Estimated Prophet

Israel Linked Bogus Tweeters Destabilize Iran

2009-06-21T10:40:00.002-04:00

A Presidential candidate calling himself the winner before the votes are counted?

A social networking site 'informing the world' using newly minted "tweeters" that are promoted by a right wing newspaper in an antagonistic country within hours of their first posts? The folks being promoted writing in ENGLISH-

Said paper altering their web article after this has been revealed?

Welcome to the Zionists corrupting Iranian democracy and the worlds perspective.

Proof: Israeli Effort to Destabilize Iran Via Twitter #IranElection

Right-wing Israeli interests are engaged in an all out Twitter attack with hopes of delegitimizing the Iranian election and causing political instability within Iran.
Anyone using Twitter over the past few days knows that the topic of the Iranian election has been the most popular. Thousands of tweets and retweets alleging that the election was a fraud, calling for protests in Iran, and even urging followers hack various Iranian news websites (which they did successfully). The Twitter popularity caught the eye of various blogs such as Mashable and TechCrunch and even made its way to mainstream news media sites.

Were these legitimate Iranian people or the works of a propaganda machine? I became curious and decided to investigate the origins of the information. In doing so, I narrowed it down to a handful of people who have accounted for 30,000 Iran related tweets in the past few days. Each of them had some striking similarities -

1. They each created their twitter accounts on Saturday June 13th.
2. Each had extremely high number of Tweets since creating their profiles.
3. “IranElection” was each of their most popular keyword
4. With some very small exceptions, each were posting in ENGLISH.
5. Half of them had the exact same profile photo
6. Each had thousands of followers, with only a few friends. Most of their friends were EACH OTHER.

Why were these tweets in English? Why were all of these profiles OBSESSED with Iran? It became obvious that this was the work of a team of people with an interest in destabilizing Iran. The profiles are phonies and were created with the sole intention of destabilizing Iran and effecting public opinion as to the legitimacy of Iran’s election.

I narrowed the spammers down to three of the most persistent - @StopAhmadi @IranRiggedElect @Change_For_Iran

I decided to do a google search for 2 of the 3 - @StopAhmadi and @IranRiggedElect. The first page to come up was JPost (Jerusalem Post) which is a right wing newspaper pro-Israeli newspaper.

JPost actually ran a story about 3 people “who joined the social network mere hours ago have already amassed thousands of followers.” Why would a news organization post a story about 3 people who JUST JOINED TWITTER hours earlier? Is that newsworthy? JPost was the first (and only to my knowledge) major news source that mentioned these 3 spammers.

JPost, a major news organization, promoted these three Twitterers who went on the be the source of the IranElection Twitter bombardment. Why is JPost so concerned about Iranian students all of a sudden (which these spammers claim to be)? I must admit that I had my suspicions. After all, Que Bono? (who benefits).

There’s no question that Israel perceives Iran as an enemy, more so than any other nation. According to a recent poll, more than half of Israel’s population support using military force against Iran if they do not cease from developing nuclear energy (which they have the legal right to do as per the NNP treaty). Oddly enough, this comes out of a country which is not a cosigner to the NNP treaty and has no right to develop nuclear energy, yet posses an arsenal of nuclear BOMBS.

Of course, Mousavi himself plays an important role in causing the social unrest within Iran. How often do you see a candidate declare himself the winner before any votes are counted and then, when faced with defeat, call the entire election process a fraud? As obvious as it was in our own 2000 election, Al Gore would not touch the topic of voter fraud. No major US politician goes near the subject. They know full well that such an accusation would shake the entire foundation of our democracy and threaten the political structures that are in place.

Read it ALL

Here is the proof, multiple graphics and all, that show the JPost both linked to the Tweeters oddly enough right after they got posting. Then removed the paragraph with the links from the web presence of the article after this tie in had been revealed.

The savvy web researcher found this scheme out by googling the screen names of the most prolific tweeters using keywords of concerning Iran and the election.

Read the whole article. you'll be amazed- and I doubt FOX CNN or any of the other corporate media outlets will touch it.

Martial Law?

2008-09-28T20:56:00.001-04:00

“Mr. Speaker I understand we are under Martial Law as declared by the speaker last night.”

That is a quote from the Republican Representative from north Texas, Michael Burgess.

Is there something going on that "We the People" are unaware of? Alright, it would be naive to think otherwise, given the amount of tax payer money involved in socialising Wall Streets losses- but MARTIAL LAW?

Here we have Democratic Rep Marcy Kaptur:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oAADyc6t4nY

Why Does Gas Cost So Much?

2008-03-24T22:53:00.001-04:00

Did you know that gas price gouging almost never occurs as prices rise? Rather, it's most often when dealers keep prices artificially high even as their costs fall.

As gas costs rise to $4 a gallon and oil companies earn around $100 billion each year, it's a good time to question what really goes into the price of gas.

The numbers on the gas station sign hide a complex set of transactions. Before gas can power your car, it must be discovered as crude oil, traverse three markets, and be refined from crude into gas.

Inside, we'll explain the three markets, walk you through the role of refineries, and show how oil companies use creative tactics to manipulate gas prices...

Get the facts

Hillary Clinton's 'silly' Irish peace claim

2008-03-08T20:16:00.002-05:00

By Toby Harnden in Washington

Hillary Clinton had no direct role in bringing peace to Northern Ireland and is a "wee bit silly" for exaggerating the part she played, according to Lord Trimble of Lisnagarvey, the Nobel Peace Prize winner and former First Minister of the province.

"I don’t know there was much she did apart from accompanying Bill [Clinton] going around," he said. Her recent statements about being deeply involved were merely "the sort of thing people put in their canvassing leaflets" during elections. "She visited when things were happening, saw what was going on, she can certainly say it was part of her experience. I don’t want to rain on the thing for her but being a cheerleader for something is slightly different from being a principal player."

Mrs Clinton has made Northern Ireland key to her claims of having extensive foreign policy experience, which helped her defeat Barack Obama in Ohio and Texas on Tuesday after she presented herself as being ready to tackle foreign policy crises at 3am.

"I helped to bring peace to Northern Ireland," she told CNN on Wednesday. But negotiators from the parties that helped broker the Good Friday Agreement in 1998 told The Daily Telegraph that her role was peripheral and that she played no part in the gruelling political talks over the years.

Lord Trimble shared the Nobel Peace Prize with John Hume, leader of the nationalist Social Democratic and Labour Party, in 1998. Conall McDevitt, an SDLP negotiator and aide to Mr Hume during the talks, said: "There would have been no contact with her either in person or on the phone. I was with Hume regularly during calls in the months leading up to the Good Friday Agreement when he was taking calls from the White House and they were invariably coming from the president."
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Central to Mrs Clinton’s claim of an important Northern Ireland role is a meeting she attended in Belfast in with a group of women from cross-community groups. "I actually went to Northern Ireland more than my husband did," she said in Nashua, New Hampshire on January 6th.

"I remember a meeting that I pulled together in Belfast, in the town hall there, bringing together for the first time Catholics and Protestants from both traditions, having them sitting a room where they had never been before with each other because they don’t go to school together, they don’t live together and it was only in large measure because I really asked them to come that they were there.

"And I wasn’t sure it was going to be very successful and finally a Catholic woman on one side of the table said, ’You know, every time my husband leaves for work in the morning I worry he won’t come home at night.

"And then a Protestant woman on the other side said, ’Every time my son tries to go out at night I worry he won’t come home again’. And suddenly instead of seeing each other as caricatures and stereotypes they saw each other as human beings and the slow, hard work of peace-making could move forward."

There is no record of a meeting at Belfast City Hall, though Mrs Clinton attended a ceremony there when her husband turned on the Christmas tree lights in November 1995. The former First Lady appears to be referring a 50-minute event the same day, arranged by the US Consulate, the same day at the Lamp Lighter Café on the city’s Ormeau Road.

The "Belfast Telegraph" reported the next day that the café meeting was crammed with reporters, cameramen and Secret Service agents. Conversation "seemed a little bit stilted, a little prepared at times" and Mrs Clinton admired a stainless steel tea pot, which was duly given to her, for keeping the brew "so nice and hot".

Among those attending were women from groups representing single parents, relationship counsellors, youth workers and a cultural society. In her 2003 autobiography "Living History", Mrs Clinton wrote about the meeting in some detail but made no claim that it was significant.

Rather than it being the first time the women had met, Mrs Clinton wrote: "Because they were willing to work across the religious divide, they had found common ground." Mary Fox, the wife of a former IRA prisoner and one of the seven women at the meeting, said she had been there on behalf of the Footprints community centre. "It was quite a political change for the women’s sector after the visit of Hillary Clinton. We would love to see her as president. She spoke to each of us and was very interested in our work. She was lovely."

Mr McDevitt said: "I’ve always had a theory that these people were already well networked. Maybe they needed a bit of bringing together and she [Mrs Clinton] was an ideal focus point." Once a peace deal was in place, Mrs Clinton supported women politicians and was always available if they visited Washington "to give them a pat on the back, give them moral support", he added.

"So in a classic woman politicky sort of way I think she was active...She was certainly investing some time, no doubt about it. Whether she was involved on the issue side I think probably not." Some of the people Mrs Clinton met went on to help found the Women’s Coalition, which took part in the Good Friday talks. Lord Trimble said: "The Women’s Coalition will think they were important. Other people beg to differ."

Steven King, a negotiator with Lord Trimble’s Ulster Unionist Party, argued that Mrs Clinton might even have helped delay the chances of peace. "She was invited along to some pre-arranged meetings but I don’t think she exactly brought anybody together that hadn’t been brought together already," he said. Mrs Clinton was "a cheerleader for the Irish republican side of the argument", he added.

"She really lost all credibility when on Bill Clinton’s last visit to Northern Ireland [in December 2000] when she hugged and kissed [Sinn Fein leaders] Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness."

Responding to inquiries from this newspaper, Hillary Clinton’s campaign issued a statement from Mr Hume. "I am quite surprised that anyone would suggest that Hillary Clinton did not perform important foreign policy work as First Lady," the statement said.

"I can state from firsthand experience that she played a positive role for over a decade in helping to bring peace to Northern Ireland. She visited Northern Ireland, met with very many people and gave very decisive support to the peace process.

"There is no doubt that the people of Northern Ireland think very positively of Hillary Clinton’s support for our peace process, due to her visits to Northern Ireland and her meetings with so many people. In private she made countless calls and contacts, speaking to leaders and opinion makers on all sides, urging them to keep moving forward."

Only The KoolAid Drinkers Approve

2008-02-20T22:09:00.000-05:00

February 20, 2008
Concerns over Economy Push
George W. Bush's Overall Job Approval to New Low
George W. Bush's overall job approval rating has dropped to a new low in American Research Group polling as 78% of Americans say that the national economy is getting worse according to the latest survey from the American Research Group.
Among all Americans, 19% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 77% disapprove. When it comes to Bush's handling of the economy, 14% approve and 79% disapprove.

Among Americans registered to vote, 18% approve of the way Bush is handling his job as president and 78% disapprove. When it comes to the way Bush is handling the economy, 15% of registered voters approve of the way Bush is handling the economy and 79% disapprove.
A total of 78% of Americans say the national economy is getting worse and 47% say the national economy is in a recession. A total of 42% of Americans, however, say they believe the national economy will be better a year from now, which is the highest level for this question in the past year. This optimism does not spread to improvements in household financial situations as 17% of Americans say they expect their household financial situations to be better a year from now, which is the lowest for this question in the past year.
The results presented here are based on 1,100 completed telephone interviews conducted among a nationwide random sample of adults 18 years and older. The interviews were completed February 16 through 19, 2008. The theoretical margin of error for the total sample is plus or minus 2.6 percentage points, 95% of the time, on questions where opinion is evenly split.
Overall, 19% of Americans say that they approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job as president, 77% disapprove, and 4% are undecided.

Fidel Castro resigns as Cuba's president

2008-02-19T16:48:00.001-05:00

Fidel Castro Resigns Cuban Presidency After Nearly Half-Century in Power

An ailing, 81-year-old Fidel Castro resigned as Cuba's president Tuesday after nearly a half-century in power, saying he will not accept a new term when parliament meets Sunday.

The end of Castro's rule — the longest in the world for a head of government — frees his 76-year-old brother Raul to implement reforms he has hinted at since taking over as acting president when Fidel Castro fell ill in July 2006. President Bush said he hopes the resignation signals the beginning of a democratic transition.

"My wishes have always been to discharge my duties to my last breath," Castro wrote in a letter published Tuesday in the online edition of the Communist Party daily Granma. But, he wrote, "it would be a betrayal to my conscience to accept a responsibility requiring more mobility and dedication than I am physically able to offer."

The Madness of John McCain

2008-02-13T20:40:00.000-05:00

A militarist suffering from acute narcissism and armed with the Bush Doctrine is not fit to be commander in chief.

by Justin Raimondo

John McCain’s reputation as a maverick is no recent contrivance. The senator first captured the media spotlight in September 1983, not long after he’d been elected to his first term in the House, when he voted against President Reagan’s decision to put American troops in Lebanon as part of a multinational “peacekeeping” force. One of 27 Republicans to break with the White House, the freshman McCain made a floor speech that reads as if it might have been written yesterday—by Ron Paul:

The fundamental question is: What is the United States’ interest in Lebanon? It is said we are there to keep the peace. I ask, what peace? It is said we are there to aid the government. I ask, what government? It is said we are there to stabilize the region. I ask, how can the U.S. presence stabilize the region?... The longer we stay in Lebanon, the harder it will be for us to leave. We will be trapped by the case we make for having our troops there in the first place.

What can we expect if we withdraw from Lebanon? The same as will happen if we stay. I acknowledge that the level of fighting will increase if we leave. I regretfully acknowledge that many innocent civilians will be hurt. But I firmly believe this will happen in any event.

Now insert “Iraq” where McCain said “Lebanon.” It’s as if McCain the Younger foresaw our present predicament and taunted his future incarnation, showing that wisdom doesn’t necessarily come with age.

The FBI Deputizes Business

2008-02-08T22:20:00.000-05:00

Today, more than 23,000 representatives of private industry are working quietly with the FBI and the Department of Homeland Security. The members of this rapidly growing group, called InfraGard, receive secret warnings of terrorist threats before the public does—and, at least on one occasion, before elected officials. In return, they provide information to the government, which alarms the ACLU. But there may be more to it than that. One business executive, who showed me his InfraGard card, told me they have permission to “shoot to kill” in the event of martial law.
InfraGard is “a child of the FBI,” says Michael Hershman, the chairman of the advisory board of the InfraGard National Members Alliance and CEO of the Fairfax Group, an international consulting firm.

InfraGard started in Cleveland back in 1996, when the private sector there cooperated with the FBI to investigate cyber threats.

“Then the FBI cloned it,” says Phyllis Schneck, chairman of the board of directors of the InfraGard National Members Alliance, and the prime mover behind the growth of InfraGard over the last several years.

InfraGard itself is still an FBI operation, with FBI agents in each state overseeing the local InfraGard chapters. (There are now eighty-six of them.) The alliance is a nonprofit organization of private sector InfraGard members.

“We are the owners, operators, and experts of our critical infrastructure, from the CEO of a large company in agriculture or high finance to the guy who turns the valve at the water utility,” says Schneck, who by day is the vice president of research integration at Secure Computing.

“At its most basic level, InfraGard is a partnership between the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the private sector,” the InfraGard website states. “InfraGard chapters are geographically linked with FBI Field Office territories.”

In November 2001, InfraGard had around 1,700 members. As of late January, InfraGard had 23,682 members, according to its website, www.infragard.net, which adds that “350 of our nation’s Fortune 500 have a representative in InfraGard.”

To join, each person must be sponsored by “an existing InfraGard member, chapter, or partner organization.” The FBI then vets the applicant. On the application form, prospective members are asked which aspect of the critical infrastructure their organization deals with. These include: agriculture, banking and finance, the chemical industry, defense, energy, food, information and telecommunications, law enforcement, public health, and transportation.

FBI Director Robert Mueller addressed an InfraGard convention on August 9, 2005. At that time, the group had less than half as many members as it does today. “To date, there are more than 11,000 members of InfraGard,” he said. “From our perspective that amounts to 11,000 contacts . . . and 11,000 partners in our mission to protect America.” He added a little later, “Those of you in the private sector are the first line of defense.”

He urged InfraGard members to contact the FBI if they “note suspicious activity or an unusual event.” And he said they could sic the FBI on “disgruntled employees who will use knowledge gained on the job against their employers.”

In an interview with InfraGard after the conference, which is featured prominently on the InfraGard members’ website, Mueller says: “It’s a great program.”

The ACLU is not so sanguine.

“There is evidence that InfraGard may be closer to a corporate TIPS program, turning private-sector corporations—some of which may be in a position to observe the activities of millions of individual customers—into surrogate eyes and ears for the FBI,” the ACLU warned in its August 2004 report The Surveillance-Industrial Complex: How the American Government Is Conscripting Businesses and Individuals in the Construction of a Surveillance Society.

InfraGard is not readily accessible to the general public. Its communications with the FBI and Homeland Security are beyond the reach of the Freedom of Information Act under the “trade secrets” exemption, its website says. And any conversation with the public or the media is supposed to be carefully rehearsed.

“The interests of InfraGard must be protected whenever presented to non-InfraGard members,” the website states. “During interviews with members of the press, controlling the image of InfraGard being presented can be difficult. Proper preparation for the interview will minimize the risk of embarrassment. . . . The InfraGard leadership and the local FBI representative should review the submitted questions, agree on the predilection of the answers, and identify the appropriate interviewee. . . . Tailor answers to the expected audience. . . . Questions concerning sensitive information should be avoided.”

One of the advantages of InfraGard, according to its leading members, is that the FBI gives them a heads-up on a secure portal about any threatening information related to infrastructure disruption or terrorism.

The InfraGard website advertises this. In its list of benefits of joining InfraGard, it states: “Gain access to an FBI secure communication network complete with VPN encrypted website, webmail, listservs, message boards, and much more.”

InfraGard members receive “almost daily updates” on threats “emanating from both domestic sources and overseas,” Hershman says.

“We get very easy access to secure information that only goes to InfraGard members,” Schneck says. “People are happy to be in the know.”

On November 1, 2001, the FBI had information about a potential threat to the bridges of California. The alert went out to the InfraGard membership. Enron was notified, and so, too, was Barry Davis, who worked for Morgan Stanley. He notified his brother Gray, the governor of California.

“He said his brother talked to him before the FBI,” recalls Steve Maviglio, who was Davis’s press secretary at the time. “And the governor got a lot of grief for releasing the information. In his defense, he said, ‘I was on the phone with my brother, who is an investment banker. And if he knows, why shouldn’t the public know?’ ”

Maviglio still sounds perturbed about this: “You’d think an elected official would be the first to know, not the last.”

In return for being in the know, InfraGard members cooperate with the FBI and Homeland Security. “InfraGard members have contributed to about 100 FBI cases,” Schneck says. “What InfraGard brings you is reach into the regional and local communities. We are a 22,000-member vetted body of subject-matter experts that reaches across seventeen matrixes. All the different stovepipes can connect with InfraGard.”

Schneck is proud of the relationships the InfraGard Members Alliance has built with the FBI. “If you had to call 1-800-FBI, you probably wouldn’t bother,” she says. “But if you knew Joe from a local meeting you had with him over a donut, you might call them. Either to give or to get. We want everyone to have a little black book.”

This black book may come in handy in times of an emergency. “On the back of each membership card,” Schneck says, “we have all the numbers you’d need: for Homeland Security, for the FBI, for the cyber center. And by calling up as an InfraGard member, you will be listened to.” She also says that members would have an easier time obtaining a “special telecommunications card that will enable your call to go through when others will not.”

This special status concerns the ACLU.

“The FBI should not be creating a privileged class of Americans who get special treatment,” says Jay Stanley, public education director of the ACLU’s technology and liberty program. “There’s no ‘business class’ in law enforcement. If there’s information the FBI can share with 22,000 corporate bigwigs, why don’t they just share it with the public? That’s who their real ‘special relationship’ is supposed to be with. Secrecy is not a party favor to be given out to friends. . . . This bears a disturbing resemblance to the FBI’s handing out ‘goodies’ to corporations in return for folding them into its domestic surveillance machinery.”

When the government raises its alert levels, InfraGard is in the loop. For instance, in a press release on February 7, 2003, the Secretary of Homeland Security and the Attorney General announced that the national alert level was being raised from yellow to orange. They then listed “additional steps” that agencies were taking to “increase their protective measures.” One of those steps was to “provide alert information to InfraGard program.”

“They’re very much looped into our readiness capability,” says Amy Kudwa, spokeswoman for the Department of Homeland Security. “We provide speakers, as well as do joint presentations [with the FBI]. We also train alongside them, and they have participated in readiness exercises.”

On May 9, 2007, George Bush issued National Security Presidential Directive 51 entitled “National Continuity Policy.” In it, he instructed the Secretary of Homeland Security to coordinate with “private sector owners and operators of critical infrastructure, as appropriate, in order to provide for the delivery of essential services during an emergency.”

Asked if the InfraGard National Members Alliance was involved with these plans, Schneck said it was “not directly participating at this point.” Hershman, chairman of the group’s advisory board, however, said that it was.

InfraGard members, sometimes hundreds at a time, have been used in “national emergency preparation drills,” Schneck acknowledges.

“In case something happens, everybody is ready,” says Norm Arendt, the head of the Madison, Wisconsin, chapter of InfraGard, and the safety director for the consulting firm Short Elliott Hendrickson, Inc. “There’s been lots of discussions about what happens under an emergency.”

One business owner in the United States tells me that InfraGard members are being advised on how to prepare for a martial law situation—and what their role might be. He showed me his InfraGard card, with his name and e-mail address on the front, along with the InfraGard logo and its slogan, “Partnership for Protection.” On the back of the card were the emergency numbers that Schneck mentioned.

This business owner says he attended a small InfraGard meeting where agents of the FBI and Homeland Security discussed in astonishing detail what InfraGard members may be called upon to do.

“The meeting started off innocuously enough, with the speakers talking about corporate espionage,” he says. “From there, it just progressed. All of a sudden we were knee deep in what was expected of us when martial law is declared. We were expected to share all our resources, but in return we’d be given specific benefits.” These included, he says, the ability to travel in restricted areas and to get people out.
But that’s not all.

“Then they said when—not if—martial law is declared, it was our responsibility to protect our portion of the infrastructure, and if we had to use deadly force to protect it, we couldn’t be prosecuted,” he says.

I was able to confirm that the meeting took place where he said it had, and that the FBI and Homeland Security did make presentations there. One InfraGard member who attended that meeting denies that the subject of lethal force came up. But the whistleblower is 100 percent certain of it. “I have nothing to gain by telling you this, and everything to lose,” he adds. “I’m so nervous about this, and I’m not someone who gets nervous.”

Though Schneck says that FBI and Homeland Security agents do make presentations to InfraGard, she denies that InfraGard members would have any civil patrol or law enforcement functions. “I have never heard of InfraGard members being told to use lethal force anywhere,” Schneck says.

