vaccinia awakened the unsuspected, dormant human immuno defence virus infection (HIV).
Some experts fear that in obliterating one disease, another disease was transformed from a minor endemic illness of the Third World into the current pandemic. While doctors now accept that Vaccinia can activate other viruses, they are divided about whether it was the main catalyst to the Aids epidemic.

But an adviser to WHO who disclosed the problem, told The Times: 'I thought it was just a coincidence until we studied the latest findings about the reactions which can be caused by Vaccinia. Now I believe the smallpox vaccine theory is the explanation to the explosion of Aids.' 'In obliterating one disease, another was transformed.'

Further evidence comes from the Walter Reed Army Medical Centre in Washington. While smallpox vaccine is no longer kept for public health purposes, new recruits to the American armed services are immunized as a precaution against possible biological warfare. Routine vaccination of a 19-year-old recruit was the trigger for stimulation of dormant HIV virus into Aids.

This discovery of how people with subclinical HIV infection are at risk of rapid development of Aids as a vaccine-induced disease was made by a medical team working with Dr Robert Redfield at Walter Reed. The recruit who developed Aids after vaccination had been healthy throughout high school. He was given multiple immunizations, followed by his first smallpox vaccination.

Two and a half weeks later he developed fever, headaches, neck stiffness and night sweats. Three weeks later he was admitted to Walter Reed suffering from meningitis and rapidly developed further symptoms of Aids and died after responding for a short time to treatment. There was no evidence that the recruit had been involved in any homosexual activity.

In describing their discovery in a paper published in the New England Journal of Medicine a fortnight ago, the Walter Reed team gave a warning against a plan to use modified versions of the smallpox vaccine to combat other diseases in developing countries.

Other doctors who accept the connection between the anti-smallpox campaign and the Aids epidemic now see answers to questions which had baffled them. How, for instance, the Aids organism, previously regarded by scientists as 'weak, slow and vulnerable,' began to behave like a type capable of creating a plague.

Many experts are reluctant to support the theory publicly because they believe it would be interpreted unfairly as criticism of WHO. In addition, they are concerned about the impact on other public health campaigns with vaccines, such as against diptheria and the continued use of Vaccinia in potential Aids research.

The coincidence between the anti-smallpox campaign and the rise of Aids was discussed privately last year by experts at WHO. The possibility was dismissed on grounds of unsatisfactory evidence. Advisors to the organization believed then that too much attention was being focussed on Aids by the media.

It is now felt that doubts would have risen sooner if public health authorities in Africa had more willingly reported infection statistics to WHO. Instead, some African countries continued to ignore the existence of Aids even after US doctors alerted the world when the infection spread to the United States.

However, as epidemiologists gleaned more information about Aids from reluctant Central African countries, clues began to emerge from the new findings when examined against the wealth of detail known about smallpox as recorded in the Final Report of the Global Commission for the Certification of Smallpox Eradication.

The smallpox vaccine theory would account for the position of each of the seven Central African states which top the league table of most-affected countries; why Brazil became the most afflicted Latin American country; and how Haiti became the route for the spread of Aids to the US. It also provides an explanation of how the infection was spread more evenly between males and females in Africa than in the West and why there is less sign of infection among five to 11-year-olds in Central Africa.

Although no detailed figures are available, WHO information indicated that the Aids league table of Central Africa matches the concentration of vaccinations. The greatest spread of HIV infection coincides with the most intense immunization programmes , with the number of people immunised being as follows: Zaire 36,878,000; Zambia 19,060,000; Tanzania 14,972,000; Uganda 11,616,000; Malawai 8,118,000; Ruanda 3,382,000 and Burundi 3,274,000.

Brazil, the only South American country covered in the eradication campaign, has the highest incidence of Aids in that region. About 14,000 Haitians, on United Nations secondment to Central Africa, were covered in the campaign. They began to return home at a time when Haiti had become a popular playground for San Francisco homosexuals.

Dr Robert Gello, who first identified the Aids virus in the US, told The Times: 'The link between the WHO programme and the epidemic in Africa is an interesting and important hypothesis. 'I cannot say that it actually happened, but I have been saying for some years that the use of live vaccines such as that used for smallpox can activate a dormant infection such as HIV. 'No blame can be attached to WHO, but if the hypothesis is correct it is a tragic situation and a warning that we cannot ignore.'

Aids was first officially reported from San Francisco in 1981 and it was about two years later before Central African states were implicated. It is now known that these states had become a reservoir of Aids as long ago as the later 1970s.

Although detailed figures of Aids cases in Africa are difficult to collect, the more than two million carriers, and 50,000 deaths, estimated by the World Health Organization are concentrated in the Countries where the smallpox immunization programme was most intensive. The 13-year eradication campaign ended in 1980, with the saving of two million lives a year and 15 million infections. The global saving from eradication has been put at dollars 1,000 million a year.

Charity and health workers are convinced that millions of new Aids cases are about to hit southern Africa. After a meeting of 50 experts near Geneva this month it was revealed that up to 75 million, one third of the population, could have the disease within the next five years.
Some organizations which have closely studied Africa, such as War on Want, believe that South

Africa's black population, so far largely protected from the disease, could be most affected as migrant workers bring it into the country from the worst hit areas further north. The apartheid policy, they predict, will intensify its outbreak by confining the groups into comparatively small, highly populated towns where it will be almost impossible to contain its spread.