The FBI adamantly denies it, also. “That’s ridiculous,” says Catherine Milhoan, an FBI spokesperson. “If you want to quote a businessperson saying that, knock yourself out. If that’s what you want to print, fine.”

But one other InfraGard member corroborated the whistleblower’s account, and another would not deny it.

Christine Moerke is a business continuity consultant for Alliant Energy in Madison, Wisconsin. She says she’s an InfraGard member, and she confirms that she has attended InfraGard meetings that went into the details about what kind of civil patrol function—including engaging in lethal force—that InfraGard members may be called upon to perform.

“There have been discussions like that, that I’ve heard of and participated in,” she says.

Curt Haugen is CEO of S’Curo Group, a company that does “strategic planning, business continuity planning and disaster recovery, physical and IT security, policy development, internal control, personnel selection, and travel safety,” according to its website. Haugen tells me he is a former FBI agent and that he has been an InfraGard member for many years. He is a huge booster. “It’s the only true organization where there is the public-private partnership,” he says. “It’s all who knows who. You know a face, you trust a face. That’s what makes it work.”

He says InfraGard “absolutely” does emergency preparedness exercises. When I ask about discussions the FBI and Homeland Security have had with InfraGard members about their use of lethal force, he says: “That much I cannot comment on. But as a private citizen, you have the right to use force if you feel threatened.”

“We were assured that if we were forced to kill someone to protect our infrastructure, there would be no repercussions,” the whistleblower says. “It gave me goose bumps. It chilled me to the bone.”

http://progressive.org/mag_rothschild0308

They Lied Us Into War

2008-01-23T12:35:00.000-05:00

US President George W Bush and other top officials issued almost one thousand false statements about the national security threat from Iraq following the September 11 attacks, according to a study by two not-for-profit organisations.

The Associated Press reports the study, published on the website of the Centre for Public Integrity, concluded the statements “were part of an orchestrated campaign that effectively galvanised public opinion and, in the process, led the nation to war under decidedly false pretences”.

According to the study, 935 false statements were issued by the White House in the two years after the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.

In speeches, briefings and interviews, President Bush and other officials stated “unequivocally” on at least 532 occasions that Iraq had links to al-Qaeda, or had weapons of mass destruction or was trying to get them.

“It is now beyond dispute that Iraq did not possess any weapons of mass destruction or have meaningful ties to al-Qaeda,” wrote the study’s authors Charles Lewis and Mark Reading-Smith.

“In short, the Bush administration led the nation to war on the basis of erroneous information that it methodically propagated and that culminated in military action against Iraq on March 19, 2003.”

The study found that President Bush alone made 259 false statements – 231 about weapons of mass destruction and 28 about Iraq’s links to al-Qaeda.

The other officials named in the study are vice president Dick Cheney, then-national security advisor Condoleezza Rice, then-defence secretary Donald Rumsfeld, then-secretary of state Colin Powell, deputy defence secretary Paul Wolfowitz and White House spokesmen Ari Fleischer and Scott McClellan.

“The cumulative effect of these false statements – amplified by thousands of news stories and broadcasts – was massive, with the media coverage creating an almost impenetrable din for several critical months in the run-up to war,” the study concluded.

“Some journalists – indeed, even some entire news organisations – have since acknowledged that their coverage during those pre-war months was far too deferential and uncritical. These mea culpas notwithstanding, much of the wall-to-wall media coverage provided additional ‘independent’ validation of the Bush administration’s false statements about Iraq.”

Jewish Identity Can't Depend on Violence

2008-01-21T13:57:00.000-05:00

by Arun Gandhi

Jewish identity in the past has been locked into the holocaust experience -- a German burden that the Jews have not been able to shed. It is a very good example of a community can overplay a historic experience to the point that it begins to repulse friends. The holocaust was the result of the warped mind of an individual who was able to influence his followers into doing something dreadful. But, it seems to me the Jews today not only want the Germans to feel guilty but the whole world must regret what happened to the Jews. The world did feel sorry for the episode but when an individual or a nation refuses to forgive and move on the regret turns into anger.

The Jewish identity in the future appears bleak. Any nation that remains anchored to the past is unable to move ahead and, especially a nation that believes its survival can only be ensured by weapons and bombs. In Tel Aviv in 2004 I had the opportunity to speak to some Members of Parliament and Peace activists all of whom argued that the wall and the military build-up was necessary to protect the nation and the people. In other words, I asked, you believe that you can create a snake pit -- with many deadly snakes in it -- and expect to live in the pit secure and alive? What do you mean? they countered. Well, with your superior weapons and armaments and your attitude towards your neighbors would it not be right to say that you are creating a snake pit? How can anyone live peacefully in such an atmosphere? Would it not be better to befriend those who hate you? Can you not reach out and share your technological advancement with your neighbors and build a relationship?

Apparently, in the modern world, so determined to live by the bomb, this is an alien concept. You don't befriend anyone, you dominate them. We have created a culture of violence (Israel and the Jews are the biggest players) and that Culture of Violence is eventually going to destroy humanity.

Arun Gandhi is President and co-founder of the M.K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence.
Mr Gandhi is the fifth grandson of India’s legendary leader, Mohandas K. “Mahatma” Gandhi. He is president and co-founder of the M. K. Gandhi Institute for Nonviolence, now at the University of Rochester in New York

Huckabee Certfiable Zealot

2008-01-16T17:11:00.000-05:00

The United States Constitution never uses the word "God" or makes mention of any religion, drawing its sole authority from "We the People." However, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee thinks it's time to put an end to that.
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"I have opponents in this race who do not want to change the Constitution," Huckabee told a Michigan audience on Monday. "But I believe it's a lot easier to change the Constitution than it would be to change the word of the living god. And that's what we need to do -- to amend the Constitution so it's in God's standards rather than try to change God's standards so it lines up with some contemporary view."

When Willie Geist reported Huckabee's opinion on MSNBC's Morning Joe, co-host Mika Brzezinski was almost speechless, and even Joe Scarborough couldn't immediately find much to say beyond calling it "interesting,"

Scarborough finally suggested that while he believes "evangelicals should be able to talk politics ... some might find that statement very troubling, that we're going to change the Constitution to be in line with the Bible. And that's all I'm going to say."

Geist further noted of Huckabee that if "someone without his charm," said that, "he'd be dismissed as a crackpot, but he's Mike Huckabee and he's bascially the front-runner."

Video Goodness Here.

We'll nuke Iran - Bush promises Israel

2008-01-13T10:09:00.001-05:00

We'll nuke Iran - Bush promises Israel

Thu, 01/10/2008 - 16:08 - Wire Services - US President George W. Bush promised Israel's opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu that the United States will join the Jewish state in a nuclear strike against Iran, Israel Radio reported today.

Former Prime Minister Netanyahu, opposition Likud party's hardline chairman who opposes the US-backed Annapolis peace process, reiterated to President Bush his stance, that a pre-emptive nuclear strike against Iran's nuclear installations was the only way to stop the Islamic nation's nuclear weapons ambitions.

"I told him my position and Bush agreed," Netanyahu told Israel Radio.

During their 45-minute meeting at King David hotel in Jerusalem Netanyahu also told Bush that "Jerusalem belongs to the Jewish people and will remain under Israeli sovereignty for eternity."

President Bush issued a stark warning to Iran over Strait of Hormuz incident, saying that "all options are on the table to protect our assets."

“There will be serious consequences if they attack our ships, pure and simple,” Bush said during the joint news conference with Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert in Jerusalem. “And my advice to them is, don't do it.”

Bush criticized those who interpret the National Intelligence Estimate, which found that Iran gave up its nuclear weapons program in 2003, as a sign that Iran was no longer a threat.

"Let me remind you what the NIE actually said," Bush stold reporters. "It said that as far as the intelligence community could tell, at one time the Iranians had a military -- covert military program that was suspended in 2003 because of international pressure. My attitude is that a non-transparent country, a country which has yet to disclose what it was up to, can easily restart a program."

2008-01-01T09:20:00.000-05:00

This would be the blogs 4th birthday, I believe.

Sadly, Blogger has seen fit to send my archives away, pfffhift, gone.

Have a healthy and prosperous year!

Cheney Comes Clean

2007-08-01T20:45:00.000-04:00

Many of us have felt that perhaps Mr Bush isn't "the decider" at all, that the more experienced, more "tied in" Vice President has been calling the shots- following an agenda he has worked from since the nineties.

Mr Cheney admitting he pulls the strings that make the chimp dance:

Q So those 3,000-plus lives have not died in vain?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: No, sir. Larry, you worry about every single casualty and --
Q Do you feel the burden of it?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Absolutely, when you're in one of those positions the President obviously has the biggest burden. I shared some of that when I was Secretary of Defense, during Desert Storm. There are times when you make decisions to commit military forces, when you know that one of the results of that is going to be that there are going to be American casualties, that American soldiers are going to die. It's one of the most difficult things anybody has to do. It goes with being President of the United States, and we have to have somebody prepared to make those decisions. And I firmly believe, Larry, that the decisions we've made with respect to Iraq and Afghanistan have been absolutely the sound ones in terms of the overall strategy.
Q Although there were mistakes.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Oh, sure. Yes, there are always things in war that happen that nobody anticipated; surprises, things that don't go exactly as planned. That's the nature of warfare. But that doesn't mean the strategy isn't the correct strategy, that the objective isn't the right objective.
Q Does it pain you when Brent Scowcroft says, "This is not the Dick Cheney I knew"?
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Well --
Q I mean, you were close friends.
THE VICE PRESIDENT: Sure, and I don't bear any grudges towards Brent. Brent doesn't walk in my shoes these days. He's not in the job I'm in. He's not responsible for making the decisions the President has had to make and those of us who support him and advise him.

The link will bring you to the rest of the Larry King interview.

UniParty? You Betcha!- a quick survey...

2007-06-23T17:14:00.001-04:00

Hillary booed for her stance on the Iraq war she voted for:

Democratic Presidential hopeful Senator Hillary Clinton was booed at a conference on Wednesday for blaming failure in Iraq on the Iraqi government.

Some members of the audience at a conference of a liberal activist group called ‘Take Back America’ were dissatisfied with Hillary's remarks on Iraq.

They were also unhappy with the Senator asking for more US troops to be sent to Iraq. The 'Take Back America' group had also protested Hillary's stand on Iraq in 2006.

Clinton had been doing well with the crowd, slamming President Bush in unusually harsh terms for a full 23 minutes before treading into the political danger zone of Iraq.

"The American military has succeeded," Clinton said, before she triggered jeers and competing cheers from supporters by adding, "It is the Iraqi government which has failed to make the tough decisions."

She also said, “"I love coming here every year. I see the signs - 'Lead us out of Iraq now.' That is what we are trying to do.” But the crowd booed her again.

Obviously there were some actual thinkers in the crowd- considering her actions, not her rhetoric.

Have you noticed the political arm of the elite is as far removed from reality on one side of the uniparty aisle as the other?

Take exception to the uniparty label? think the Democrats are our only hope?

Clinton and Obama Raiding Donors Who Backed Bush

As senators Clinton and Obama crisscross the country seeking the Democratic presidential nomination and sharply criticizing President Bush, they have been collecting hundreds of thousands of dollars from donors who funded one or both of Mr. Bush's campaigns for the White House.

In the first quarter of this year, more than 150 former Bush donors pitched in for Mrs. Clinton's campaign, while a similar number anted up for Mr. Obama, according to an analysis of Federal Election Commission data performed for The New York Sun by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics.

Even NeoCons love Obama:

...a surprising new name joined the chorus of praise for the antiwar Obama – that of Robert Kagan, a leading neoconservative and co-founder of the Project for the New American Century in the late 1990s, which called for the overthrow of Saddam Hussein.

Kagan is an informal foreign policy adviser to the Republican senator John McCain, who remains the favoured neoconservative choice for the White House because of his backing for the troops in Iraq.

But in an article in the Washington Post, Kagan wrote approvingly that a keynote speech by

Obama at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs was “pure John Kennedy”, a neocon hero of the cold war.

In his speech, Obama called for an increase in defence spending and an extra 65,000 soldiers and 27,000 marines to “stay on the offense” against terrorism and ensure America had “the strongest, best-equipped military in the world”. He talked about building democracies, stopping weapons of mass destruction and the right to take unilateral action to protect US “vital interests” if necessary, as well as the importance of building alliances.

Mr Bush has the same stands.

Let Robert Kagan breathelessly inform you:

He wants the American military to "stay on the offense, from Djibouti to Kandahar," and he believes that "the ability to put boots on the ground will be critical in eliminating the shadowy terrorist networks we now face." He wants to ensure that we continue to have "the strongest, best-equipped military in the world."

Obama never once says that military force should be used only as a last resort. Rather, he insists that "no president should ever hesitate to use force -- unilaterally if necessary," not only "to protect ourselves . . . when we are attacked," but also to protect "our vital interests" when they are "imminently threatened." That's known as preemptive military action. It won't reassure those around the world who worry about letting an American president decide what a "vital interest" is and when it is "imminently threatened."

Read the full article. See what the Obama component of "The opposition" thinks.

Bases in Iraq forever? You bet- our hands on the gas pump- well Halliburtons, the oil companies, etc; fascism is a merging of corporate and state power, so yup, our hands.

Look:

Democrat-Led House Lays Legal Groundwork for Korea-Style Bases in Iraq

It seems the Democratic-led House of Representatives Thursday approved an amendment that, contrary to the leadership’s intention, lays the legal groundwork for a protracted – if not “permanent” — U.S. military presence in Iraq.

During debate on the 2008 Foreign Operations bill, the House approved by voice vote an amendment submitted by Iowa Republican Rep. Steve King that inserted the word “permanent” before “basing rights agreement” in the following text:

“SEC. 685. None of the funds made available in this Act may be used by the Government of the United States to enter into a basing rights agreement between the United States and Iraq.”

As King has pointed out in the past, the United States has never had a “permanent” basing rights agreement with any country where, like Germany, Japan, and South Korea, Washington has based troops for decades. So the amendment, if it becomes law, means that the administration may now use funds to enter into any kind of basing rights agreement with the government of Iraq that it wishes – be it five, ten, 25 or even 50 years. Jim Fine of the Friends Committee on National Legislation (FCNL) explained the effect of the amendment in a memo last month after King almost succeeded in getting the same amendment attached to the defense authorization bill.

Listen While You Peruse

2007-06-19T21:39:00.000-04:00

Neil Young's site Living with War Today offers up, at last count, 1915 current protest songs.

As you take in your daily dose of shocking, scary and unsettling information that is so much of the current portrait of todays overculture news listen to these musical manifestations of hope.

When folks stop calling out corporate deathculture then hope seems about gone.

Until that happens it's just part of the bumpy ride to a world of peace, justice, dignity, decency- you know, Humanity, writ large.

Long time comin'...

Class Reality: Had Enough Yet?

2007-04-25T11:41:00.000-04:00

Stop being a compliant consumer. Face the ugly truth. Don’t get fooled by the stock market. Accept the need for the mistreated middle class to become the revolutionary class. The British military establishment's most prestigious think tank sees what too few over-consuming Americans are willing to anticipate. Unjustified and mounting economic inequality is planting the seeds for global economic conflict.

Here is what the new report from the UK Defense Ministry's Development, Concepts and Doctrine Centre warned might happen by 2035. "The middle classes could become a revolutionary class. The growing gap between themselves and a small number of highly visible super-rich individuals might fuel disillusion with meritocracy, while the growing urban under-classes are likely to pose an increasing threat...Faced by these twin challenges, the world's middle-classes might unite, using access to knowledge, resources and skills to shape transnational processes in their own class interest."

Read More

To be sure you do go to the piece and read more I'll offer you another quotation-

A ton of data demonstrate how crazy our economic system has become where a relatively few receive astronomical gains that no rational person could see as justified. One study tracked down home ownership data for 488 CEOs in the S&P 500 Index set of companies. The typical home of the CEOs has 12 rooms, sits on 5.37 acres, and carries a $3.1 million price-tag. Companies big enough to rate S&P 500 status hiked their median CEO pay by 23.78 percent in 2006 to $14.8 million. In comparison, U.S. worker weekly wages rose just 3.5 percent in 2006.

Many more facts and figures illustrate the state of our (working class) world. Check it out.

Article gleaned at "thoughts on the eve of the apocalypse" an excellent blog, a favorite to explore.

MoJo offers "Iraq 101" Learning Tool

2007-02-22T10:54:00.001-05:00

All right, no more excuses, people. After four years in Iraq, it’s time to get serious. We’ve spent too long goofing off, waiting to be saved by the bell, praying that we won’t get asked a stumper like, “What’s the difference between a Sunni and a Shiite?” Okay, even the head of the House intelligence committee doesn’t know that one. All the more reason to start boning up on what we—and our leaders—should have learned back before they signed us up for this crash course in Middle Eastern geopolitics. And while we’re at it, let’s do the math on what the war really costs in blood and dollars. It’s time for our own Iraq study group. Yes, there will be a test, and we can’t afford to fail.

Go here to access this resource.

If you are diligent and a quick study you may master the material before the attack on Iran.

Break Your Chains, 21st Century Serf

2007-02-08T16:43:00.000-05:00

Here's a silly question: Why the hell are we still in Iraq? Because the Bush cabal/junta, the neocons, the Zionists -whichever name you prefer to call them -they always get what they want.

So American military might is still in Iraq, doing what the cabal wants them to do, while most Americans are complacent, obedient slaves here at home, convinced they are safe because GI Joe is in Iraq keeping the bad guys far away. The Average Joe and Jane six-pack are doing as they're told, being Good Americans, not questioning their leaders. It's easy, not doing a god damn thing.

A few hundred thousand people like myself went to the streets and protested the war, but the majority of American sheeple are still content doing what comes naturally, which is to sit on their Lazy Boys in front of the boob tube passing gas and the hours away rooting for their favorite teams,. They're going to the malls, seeing a movie, having one more beer and it's bed time, then they get up and do the same old thing, work, spend money they don't have, watch sports, sleep, pay the minimum on the credit cards, pray they hit the lottery, and never think anything's going to change, or for that matter get worse for them.

Most Americans haven't a clue how bloody it is in a far away place like Iraq. The trained seals at home are comfortable, that's all that matters.

That's why these devious bastards who have taken over our country are getting away with it! They love it when the lemmings out there can't remember one sentence in their own Constitution or Declaration of Independence. They love it that the vast majority of numb-nuts don't know that their leaders are breaking every law in the books ...

Read More

The Revolution will not be televised. I realize the neocons are just the visible helmsmen for the disease of corporate control combined with scrambling elite power that has sorely infected our nation and world. As the Bush house of cards crumbles from so many angles, as common folks see through the decades old Israeli web of deception: as the lies are given up to the light and revealed for all to see these f*ckers, cornered by truth, are going to be even more dangerous.

People, overall are good and decent, Truth in its many guises will trip up these "leaders". Humanity will out. Mass media lie factories be damned.

Iran will be a smokescreen for the devious, scandal ridden governments threatening war, while giving their sheeple a cause to rally around. Feeling hate gives their overly controled, TV mediated lives meaning, for Chrissakes. Gives them a team to not just support but to belong to. Thinking folks though, lately, sadly, are reactive rather than proactive. You see through the hype, you're freeing your mind; get your ass moving.

World War Finis is on the horizon -you know what crew is at the wheel of state(s).

Educate and act. Fight the power. Be the medium of change.

What Would MLK Do?

2007-01-15T13:39:00.000-05:00

Martin Luther King Day seems a fitting time to break my blog fast.

I use this page as a portal to get my daily news fix, but have been coming up short when it comes to having good news to share/link.

Habeas Corpus- gone. "Signing Statements" are effectively taking the legislature out of the governmental mix. Mr Bush claims to be a "unitary executive", a term not found in our Constitution; a term that brings to mind a Mussolini or a Hitler, not the President of the United States. I could go on and on...

The war under Mr Bush stumbles on, even escalates. Where are the Democratic Party alternatives to the failed GOP policies that got our nation this far down the road to economic, military and moral ruin?

I have been seeing the political world in a less than positive light. There seems to be little difference between the actions of the two major political parties in this country.

The media blah blah blah's on, telling us what to think.

On the average, folks don't seem to actively care. Our media diet paints us as powerless.

I'm hoping I'm wrong.

Bring the Mandate for Peace to Washington DC on Jan. 27

Honor the man, Martin Luther King. Honor our nation. Honor yourself, your children, their kids.

Loud and proud, speak out.

Considering Frank Zappa

2006-10-11T20:12:00.000-04:00

“The language and concepts contained herein are guaranteed not to cause eternal torment in the place where the guy with the horns and pointed stick conducts his business”

(All quotations are from the fertile mind of Frank Zappa)

“If you want to get laid, go to college. If you want an education, go to the library.”

Everybody needs a hero or two, folks who inspire, who lead us to think.

“It would be easier to pay off the national debt overnight than to neutralize the long-range effects of our national stupidity”

Frank Zappa is a hero to me. Most know him as a "rock musician"- I know him as an American Composer (yup, caps are fitting) as well.

“Politics is the entertainment branch of industry.”

Listen to this BBC show celebrating the man on the forty year anniversary of the release of his first album "Freak Out" (with The Mothers of Invention). The 30 minute clip starts a couple minutes into the piece.

“I believe that people have a right to decide their own destiny; people own themselves. I also believe that, in a democracy, government exists because (and only as long as) individual citizens give it a "temporary license to exist" - in exchange for a promise that it will behave itself. In a democracy you own the government - it doesn't own you. Along with this comes a responsibility to ensure that individual actions, in the pursuit of a personal destiny, do not threaten the well-being of others while the "pursuit" is in progress.”

An American, a composer, a unique human being...

Think the Economy is OK?

2006-09-30T21:48:00.000-04:00

I cannot add to the facts and figures of the following article.

More reality based analysis:

The New Face of Class War

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The attacks on middle-class jobs are lending new meaning to the phrase "class war". The ladders of upward mobility are being dismantled. America, the land of opportunity, is giving way to ever deepening polarization between rich and poor.

The assault on jobs predates the Bush regime. However, the loss of middle-class jobs has become particularly intense in the 21st century, and, like other pressing problems, has been ignored by President Bush, who is focused on waging war in the Middle East and building a police state at home. The lives and careers that are being lost to the carnage of a gratuitous war in Iraq are paralleled by the economic destruction of careers, families, and communities in the U.S.A. Since the days of President Franklin D. Roosevelt in the 1930s, the U.S. government has sought to protect employment of its citizens. Bush has turned his back on this responsibility. He has given his support to the offshoring of American jobs that is eroding the living standards of Americans. It is another example of his betrayal of the public trust.

"Free trade" and "globalization" are the guises behind which class war is being conducted against the middle class by both political parties. Patrick J. Buchanan, a three-time contender for the presidential nomination, put it well when he wrote1 that NAFTA and the various so-called trade agreements were never trade deals. The agreements were enabling acts that enabled U.S. corporations to dump their American workers, avoid Social Security taxes, health care and pensions, and move their factories offshore to locations where labor is cheap.

The offshore outsourcing of American jobs has nothing to do with free trade based on comparative advantage. Offshoring is labor arbitrage. First world capital and technology are not seeking comparative advantage at home in order to compete abroad. They are seeking absolute advantage abroad in cheap labor.

Two recent developments made possible the supremacy of absolute over comparative advantage: the high speed Internet and the collapse of world socialism, which opened China's and India's vast under-utilized labor resources to first world capital.

In times past, first world workers had nothing to fear from cheap labor abroad. Americans worked with superior capital, technology and business organization. This made Americans far more productive than Indians and Chinese, and, as it was not possible for U.S. firms to substitute cheaper foreign labor for U.S. labor, American jobs and living standards were not threatened by low wages abroad or by the products that these low wages produced.

The advent of offshoring has made it possible for U.S. firms using first world capital and technology to produce goods and services for the U.S. market with foreign labor. The result is to separate Americans' incomes from the production of the goods and services that they consume. This new development, often called "globalization," allows cheap foreign labor to work with the same capital, technology and business know-how as U.S. workers. The foreign workers are now as productive as Americans, with the difference being that the large excess supply of labor that overhangs labor markets in China and India keeps wages in these countries low. Labor that is equally productive but paid a fraction of the wage is a magnet for Western capital and technology.

Although a new development, offshoring is destroying entire industries, occupations and communities in the United States. The devastation of U.S. manufacturing employment was waved away with promises that a "new economy" based on high-tech knowledge jobs would take its place. Education and retraining were touted as the answer.

In testimony before the U.S.-China Commission,2 I explained that offshoring is the replacement of U.S. labor with foreign labor in U.S. production functions over a wide range of tradable goods and services. (Tradable goods and services are those that can be exported or that are competitive with imports. Nontradable goods and services are those that only have domestic markets and no import competition. For example, barbers and dentists offer nontradable services. Examples of nontradable goods are perishable, locally produced fruits and vegetables and specially fabricated parts of local machine shops.) As the production of most tradable goods and services can be moved offshore, there are no replacement occupations for which to train except in domestic "hands on" services such as barbers, manicurists, and hospital orderlies. No country benefits from trading its professional jobs, such as engineering, for domestic service jobs.

At a Brookings Institution conference in Washington, D.C., in January 2004, I predicted that if the pace of jobs outsourcing and occupational destruction continued, the U.S. would be a third world country in 20 years. Despite my regular updates on the poor performance of U.S. job growth in the 21st century, economists have insisted that offshoring is a manifestation of free trade and can only have positive benefits overall for Americans.

Reality has contradicted the glib economists. The new high-tech knowledge jobs are being outsourced abroad even faster than the old manufacturing jobs. Establishment economists are beginning to see the light. Writing in Foreign Affairs (March/April 2006), Princeton economist and former Federal Reserve vice chairman Alan Blinder concludes that economists who insist that offshore outsourcing is merely a routine extension of international trade are overlooking a major transformation with significant consequences. Blinder estimates that 42-56 million American service sector jobs are susceptible to offshore outsourcing.3 Whether all these jobs leave, U.S. salaries will be forced down by the willingness of foreigners to do the work for less.

Software engineers and information technology workers have been especially hard hit. Jobs offshoring, which began with call centers and back-office operations, is rapidly moving up the value chain. Business Week's Michael Mandel4 compared starting salaries in 2005 with those in 2001. He found a 12.7 per cent decline in computer science pay, a 12 per cent decline in computer engineering pay, and a 10.2 per cent decline in electrical engineering pay. Marketing salaries experienced a 6.5 per cent decline, and business administration salaries fell 5.7 per cent. Despite a make-work law for accountants known by the names of its congressional sponsors, Sarbanes-Oxley, even accounting majors, were offered 2.3 per cent less.

Using the same sources as the Business Week article (salary data from the National Association of Colleges and Employers and Bureau of Labor Statistics data for inflation adjustment), professor Norm Matloff at the University of California, Davis, made the same comparison for master's degree graduates. He found that between 2001 and 2005 starting pay for master's degrees in computer science, computer engineering, and electrical engineering fell 6.6 per cent, 13.7 per cent, and 9.4 per cent respectively.

On February 22, 2006, CNNMoney.com staff writer Shaheen Pasha5 reported that America's large financial institutions are moving "large portions of their investment banking operations abroad." Offshoring is now killing American jobs in research and analytic operations, foreign exchange trades, and highly complicated credit derivatives contracts. Deal-making responsibility itself may eventually move abroad. Deloitte Touche says that the financial services industry will move 20 per cent of its total costs base offshore by the end of 2010. As the costs are lower in India, the move will represent more than 20 per cent of the business. A job on Wall Street is a declining option for bright young persons with high stress tolerance as America's last remaining advantage is outsourced.

According to Norm Augustine, former CEO of Lockheed Martin, even McDonald jobs are on the way offshore. Augustine reports that McDonald is experimenting with replacing error-prone order takers with a system that transmits orders via satellite to a central location and from there to the person preparing the order. The technology lets the orders be taken in India or China at costs below the U.S. minimum wage and without the liabilities of U.S. employees.

American economists, some from incompetence and some from being bought and paid for, described globalization as a "win-win" development. It was supposed to work like this: The U.S. would lose market share in tradable manufactured goods and make up the job and economic loss with highly educated knowledge workers. The win for America would be lower-priced manufactured goods and a white-collar work force. The win for China would be manufacturing jobs that would bring economic development to that country.

It did not work out this way, as Morgan Stanley's Stephen Roach, formerly a cheerleader for globalization, recently admitted. It has become apparent that job creation and real wages in the developed economies are seriously lagging behind their historical norms as offshore outsourcing displaces the "new economy" jobs in "software programming, engineering, design, and the medical profession, as well as a broad array of professionals in the legal, accounting, actuarial, consulting, and financial services industries".6 The real state of the U.S. job market is revealed by a Chicago Sun-Times report on January 26, 2006, that 25,000 people applied for 325 jobs at a new Chicago Wal-Mart.

According to the BLS payroll jobs data,7 over the past half-decade (January 2001 - January 2006, the data series available at time of writing) the U.S. economy created 1,050,000 net new private sector jobs and 1,009,000 net new government jobs for a total five-year figure of 2,059,000. That is seven million jobs short of keeping up with population growth, definitely a serious job shortfall.

The BLS payroll jobs data contradict the hype from business organizations, such as the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, that offshore outsourcing is good for America. Large corporations, which have individually dismissed thousands of their U.S. employees and replaced them with foreigners, claim that jobs outsourcing allows them to save money that can be used to hire more Americans. The corporations and the business organizations are very successful in placing this disinformation in the media. The lie is repeated everywhere and has become a mantra among no-think economists and politicians. However, no sign of these jobs can be found in the payroll jobs data. But there is abundant evidence of the lost American jobs.

During the past five years (January 01 - January 06), the information sector of the U.S. economy lost 644,000 jobs, or 17.4 per cent of its work force. Computer systems design and related work lost 105,000 jobs, or 8.5 per cent of its work force. Clearly, jobs offshoring is not creating jobs in computers and information technology. Indeed, jobs offshoring is not even creating jobs in related fields.

U.S. manufacturing lost 2.9 million jobs, almost 17 per cent of the manufacturing work force. The wipeout is across the board. Not a single manufacturing payroll classification created a single new job.

The declines in some manufacturing sectors have more in common with a country undergoing saturation bombing during war than with a "supereconomy" that is "the envy of the world." In five years, communications equipment lost 42 per cent of its work force. Semiconductors and electronic components lost 37 per cent of its work force . The work force in computers and electronic products declined 30 per cent. Electrical equipment and appliances lost 25 per cent of its employees. The work force in motor vehicles and parts declined 12 per cent. Furniture and related products lost 17 per cent of its jobs. Apparel manufacturers lost almost half of the work force. Employment in textile mills declined 43 per cent. Paper and paper products lost one-fifth of its jobs. The work force in plastics and rubber products declined by 15 per cent.

For the five-year period, U.S. job growth was limited to four areas: education and health services, state and local government, leisure and hospitality, and financial services. There was no U.S. job growth outside these four areas of domestic nontradable services.

Oracle, for example, which has been handing out thousands of pink slips, has recently announced two thousand more jobs being moved to India.8 How is Oracle's move of U.S. jobs to India creating American jobs in nontradable services such as waitresses and bartenders, hospital orderlies, state and local government, and credit agencies?

Engineering jobs in general are in decline, because the manufacturing sectors that employ engineers are in decline. During the last five years, the U.S. work force lost 1.2 million jobs in the manufacture of machinery, computers, electronics, semiconductors, communication equipment, electrical equipment, motor vehicles, and transportation equipment. The BLS payroll jobs numbers show a total of 69,000 jobs created in all fields of architecture and engineering, including clerical personnel, over the past five years. That comes to a mere 14,000 jobs per year (including clerical workers). What is the annual graduating class in engineering and architecture? How is there a shortage of engineers when more graduate than can be employed?

Of course, many new graduates take jobs opened by retirements. We would have to know the retirement rates to get a solid handle on the fate of new graduates. But this fate cannot be very pleasant , with declining employment in the manufacturing sectors that employ engineers and a minimum of 65,000 H-1B work visas annually for foreigners plus an indeterminate number of L-1 work visas.

It is not only the Bush regime that bases its policies on lies. Not content with moving Americans' jobs abroad, corporations want to fill the jobs remaining in America with foreigners on work visas. Business organizations allege shortages of engineers, scientists and even nurses. Business organizations have successfully used pubic relations firms and bought-and-paid-for "economic studies" to convince policymakers that American business cannot function without H-1B visas that permit the importation of indentured employees from abroad who are paid less than the going U.S. salaries. The so-called shortage is, in fact, a replacement of American employees with foreign employees, with the soon-to-be-discharged American employee first required to train his replacement.

It is amazing to see free-market economists rush to the defense of H-1B visas. The visas are nothing but a subsidy to U.S. companies at the expense of U.S. citizens. Keep in mind this H-1B subsidy to U.S. corporations for employing foreign workers in place of Americans as we examine the Labor Department's job projections over the 2004-2014 decade.

All of the occupations with the largest projected employment growth (in terms of the number of jobs) over the next decade are in nontradable domestic services. The top ten sources of the most jobs in "superpower" America are: retail salespersons, registered nurses, postsecondary teachers, customer service representatives, janitors and cleaners, waiters and waitresses, food preparation (includes fast food), home health aides, nursing aides, orderlies and attendants, general and operations managers.9 Note than none of this projected employment growth will contribute one nickel toward producing goods and services that could be exported to help close the huge U.S. trade deficit. Note, also, that few of these job classifications require a college education.

Among the fastest growing occupations (in terms of rate of growth), seven of the ten are in health care and social assistance. The three remaining fields are: network systems and data analysis with 126,000 jobs projected, or 12,600 per year; computer software engineering applications with 222,000 jobs projected, or 22,200 per year; and computer software engineering systems software with 146,000 jobs projected, or 14,600 per year.10

Assuming these projections are realized, how many of the computer engineering and network systems jobs will go to Americans? Not many, considering the 65,000 H-1B visas each year (bills have been introduced in Congress to raise the number) and the loss during the past five years of 761,000 jobs in the information sector and computer systems design and related sectors.

Judging from its ten-year jobs projections, the U.S. Department of Labor does not expect to see any significant high-tech job growth in the U.S.The knowledge jobs are being outsourced even more rapidly than the manufacturing jobs. The so-called "new economy" was just another hoax perpetrated on the American people.

If outsourcing jobs offshore is good for U.S. employment, why won't the U.S. Department of Commerce release the 200-page, $335,000 study of the impact of the offshoring of U.S. high-tech jobs? Republican political appointees reduced the 200-page report to 12 pages of public relations hype and refuse to allow the Technology Administration experts who wrote the report to testify before Congress. Democrats on the House Science Committee are unable to pry the study out of the hands of Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez. On March 29, 2006, Republicans on the House Science Committee voted down a resolution (H.Res. designed to force the Commerce Department to release the study to Congress. Obviously, the facts don't fit the Bush regime's globalization hype.

The BLS payroll data that we have been examining tracks employment by industry classification. This is not the same thing as occupational classification. For example, companies in almost every industry and area of business employ people in computer-related occupations. A recent study from the Association for Computing Machinery claims, "Despite all the publicity in the United States about jobs being lost to India and China, the size of the IT employment market in the United States today is higher than it was at the height of the dot.com boom. Information technology appears as though it will be a growth area at least for the coming decade."

We can check this claim by turning to the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics.11 We will look at "computer and mathematical employment"12 and "architecture and engineering employment".13

Computer and mathematical employment includes such fields as "software engineers applications," "software engineers systems software," "computer programmers," "network systems and data communications," and "mathematicians." Has this occupation been a source of job growth? In November of 2000 this occupation employed 2,932,810 people.14 In November of 2004 (the latest data available), this occupation employed 2,932,790, or 20 people fewer. Employment in this field has been stagnant for four years.

During these four years, there have been employment shifts within the various fields of this occupation. For example, employment of computer programmers declined by 134,630, while employment of software engineers applications rose by 65,080, and employment of software engineers systems software rose by 59,600. (These shifts probably merely reflect change in job title from programmer to software engineer.)

These figures do not tell us whether any gain in software engineering jobs went to Americans. According to professor Norm Matloff, in 2002 there were 463,000 computer-related H-1B visa holders in the U.S. Similarly, the 134,630 lost computer programming jobs (if not merely a job title change) may have been outsourced offshore to foreign affiliates.

Architecture and engineering employment includes all the architecture and engineering fields except software engineering. The total employment of architects and engineers in the U.S. declined by 120,700 between November 1999 and November 2004. Employment declined by 189,940 between November 2000 and November 2004, and by 103,390 between November 2001 and November 2004.

There are variations among fields. Between November 2000 and November 2004, for example, U.S. employment of electrical engineers fell by 15,280. Employment of computer hardware engineers rose by 15,990 (possibly these are job title reclassifications). Overall, however, over 100,000 engineering jobs were lost. We do not know how many of the lost jobs were outsourced offshore to foreign affiliates or how many American engineers were dismissed and replaced by foreign holders of H-1B or L-1 visas.

Clearly, engineering and computer-related employment in the U.S.A. has not been growing, whether measured by industry or by occupation. Moreover, with a half million or more foreigners in the U.S. on work visas, the overall employment numbers do not represent employment of Americans.

American employees have been abandoned by American corporations and by their representatives in Congress. America remains a land of opportunity but for foreigners not for the native born. A country whose work force is concentrated in domestic nontradable services has no need for scientists and engineers and no need for universities. Even the projected jobs in nursing and school teaching can be filled by foreigners on H-1B visas.

The myth has been firmly established here that the jobs the U.S. is outsourcing offshore are being replaced with better jobs. There is no sign of these jobs in the payroll jobs data or in the occupational employment statistics. When a country loses entry-level jobs, it has no one to promote to senior level jobs. When manufacturing leaves, so does engineering, design, research and development, and innovation itself.

On February 16, 2006, the New York Times reported on a new study presented to the National Academies that concludes that outsourcing is climbing the skills ladder.15 A survey of 200 multinational corporations representing 15 industries in the U.S.and Europe found that 38 per cent planned to change substantially the worldwide distribution of their research and development work, sending it to India and China. According to the New York Times, "More companies in the survey said they planned to decrease research and development employment in the United States and Europe than planned to increase employment."

The study and the discussion it provoked came to untenable remedies. Many believe that a primary reason for the shift of R&D to India and China is the erosion of scientific prowess in the U.S. due to lack of math and science proficiency of American students and their reluctance to pursue careers in science and engineering. This belief begs the question why students would chase after careers that are being outsourced abroad.

The main author of the study, Georgia Tech professor Marie Thursby, believes that American science and engineering depend on having "an environment that fosters the development of a high-quality work force and productive collaboration between corporations and universities." The dean of Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley, thinks the answer is to recruit the top people in China and India and bring them to Berkeley. No one seems to understand that research, development, design, and innovation take place in countries where things are made. The loss of manufacturing means ultimately the loss of engineering and science. The newest plants embody the latest technology. If these plants are abroad, that is where the cutting edge resides.

The denial of jobs reality has become an art form for economists, libertarians, the Bush regime, and journalists. Except for CNN's Lou Dobbs, no accurate reporting is available in the "mainstream media."

Economists have failed to examine the incompatibility of offshoring with free trade. Economists are so accustomed to shouting down protectionists that they dismiss any complaint about globalization's impact on domestic jobs as the ignorant voice of a protectionist seeking to preserve the buggy whip industry. Matthew J. Slaughter, a Dartmouth economics professor rewarded for his service to offshoring with appointment to President Bush's Council of Economic Advisers, suffered no harm to his reputation when he wrote, "For every one job that U.S. multinationals created abroad in their foreign affiliates, they created nearly two U.S. jobs in their parent operations." In other words, Slaughter claims that offshoring is creating more American jobs than foreign ones.

How did Slaughter arrive at this conclusion? Not by consulting the BLS payroll jobs data or the BLS Occupational Employment Statistics. Instead, Slaughter measured the growth of U.S. multinational employment and failed to take into account the two reasons for the increase in multinational employment: (1) Multinationals acquired many existing smaller firms, thus raising multinational employment but not overall employment, and (2) many U.S. firms established foreign operations for the first time and thereby became multinationals, thus adding their existing employment to Slaughter's number for multinational employment.

ABC News' John Stossel, a libertarian hero, recently made a similar error. In debunking Lou Dobbs' concern with U.S. jobs lost to offshore outsourcing, Stossel invoked the California-based company, Collabnet. He quotes the CEO's claim that outsourcing saves his company money and lets him hire more Americans. Turning to Collabnet's webpage, it is very instructive to see the employment opportunities that the company posts for the United States and for India.

In India, Collabnet has openings (at time of writing) for eight engineers, a sales engineer, a technical writer, and a telemarketing representative. In the U.S. Collabnet has openings for one engineer, a receptionist/office assistant, and positions in marketing, sales, services and operations. Collabnet is a perfect example of what Lou Dobbs and I report: the engineering and design jobs move abroad, and Americans are employed to sell and market the foreign-made products.

Other forms of deception are widely practiced. For example, Matthew Spiegleman, a Conference Board economist, claims that manufacturing jobs are only slightly higher paid than domestic service jobs, so there is no meaningful loss in income to Americans from offshoring. He reaches this conclusion by comparing only hourly pay and leaving out the longer manufacturing workweek and the associated benefits, such as health care and pensions.

Occasionally, however, real information escapes the spin machine. In February 2006 the National Association of Manufacturers, one of offshoring's greatest boosters, released a report, "U.S. Manufacturing Innovation at Risk," by economists Joel Popkin and Kathryn Kobe.16 The economists find that U.S. industry's investment in research and development is not languishing after all. It just appears to be languishing, because it is rapidly being shifted overseas: "Funds provided for foreign-performed R&D have grown by almost 73 per cent between 1999 and 2003, with a 36 per cent increase in the number of firms funding foreign R&D."

U.S. industry is still investing in R&D after all; it is just not hiring Americans to do the research and development. U.S. manufacturers still make things, only less and less in America with American labor. U.S. manufacturers still hire engineers, only they are foreign ones, not American ones.

In other words, everything is fine for U.S. manufacturers. It is just their former American work force that is in the doldrums. As these Americans happen to be customers for U.S. manufacturers, U.S. brand names will gradually lose their U.S. market. U.S. household median income has fallen for the past five years. Consumer demand has been kept alive by consumers' spending their savings and home equity and going deeper into debt. It is not possible for debt to forever rise faster than income.

The United States is the first country in history to destroy the prospects and living standards of its labor force. It is amazing to watch freedom-loving libertarians and free-market economists serve as apologists for the dismantling of the ladders of upward mobility that made the America of old an opportunity society.

America is seeing a widening polarization into rich and poor. The resulting political instability and social strife will be terrible.

Courageous Journalism: Olbermann Shares Truth- Experiences Terrorism

2006-09-28T19:13:00.000-04:00

Keith Olbermann has recieved an envelope containing white powder.

He spent 10 hours in the hospital and is taking Cipro.

Why would this journalist recieve such a thing you might ask. Have you been seeing his blistering fact based commentaries that shed light on BushCo?

Check out this YouTube offering.

Or see it here, at PhotoBucket.

He lays out the facts, countering the Republican daily spin cycle.

Truth is dangerous to liars. To those hijacking our nation.

Shares this widely. Please.

More Reality Based Analysis

2006-09-21T22:07:00.000-04:00

The President of Iran seems to be a clear thinker- not as he is presented to us in US mainstream news. Give his UN speech a read.

What do you think?

Gleaned at CounterPunch.

No Nation Should Have Superiority Over Others

By MAHMOUD AHMADI-NEJAD

Washington, DC.

What afflicts humanity today is certainly not compatible with human dignity; the Almighty has not created human beings so that they could transgress against others and oppress them.

By causing war and conflict, some are fast expanding their domination, accumulating greater wealth and usurping all the resources, while others endure the resulting poverty, suffering and misery. Some seek to rule the world relying on weapons and threats, while others live in perpetual insecurity and danger.

Some occupy the homeland of others, thousands of kilometers away from their borders, interfere in their affairs and control their oil and other resources and strategic routes, while others are bombarded daily in their own homes; their children murdered in the streets and alleys of their own country and their homes reduced to rubble.

Such behavior is not worthy of human beings and runs counter to the Truth, to justice and to human dignity. The fundamental question is that under such conditions, where should the oppressed seek justice? Who, or what organization defends the rights of the oppressed, and suppresses acts of aggression and oppression? Where is the seat of global justice?

A brief glance at a few examples of the most pressing global issues can further illustrate the problem.

A. The unbridled expansion of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons

Some powers proudly announce their production of second and third generations of nuclear weapons. What do they need these weapons for? Is the development and stockpiling of these deadly weapons designed to promote peace and democracy? Or, are these weapons, in fact, instruments of coercion and threat against other peoples and governments? How long should the people of the world live with the nightmare of nuclear, biological and chemical weapons?

What bounds the powers producing and possessing these weapons? How can they be held accountable before the international community? And, are the inhabitants of these countries content with the waste of their wealth and resources for the production of such destructive arsenals? Is it not possible to rely on justice, ethics and wisdom instead of these instruments of death? Aren't wisdom and justice more compatible with peace and tranquility than nuclear, chemical and biological weapons? If wisdom, ethics and justice prevail, then oppression and aggression will be uprooted, threats will wither away and no reason will remain for conflict. This is a solid proposition because most global conflicts emanate from injustice, and from the powerful, not being contented with their own rights, striving to devour the rights of others.

People across the globe embrace justice and are willing to sacrifice for its sake.

Would it not be easier for global powers to ensure their longevity and win hearts and minds through the championing of real promotion of justice, compassion and peace, than through continuing the proliferation of nuclear and chemical weapons and the threat of their use?