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•°o.O dangerous terrorism O.o°•

2007-10-05T10:25:00.000-04:00

LONDON (Reuters) - A Thai restaurant's potent homemade chilli sauce caused a chemical scare in central London, with police shutting streets and firefighters forced to smash down the door.
Streets were cordoned off outside the Thai Cottage restaurant in London's Soho theatre and nightlife district.

"It was initially thought to be a chemical problem. Somebody smelled what they thought was chemicals. So we went there, cordoned it off and assisted the fire brigade," a police spokesman said.

The ambulance service dispatched a Hazardous Area Response Team unit to Monday night's alarm.

Firefighters dressed in special suits broke down the doors and discovered the source of the smell: chef Chalemchai Tangjariyapoon's fiery signature nam prik pao chilli sauce.

The chef was baffled by the commotion. "I was making a spicy dip with extra-hot chillis that are deliberately burnt. To us, it smells like burnt chilli and it is slightly unusual," he told the Times newspaper.

"I can understand why people who weren't Thai would not know what it was. But it doesn't smell like chemicals."

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•°o.O O.o°•

•°O.O O.O°•

•°O.O O.O°•

free your mind

free your mind

Israel PM mostly unscathed by war report

Iran vows to retaliate against U.S. bases in Gulf if it attacks first

Judicial Watch Announces List of Washington’s “Ten Most Wanted Corrupt Politicians” for 2007

BHUTTO SACRIFICED AT THE MOMENT WHEN DEAL WAS CUT BETWEEN U.S.MILITARY & MUSHARRAF

FBI Now Admits Evidence Used to Connect Oswald to Kennedy Assasination Was Bogus

It turns out Ahmadinejad was the truthful one

Posthumous book claims Ford knew of CIA coverup in Kennedy assassination

Imaginationland

***PEAK OIL DEBUNKED***PLEASE READ

America suffers an epidemic of suicides among traumatised army veterans

Neo-Libs & Neo-Cons Gang Up On Ron Paul Supporters

IAEA: Iran generally truthful on nukes

LOOSE CHANGE - FINAL CUT (2007)

State of Emergency: Could Bush ever arbitrarily declare martial law like Musharraf has in Pakistan?

FOX NEWS: DOLLAR INFLATION GOOD!

Olbermann: Does Bush want to remake US into ‘invisible fascist state’?

The American empire is falling with the dollar

Blix: I was smeared by the Pentagon

Sarkozy accused of working for Israeli intelligence

Times: Bush plans to keep Pakistan from being mockery of democracy 'fell apart spectacularly'

Shouting at the Devil: “Fuck You, Capitalism!”

Top US general praises man who got US into Iraq, WMD fabricator Ahmad Chalabi

Israel: The First Nation to Legalize Torture

No evidence Iran is making nuclear weapons: ElBaradei

Israeli Foreign Minister: Iran Nukes Do Not Pose Threat to Israel

Poisoned ex-Russian spy Litvinenko WAS a paid-up MI6 agent

"Thought Crime Bill" Could Ensnare Peaceful Activists

Putin gives stark missile warning

President Bush turns the screw on Iran with sanctions against its military elite

Attack Iran and you attack Russia

ENDGAME

FBI: al-Qaeda detainee spoke of fire plot (hahaha!!)

Iraq: US involved in terrorist acts

Ron Paul Wins Another GOP Fox Debate - Hannity Denies It

SAS raiders enter Iran to kill gunrunners

Only Ron Paul Can Beat Hillary Clinton

Why I know weapons expert Dr David Kelly was murdered, by the MP who spent a year investigating his death

Iraq whistleblower Dr Kelly WAS murdered to silence him, says MP

WWIII – Bring It On

Putin calls on U.S. to set pullout date in Iraq

Establishment Media Finally Admits Ron Paul Is Top Tier Candidate; Could Win Nomination

Why, Even If You Have Nothing To Hide, Government Surveillance Threatens Your Freedom

We're In A Lot Of Trouble

UN: Action to be taken against interpreter for false report that Syria has a nuclear facility

•°o.O see no evil O.o°•

•°o.O AIPAC: war with iran for israel O.o°•

•°o.O williams: attack on iran = world war O.o°•

•°o.O gore gets a cold shoulder O.o°•

•°o.O :) the government loves you! O.o°•

•°o.O iran, the inflatable bogey O.o°•

•°o.O ron paul lays down the law in michigan O.o°•

•°o.O life's NOT a campaign! O.o°•

•°o.O ron paul: dollar could fall to 0 O.o°•

•°o.O the ron paul breakthrough O.o°•

•°o.O george bush, holocaust denier O.o°•

•°o.O mahatir: 9/11 coverup & war O.o°•

•°o.O how zionists win debates O.o°•

•°o.O it all starts in the head O.o°•

•°o.O ron paul presidency odds: 6/1 O.o°•

•°o.O 1987 london times exposé O.o°•

•°o.O dangerous terrorism O.o°•

PEAK OIL DEBUNKEDPLEASE READ