The experience of the threat and the use of nuclear weapons is before us. Has it achieved anything for the perpetrators other than exacerbation of tension, hatred and animosity among nations?

B. Occupation of countries and exacerbation of hostilities

Occupation of countries, including Iraq, has continued for the last three years.

Not a day goes by without hundreds of people getting killed in cold blood. The occupiers are incapable of establishing security in Iraq. Despite the establishment of the lawful Government and National Assembly of Iraq, there are covert and overt efforts to heighten insecurity, magnify and aggravate differences within Iraqi society, and instigate civil strife.

There is no indication that the occupiers have the necessary political will to eliminate the sources of instability. Numerous terrorists were apprehended by the Government of Iraq, only to be let loose under various pretexts by the occupiers.

It seems that intensification of hostilities and terrorism serves as a pretext for the continued presence of foreign forces in Iraq.

Where can the people of Iraq seek refuge, and from whom should the Government of Iraq seek justice?

Who can ensure Iraq's security? Insecurity in Iraq affects the entire region.

Can the Security Council play a role in restoring peace and security in Iraq, while the occupiers are themselves permanent members of the Council?

Can the Security Council adopt a fair decision in this regard?

Consider the situation in Palestine:

The roots of the Palestinian problem go back to the Second World War. Under the pretext of protecting some of the survivors of that War, the land of Palestine was occupied through war, aggression and the displacement of millions of its inhabitants; it was placed under the control of some of the War survivors, bringing even larger population groups from elsewhere in the world, who had not been even affected by the Second World War; and a government was established in the territory of others with a population collected from across the world at the expense of driving millions of the rightful inhabitants of the land into a diaspora and homelessness. This is a great tragedy with hardly a precedent in history. Refugees continue to live in temporary refugee camps, and many have died still hoping to one day return to their land. Can any logic, law or legal reasoning justify this tragedy? Can any member of the United Nations accept such a tragedy occurring in their own homeland?

The pretexts for the creation of the regime occupying Al-Qods Al-Sharif are so weak that its proponents want to silence any voice trying to merely speak about them, as they are concerned that shedding light on the facts would undermine the raison d'etre of this regime, as it has. The tragedy does not end with the establishment of a regime in the territory of others. Regrettably, from its inception, that regime has been a constant source of threat and insecurity in the Middle East region, waging war and spilling blood and impeding the progress of regional countries, and has also been used by some powers as an instrument of division, coercion, and pressure on the people of the region. Reference to these historical realities may cause some disquiet among supporters of this regime. But these are sheer facts and not myth. History has unfolded before our eyes.

Worst yet, is the blanket and unwarranted support provided to this regime. Just watch what is happening in the Palestinian land. People are being bombarded in their own homes and their children murdered in their own streets and alleys. But no authority, not even the Security Council, can afford them any support or protection. Why?

At the same time, a Government is formed democratically and through the free choice of the electorate in a part of the Palestinian territory. But instead of receiving the support of the so-called champions of democracy, its Ministers and Members of Parliament are illegally abducted and incarcerated in full view of the international community.

Which council or international organization stands up to protect this brutally besieged Government? And why can't the Security Council take any steps?

Let me here address Lebanon:

For thirty-three long days, the Lebanese lived under the barrage of fire and bombs and close to 1.5 million of them were displaced; meanwhile some members of the Security Council practically chose a path that provided ample opportunity for the aggressor to achieve its objectives militarily. We witnessed that the Security Council of the United Nations was practically incapacitated by certain powers to even call for a ceasefire. The Security Council sat idly by for so many days, witnessing the cruel scenes of atrocities against the Lebanese while tragedies such as Qana were persistently repeated. Why?

In all these cases, the answer is self-evident. When the power behind the hostilities is itself a permanent member of the Security Council, how then can this Council fulfill its responsibilities?

C. Lack of respect for the rights of members of the international community

I now wish to refer to some of the grievances of the Iranian people and speak to the injustices against them.

The Islamic Republic of Iran is a member of the IAEA and is committed to the NPT. All our nuclear activities are transparent, peaceful and under the watchful eyes of IAEA inspectors. Why then are there objections to our legally recognized rights? Which governments object to these rights? Governments that themselves benefit from nuclear energy and the fuel cycle. Some of them have abused nuclear technology for non-peaceful ends including the production of nuclear bombs, and some even have a bleak record of using them against humanity.

Which organization or Council should address these injustices? Is the Security Council in a position to address them? Can it stop violations of the inalienable rights of countries? Can it prevent certain powers from impeding scientific progress of other countries?

The abuse of the Security Council, as an instrument of threat and coercion, is indeed a source of grave concern.

Some permanent members of the Security Council, even when they are themselves parties to international disputes, conveniently threaten others with the Security Council and declare, even before any decision by the Council, the condemnation of their opponents by the Council. The question is: what can justify such exploitation of the Security Council, and doesn't it erode the credibility and effectiveness of the Council? Can such behavior contribute to the ability of the Council to maintain security?

A review of the preceding historical realities would lead to the conclusion that regrettably, justice has become a victim of force and aggression.

Many global arrangements have become unjust, discriminatory and irresponsible as a result of undue pressure from some of the powerful.

Threats with nuclear weapons and other instruments of war by some powers have taken the place of respect for the rights of nations and the maintenance and promotion of peace and tranquility;

For some powers, claims of promotion of human rights and democracy can only last as long as they can be used as instruments of pressure and intimidation against other nations. But when it comes to the interests of the claimants, concepts such as democracy, the right of self-determination of nations, respect for the rights and intelligence of peoples, international law and justice have no place or value. This is blatantly manifested in the way the elected Government of the Palestinian people is treated as well as in the support extended to the Zionist regime. It does not matter if people are murdered in Palestine, turned into refugees, captured, imprisoned or besieged; that must not violate human rights.

* Nations are not equal in exercising their rights recognized by international law. Enjoying these rights is dependent on the whim of certain major powers.

* Apparently the Security Council can only be used to ensure the security and the rights of some big powers. But when the oppressed are decimated under bombardment, the Security Council must remain aloof and not even call for a ceasefire. Is this not a tragedy of historic proportions for the Security Council, which is charged with maintaining the security of countries?

* The prevailing order of contemporary global interactions is such that certain powers equate themselves with the international community, and consider their decisions superseding that of over 180 countries. They consider themselves the masters and rulers of the entire world and other nations as only second class in the world order.

The question needs to be asked: if the Governments of the United States or the United Kingdom who are permanent members of the Security Council, commit aggression, occupation and violation of international law, which of the organs of the UN can take them to account? Can a Council in which they are privileged members address their violations? Has this ever happened? In fact, we have repeatedly seen the reverse. If they have differences with a nation or state, they drag it to the Security Council and as claimants, arrogate to themselves simultaneously the roles of prosecutor, judge and executioner. Is this a just order? Can there be a more vivid case of discrimination and more clear evidence of injustice?

Regrettably, the persistence of some hegemonic powers in imposing their exclusionist policies on international decision making mechanisms, including the Security Council, has resulted in a growing mistrust in global public opinion, undermining the credibility and effectiveness of this most universal system of collective security.

How long can such a situation last in the world? It is evident that the behavior of some powers constitutes the greatest challenge before the Security Council, the entire organization and its affiliated agencies.

The present structure and working methods of the Security Council, which are legacies of the Second World War, are not responsive to the expectations of the current generation and the contemporary needs of humanity.

Today, it is undeniable that the Security Council, most critically and urgently, needs legitimacy and effectiveness. It must be acknowledged that as long as the Council is unable to act on behalf of the entire international community in a transparent, just and democratic manner, it will neither be legitimate nor effective.

Furthermore, the direct relation between the abuse of veto and the erosion of the legitimacy and effectiveness of the Council has now been clearly and undeniably established. We cannot, and should not, expect the eradication, or even containment, of injustice, imposition and oppression without reforming the structure and working methods of the Council.

Is it appropriate to expect this generation to submit to the decisions and arrangements established over half a century ago? Doesn't this generation or future generations have the right to decide themselves about the world in which they want to live?

Today, serious reform in the structure and working methods of the Security Council is, more than ever before, necessary. Justice and democracy dictate that the role of the General Assembly, as the highest organ of the United Nations, must be respected. The General Assembly can then, through appropriate mechanisms, take on the task of reforming the Organization and particularly rescue the Security Council from its current state. In the interim, the Non-Aligned Movement, the Organization of the Islamic Conference and the African continent should each have a representative as a permanent member of the Security Council, with veto privilege. The resulting balance would hopefully prevent further trampling of the rights of nations.

It is essential that spirituality and ethics find their rightful place in international relations. Without ethics and spirituality, attained in light of the teachings of Divine prophets, justice, freedom and human rights cannot be guaranteed. Resolution of contemporary human crises lies in observing ethics and spirituality and the governance of righteous people of high competence and piety.

Should respect for the rights of human beings become the predominant objective, then injustice, ill-temperament, aggression and war will fade away. Human beings are all God's creatures and are all endowed with dignity and respect.

No one has superiority over others. No individual or states can arrogate to themselves special privileges, nor can they disregard the rights of others and, through influence and pressure, position themselves as the "international community".

Citizens of Asia, Africa, Europe and America are all equal. Over six billion inhabitants of the earth are all equal and worthy of respect. Justice and protection of human dignity are the two pillars in maintaining sustainable peace, security and tranquility in the world. It is for this reason that we state: Sustainable peace and tranquility in the world can only be attained through justice, spirituality, ethics, compassion and respect for human dignity. All nations and states are entitled to peace, progress and security. We are all members of the international community and we are all entitled to insist on the creation of a climate of compassion, love and justice.

All members of the United Nations are affected by both the bitter and the sweet events and developments in today's world.

We can adopt firm and logical decisions, thereby improving the prospects of a better life for current and future generations.

Together, we can eradicate the roots of bitter maladies and afflictions, and instead, through the promotion of universal and lasting values such as ethics, spirituality and justice, allow our nations to taste the sweetness of a better future.

Peoples, driven by their divine nature, intrinsically seek Good, Virtue, Perfection and Beauty. Relying on our peoples, we can take giant steps towards reform and pave the road for human perfection. Whether we like it or not, justice, peace and virtue will sooner or later prevail in the world with the will of Almighty God. It is imperative, and also desirable, that we too contribute to the promotion of justice and virtue.

The Almighty and Merciful God, who is the Creator of the Universe, is also its Lord and Ruler. Justice is His command. He commands His creatures to support one another in Good, virtue and piety, and not in decadence and corruption.

He commands His creatures to enjoin one another to righteousness and virtue and not to sin and transgression. All Divine prophets from the Prophet Adam (peace be upon him) to the Prophet Moses (peace be upon him), to the Prophet Jesus Christ (peace be upon him), to the Prophet Mohammad (peace be upon him), have all called humanity to monotheism, justice, brotherhood, love and compassion. Is it not possible to build a better world based on monotheism, justice, love and respect for the rights of human beings, and thereby transform animosities into friendship?

I emphatically declare that today's world, more than ever before, longs for just and righteous people with love for all humanity; and above all longs for the perfect righteous human being and the real savior who has been promised to all peoples and who will establish justice, peace and brotherhood on the planet.
0, Almighty God, all men and women are Your creatures and You have ordained their guidance and salvation. Bestow upon humanity that thirsts for justice, the perfect human being promised to all by You, and make us among his followers and among those who strive for his return and his cause.

Reality Based Analysis

2006-09-20T21:58:00.000-04:00

Unlike our President, Hugo Chavez can read. And think for himself. Rove-lessly.

I offer his text in it's entirety as offered up at CounterPunch.

What do you think about Chavez' analysis?

Rise Up Against the Empire

By HUGO CHAVEZ

Representatives of the governments of the world, good morning to all of you. First of all, I would like to invite you, very respectfully, to those who have not read this book, to read it.

Noam Chomsky, one of the most prestigious American and world intellectuals, Noam Chomsky, and this is one of his most recent books, 'Hegemony or Survival: The Imperialist Strategy of the United States.'" [Holds up book, waves it in front of General Assembly.] "It's an excellent book to help us understand what has been happening in the world throughout the 20th century, and what's happening now, and the greatest threat looming over our planet.

The hegemonic pretensions of the American empire are placing at risk the very survival of the human species. We continue to warn you about this danger and we appeal to the people of the United States and the world to halt this threat, which is like a sword hanging over our heads. I had considered reading from this book, but, for the sake of time," [flips through the pages, which are numerous] "I will just leave it as a recommendation.

It reads easily, it is a very good book, I'm sure Madame [President] you are familiar with it. It appears in English, in Russian, in Arabic, in German. I think that the first people who should read this book are our brothers and sisters in the United States, because their threat is right in their own house.

The devil is right at home. The devil, the devil himself, is right in the house.

"And the devil came here yesterday. Yesterday the devil came here. Right here." [crosses himself] "And it smells of sulfur still today.

Yesterday, ladies and gentlemen, from this rostrum, the president of the United States, the gentleman to whom I refer as the devil, came here, talking as if he owned the world. Truly. As the owner of the world.

I think we could call a psychiatrist to analyze yesterday's statement made by the president of the United States. As the spokesman of imperialism, he came to share his nostrums, to try to preserve the current pattern of domination, exploitation and pillage of the peoples of the world.

An Alfred Hitchcock movie could use it as a scenario. I would even propose a title: "The Devil's Recipe."

As Chomsky says here, clearly and in depth, the American empire is doing all it can to consolidate its system of domination. And we cannot allow them to do that. We cannot allow world dictatorship to be consolidated.

The world parent's statement -- cynical, hypocritical, full of this imperial hypocrisy from the need they have to control everything.

They say they want to impose a democratic model. But that's their democratic model. It's the false democracy of elites, and, I would say, a very original democracy that's imposed by weapons and bombs and firing weapons.

What a strange democracy. Aristotle might not recognize it or others who are at the root of democracy.

What type of democracy do you impose with marines and bombs?

The president of the United States, yesterday, said to us, right here, in this room, and I'm quoting, "Anywhere you look, you hear extremists telling you can escape from poverty and recover your dignity through violence, terror and martyrdom."

Wherever he looks, he sees extremists. And you, my brother -- he looks at your color, and he says, oh, there's an extremist. Evo Morales, the worthy president of Bolivia, looks like an extremist to him.

The imperialists see extremists everywhere. It's not that we are extremists. It's that the world is waking up. It's waking up all over. And people are standing up.

I have the feeling, dear world dictator, that you are going to live the rest of your days as a nightmare because the rest of us are standing up, all those who are rising up against American imperialism, who are shouting for equality, for respect, for the sovereignty of nations.

Yes, you can call us extremists, but we are rising up against the empire, against the model of domination.

The president then -- and this he said himself, he said: "I have come to speak directly to the populations in the Middle East, to tell them that my country wants peace."

That's true. If we walk in the streets of the Bronx, if we walk around New York, Washington, San Diego, in any city, San Antonio, San Francisco, and we ask individuals, the citizens of the United States, what does this country want? Does it want peace? They'll say yes.

But the government doesn't want peace. The government of the United States doesn't want peace. It wants to exploit its system of exploitation, of pillage, of hegemony through war.

It wants peace. But what's happening in Iraq? What happened in Lebanon? In Palestine? What's happening? What's happened over the last 100 years in Latin America and in the world? And now threatening Venezuela -- new threats against Venezuela, against Iran?

He spoke to the people of Lebanon. Many of you, he said, have seen how your homes and communities were caught in the crossfire. How cynical can you get? What a capacity to lie shamefacedly. The bombs in Beirut with millimetric precision?

This is crossfire? He's thinking of a western, when people would shoot from the hip and somebody would be caught in the crossfire.

This is imperialist, fascist, assassin, genocidal, the empire and Israel firing on the people of Palestine and Lebanon. That is what happened. And now we hear, "We're suffering because we see homes destroyed.'

The president of the United States came to talk to the peoples -- to the peoples of the world. He came to say -- I brought some documents with me, because this morning I was reading some statements, and I see that he talked to the people of Afghanistan, the people of Lebanon, the people of Iran. And he addressed all these peoples directly.

And you can wonder, just as the president of the United States addresses those peoples of the world, what would those peoples of the world tell him if they were given the floor? What would they have to say?

And I think I have some inkling of what the peoples of the south, the oppressed people think. They would say, "Yankee imperialist, go home." I think that is what those people would say if they were given the microphone and if they could speak with one voice to the American imperialists.

And that is why, Madam President, my colleagues, my friends, last year we came here to this same hall as we have been doing for the past eight years, and we said something that has now been confirmed -- fully, fully confirmed.

I don't think anybody in this room could defend the system. Let's accept -- let's be honest. The U.N. system, born after the Second World War, collapsed. It's worthless.

Oh, yes, it's good to bring us together once a year, see each other, make statements and prepare all kinds of long documents, and listen to good speeches, like Abel's yesterday, or President Mullah's . Yes, it's good for that.

And there are a lot of speeches, and we've heard lots from the president of Sri Lanka, for instance, and the president of Chile.

But we, the assembly, have been turned into a merely deliberative organ. We have no power, no power to make any impact on the terrible situation in the world. And that is why Venezuela once again proposes, here, today, 20 September, that we re-establish the United Nations.

Last year, Madam, we made four modest proposals that we felt to be crucially important. We have to assume the responsibility our heads of state, our ambassadors, our representatives, and we have to discuss it.

The first is expansion, and Mullah talked about this yesterday right here. The Security Council, both as it has permanent and non-permanent categories, (inaudible) developing countries and LDCs must be given access as new permanent members. That's step one.

Second, effective methods to address and resolve world conflicts, transparent decisions.

Point three, the immediate suppression -- and that is something everyone's calling for -- of the anti-democratic mechanism known as the veto, the veto on decisions of the Security Council.

Let me give you a recent example. The immoral veto of the United States allowed the Israelis, with impunity, to destroy Lebanon. Right in front of all of us as we stood there watching, a resolution in the council was prevented.

Fourthly, we have to strengthen, as we've always said, the role and the powers of the secretary general of the United Nations.

Yesterday, the secretary general practically gave us his speech of farewell. And he recognized that over the last 10 years, things have just gotten more complicated; hunger, poverty, violence, human rights violations have just worsened. That is the tremendous consequence of the collapse of the United Nations system and American hegemonistic pretensions.

Madam, Venezuela a few years ago decided to wage this battle within the United Nations by recognizing the United Nations, as members of it that we are, and lending it our voice, our thinking.

Our voice is an independent voice to represent the dignity and the search for peace and the reformulation of the international system; to denounce persecution and aggression of hegemonistic forces on the planet.

This is how Venezuela has presented itself. Bolivar's home has sought a nonpermanent seat on the Security Council.

Let's see. Well, there's been an open attack by the U.S. government, an immoral attack, to try and prevent Venezuela from being freely elected to a post in the Security Council.

The imperium is afraid of truth, is afraid of independent voices. It calls us extremists, but they are the extremists.

And I would like to thank all the countries that have kindly announced their support for Venezuela, even though the ballot is a secret one and there's no need to announce things.

But since the imperium has attacked, openly, they strengthened the convictions of many countries. And their support strengthens us.

Mercosur, as a bloc, has expressed its support, our brothers in Mercosur. Venezuela, with Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay, Uruguay, is a full member of Mercosur.

And many other Latin American countries, CARICOM, Bolivia have expressed their support for Venezuela. The Arab League, the full Arab League has voiced its support. And I am immensely grateful to the Arab world, to our Arab brothers, our Caribbean brothers, the African Union. Almost all of Africa has expressed its support for Venezuela and countries such as Russia or China and many others.

I thank you all warmly on behalf of Venezuela, on behalf of our people, and on behalf of the truth, because Venezuela, with a seat on the Security Council, will be expressing not only Venezuela's thoughts, but it will also be the voice of all the peoples of the world, and we will defend dignity and truth.

Over and above all of this, Madam President, I think there are reasons to be optimistic. A poet would have said "helplessly optimistic," because over and above the wars and the bombs and the aggressive and the preventive war and the destruction of entire peoples, one can see that a new era is dawning.

As Silvio Rodriguez says, the era is giving birth to a heart. There are alternative ways of thinking. There are young people who think differently. And this has already been seen within the space of a mere decade. It was shown that the end of history was a totally false assumption, and the same was shown about Pax Americana and the establishment of the capitalist neo-liberal world. It has been shown, this system, to generate mere poverty. Who believes in it now?

What we now have to do is define the future of the world. Dawn is breaking out all over. You can see it in Africa and Europe and Latin America and Oceanea. I want to emphasize that optimistic vision.

We have to strengthen ourselves, our will to do battle, our awareness. We have to build a new and better world.

Venezuela joins that struggle, and that's why we are threatened. The U.S. has already planned, financed and set in motion a coup in Venezuela, and it continues to support coup attempts in Venezuela and elsewhere.

President Michelle Bachelet reminded us just a moment ago of the horrendous assassination of the former foreign minister, Orlando Letelier.

And I would just add one thing: Those who perpetrated this crime are free. And that other event where an American citizen also died were American themselves. They were CIA killers, terrorists.

And we must recall in this room that in just a few days there will be another anniversary. Thirty years will have passed from this other horrendous terrorist attack on the Cuban plane, where 73 innocents died, a Cubana de Aviacion airliner.

And where is the biggest terrorist of this continent who took the responsibility for blowing up the plane? He spent a few years in jail in Venezuela. Thanks to CIA and then government officials, he was allowed to escape, and he lives here in this country, protected by the government.

And he was convicted. He has confessed to his crime. But the U.S. government has double standards. It protects terrorism when it wants to.

And this is to say that Venezuela is fully committed to combating terrorism and violence. And we are one of the people who are fighting for peace.

Luis Posada Carriles is the name of that terrorist who is protected here. And other tremendously corrupt people who escaped from Venezuela are also living here under protection: a group that bombed various embassies, that assassinated people during the coup. They kidnapped me and they were going to kill me, but I think God reached down and our people came out into the streets and the army was too, and so I'm here today.

But these people who led that coup are here today in this country protected by the American government. And I accuse the American government of protecting terrorists and of having a completely cynical discourse.

We mentioned Cuba. Yes, we were just there a few days ago. We just came from there happily.

And there you see another era born. The Summit of the 15, the Summit of the Nonaligned, adopted a historic resolution. This is the outcome document. Don't worry, I'm not going to read it.

But you have a whole set of resolutions here that were adopted after open debate in a transparent matter -- more than 50 heads of state. Havana was the capital of the south for a few weeks, and we have now launched, once again, the group of the nonaligned with new momentum.

And if there is anything I could ask all of you here, my companions, my brothers and sisters, it is to please lend your good will to lend momentum to the Nonaligned Movement for the birth of the new era, to prevent hegemony and prevent further advances of imperialism.

And as you know, Fidel Castro is the president of the nonaligned for the next three years, and we can trust him to lead the charge very efficiently.

Unfortunately they thought, "Oh, Fidel was going to die." But they're going to be disappointed because he didn't. And he's not only alive, he's back in his green fatigues, and he's now presiding the nonaligned.

So, my dear colleagues, Madam President, a new, strong movement has been born, a movement of the south. We are men and women of the south.

With this document, with these ideas, with these criticisms, I'm now closing my file. I'm taking the book with me. And, don't forget, I'm recommending it very warmly and very humbly to all of you.

We want ideas to save our planet, to save the planet from the imperialist threat. And hopefully in this very century, in not too long a time, we will see this, we will see this new era, and for our children and our grandchildren a world of peace based on the fundamental principles of the United Nations, but a renewed United Nations.

And maybe we have to change location. Maybe we have to put the United Nations somewhere else; maybe a city of the south. We've proposed Venezuela.

You know that my personal doctor had to stay in the plane. The chief of security had to be left in a locked plane. Neither of these gentlemen was allowed to arrive and attend the U.N. meeting. This is another abuse and another abuse of power on the part of the Devil. It smells of sulfur here, but God is with us and I embrace you all.

May God bless us all. Good day to you.

What We're Up Against

2006-09-13T20:35:00.000-04:00

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Nonlethal weapons such as high-power microwave devices should be used on American citizens in crowd-control situations before they are used on the battlefield, the Air Force secretary said Tuesday.

Domestic use would make it easier to avoid questions in the international community over any possible safety concerns, said Secretary Michael Wynne.

''If we're not willing to use it here against our fellow citizens, then we should not be willing to use it in a wartime situation,'' said Wynne. ''(Because) if I hit somebody with a nonlethal weapon and they claim that it injured them in a way that was not intended, I think that I would be vilified in the world press.''

Iraq - Clearing the smoke: History at your fingertips

2006-08-31T20:56:00.000-04:00

Mother Jones Magazine has a tool available to help you get familiar with the truth concerning who knew what and when concerning the bogus push for the attack on Iraq. Peruse Lie by Lie: Chronicle of a War Foretold: August 1990 to March 2003 , share it out widely; counter the incessant spin war supporters are so comfortable using. Think of it as history at your fingertips.

Not much posting lately, just like you I am reading deeply attempting to synthesize an overview of our complex world.

The timeline offered is extensive. Take the time to learn- and share.

Democracy at home GOP style

2006-07-28T23:20:00.000-04:00

Q: Yet the wars go on. It’s almost as if the people don’t matter.

Vidal: The people don’t matter to this gang. They pay no attention. They think in totalitarian terms. They’ve got the troops. They’ve got the army. They’ve got Congress. They’ve got the judiciary. Why should they worry? Let the chattering classes chatter. Bush is a thug. I think there is something really wrong with him. -Gore Vidal (in the Progressive)

Proof:

The House Republican Leadership has announced its intention to have the House vote, before adjourning on Friday or Saturday, on several major pieces of legislation that are not yet available to House members in final form because behind-closed-door negotiations on the proposals are still going on. The Leadership apparently intends to use a process known as “martial law” to allow these bills to be brought to the floor very shortly after negotiations are completed, with the result that Members of the House are likely to have virtually no time to examine and consider the details of the legislation before they will be required to vote on it.

Proof:

WASHINGTON -- President Bush has quietly claimed the authority to disobey more than 750 laws enacted since he took office, asserting that he has the power to set aside any statute passed by Congress when it conflicts with his interpretation of the Constitution.

Among the laws Bush said he can ignore are military rules and regulations, affirmative-action provisions, requirements that Congress be told about immigration services problems, ''whistle-blower" protections for nuclear regulatory officials, and safeguards against political interference in federally funded research.

Legal scholars say the scope and aggression of Bush's assertions that he can bypass laws represent a concerted effort to expand his power at the expense of Congress, upsetting the balance between the branches of government. The Constitution is clear in assigning to Congress the power to write the laws and to the president a duty ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.

Any questions?

A Thousand Words On Collective Punishment

2006-07-27T19:09:00.000-04:00

Click on image to enlarge, then click image again for full size.

Gleaned here at Information Clearinghouse.

Tip of the Iceberg

2006-07-26T20:40:00.000-04:00

The killing of UN observers in Lebanon by Israeli "Defense" Forces illustrates just how skewed our media is.

Mr Olmert calls the bombing of the UN post a mistake.

BBC offers us a different perspective:

The post was hit by a precision-guided missile after six hours of shelling, diplomats familiar with the probe say.

What do you think?

Jane Lute, the assistant secretary general for peacekeeping, told the UN security council that the base came under close Israeli fire 21 times - including 12 hits within 100 metres and four direct hits - from 1.20pm until contact was lost with the four peacekeepers inside at 7.17pm.

Ms Lute said the peacekeeping force had protested to the Israeli army after each firing incident. The UN's deputy secretary general, Mark Malloch Brown, and Ms Lute herself also made several calls to Israel's mission to the UN "reiterating these protests and calling for an abatement of the shelling", she said.

After contact with the base was lost, Unifil then won safe passage for two armoured personnel carriers to evacuate the position, she said. They arrived at 9.30pm "and found the shelter collapsed and major damage to the rest of the position". Despite negotiating safe passage, the APCs also came under Israeli attack, Ms Lute said.

Obviously we are being lied to. Precision bombing after multiple strikes- and calls to Israeli forces by the soon to be victims.

CNN reports:

U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan said he was "deeply distressed" by the "apparently deliberate" strike.

"This coordinated artillery and aerial attack on a long-established and clearly marked U.N. post at Khiyam occurred despite personal assurances given to me by Prime Minister Ehud Olmert that U.N. positions would be spared Israeli fire," he said in a statement.

"Furthermore, General Alain Pelligrini, the U.N. force commander in south Lebanon, had been in repeated contact with Israeli officers throughout the day on Tuesday, stressing the need to protect that particular U.N. position from attack."

YNet treats us to sham outrage:

Israel's Ambassador to Washington Danny Ayalon said Wednesday that UN Secretary General Kofi Annan should apologize to Israel for saying that dropping a bomb on a UN post in south Lebanon was a deliberate act.

Speaking to CNN Ayalon said Annan's comments are "scandalous," and demanded he apologize.

Just one well documented war crime among literally, tens of thousands.

Lies and death, the Israeli modus operandi continues to manifest.

_{Added Later}

Further proof that the bombing was NOT accidental:

DUBLIN (Reuters) - An Irish army officer in south Lebanon warned Israel six times that air strikes threatened the lives of U.N. observers there before four staff were killed in a direct hit, Ireland's Foreign Ministry said on Wednesday.

"On six separate occasions he was in contact with the Israelis to warn them that their bombardment was endangering the lives of U.N. staff in South Lebanon," a Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman said.

"He warned: 'You have to address this problem or lives may be lost'," the spokesman said of comments by Lieutenant Colonel John Molloy, the chief liaison officer between U.N. forces in South Lebanon and the Israelis.

The comments came after Foreign Minister Dermot Ahern summoned Israel's ambassador to a meeting to outline his concerns over the deaths.

Ireland, which until 2001 had a full infantry battalion stationed in Lebanon as part of a U.N. force, currently has 17 soldiers in the region, 10 of whom are in Lebanon.

Smoke and Mirrors

2006-07-25T23:46:00.000-04:00

Check out the sidebar; Information Clearing House, Antiwar, CounterPunch and What Really Happened are good generalized news sources. Thoughts On The Eve of the Apocalypse will offer up information on current events that you might have missed. Truth. Commercial media is often innacurate, especially here in the States, on this issue.

But you know that, or you probably wouldn't be here.

Use the sidebar. I'm reading and reasoning- the truth of the matter is obvious. To me.

You be the judge.

A Principled Stand

2006-07-07T18:06:00.000-04:00

Cindy Sheehan is taking a principled stand concerning the state of our union and the actions our nation is taking- she is engaging in a hunger strike, a fast; I mention this because none of the folks I have spoken with are aware of her efforts.

The Troops Home Fast she has initiated seems like a good way to go, a way to raise consciousness about the war and occupation of Iraq- if every city had dedicated fasters it seems like the effort could be quite effective.

It will be interesting to see how the media treats the effort of the fasters.

Check out the Fox Network treatment Reverend Al Sharpton got:

HANNITY: That's not a fast. Jack Murtha accused our troops of killing civilians in cold blood. John Kerry said our troops are terrorists, terrorizing women and children in the dark of night. The person you're fasting with said our soldiers are rapists and war criminals, that the president killed her son, that George Bush is a lying filthy bastard and a fuhrer. You're going to stand with a woman who says all of those things?

SHARPTON: I'm going to fast.

HANNITY: With a woman who says all those things?

SHARPTON: I fast on many religion holidays.

HANNITY: Stop ducking the question. Why are you supporting a woman who calls our president a lying, filthy bastard?

SHARPTON: Either you're going to let me answer the question, or you can just go on a tirade with your prognosis there.

HANNITY: I want you to answer it.

SHARPTON: I'm fasting because this war is wrong, this war was misleading from the beginning, and this is a morale sacrifice that many of us...

I support her because she is correct.

"Lying filthy bastard"? The shoe fits, history shows, no matter how spun reality gets to hide the fact.

Lying Filthy Bastards= Neoconservatives is my well supported judgement.

I'll leave you with a Cindy Sheehan quotation:

I often get told that I should "love America, or leave it." This is ridiculous logic and empty rhetoric. I love the country that I was born in and I love Americans. I am an American and so are my children. Casey was born and died a fine American who was abused by the same leaders that are abusing the world as I type. I could leave if I wanted to and, in fact, have received many offers to be an ex-patriate in many friendly countries. However, I want to stay and fight for my country. I want my country and the flag that symbolizes it around the globe to stand for something that we can all be proud of again.

BushCo and the neo-con regime embarked on this disastrous misadventure in Iraq to prove to the world how strong and virile Pax Americana is. Their abjectly failed mission, which was evil and corrupt from the beginning, has not proven how strong our nation is but, on the contrary, how weak. However, the neo-cons have managed to prove that even though they have the "mightiest" war machine in the world, an insurgency in a country smaller than the state of California can hold their false freedom and deadly democracy at bay. One other thing that the neo-cons have proven is that America is no longer the moral touchstone of the world but is a nation that commits torture and crimes against humanity with the presidential seal of approval. BushCo has destroyed any credibility our nation ever had in the world and all of us need to fight to regain it and thereby redeem our own souls.

I implore you, while you are enjoying your potato salad and fireworks on the 4th, to reflect on what the star-spangled banner means to you. If our flag symbolizes the same thing to you as it does to the neo-cons, then by all means, enlist and go to Iraq to let some of our soldiers come home that are tired of suffering and committing war crimes for Halliburton, Dick and Donny.

If, however, you realize that the flag no longer waves "o'er the land of the free" and you would like it to again, we invite you to come out to Camp Casey this summer and help us fight for the heart and soul of our nation. If you realize that, while you are "oohing and ahing" over the pretty fireworks in your home town, there are real bombs bursting on the people of Iraq, killing them and destroying their nation for no reason other than that Dick Cheney wanted to, then you need to digest your 4th of July BBQ and get out and show Dicky and the world that we mean business when we say we want our troops to come home to save them and our brothers and sisters in Iraq.

What are your thoughts?

Well Past Time For A Principled Stand

2006-06-19T18:57:00.000-04:00

"Live Free or Die" is not just a cheesy licence plate slogan in this tiny New England state. But even New Hampshire is not immune to the national erosion of civil liberties that has permeated every part of the United States since terrorists forced their way into airline cockpits almost five years ago, taking away a nation's bravado and replacing it with fear.

The exploitation of that fear by an administration intent on inflating the powers of the presidency, at the expense of a cowed Congress and with the tacit approval of an anxious nation, may be a cautionary tale for Canadians should some of that U.S.-style fear find its way north of the border in the wake of Toronto's recent terrorism arrests.

In recent years, it has become a truism that Americans will trade away some liberties because they have been attacked. Canadians have not.

But where is that rugged U.S. individuality that had helped define this nation?

Where indeed? Hypnotized by the tv, paralyzed, deer-in-the-headlight like by the ever growing mass of corruption and lies that defines "politics as usual" as breezily revealed to us daily. Cut to commercial.

During the Persian Gulf War, General Electric owned NBC (it still does). A major nuclear weapons manufacturer--which made parts for many of the weapons in the Gulf War--owned a major television network. Is it any surprise that what we saw on television looked like a military hardware show? According to the New York Times, CBS executives "offered advertisers assurances that the war specials could be tailored to provide better lead-ins to commercials. One way would be to insert the commercials after segments that were specially produced with upbeat images or messages about the war."

I could go on, rant the truth- what of it. There is no opposition party. The corporate juggernaut rules...

We the People all "wear the blue dress" now.

(A quick note for clarity: I am no Libertarian, government has a Constitutionally mandated role in civil life; referee if you will to ensure the commonwealth [air water, the natural world, "safety net" highways schools etc.] is preserved and that regular folks are protected from rapacious moneyed interests. What I see occuring is wedding of corporate power and government- soft telegenic fascism for the new millenium.

More on this later...)

Robert Kennedy Sheds Light In Rolling Stone Magazine

2006-06-02T13:24:00.000-04:00

Robert Kennedy writes a well sourced article in Rolling Stone pointing out that much like in 2000 Mr Bush lost the 2004 Presidential election.

Read Was the 2004 Election Stolen?. Forward it out to the uninformed; that would be the majority of us- We the People.

We Know When You Are Sleeping, We Know When You're Awake...

2006-05-15T15:04:00.000-04:00

A senior federal law enforcement official tells ABC News the government is tracking the phone numbers we (Brian Ross and Richard Esposito) call in an effort to root out confidential sources.

"It's time for you to get some new cell phones, quick," the source told us in an in-person conversation.

ABC News does not know how the government determined who we are calling, or whether our phone records were provided to the government as part of the recently-disclosed NSA collection of domestic phone calls.

Other sources have told us that phone calls and contacts by reporters for ABC News, along with the New York Times and the Washington Post, are being examined as part of a widespread CIA leak investigation.

Feeling safer? Like Democracy is being preserved?

Few Options- But NO to Hillary

2006-05-10T17:01:00.000-04:00

In Financial Times we read:

Rupert Murdoch, the conservative media mogul whose New York Post tabloid savaged Hillary Clinton's initial aspirations to become a US senator for New York, has agreed to host a political fundraiser for her re-election campaign.
The decision underlines an incongruous thawing of relations between Mr Murdoch and Mrs Clinton, who in 1998 coined the phrase "vast rightwing conspiracy" to denounce critics of her husband, such as Fox News, the conservative cable channel owned by Mr Murdoch's News Corporation.

Mr Murdoch will host the fundraiser, due to be held by July, on behalf of News Corp.

This editorial from Financial Times points out the truth of the matter:

Still, Mrs Clinton, who has yet to declare her candidacy for the 2008 presidential elections, has studiously matched her husband's track record on political triangulation. In fact, the liberal that America's conservatives love to hate has taken it a stage further. Among Mrs Clinton's senatorial initiatives is a resolution calling for a ban on burning the American flag - hardly a rallying point on the Berkeley campus. Among the lawmakers with whom Mrs Clinton has collaborated are Bill Frist, Republican senate majority leader, Tom DeLay, former house majority leader, and Rick Santorum, the hardline senator from Pennsylvania. Some of these figures were part of the alleged "rightwing conspiracy" that America's then first lady identified behind the campaign to impeach her husband in the late 1990s. Nowadays they speak glowingly of Mrs Clinton's congressional style.

But VHeadline is the most perceptive, offering in straight up language what the financial papers can only allude to- a Uniparty approach; as in "more of the same":

But if Ms. Clinton is ready to prostitute herself for Mr. Murdoch's money and to suck up to his friends, it is also a sure sign that the Democrats are going to be expected to snatch this country out of the fires ignited by the many disastrous policies of the Bush administration and keep it safe and in the hands of the same elite which financed the present regime.

All this is to say that we have yet another clear indication that the faces around here will change but the imperial policy will not.

Ms Clinton's view:
"He's my constituent and I'm very gratified that he thinks I'm doing a good job."

On the other hand (the left one I suppose)

Off topic but an illustration of an opposition party attitude in contrast to a collaborationist "show me the money" way in the world at least on Democrat minces no words -Mr Feingold was in the news saying:

"We must get out of our political foxholes and be willing to clearly and specifically point out what a strategic error the Iraq invasion has been," Feingold, D-Wis., told a National Press Club audience.

He said some Democrats in Congress gave in to "intimidation" by the Bush administration when they voted to authorize the war in 2002, and warned: "If we do not show both a practical and emotional readiness to lead in the fight against terrorism, we will lose in '06 and we will lose in '08, just like we did in '02 and '04."

Stephen Colbert: Jester -in- Chief

2006-05-01T13:27:00.000-04:00

Why is it that the only straight shooter on tv is a comedian who plays a right wing windbag?

Perhaps Stephan Colbert is following in the long tradition of Jesters; folks who made the court laugh by using their wit to utter truths that would see advisors risk a beheading

See Stephen Colbert as keynote speaker at the National Press Club Dinner- he is funny, of course, but more than that, he spoke truth to power, loud and proud, lampooning Bush luminaries left and right- well, right and right to be accurate, Scalia, Pace, McClellan, Snow- overall telling how it is with Mr Bush and the present administration. Scathing but true, Colbert has shown incredible courage, testicular fortitude, if you will, as he has used his wit to call Mr Bush onto the carpet.

A must see. Crooks and Liars has Quicktime and a lower resolution .wmv videos available.

Thank You Stephen Colbert has links to You Tube that download quickly- with the added benefit that you can leave a "thank you" comment to Mr Colbert. In these political times it seems important to honor a man that has really stuck his neck out for We the People, using his unique brand of comedy to both entertain and inform.

Daily Kos has the transcript.

You're a good man, Stephen Colbert. Thanks.

Going Down in History- Well, Going Down, Alrighty

2006-04-20T23:03:00.000-04:00

Another president once explained that the judgments of history cannot be defied or dismissed, even by a president. "Fellow citizens, we cannot escape history," said Abraham Lincoln. "We of this Congress and this administration, will be remembered in spite of ourselves. No personal significance, or insignificance, can spare one or another of us. The fiery trial through which we pass, will light us down, in honor or dishonor, to the latest generation."

Want a historians take on the Bush presidency?

Read "The Worst President in History?:One of America's leading historians assesses George W. Bush".

Touches on many bases, sums up his reign so far quite well.

You might want to forward it around; it is something your family, friends and especially legislative representitives might miss.

Help them out. Shed some light.

Senate Hearings: Under Oath to Save Our World

2006-04-18T19:20:00.000-04:00

A rather dramatic title? Not when you consider how the present administration has affected the whole world by its misgovernance while relieving us of our Constitution and liberties.

I recommend this article by Carl Bernstein "Senate Hearings on Bush, Now" both to remind you of the many reasons the Bush/Cheney administration needs to be examined, held up to light; as well as to offer you an article you can recommend to your friends, family, legislators...

The present administration has used deception, has made end runs around the Constitution, broken international law and been just plain incompetent on so many occasions. It can be difficult to bring all these type incidents to mind. Bernstein lays them out nicely.

I hope you find his piece as compelling as I have, and that you share it around widely.

From deep in the body of the article I'll offer you this teaser:

A voluminous accumulation of documentary and journalistic evidence suggests that the policies and philosophy of this administration that may be illegal and unconstitutional stem not just from Bush but from Cheney as well—hence there's even greater necessity for a careful, methodical investigation under Senate auspices before any consideration of impeachment in the House and its mischievous potential to create the mother of all partisan, ideological, take-no-prisoners battles, which would even further divide the Congress and the country.

Cheney's recognition of the danger to him and his patron by a re-assertion of the Watergate precedent of proper congressional oversight is not hard to fathom. Illegal wiretapping—among other related crimes—was the basis of one of the articles of impeachment against Nixon passed by the House Judiciary Committee. The other two were defiance of subpoenas and obstruction of justice in the Watergate cover-up. "Watergate and a lot of the things around Watergate and Vietnam, both during the 1970s, served, I think, to erode the authority … [that] the president needs to be effective, especially in the national-security area," Cheney has observed. Nixon did not share his decision-making, much less philosophizing, with his vice president, and never relegated his own judgment to a number two. Former secretary of state Colin Powell's ex-chief of staff, retired army colonel Larry Wilkerson, has attested, "What I saw was a cabal between the vice president of the United States, Richard Cheney, and the secretary of defense, Donald Rumsfeld, on critical issues that made decisions that the bureaucracy did not know were being made."

Here it may be relevant that Powell has, in private, made statements interpreted by many important figures in Washington as seemingly questioning Cheney's emotional stability, and that Powell no longer recognizes the steady, dependable "rock" with whom he served in the administration of George W. Bush's father. Powell needs to be asked under oath about his reported observations regarding Cheney, not to mention his own appearance before the United Nations in which he spoke with assurance about Saddam Hussein's possession of weapons of mass destruction and insisted that the United States was seeking a way to avoid war, not start it.

Because Powell was regarded by some as the administration "good guy," who was prescient in his anxiety about Bush's determination to go to war in Iraq ("You break it, you own it"), he should not be handed a pass exempting him from tough questioning in a congressional investigation. Indeed, Powell is probably more capable than any other witness of providing both fact and context to the whole story of the road to war and the actions of Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and the others.

Hurndall Murder Follow-Up

2006-04-11T20:15:00.000-04:00

U.K. coroner recommends war crimes charges for IDF soldiers
By Associated Press

A U.K. coroner said on Monday that he would recommend that the British attorney general seek legal action over the deaths of two pro-Palestinian activists killed by Israel Defense Forces fire in 2003.

The statements came after a British inquest jury ruled that Tom Hurndall was unlawfully killed by an IDF soldier in the Gaza Strip. It was the second time in two weeks that a British coroner's court had ruled that a U.K. citizen shot by Israeli soldiers in 2003 was unlawfully killed.

In the Monday decision, jurors at a London coroner's court concluded that Hurndall, 22, was shot intentionally with the intent to kill by an IDF marksman in April 2003.

They Shot Him, They Fired on his Mom Later: Israeli "Purity of Arms" Demonstrated

2006-04-10T14:35:00.000-04:00

They shot him trying to save children. They re-imbursed his family for getting his barely alive body home with a bouncing check. His Mom was fired upon as she sought closure in Israel. Boycotting his inquest- more of the same.

Israel will be boycotting the inquest considering the shooting of by the IDF of Tom Hurndall, an unarmed peace activist who was pulling Palestinian children out of the Israeli line of fire. In other words, Mr Hurndall is a hero. The Israeli's actually put a soldier in jail for his shooting. Unlike the soldiers who had shot two other unarmed civilians that year. ( The murder of James Miller was examined by inquest last week- see the film "Death In Gaza", where the family man is clearly marked, and just as clearly killed in cold blood.)

What the soldier IDF soldier had to say:

Sergeant Taysir Hayb admitted he was lying when he said the peace activist was carrying a gun, but said he was under orders to open fire even on unarmed people.

He told the military court that after shooting Mr Hurndall he had reported it to his commander: "I told him that I did what I'm supposed to: anyone who enters a firing zone must be taken out. [The commander] always says this."

Mrs Hurndall's fears were stoked when the soldier said at his court case: "The [Israeli army] fires freely in Rafah."

This is, in part what I posted 11/23/03.

Witness to the illegal Occupation of Palestine Tom Hurndall was killed last April by an IDF gunman as he sought to protect some children from Israeli gunfire last April.

The fact he was unarmed and wearing fluorescent clothing did not protect him from the high velocity rifle shot to the head. His family has turned off the severely brain damaged peace activists life support. He never regained consciousness.

His parents went to Israel to be by his side and bring him home. While there they went to see the place where he was shot. The checkpoint they needed to pass through was notified three times that they were going to arrive. Days before as well as when they set out, again ten minutes before their arrival. The British diplomatic convoy was fired upon from the watchtower at the checkpoint. Your tax dollars at work.

His family spent 17,000 pounds to bring him home to Great Britain. Months later a check from the Israeli Defense Ministry for 8300 pounds arrived in the mail with a letter from Ambassador Zvi Stauber arrived in the mail. The check bounced.

Attorney General, General Menachem Finkelstein, after much work from the boy's family has agreed to start an investigation concerning his shooting.

Ideally the investigation will be better than the check.

It is obvious that the problem is larger than "one rogue soldier"- it is systematic.

Terrorists for allies in the War on Terror? Read the facts. Decide for yourself.

Mr Bush: Our Own, Personal Nero (Liar Liar World on Fire)

2006-04-08T16:07:00.000-04:00

You need to read Seymour Hersh today. Why? Take a look:

The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

American and European intelligence agencies, and the International Atomic Energy Agency (I.A.E.A.), agree that Iran is intent on developing the capability to produce nuclear weapons. But there are widely differing estimates of how long that will take, and whether diplomacy, sanctions, or military action is the best way to prevent it. Iran insists that its research is for peaceful use only, in keeping with the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and that it will not be delayed or deterred.

There is a growing conviction among members of the United States military, and in the international community, that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. Iran’s President, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has challenged the reality of the Holocaust and said that Israel must be “wiped off the map.” Bush and others in the White House view him as a potential Adolf Hitler, a former senior intelligence official said. “That’s the name they’re using. They say, ‘Will Iran get a strategic weapon and threaten another world war?’ ”

A government consultant with close ties to the civilian leadership in the Pentagon said that Bush was “absolutely convinced that Iran is going to get the bomb” if it is not stopped. He said that the President believes that he must do “what no Democrat or Republican, if elected in the future, would have the courage to do,” and “that saving Iran is going to be his legacy.”

One former defense official, who still deals with sensitive issues for the Bush Administration, told me that the military planning was premised on a belief that “a sustained bombing campaign in Iran will humiliate the religious leadership and lead the public to rise up and overthrow the government.” He added, “I was shocked when I heard it, and asked myself, ‘What are they smoking?’ ”

Yup, an attack on Iran looks imminent. The US will be awash in patriotism- no more questions asked about the Bush Administrations actions as we are brought into a world war- again, by choice.

The House member said that no one in the meetings “is really objecting” to the talk of war. “The people they’re briefing are the same ones who led the charge on Iraq. At most, questions are raised: How are you going to hit all the sites at once? How are you going to get deep enough?” (Iran is building facilities underground.) “There’s no pressure from Congress” not to take military action, the House member added. “The only political pressure is from the guys who want to do it.” Speaking of President Bush, the House member said, “The most worrisome thing is that this guy has a messianic vision.”

Hersh is reliable. Read what he has to say.

Ongoing Spying on Americans Big Time is Already Big Business, Mr Gonzales

2006-04-07T15:03:00.000-04:00

_{I'll touch on the ongoing NSA domestic spying controversy and make you aware of the extent of government/corporate sying that has been occuring under the Bush administration.}

Wellllllllll, Alberto Gonzales said what we all wonder about out loud- Mr Bush may feel comfortable with warrantless spying on domestic communications.

Attorney General Alberto R. Gonzales left open the possibility yesterday that President Bush could order warrantless wiretaps on telephone calls occurring solely within the United States -- a move that would dramatically expand the reach of a controversial National Security Agency surveillance program.

In response to a question from Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) during an appearance before the House Judiciary Committee, Gonzales suggested that the administration could decide it was legal to listen in on a domestic call without supervision if it were related to al-Qaeda.

In the past, Gonzales and other officials refused to say whether they had the legal authority to conduct warrantless eavesdropping on domestic calls, and have stressed that the NSA eavesdropping program is focused only on international communications.

You should be aware that the Electronic Freedom Foundation is sueing ATT for giving the government access, without the permission of individuals, to it's networks and massive amounts of data- the records of our emails, phone calls, who they are to and what they contain.

In December of 2005, the press revealed that the government had instituted a comprehensive and warrantless electronic surveillance program that ignored the careful safeguards set forth by Congress. This surveillance program, purportedly authorized by the President at least as early as 2001 and primarily undertaken by the NSA, intercepts and analyzes the communications of millions of ordinary Americans.
In the largest "fishing expedition" ever devised, the NSA uses powerful computers to "data-mine" the contents of these Internet and telephone communications for suspicious names, numbers, and words, and to analyze traffic data indicating who is calling and emailing whom in order to identify persons who may be "linked" to "suspicious activities", suspected terrorists or other investigatory targets, whether directly or indirectly.

But the government did not act-and is not acting-alone. The government requires the collaboration of major telecommunications companies to implement its unprecedented and illegal domestic spying program.

AT&T Corp. (which was recently acquired by the new AT&T, Inc,. formerly known as SBC Communications) maintains domestic telecommunications facilities over which millions of Americans' telephone and Internet communications pass every day. It also manages some of the largest databases in the world, containing records of most or all communications made through its myriad telecommunications services.

The lawsuit alleges that AT&T Corp. has opened its key telecommunications facilities and databases to direct access by the NSA and/or other government agencies, thereby disclosing to the government the contents of its customers' communications as well as detailed communications records about millions of its customers, including the lawsuit's class members.

The lawsuit also alleges that AT&T has given the government unfettered access to its over 300 terabyte "Daytona" database of caller information -- one of the largest databases in the world. Moreover, by opening its network and databases to wholesale surveillance by the NSA, EFF alleges that AT&T has violated the privacy of its customers and the people they call and email, as well as broken longstanding communications privacy laws.

Note I highlighted the phrase "suspicious activities". The Department of Defense for instance has spied on anti-military recruitment protests, terming them as "threat". Peace protests are termed the same way. Read the full .pdf- it is chilling. If the "terrorists hate us for our freedoms" perhaps this is a way to get them to like us- take the freedoms away. Gotta say, I feel as though perhaps I'll get a knock on the door, just for sharing this information because I love my country and its people and feel badly that we all are being mislead. Did I mention an antiwar postcard is listed in this database, for crying out loud? That Quakers, Code Pink and the Raging Grannies are being watched?

Or this quotation from a DoD briefing document?

“[W]e have noted increased communication and encouragement between protest groups using the [I]nternet,” but no “significant connection” between incidents, such as “reoccurring instigators at protests” or “vehicle descriptions.”

Looks like the World Wide Web is already being pretty well monitored, Mr Gonzalez. And that intelligence folks are even monitoring our vehicles- as well as our persons.

CIFA/ TALON

Two years ago, the Defense Department directed a little known agency, Counterintelligence Field Activity, or CIFA, to establish and “maintain a domestic law enforcement database that includes information related to potential terrorist threats directed against the Department of Defense.” Then-Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz also established a new reporting mechanism known as a TALON or Threat and Local Observation Notice report. TALONs now provide “non-validated domestic threat information” from military units throughout the United States that are collected and retained in a CIFA database.

Sounds almost reasonable. Until you note that it seems directed at people practicing free speech

The corporate/Government nexus makes me ill at ease:

CIFA is becoming the superpower of data mining within the U.S. national security community. Its “operational and analytical records” include “reports of investigation, collection reports, statements of individuals, affidavits, correspondence, and other documentation pertaining to investigative or analytical efforts” by the DOD and other U.S. government agencies to identify terrorist and other threats. Since March 2004, CIFA has awarded at least $33 million in contracts to corporate giants Lockheed Martin, Unisys Corporation, Computer Sciences Corporation and Northrop Grumman to develop databases that comb through classified and unclassified government data, commercial information and Internet chatter to help sniff out terrorists, saboteurs and spies.

Again, we see the internet is obviously being monitored.

The compant ChoicePoint has 19 billion public records in its databases. The Department of Defense and the FBI utilize it's "expertise" in spying on us.

ChoicePoint began in 1997 as a company that sold credit data to the insurance industry. But over the next seven years, it became an all-purpose commercial source of personal information about Americans, with billions of details about their homes, cars, relatives, criminal records and other aspects of their lives.

Now the information company is transforming itself into a private intelligence service for national security and law enforcement tasks. It has acquired a host of companies that produce sophisticated computer tools for analyzing and sharing records in ChoicePoint's immense storehouses.

There is no Congressional oversight here. It is a public company, not part of our government. It can do what it would be illegal for agencies of our government to do- and sell them the information.

Speaking of a lack of Congressional oversight, Mr Gonzalez came up short when our legislators asked him about NSA spying. Could what we are learning be just the tip of the iceberg concerning the privact rights we are losing?

In yesterday's testimony, Gonzales reiterated earlier hints that there may be another facet to the NSA program that has not been revealed publicly, or even another program that has prompted dissension within the government. While acknowledging disagreements among officials over the monitoring efforts, Gonzales disputed published reports that have detailed the arguments.

"They did not relate to the program the president disclosed," Gonzales testified. "They related to something else, and I can't get into that."

Keep your eyes open, looks like more bad news to come.

Lies Deceit and War

2006-04-06T18:28:00.000-04:00

GEORGE H.W. BUSH: “I have nothing but contempt and anger for those who betray the trust by exposing the name of our sources. They are, in my view, the most insidious of traitors.” [Speech at CIA, 4/26/99]

G W Bush, talking in September 2003:

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. Let me just say something about leaks in Washington. There are too many leaks of classified information in Washington. There's leaks at the executive branch; there's leaks in the legislative branch. There's just too many leaks. And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated law, the person will be taken care of.

And so I welcome the investigation. I -- I'm absolutely confident that the Justice Department will do a very good job. There's a special division of career Justice Department officials who are tasked with doing this kind of work; they have done this kind of work before in Washington this year. I have told our administration, people in my administration to be fully cooperative.

I want to know the truth. If anybody has got any information inside our administration or outside our administration, it would be helpful if they came forward with the information so we can find out whether or not these allegations are true and get on about the business.

Irving Lewis Libby shares the truth with a Federal Grand Jury:

Libby, 55, testified in 2003 that he provided reporter Judith Miller with information from a classified National Intelligence Estimate after being told by Cheney that Bush "specifically had authorized" him to "disclose certain information in the NIE." Libby also testified that Cheney specifically directed him to speak to other reporters about information in the classified NIE (which addressed Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction programs) as well as a cable authored by Plame's husband, former ambassador Joseph Wilson. The leaking of the classified material was apparently done in an effort to counter claims made by Wilson regarding the White House's justification for invading Iraq. The Fitzgerald filing also notes that Libby told grand jurors that he conferred with David Addington, Cheney's counsel, about the leak directive and that Addington told him "that Presidential authorization to publicly disclose a document amounted to a declassification of the document."

If the document was declassified, why didn't Mr Bush admit it?

The revealing of Ms Plames CIA work has helped the Bush adminstrations rush to war with Iran:

According to current and former intelligence officials, Plame Wilson, who worked on the clandestine side of the CIA in the Directorate of Operations as a non-official cover (NOC) officer, was part of an operation tracking distribution and acquisition of weapons of mass destruction technology to and from Iran.

Speaking under strict confidentiality, intelligence officials revealed heretofore unreported elements of Plame's work. Their accounts suggest that Plame's outing was more serious than has previously been reported and carries grave implications for U.S. national security and its ability to monitor Iran's burgeoning nuclear program.

A two-fer for the NeoCon Bush administration- a chance to scare Wilson into quietness AND keep the nations Central Intelligence Agency in the dark about Iran- no bothersome accurate intelligence to frustrate their designs on Iran.

Next Iran, then Saudia Arabia?

Check this out, it is from January 2005:

For months before taking his second oath of office, the resolute Mr. Bush has done exactly what he promised he would. He has raced full-throttle to expand his Middle East Crusade, this time against Iran, number two on his Axis of Evil.
As many of us in the chattering classes have long warned, and as Sy Hersh reports in this week's New Yorker, the president is already marching to war.

"The Administration has been conducting secret reconnaissance missions inside Iran at least since last summer," Hersh writes. "Much of the focus is on the accumulation of intelligence and targeting information on Iranian nuclear, chemical, and missile sites, both declared and suspected."

"The goal is to identify and isolate three dozen, and perhaps more, such targets that could be destroyed by precision strikes and short-term commando raids."

As one of his sources told Hersh, "The civilians in the Pentagon want to go into Iran and destroy as much of the military infrastructure as possible."

Perhaps as early as his State of the Union address, Mr. Bush will promote this pre-emptive attack as the cutting edge of his "War on Terror." In fact, he knows that Iran and its Ayatollahs had nothing to do with 9/11. But neither did Saddam Hussein.

From a year ago, April:

As the United States gears up for an attack on Iran, one thing is certain: the Bush administration will never mention oil as a reason for going to war. As in the case of Iraq, weapons of mass destruction (WMD) will be cited as the principal justification for an American assault. "We will not tolerate the construction of a nuclear weapon [by Iran]," is the way President Bush put it in a much-quoted 2003 statement. But just as the failure to discover illicit weapons in Iraq undermined the administration's use of WMD as the paramount reason for its invasion, so its claim that an attack on Iran would be justified because of its alleged nuclear potential should invite widespread skepticism. More important, any serious assessment of Iran's strategic importance to the United States should focus on its role in the global energy equation.

From October 2004:

Shortly after 9/11, Undersecretary of Defense for Policy Douglas Feith began coordinating Pentagon planning for an invasion of Iraq. The challenge facing Feith, the No. 3 civilian in the Defense Department, was to establish a policy rationale for the attack. At the same time, Feith's ideological cohorts in the Pentagon began planning to take the administration's "global war on terrorism:' not only to Baghdad, but also to Damascus and Tehran.

In August it was revealed that one of Feith's Middle East policy wonks, Lawrence Franklin, shared classified documents-including a draft National Security Presidential Directive formulated in Feith's office that outlines a more aggressive US. national security strategy regarding Iran-with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and Israeli officials. The FBI is investigating the document transfer as a case of espionage.

This spy scandal raises two concerns for US. diplomats and foreign policy experts from across the political spectrum. One, that US. Middle East policy is being directed by neoconservative ideologues variously employed, coordinated or sanctioned by Feith's Pentagon office. And two, that US. Middle East policy is too closely aligned with that of Israeli hardliners close to US. neoconservatives.

Feith is joined in reshaping a U.S. foreign Middle East policy-one that mirrors or complements the policies of the hardliners in Israel-by a web of neoconservative policy institutes, pressure groups and think tanks. These include the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs (JINSA), the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS), Center for Security Policy (CSP) and the Zionist Organization of America (ZOA)-all groups with which Feith has been or still is closely associated.

First Iraq, now Iran

In the months after 9/11, rather than relying on the CIA, State Department or the Pentagon's own Defense Intelligence Agency for intelligence about Iraq's ties to international terrorists and its development of weapons of mass destruction, neoconservatives in the Pentagon set up a special intelligence shop called the Office of Special Plans (OSP). The founders, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz and Feith, are fervent advocates of a regional restructuring in the

Middle East that includes regime change in Iran, Syria and, ultimately, Saudi Arabia.

At Mousemusings I came across this- a report that Saudi Arabia has a secret nuclear program:

BERLIN (AFX) - Saudi Arabia is working secretly on a nuclear program, with help from Pakistani experts, the German magazine Cicero reported in its latest edition, citing Western security sources.

It says that during the Haj pilgrimages to Mecca in 2003 through 2005, Pakistani scientists posed as pilgrims to come to Saudi Arabia.

Between October 2004 and January 2005, some of them slipped off from pilgrimages, sometimes for up to three weeks, the report quoted German security expert Udo Ulfkotte as saying.

According to Western security services, the magazine added, Saudi scientists have been working since the mid-1990s in Pakistan, a nuclear power since 1998.

Cicero, which will appear on newstands tomorrow, also quoted a US military analyst, John Pike, as saying that Saudi bar codes can be found on half of Pakistan's nuclear weapons 'because it is Saudi Arabia which ultimately co-financed the Pakistani atomic nuclear program.'

Governance by lies. Perpetual wars by choice. A renewed arms race. Gifts from the Bush administration.

Are these your visions for America, for our world?

Keep Heart

2006-04-05T19:59:00.000-04:00

Blogger goes down in two minutes...

I'll share this flash presentation. Remember, you are not alone; a great many of us feel that the world is out of balance on so many levels.

Keep heart.

George Washington Enlightens/ Senator Hatch Cites Reasons to Impeach- Both Timeless

2006-04-03T23:22:00.000-04:00

I'm going to offer you some quotations to think about; contrast and compare, if you will. I'd ask you to skip over my commentary if short on time- you'll get the gist, the crucial information from the quotations. Please scroll through- this post feels important for the historical perspective it offers. A needed perspective.

In the neighborhood of 210 years ago George Washington offered advice that fits our times and current situation as "We the People" consider censure for a President who is putting his office at the fore- a power grab that leaves our Constitution "an outdated document" or as Mr Bush reportedly said:

“Stop throwing the Constitution in my face,” Bush screamed back. “It’s just a goddamned piece of paper!”

Advice from George Washington's Farewell Address:

It is important, likewise, that the habits of thinking in a free country should inspire caution in those entrusted with its administration, to confine themselves within their respective constitutional spheres, avoiding in the exercise of the powers of one department to encroach upon another. The spirit of encroachment tends to consolidate the powers of all the departments in one, and thus to create, whatever the form of government, a real despotism. A just estimate of that love of power, and proneness to abuse it, which predominates in the human heart, is sufficient to satisfy us of the truth of this position. The necessity of reciprocal checks in the exercise of political power, by dividing and distributing it into different depositaries, and constituting each the guardian of the public weal against invasions by the others, has been evinced by experiments ancient and modern; some of them in our country and under our own eyes. To preserve them must be as necessary as to institute them. If, in the opinion of the people, the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this, in one instance, may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit, which the use can at any time yield.

Senator Feingold speaks to this:

Senator Russell D. Feingold, the Wisconsin Democrat who proposed the censure motion and is considering a 2008 presidential run, argued that the Bush administration's insistence that it needed no Congressional approval for its wiretapping program implied that "we no longer have a constitutional system consisting of three co-equal branches of government; we have a monarchy.""If we in the Congress don't stand up for ourselves and for the American people, we become complicit in the lawbreaking," Mr. Feingold said.

Now I'll offer you a quote from Senator Orrin Hatch, not speaking for the Constitutional law of the land, but for his party. After that quote I'll offer you some of his thoughts concerning impeachment- you'll note the grave tone he takes when considering the case of Mr Clinton's lying about a sexual dalliance in office.

First supporting Mr Bush, who he obviously believes can usurp the law of the land, cuz hey, we are involved in the Bush administrations war of choice- and will be for a great many years to come:

"Wartime is not a time to weaken the commander in chief,"

Think of it as the "we might lose the big game if we hold the star player to the same rules as the rest of us" moment. He forgets Nixon resigned as working class Americans died in Viet Nam.

I saw some quotations from Hatch concerning the Clinton impeachment case over at Democratic Veteran and read deeply of them, googled about a bit I mean, and really considered what the partisan fellow had to say back then. The old Hatch quotes pretty much say Mr Bush should be impeached. I'll highlight the ones I see applicable. What do you think? Yup, I know, a bunch of reading, made more burdensome by my italics and bolding of text. But he was right, partisan hack or not. Bush and Cheney, by the references Hatch cites, are eligible for impeachment. It is the law.

Hatch Cites Constitutional Authorities

In short, impeachment trials require Senators to act, wherever possible, with principled political neutrality. One question I have repeatedly asked myself during this scandal - when faced with questions concerning the interpretation of the relevant law, the process, the calls for resignation, or forgiveness - has been whether I would have taken the same position were this a Republican President. I have done this throughout the past year and I expect many of my colleagues have done the same.

_{further into the statement}

Of great concern to me is what the standard should be for impeachment in this and future trials. The President's Counsel has argued that the President can only be removed for constituting, what Oliver Wendell Holmes termed in free speech cases, a "clear and present danger." It was contended that a President can only be removed if he is a danger to the Constitution. As such, according to the President's Counsel, removable conduct must relate to egregious conduct related to performance in office. Even if the House's allegation -- that President Clinton committed acts of perjury and obstruction of justice is proven true -- it was argued -- than such behavior does not rise to impeachable offenses because it was private, not public, conduct. In this case an inappropriate sexual relation with a subordinate employee -- was the predicate of the charged offenses.

But such a standard establishes an impossibly high bar as to render impotent the impeachment clauses of the Constitution. I hope that no matter the outcome of this trial, President Clinton's view of what constitutes an impeachable offense does not become precedent. If it does, I fear the moral framework of our Republic will be frayed. If it does, the legitimacy of our institutions may very well become tattered. It would create the paradox of being able to convict and jail an official for committing, let's say, homicide, but not to be able to remove that official from holding positions of public trust.Committing crimes of moral turpitude, such as perjury and obstruction of justice, go to the very heart of qualification for public office.

The overwhelming consensus of both legal and historical scholars is that the Constitution mandates the removal of the "President, Vice President, and all civil Officers of the United States" -- which includes federal judges -- "upon impeachment by the House and conviction by the Senate of "treason, bribery or other high crimes and misdemeanors." (U.S. Const. Art. II. Sec. 4). The precise meaning of this latter clause is critical to the outcome of the impeachment trial.

The President's advocates agree with their critics that this standard is the sole standard for presidential impeachment, but contend that the "or other" phrase indicates that grounds for impeachment must be criminal in nature because treason and bribery are crimes or acts committed against the state.

Such crimes or acts must be heinous, they contend, because the term "crimes and misdemeanors" is preceded by the descriptive adjective "high" in the impeachment clause. These advocates also claim that there exists no proof of criminal wrongdoing, that we have evidence of only a private affair unrelated to performance in public office, and that abuse of power related to official conduct -- not present here -- is a prerequisite for impeachment.

Many learned scholars oppose this view. Looking at the debates in the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, they note that the Convention originally chose treason and bribery as the sole standard for impeachment. George Mason argued that this standard was too stringent and advocated that "maladministration" be added to the list. James Madison objected, believing that no coherent definition of "maladministration" existed and that such a lenient standard would make the President a pawn of the Senate. The Convention, as a result, settled on the phrase "treason, bribery or other high crime or misdemeanor." It is clear that the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" was considered by the Framers to have a more narrow and specific meaning and, indeed, it is a term taken from English precedent.

Accordingly, many scholars, including Raoul Berger, the dean of impeachment scholars (Impeachment: the Constitutional Problems (1973) ), contend that the phrase "high crimes and misdemeanors" is a common law term of art that reaches both private and public behavior. Treason and bribery are acts that harm society in that they constitute a corruption on the body politic. Consequently, "other high crimes and misdemeanors" encompasses similar acts of corruption or betrayals of trust, and need not constitute formal crimes. Indeed, Alexander Hamilton in The Federalist No. 65 makes clear that impeachment is political, not criminal, in nature and reaches conduct that goes to reputation and character. In the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries the term "misdemeanor" refers not to a petty crime, but to bad demeanor.

History thus demonstrates that acts or conduct that demeans the integrity of the office, or harms an individual's reputation in such a way as to engender a lack of public confidence in the office holder or the political system is an impeachable offense. Justice Joseph Story, in his celebrated Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States § 762 (1835), made this abundantly clear when he wrote that impeachment lies for private behavior that harms the society or demeans its institutions:

In the first place, the nature of the functions to be performed: The offences, to which the power of impeachment has been, and is ordinarily applied, as a remedy, are of a political character. Not but that crimes of a strictly legal character fall within the scope of the power, (for, as we shall presently see, treason, bribery, and other high crimes and misdemeanors are expressly within it;) but that it has a more enlarged operation, and reaches, what are aptly termed, political offences, growing out of personal misconduct, or gross neglect, or usurpation, or habitual disregard of the public interests, in the discharge of the duties of political office.

Even though the Framers rejected the English model of impeachment as a form of punishment and promulgated removal as the remedy for conviction, most scholars contend that the Framers looked to English precedent to define "high crimes and misdemeanors." There is a wealth of evidence that a betrayal of public trust or reckless conduct that places a high office in disrepute constitutes "high misdemeanors." The modifier "high" refers to acts against the state or commonwealth. In the eighteenth century, the term "political" also encompassed our modern term of "social." So conduct that harmed society as a whole, or denigrated the public respect and confidence in governmental institutions, constituted "high crimes and misdemeanors."

As such, both English and American officials have been impeached for drunkenness, for frequenting prostitutes, even for insanity, in other words private conduct that is unrelated to official acts. Such behavior is seen as defaming the office that the accused held and diminishing the people's faith in government. Impeachment is thus seen by many scholars as a means of removing unqualified office holders.

Thus, impeachment and removal does not have to be predicated upon commission of a crime. Consequently, impeachment and removal is not in essentially a criminal punishment, a conclusion that is also textually demonstrated by the fact that the Framers expressly provided for later indictment and criminal conviction of an impeached and removed President.

A high crime and misdemeanor -- according to this view -- does not have to amount to a crime or be related to official conduct. Even if President Clinton's acts of perjury were predicated upon lying about a private sexual relation, they still must be considered high crimes and misdemeanors. The fact that the underlying behavior was private in its genesis is irrelevant. Such private acts demean the Office of the President, and betray public trust. Those acts therefore are impeachable.

But I must emphasize that even if the President's Counsel is correct in that private acts unrelated to performance in office are not impeachable offenses, I believe the gravamen of what President Clinton committed are public, not private, acts that are unambiguous breaches of public trust. Perjury and particularly obstruction of justice are conduct that attack the very veracity of our justice system. (Furthermore, I vehemently disagree that the underlying conduct was a purely private concern because the conduct involved a federal employee in a work environment).

Lying under oath, hiding evidence, and tampering with witnesses destroy the truth-finding function of our investigatory and trial system. Perjury and obstruction of justice are particularly pernicious if committed by a President of the United States, who has sworn pursuant to the oath of office to protect the Constitution and laws of the United States. Whether perjury and obstruction of justice can be considered private or public acts is of no moment. They are twin "high crimes" harming the political order and requiring impeachment and removal from office.

A related argument made by the President's Counsel is that a President should be held to a less stringent standard than federal judges in impeachment trials. Because many judges have been removed for conduct unrelated to performance in office, such as Judges Claiborne and Nixon, who were convicted and removed for perjurious statements unrelated to their performance in office, the President is almost compelled to make this argument.

In essence, The President's Counsel contend that Article III's requirement that judges hold office for "good behavior" is not simply a description of the term of office, but a grounds for impeachment if violated. Presidents -- and other civil officers -- are subject to the more stringent high crimes and misdemeanor standard.

Most scholars reject this view. For instance, Michael J. Gerhardt (The Federal Impeachment Process(1996)) testified in the House Constitutional Subcommittee of the Judiciary Committee in November that the impeachment standard of high crimes and misdemeanors applies to all civil officers, including judges as well as the President. This is the sole constitutional ground for impeachment. Article III's good behavior provision for judges simply sets the duration for judicial office (lifetime unless impeached). There are simply no differing standards for judges and the President.

Refresh your memory with documents proving Mr Bush and Mr Cheney Lied us into war; After Downing Street.Org has the proof that the war on Iraq was a war of choice.

06/12/05 "The Times" - - MINISTERS were warned in July 2002 that Britain was committed to taking part in an American-led invasion of Iraq and they had no choice but to find a way of making it legal.

The warning, in a leaked Cabinet Office briefing paper, said Tony Blair had already agreed to back military action to get rid of Saddam Hussein at a summit at the Texas ranch of President George W Bush three months earlier.

The briefing paper, for participants at a meeting of Blair’s inner circle on July 23, 2002, said that since regime change was illegal it was “necessary to create the conditions” which would make it legal.

Or this related piece:

Manning wrote, "The start date for the military campaign was now penciled in for 10 March. This was when the bombing would begin."

Both acknowledged that no WMDs had been found in Iraq. Bush raised the possibility of provoking a confrontation with Saddam Hussein. One idea he proposed was placing UN colors on an American U-2 spy plane that would fly over Iraq and draw fire from Iraqi forces. Bush also discussed the possibility of assassinating Saddam Hussein.

Bush did say that he would help Blair win a second UN resolution--and "would twist arms and even threaten," as the memo put it--but that if that effort failed he would still invade Iraq.

Hatch says it clearly: censuring is too good for them. Go to AfterDowningStreet.Org and explore the docments and evidence offered. Go to InformationClearinghouse.info and peruse the key articles. It is a slam dunk.

As George Washington said all those years ago:

Promote then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that public opinion should be enlightened.

That is where we come in. Enlightening our community to the facts. Republican, Democrat, Green or whatever political persuasion, the facts must rule for our country to retain the freedoms we still have.

Washington on "Party Politics"

Hatch and many others put party and sinecures first- note the Democrats quailing, checking poll figures rather than standing for our nation.

Here is what Washington sagely said:

I have already intimated to you the danger of parties in the State, with particular reference to the founding of them on geographical discriminations. Let me now take a more comprehensive view, and warn you in the most solemn manner against the baneful effects of the spirit of party generally.

This spirit, unfortunately, is inseparable from our nature, having its root in the strongest passions of the human mind. It exists under different shapes in all governments, more or less stifled, controlled, or repressed; but, in those of the popular form, it is seen in its greatest rankness, and is truly their worst enemy.

The alternate domination of one faction over another, sharpened by the spirit of revenge, natural to party dissension, which in different ages and countries has perpetrated the most horrid enormities, is itself a frightful despotism. But this leads at length to a more formal and permanent despotism. The disorders and miseries which result gradually incline the minds of men to seek security and repose in the absolute power of an individual; and sooner or later the chief of some prevailing faction, more able or more fortunate than his competitors, turns this disposition to the purposes of his own elevation, on the ruins of public liberty.c

Without looking forward to an extremity of this kind (which nevertheless ought not to be entirely out of sight), the common and continual mischiefs of the spirit of party are sufficient to make it the interest and duty of a wise people to discourage and restrain it.

It serves always to distract the public councils and enfeeble the public administration. It agitates the community with ill-founded jealousies and false alarms, kindles the animosity of one part against another, foments occasionally riot and insurrection. It opens the door to foreign influence and corruption, which finds a facilitated access to the government itself through the channels of party passions. Thus the policy and the will of one country are subjected to the policy and will of another.

There is an opinion that parties in free countries are useful checks upon the administration of the government and serve to keep alive the spirit of liberty. This within certain limits is probably true; and in governments of a monarchical cast, patriotism may look with indulgence, if not with favor, upon the spirit of party. But in those of the popular character, in governments purely elective, it is a spirit not to be encouraged.

Who Are The Fools?

2006-04-01T00:32:00.000-05:00

"We the People" are all time fools if we don't push for Cheney/Bush impeachment!

Look into the Senate Judiciary Committee Censure Statements

2006-03-31T14:52:00.000-05:00

Raw Story has the statements of Senator Russ Feingold, John Dean and Bruce Fein to Senate Judiciary Committee Hearing On the Call to Censure posted. Here is a taste of what hey had to say, follow the links for the full statements:

Senator Feingold

If Congress doesn’t have the power to define the contours of the President’s Article II powers through legislation, then I have no idea why people are scrambling to draft legislation to authorize what they think the President is doing. If the President’s legal theory, which is shared by some of our witnesses today, is correct, then FISA is a dead letter, all of the supposed protections for civil liberties contained in the reauthorization of the Patriot Act that we just passed are a cruel hoax, and any future legislation we might pass regarding surveillance or national security is a waste of time and a charade. Under this theory, we no longer have a constitutional system consisting of three co-equal branches of government, we have a monarchy.

We can fight terrorism without breaking the law. The rule of law is central to who we are as a people, and the President must return to the law. He must acknowledge and be held accountable for his illegal actions and for misleading the American people, both before and after the program was revealed. If we in the Congress don’t stand up for ourselves and for the American people, we become complicit in his law breaking. A resolution of censure is the appropriate response – even a modest approach.

John Dean

No presidency that I can find in history has adopted a policy of expanding presidential powers merely for the sake of expanding presidential powers. Presidents in the past who have expanded their powers have done so when pursuing policy objectives. It has been the announced policy of the Bush/Cheney presidency, however, from its outset, to expand presidential power for its own sake, and it continually searched for avenues to do just that, while constantly testing to see how far it can push the limits. I must add that never before have I felt the slightest reason to fear our government. Nor do I frighten easily. But I do fear the Bush/Cheney government (and the precedents they are creating) because this administration is caught up in the rectitude of its own self- righteousness, and for all practical purposes this presidency has remained largely unchecked by its constitutional coequals.

Bruce Fein

Mr. Chairman and Members of the Committee: I am grateful for the opportunity to express my support for Senate Resolution 398. It would censure President George W. Bush for seeking to cripple the Constitution’s checks and balances and political accountability by secretly authorizing the National Security Agency to spy on American citizens in the United States in contravention of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act and misleading the public about the secret surveillance program.

Censure of the President for official misconduct is a species of congressional oversight of the Executive Branch including the exposure of mismanagement, corruption or other wrongdoing. Broad congressional oversight jurisdiction was endorsed by the United States Supreme Court in Watkins v. United States, 354 U.S. 178 (1957).

Congress regularly writes reports harshly critical of official actions at the conclusion of oversight hearings, for example, the Majority Report of the Iran-contra Joint Committee on Covert Arms Sales to Iran. Censure seems to me at least a first cousin—a collective judgment of Congress about the performance of the President regarding the discharge of official duties, including an obligation to faithfully execute the laws. With regard to S. Res. 398, it is also a statement to the Supreme Court that Congress disputes President Bush's interpretation of FISA and inherent Article II powers. If President Harry Truman could run against a “do nothing “ Congress, I see no reason why Congress cannot reciprocally run against a "doing wrong" president.

What do you think?

Read the post below this. Does a domestic police state make you feel safer? Themedia is reporting more and more on the present administrations corruptness ineptitude and disregard for the future of America on so many fronts.

Censure may break the seemingly hypnotic state "We the People" seem to be functioning under. Plus, we will see just who in the halls of politics puts the rule of law in the fore. We will get to learn about the scope of the illegal wiretapping because the move to censure will call it out on the carpet- it maybe much more vast than the Bush administration has led us to believe.

The NSA is not only the world's largest spy agency (far larger than the CIA, for example), but it possesses the most advanced technology for intercepting communications. We know it has long had the ability to focus powerful surveillance capabilities on particular individuals or communications. But the current scandal has indicated two new and significant elements of the agency's eavesdropping:

1. The NSA has gained direct access to the telecommunications infrastructure through some of America's largest companies
2. The agency appears to be not only targeting individuals, but also using broad "data mining" systems that allow them to intercept and evaluate the communications of millions of people within the United States.

Partisan Politics as Usual?

Will it be partisan politics as usual? Or a principled stand for Constitutional law?

Let the members of the Judiciary committee know you care about America.

Link to News Now to follow this issue.

Bush/NeoCon Priorities Revealed

2006-03-31T00:16:00.000-05:00

Bush/NeoCon Priorities Revealed

With Tuesday’s attacks, Abu Musab Zarqawi, a Jordanian militant with ties to al-Qaida, is now blamed for more than 700 terrorist killings in Iraq.

But NBC News has learned that long before the war the Bush administration had several chances to wipe out his terrorist operation and perhaps kill Zarqawi himself — but never pulled the trigger.

Why would Mr Bush not take out this "terrorist mastermind"?

‘People were more obsessed with developing the coalition to overthrow Saddam than to execute the president’s policy of pre-emption against terrorists.’

— Roger Cressey, Terrorism expert

Read the article

Impeachment (Bush/Cheney) seems sensible.

Safeguarding the Constitution

2006-03-30T12:35:00.000-05:00

Safeguarding the Constitution is a bipartisan effort, it should be beyond party allegiance...

When the Senate Judiciary Committee convenes as extraordinary session on Friday to consider the Feingold's motion to censure the president for ordering federal agencies to engage in eavesdropping in violation of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act's requirement that judicial approval be obtained for wiretaps of Americans in the United States, the dissenting senator will call two witnesses.

Making arguments about the extreme seriousness of the warrantless wiretapping issue -- and the need for a Congressional response -- will be noted constitutional lawyer Bruce Fein, who served in President Ronald Reagan's Department of Justice as Deputy Attorney General, and author and legal commentator John Dean, who served at Richard Nixon's White House counsel before breaking with the president to reveal the high crimes and misdemeanors of the Watergate era.

It seems to me that the testimony of these two men will shed much needed light on the issue- Mr Bush is committing an impeachable offense. But it is a hearing about censure.

Have you called/written/faxed your legislators about censuring President Bush?

The Million Phone March makes it easy to take action.

This is about the only way that "we the People" will get the benefit of a hearing concerning the legality of Mr Bush's warrantless spying on Americans.

It will also shed light on the monarchial tendencies of the present administration-

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

Censure can be the first step to getting America back on it's Constitutional path.

Judge Harold A. Baker, a sitting federal judge in Illinois who served on the intelligence court until last year, said the president was bound by the law "like everyone else." If a law like the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act is duly enacted by Congress and considered constitutional, Judge Baker said, "the president ignores it at the president's peril."

Let your legislators, Republican and Democrat, know you are aware of what is going on; voice your concerns.

Ernest Partridge has written an insightful essay "The Democrats: Missing in Action", it is thought provoking and far reaching.

Watching the Democrats, one would think that they never gave up believing in Santa Claus.

Like little kids in December, they seem to believe that just by being nice, Santa will deliver the gifts: election victories and control of the Congress.

The Republicans know better. They analyze, they scheme, they think things through, they act aggressively and ruthlessly, and thus they win.

Unfortunately, the Democrats never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. And opportunities aplenty are coming their way which, for the most part, they simply ignore. For example, when one of their number, Senator Russ Feingold, speaks up with a loud and eloquent voice, he is told to shut up. Demanding censure of the outlaw President, he is told by his own party, is “not nice.”

Talk to people about what you know.

Learn About the Israel Lobby in the U.S

2006-03-28T14:37:00.000-05:00

I recommend that you read deeply and judge on it's merits "The Israel Lobby and U.S Foreign Policy"(.pdf file) by John J. Mearsheimer, Department of Political Science
University of Chicago and Stephen M. Walt, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

The paper linked above is complete with footnotes which you can google up for verification. The London Review of Books has an edited version, which is a bit shorter than the originals 40 or so pages(80 pages with the endnotes).

John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt are respected scholars, yet it seems the commercial press would not publish their work.

"I do not believe that we could have gotten it published in the United States," Mearsheimer told the Forward. He said that the paper was originally commissioned in the fall of 2002 by one of America's leading magazines, "but the publishers told us that it was virtually impossible to get the piece published in the United States."

Most scholars, policymakers and journalists know that "the whole subject of the Israel lobby and American foreign policy is a third-rail issue," he said. "Publishers understand that if they publish a piece like ours it would cause them all sorts of problems."

In their paper, "The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy," the two professors accuse "the lobby" of "policing academia," intimidating scholars and stifling dissent on campuses, mainly through accusing critics of being antisemitic.

Mearsheimer said that he and Walt expected to be accused of being anti-Israel and antisemitic, so they made a point of stating in the study that the establishment of Israel was morally justified and that America's support of Israel, in principle, is justified as well. He said the paper takes issue with the extent of American support for Israel and the role that the pro-Israel lobby plays in pushing for such assistance.

Witness Alan Dershowitz, perenial apologist for Israeli state policy (as well as documented plagiarist while doing so) on the attack:

Dershowitz, who is one of Israel’s most prominent defenders, vehemently disputed the article’s assertions, repeatedly calling it “one-sided” and its authors “liars” and “bigots.”

He criticized three piece on three grounds, alleging parallels with neo-Nazi literature, saying that Walt and Mearsheimer’s characterization that Israeli citizenship is based on “blood kinship” is a “categorical lie,” and taking issue with the representation of the lobby as all-encompassing.

Dershowitz said that the article used “quotes from [Israel’s first prime minister] David Ben-Gurion and [former president of the World Jewish Congress] Nahum Goldmann that are found repeatedly on hate sites,” and that in asserting that the Jewish state was founded on “blood kinship,” the authors were mistakenly conflating the right of Jews to immigrate to Israel with citizenship.

Walt and Mearsheimer countered in an interview that “the principle of ‘blood kinship’ refers to the fact that Israel was explicitly founded as a Jewish state and that whether or not you are Jewish is normally a function of ancestry, especially maternal ancestry.”

Is it anti-semitic to criticize the actions of the state of Israel? To document a large and powerful lobby here in the United States?

Norman Finkelstein has taken on those who would equate criticism of the state of Israel's actions with anti-semitism in his book "Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Anti-Semitism and the Abuse of History". Here is Israeli civil libertarian Felicia Langer in the preface of the German edition of this excellent and eye opening book:

It was high time a book on the misuse of anti-Semitism as a political weapon got written. Now it has found its author: Norman Finkelstein. He is no stranger to daring challenges, and as this book clearly shows, Finkelstein has got what it takes. The precision and meticulousness of his research and analyses are admirable.

In the first part of the book, Finkelstein focuses on the misuse of anti-Semitism by the pro-Israel lobby in the United States and Europe, in support of Israeli policies. Any time there is a real risk that the international community will increase pressure on Israel to withdraw from the occupied territories as required by international law, a new anti-Semitism campaign is launched: "yet another meticulously orchestrated media extravaganza alleging that the world is awash in anti-Semitism."

With their allegations of anti-Semitism, American-Jewish elites seek, above all, to convince everybody that critics of Israel are really anti-Semites in disguise. Reports on what it is like for Palestinians to live under occupation, reports on their oppression and their suffering must remain taboo – only Israel is entitled to victim status. Thus reality is being inverted, in order to make sure that Israel enjoys immunity.

The hysteria about a "new anti-Semitism" serves not only to silence legitimate criticism of Israel, but also to deflect attention from violations of international law and elementary human rights.

Read "The Israel Lobby and U.S Foreign Policy"(scroll down to download) and check out the citations. Explore criticism of the paper while noting what about it is being specifically called inaccurate. You be the judge. As the paper itself notes:

Some readers will find this analysis disturbing, but the facts recounted here are not in serious dispute among scholars. Indeed, our account relies heavily on the work of Israeli scholars and journalists, who deserve great credit for shedding light on these issues. We also rely on evidence provided by respected Israeli and international human rights organizations. Similarly, our claims about the Lobby’s impact rely on testimony from the Lobby’s own members, as well as testimony from politicians who have worked with them. Readers may reject our conclusions, of course, but the evidence on which they rest is not controversial. (.pdf)

Censure? Impeachment? Keep the Conversation Alive

2006-03-24T12:26:00.000-05:00

“What they succeeded in doing, in other words, was to sweep the illegality under the rug,” Mr. Feingold said. “I decided it was time to include that on the record and came up with the censure proposal, to bring accountability back into the discussion. And I succeeded in doing that. That’s been achieved.”

The above quotation is from an insightful article by Chris Lehman, "Russ Never Sleeps".

I'm offering you a bit of a Boston Globe article that illustrates why Mr Feingold is spot on about at least moving to censure President Bush.

Bush shuns Patriot Act requirement
In addendum to law, he says oversight rules are not binding

By Charlie Savage, Globe Staff | March 24, 2006

WASHINGTON -- When President Bush signed the reauthorization of the USA Patriot Act this month, he included an addendum saying that he did not feel obliged to obey requirements that he inform Congress about how the FBI was using the act's expanded police powers.

The bill contained several oversight provisions intended to make sure the FBI did not abuse the special terrorism-related powers to search homes and secretly seize papers. The provisions require Justice Department officials to keep closer track of how often the FBI uses the new powers and in what type of situations. Under the law, the administration would have to provide the information to Congress by certain dates.

Bush signed the bill with fanfare at a White House ceremony March 9, calling it ''a piece of legislation that's vital to win the war on terror and to protect the American people." But after the reporters and guests had left, the White House quietly issued a ''signing statement," an official document in which a president lays out his interpretation of a new law.

In the statement, Bush said that he did not consider himself bound to tell Congress how the Patriot Act powers were being used and that, despite the law's requirements, he could withhold the information if he decided that disclosure would ''impair foreign relations, national security, the deliberative process of the executive, or the performance of the executive's constitutional duties."

Bush wrote: ''The executive branch shall construe the provisions . . . that call for furnishing information to entities outside the executive branch . . . in a manner consistent with the president's constitutional authority to supervise the unitary executive branch and to withhold information . . . "

The statement represented the latest in a string of high-profile instances in which Bush has cited his constitutional authority to bypass a law.

The article also illustrates why it is up to you and me to communicate reality to our community:

Bush's signing statement on the USA Patriot Act nearly went unnoticed.

Senator Patrick J. Leahy, Democrat of Vermont, inserted a statement into the record of the Senate Judiciary Committee objecting to Bush's interpretation of the Patriot Act, but neither the signing statement nor Leahy's objection received coverage from in the mainstream news media, Leahy's office said.

Get the word out.

Liars Liars World on Fire

2006-03-21T08:51:00.000-05:00

Here is comprehensive resource to help you learn about the origins of the Iraq War.
AfterDowningStreet.org has about all of the documentation available on Mr Bush's illegal and ill-advised Messopotamian folly.

"Folly"? A bad choice of word, when considering those killed by this war of choice, lives turned upside down, tens of thousands maimed and wounded for nothing.

Three years later, they still push their lies:

SCHIEFFER: Mr. Vice President, all along the government has been very optimistic. You remain optimistic. But I remember when you were saying we’d be greeted as liberators, you played down the insurgency ten months ago. You said it was in its last throes. Do you believe that these optimistic statements may be one of the reasons that people seem to be more skeptical in this country about whether we ought to be in Iraq?

CHENEY: No, I think it has less to do with the statements we’ve made, which I think were basically accurate and reflect reality, than it does the fact that there is a constant sort of perception if you will that’s created because what is newsworthy is the carbomb in Baghdad, it’s not all the work that went on that day in 15 other provinces in terms of making progress in rebuilding Iraq.

Italics mine. As a good friend was known to say "It's your lie, tell it as you want"

Share what you learn.

Spin, not Substance: Are the Media Scared of an Informed Electorate?

2006-03-17T11:15:00.000-05:00

Fox News chief Washington correspondent Jim Angle cropped a quote from Senate Democratic Leader Harry Reid (NV) to falsely suggest that Reid did not agree with Feingold that the warrantless domestic wiretapping is illegal. Angle omitted a portion of Reid's remarks -- made during a March 14 press conference -- in which the senator stated that "most legal scholars around the country think that what is going on [under Bush's program] is illegal," as well as an earlier remark from the same press conference, in which Reid said he personally believes the program is "illegal and unconstitutional." Angle's report marked the second consecutive day that a reporter for Fox News' Special Report with Brit Hume cropped a quote from one of Feingold's Democratic colleagues to falsely suggest that Feingold is alone in having legal objections to a program that even many Senate Republicans agree violates the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA). Angle himself previously cropped a remark by Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-MA) to suggest that Kennedy did not believe the program is illegal.

I'll introduce you to a media watchdog you may be unfamilar with. Media Matters for America shows you what we are up against media-wise concerning Mr Bush and minions in general and Mr Feingold's censure motion in particular. The truth will sink Mr Bush- Fox News wants to make you think their way, not let you judge for yourself , one of the hallmarks of Democracy. This is nothing new for the "news" outlets of Rupert Murdoch:

If a TV program covers forbidden ground, we will have no choice but to delete it from our broadcast.

In the above quote he was refering to broadcasting in China; but you remember the study of Fox News and citizen misperception, don't you?

WASHINGTON -- It's official -- watching Fox News makes you ignorant.

To be precise, researchers from the Program on International Policy at the University of Maryland found that those who relied on Fox for their news were more likely than those who relied on any other news source to have what the study called "significant misperceptions" about the war in Iraq.

Pollsters asked more than 9,000 Americans about three commonly held canards: that the United States had hard evidence Saddam Hussein had been working closely with al-Qaida; that weapons of mass destruction had been found in Iraq; and that world public opinion was in favor of the U.S.-led war.

Overall, a scary 60 percent believed at least one of these fallacies. Eight percent believed all three.

The most commonly held was -- unsurprisingly -- the Iraq/al-Qaida link. Fully 48 percent of respondents believed this. The totals for the other two were in the 20 percent to 25 percent range.

But among those who get their news from Fox, 80 percent had at least one "misperception" and 45 percent -- nearly six times the overall average -- had all three.

Here's a page outlining instances of fibbery concerning the Bush illegal spy that show a great many media outlets are willfully lying to "We the People".

Inform your neighbors as well as your legisltors that you know the facts about the Bush illegal wiretapping.

Commemorate Bush Carnage By Doing Good

2006-03-17T08:35:00.001-05:00

Commemorate Bush Carnage By Doing Good

The American Friends Service Committee has a webpage with utilities that will help you find nearby gatherings that will commemorate the third anniversay of the attack on Iraq.

Take heart in the fact that you are not alone; we ARE America, we are not merely a "special interest group" or disconnected serfs termed "consumers". Talk to people about the Feingold censure movement, enjoy the sunny day- seems to me the best way to commemorate the fallen, the futily killed, is to feel alive, build community and work towards ends that will keep such injustice in our names from happening again.

Senators and Congress people from both parties are responsible for the carnage in Iraq and the world made less safe, less free.

Supporting Feingold, censure as a step to impeachment, is a way they can acknowledge this, a sort of saying "sorry". Never enough, of course, but ideally, lesson learned.

Get those letters and calls out there, make your voice heard.

Seems to me that Feingold is offering "We the People" a way to break the hypnotic spell of the media, to show that we can effect change in a money run system; that the system can be salvaged. Now that will galvanize the party.

I wonder: because the majority of them are complicit in the Iraq War, are their egos so big as to not allow them to do what is right?

It is a bit disheartening to hear it talked about as just politics though- commentators seem to gloss the whole issue of Bush trampling the Constitution.

Re-read the text of Feingold's motion to censure. It makes sense.

Feingold: Correct on Substance- Weigh the Facts, Chuck the Spin

2006-03-16T08:08:00.000-05:00

Senators Barbara Boxer (D-CA) and Tom Harkin (D-IA) Are publicly supporting Senator Feingold. Have you called/written/faxed your Legislators?

Looks like the David of "We the People" confronting the Goliath of corporate media.

Consider this ending snippet from The Wall Street Journal editorial page:

Which brings us back to Mr. Feingold's public service in floating his "censure" gambit now. He's doing voters a favor by telling them before November's election just how Democrats intend to treat a wartime President if they take power.

Not only do they want to block his policies, they also plan to rebuke and embarrass him in front of the world and America's enemies. And they want to do so not because there is a smidgen of evidence that he's abused his office or lied under oath, but because they think he's been too energetic in using his powers to defend America. By all means, let's have this impeachment debate before the election, so voters can know what's really at stake.

The papers of note are striving to shape the censure debate, taking it from the realm of the specific, Presidential power and over reach versus our Constitution to more abstract realms.

The motion of censure is with the question: Is Mr Bush fulfilling his oath to uphold the US Constitution as he has sworn to do. As Senator Feingold stated on the Senate Floor:

The President authorized an illegal program to spy on American citizens on American soil, and then misled Congress and the public about the existence and legality of that program. It is up to this body to reaffirm the rule of law by condemning the President’s actions.

All of us in this body took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and bear true allegiance to the same. Fulfilling that oath requires us to speak clearly and forcefully when the President violates the law. This resolution allows us to send a clear message that the President’s conduct was wrong.

It is clear to me, an average working class guy, what the issue is. Why would the Wall Street Journal spin it, and not answer Mr Feingold and "We the People" by refuting the substance of the censure issue.

It CANNOT.

There is a lot to read to keep up with issues though.

WSJ, like The New York Times, The Washington Post, are our bellwethers for if censure is the correct action to take. If they talk around the issue at hand it shows what anyone who reads deeply and thinks for themselves has figured out; these media outlets lack a factual leg to stand on and will resort to utilizing misdirection and bamboozlement to shape your opinions for you. Let the "experts" do your thinking.

We are the Government (mouthpieces), we are here to help you (think the way we'd like you to).

Helen Thomas wrote about this just the other day in a piece aptly titled "Lapdogs of the Press".

After all, two of the nation's most prestigious newspapers, the New York Times and the Washington Post, had kept up a drumbeat for war with Iraq to bring down Dictator Saddam Hussein. They accepted almost unquestioningly the bogus evidence of weapons of mass destruction, the dubious White House rationale that proved to be so costly on a human scale, not to mention a drain on the Treasury.

Remembering their past track records,(Judith Miller, anyone? )you can see who their reportage benefits. Judge for yourself- are they supporting a vital and lively Democracy in our United States, or, do they seem to speak for the elite in power? The corporate entities that make up their advertisers are the group I'm refering to. Not to mention the politicos who's favor they need curry to get "scoops", to get interviews in high places to keep their papers in competition with each other for the eyes of readers, which keep their advertising rates high, which keeps them succesful and solvent. They need to remain friendly to the halls of power for access. Hey, it's just business sense.

The halls of power? They are Republican. They are corporate.

"a smidgen of evidence"

We'll get back to The Times finally reporting on Bush domestic spying. I offer you up some evidence (more than a smidgen) that the Administration is aware it is shredding the Constitution.

According to the Times, Attorney General John Ashcroft's top deputy, James Comey, refused to sign on to the continuation of the secret program in 2004 amid concerns about its legality and oversight. At the time, Comey was serving in place of then Attorney General John Ashcroft while Ashcroft was hospitalized for a medical condition. Comey’s refusal prompted senior Presidential aides Andrew Card and Alberto Gonzales to visit Ashcroft in his hospital room to grant the approval. The Times reports Ashcroft expressed reluctance to sign on to the program.

Newsweek says:

Miffed that Comey, a straitlaced, by-the-book former U.S. attorney from New York, was not a "team player" on this and other issues, President George W. Bush dubbed him with a derisive nickname, "Cuomo,".

Other issues like condoning torture. But that is another issue. The Bush Hydra...

I recommend you read "Palace Revolt: They were loyal conservatives, and Bush appointees. They fought a quiet battle to rein in the president's power in the war on terror. And they paid a price for it. A NEWSWEEK investigation." This article is different for the one highlighted above.

The Times:Illegal Domestic Spying

The Times sat on this NSA domestic spying information for a year. (Article citeds' co-authors recieved a Goldsmith award, for journalism which promotes more ethical conduct of government today ) A Year. Until one of their writers, James Risen, was coming out with a book that mentioned it.

Here is a bit of what the book " State of War: the Secret History of the CIA and the Bush Administration" has to say:

The NSA is now tapping into the heart of the nation's telephone network through direct access to key telecommunications switches that carry many of America's daily phone calls and e-mail messages. Several government officials who know about the NSA operation have come forward to talk about it because they are deeply troubled by it, and they believe that by keeping silent they would become complicit in it. They strongly believe that the president's secret order is in violation of the Fourth Amendment of the Constitution, which prohibits unreasonable searches, and some of them believe that an investigation should be launched into the way the Bush administration has turned the intelligence community's most powerful tools against the American people

_{further on}

In order to overturn the system established by FISA in 1978, and bring the NSA back into domestic wiretaps without court approval, . administration lawyers have issued a series of secret legal opinions, similar to those written in support of the harsh interrogation tactics used on detainees captured in Iraq and Afghanistan. The Bush administration legal opinions that supported the use of harsh interrogation techniques on al Qaeda detainees have, of course, proven controversial, drawing complaints from allies, objections from civil liberties advocates, and court challenges. The administration faced its first serious legal rebuke in June 2004 when the U.S. Supreme Court rejected the administration's effort to hold "enemy combatants" without a hearing. The court warned that "a state of war is not a blank check for the president."

_{there's more}

"There is nothing explicit in the Patriot Act for NSA," said one former congressional aide who was involved in the drafting of the Patriot Act, but who was unaware of the NSA operation. "Their surveillance is supposed to be directed outside the United States."
It is now clear that the White House went through the motions of the public debate over the Patriot Act, all the while knowing that the intelligence community was secretly conducting a far more aggressive domestic surveillance campaign. "This goes way beyond the Patriot Act," said one former official familiar with the NSA operation.

President Bush's secret order has given the NSA the freedom to employ extremely powerful computerized search programs -- originally intended to scan foreign communications -- in order to scrutinize large volumes of American communications. It is difficult to know the precise size of the NSA operation, but one indication of its large scale is the fact that administration officials say that one reason they decided not to seek court-approved search warrants for the NSA operation was that the volume of telephone calls and e-mails being monitored was so big that it would be impossible to get speedy court approval for all of them. It is certainly true that when the FISA court was created, Congress never envisioned that the NSA would be involved in a massive eavesdropping operation inside the United States. No one in the 1970s could have predicted the enormous growth of telecommunications traffic in the United States, or the degree to which Americans would become addicted to digital, electronic communications. Today, industry experts estimate that approximately 9 trillion e-mails are sent in the United States each year. Americans make nearly a billion cell phone calls and well over a billion land line calls each day.

NSA's technical prowess, coupled with its long-standing relationships with the nation's major telecommunications companies, has made it easy for the agency to eavesdrop on large numbers of people in the United States without their knowledge. Following President Bush's order, U.S. intelligence officials secretly arranged with top officials of major telecommunications companies to gain access to large telecommunications switches carrying the bulk of America's phone calls. The NSA also gained access to the vast majority of American e-mail traffic that flows through the U.S. telecommunications system. The identities of the companies involved have been kept secret. Unknown to most Americans, the NSA has extremely close relationships with both the telecommunications and computer industries, according to several government officials. Only a very few top executives in each corporation are aware of such relationships or know about the willingness of the corporations to cooperate on intelligence matters.

Domestic Spying Pre-9/11?

Elsewhere Jason Leopold states:

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

Let's Get Back To Censure

Mr Feingold and his associates in this endeavor to bring about justice are tapping into the energy of the populace- chances are a majority of people you have spoken with have seen the Bush administration as one that has used innuendo and deceit to accomplish its aims. Anyone who reads knows there was no Iraq-9/11 link etc, etc, etc. These techniques are echoed today--

President George W. Bush said on Monday components from Iran were being used in powerful roadside bombs used in Iraq, and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said last week that Iranian Revolutionary Guard personnel had been inside Iraq.

Asked whether the United States has proof that Iran's government was behind these developments, Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, told a Pentagon briefing, "I do not, sir."

We need to act. Censure is a good beginning. Ignoring "the man behind the curtain" is costing human lives.

A letter, a call of support to your legislators; actions that take a few moments but may slow or even stop the Bush juggernaut. Censure is a start.

Happy Saint Patricks Day

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all convictions, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

I share Yeats blood, being Irish in descent. "We the People"- the falconer. Do we have the love of country, the passion for life, the life of all, to direct the eagle of our nation to be just, to live up to our founders vision?

I think we do. Let the good, the just exercise their passion to stem the tide of Neoconservative/Bush administration hate. Let our convictions and values shine.

Let the folks in power hear you. For the good of our nation and for the innocent of the world

Consider Feingold- Call Your Legislators to Their Duty

2006-03-15T07:36:00.000-05:00

*_{Today Senator Tom Harkin (D) of Iowa has signed on as a co-sponsor since this was posted this AM}

I’m amazed at Democrats, cowering with this president’s numbers so low. The administration just has to raise the specter of the war and the Democrats run and hide. … Too many Democrats are going to do the same thing they did in 2000 and 2004.-- Senator Russ Feingold

William Greider has this to say about Senator Feingold:

Senator Russ Feingold is an embarrassment to the US Senate, which makes him an authentic hero of the Republic. The Wisconsin senator gets up and says out loud what half of the country is thinking and talks about every day. This President broke the law and lied about it; he trashed the Constitution and hides himself in the flag. Feingold asks: Shouldn't the Senate say something about this, at least express our disapproval? He introduces a resolution of censure and calls for debate.

Well, that tore it in the august chamber of lawmakers. Democrats scurried away like scared rats. And Republicans chortled at the thought. You want to censure our warrior President, the guy who defends us every day against terrorist attacks? Let's have a vote right now, the Republican leader demanded. Yuk, yuk.

The joke is obvious to everyone in the Washington club--politics trumps principle, especially when it is about something as esoteric as the Constitution. It's a nonstory, the club agrees, not a constitutional crisis.

Politics trumps principle. Says it all, I suppose. I've re-read what senator Feingold had to say about censure a few times. I ask you, doesn't it ring true?

March 13, 2006

Mr. President, when the President of the United States breaks the law, he must be held accountable. That is why today I am introducing a resolution to censure President George W. Bush.

The President authorized an illegal program to spy on American citizens on American soil, and then misled Congress and the public about the existence and legality of that program. It is up to this body to reaffirm the rule of law by condemning the President’s actions.

All of us in this body took an oath to support and defend the Constitution of the United States and bear true allegiance to the same. Fulfilling that oath requires us to speak clearly and forcefully when the President violates the law. This resolution allows us to send a clear message that the President’s conduct was wrong.

And we must do that. The President’s actions demand a formal judgment from Congress.

Impotent Elite Lickspittle Lackies dominate the Democratic party.

But they have shown us that, repeatedly, haven't they? Gore's roll-over during the first tainted Bush election. He's speaking out a bit now about the danger our democracy faces. Kerry's ... Christ Almighty, just considering what a nutless wonder he was as a candidate sickens me, breaks my heart. "Anybody But Bush"- remember that?
Like me you might have had hope against hope that there would be some spine, some grit shown by these people that are supposed to be against Mr Bush and his neoconservatively driven administration and policies. Craven politics as usual. Excuse the reference again but NUTLESS. Self serving.

The failure of the Democrats to call the President to task is shameful.

I know that all politicians in the two Houses of Congress are beholden to money, to lobbyists, that they are concerned with the costly process of getting re-elected. The key to the Legislative value system. Money. And money and career trump values and duty every time, nowadays. Mr Feingold is correct: our paid legislative representives have forgotten their oath to uphold the Constitution.

This concept of "Unitary Presidency" used to be called dictatorship.

At moments in our history like this, we are reminded why the founders balanced the powers of the different branches of government so carefully in the Constitution. At the very heart of our system of government lies the recognition that some leaders will do wrong, and that others in the government will then bear the responsibility to do right.

This President has done wrong. This body can do right by condemning his conduct and showing the people of this nation that his actions will not be allowed to stand unchallenged.

To date, members of Congress have responded in very different ways to the President’s conduct. Some are responding by defending his conduct, ceding him the power he claims, and even seeking to grant him expanded statutory authorization powers to make his conduct legal. While we know he is breaking the law, we do not know the details of what the President has authorized or whether there is any need to change the law to allow it, yet some want to give him carte blanche to continue his illegal conduct. To approve the President’s actions now, without demanding a full inquiry into this program, a detailed explanation for why the President authorized it, and accountability for his illegal actions, would be irresponsible. It would be to abandon the duty of the legislative branch under our constitutional system of separation of powers while the President recklessly grabs for power and ignores the rule of law.

What the "don't rock the boat" folks of both parties want you to believe is that this call to uphold the Constitution is political grandstanding. They want you to ignore the fact that Mr Bush is breaking the law. They want you to forget that they (both arms of the Uniparty) have given the constitutionally mandated power to declare war to the President. The want you to forget how they voted on the Patriot act.

They want you to forgot this inconvenient piece of reality, brought to you by Tom Daschle:

On the evening of Sept. 12, 2001, the White House proposed that Congress authorize the use of military force to "deter and pre-empt any future acts of terrorism or aggression against the United States." Believing the scope of this language was too broad and ill defined, Congress chose instead, on Sept. 14, to authorize "all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations or persons [the president] determines planned, authorized, committed or aided" the attacks of Sept. 11. With this language, Congress denied the president the more expansive authority he sought and insisted that his authority be used specifically against Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda.

Just before the Senate acted on this compromise resolution, the White House sought one last change. Literally minutes before the Senate cast its vote, the administration sought to add the words "in the United States and" after "appropriate force" in the agreed-upon text. This last-minute change would have given the president broad authority to exercise expansive powers not just overseas -- where we all understood he wanted authority to act -- but right here in the United States, potentially against American citizens. I could see no justification for Congress to accede to this extraordinary request for additional authority. I refused.

Read the full Washington Post article. Lies, misdirection- think about it. Stands their argument for domestic "war authority" on it's head, quite clearly. Mr Feingold is highlighting one aspect of a multifaceted grab for power, as he is sworn to do. Upholding the Constitution.

On the left I've heard said that Feingold is leading the party to take the easy way out, Mr Bush deserves impeachment. Mr Conyers in the House is pushing for impeachment and getting some support, read the 273 page .pdf document The Constitution in Crisis: The Downing Street Minutes and Deception,Manipulation, Torture, Retribution, and Coverups in the Iraq War for an accurate and inclusive primer on how American policy and actions have been malformed by the current Bush administration. Yup, 273 pages .pdf- educate yourself, you're a citizen.

I'll be printing it out.

Feingold doesn't see censure as trumping impeachment, but acknowledges the action as a necessary one that could, after investigation lead to impeachment.

As we move forward, Congress will need to consider a range of possible actions, including investigations, independent commissions, legislation, or even impeachment. But, at a minimum, Congress should censure a president who has so plainly broken the law.

Our founders anticipated that these kinds of abuses would occur. Federalist Number 51 speaks of the Constitution’s system of checks and balances:

“It may be a reflection on human nature, that such devices should be necessary to control the abuses of government. But what is government itself, but the greatest of all reflections on human nature? If men were angels, no government would be necessary. If angels were to govern men, neither external nor internal controls on government would be necessary. In framing a government which is to be administered by men over men, the great difficulty lies in this: you must first enable the government to control the governed; and in the next place oblige it to control itself.”

Mr. President, we are faced with an executive branch that places itself above the law. The founders understood that the branches must check each other to control abuses of government power. The president’s actions are such an abuse, Mr. President. His actions must be checked, and he should be censured.

This President exploited the climate of anxiety after September 11, 2001, both to push for overly intrusive powers in the Patriot Act, and to take us into a war in Iraq that has been a tragic diversion from the critical fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates. In both of those instances, however, Congress gave its approval to the President’s actions, however mistaken that approval may have been.

That was not the case with the illegal domestic wiretapping program authorized by the President shortly after September 11th. The President violated the law, ignored the Constitution and the other two branches of government, and disregarded the rights and freedoms upon which our country was founded. No one questions whether the government should wiretap suspected terrorists. Of course we should, and we can under current law.

The Legislators are using smoke and mirrors to deflect their rolling belly up to the triumph of politics as usual, both partisan poltics and politics of self gain, to yet again abdicate their responsibility to uphold the Constitution.

Weigh the evidence. Think for yourself. Call them on it.

Senator Feingold is a"Senate Maverick" a man calling us to stand on principle. Many Democratic Party pols are not speaking out, are hiding from the press, claiming ignorance- waiting for poll numbers?

As Greider goes on to say in his excellent Nation article:

The real story--naturally overlooked by cynical editors--is that an honest truth-teller is loose in the fun house and disturbing the clowns. Man bites dog, senator defends Constitution.

Feingold has a reputation for such quaint deviations--a naïf who voted against the war in Iraq and the Patriot Act. On principle! How naïve is that? He talks like he might run for President, yet he seems tone-deaf to the artful resonances of power politics--the cutesy games insiders play and the press cherishes. Hey, what is this Constitution thing anyway?

The senator is peculiar in this era of decaying democracy. There was a time, believe it or not, when his type was a familiar presence in the Senate. I think of Sam Ervin of North Carolina, a conservative Democrat on most matters but always a lion on the Constitution. Ervin is remembered for his heroic role in the investigation of Watergate. Old-timers remember that before Watergate, Senator Sam led courageous hearings on the illegal spying on civilians by the Army and FBI (Democratic scandals predating Nixon).

When liberalism was in flower, the Senate always included a good mix of such maverick voices. They were party loyalists but departed on principle in ways that sometimes kept the majority honest. Voted against the President's war in Vietnam and never let up. Ernest Gruening of Alaska, Wayne Morse of Oregon, Albert Gore Sr. of Tennessee. Phil Hart of Michigan was his own one-man reform party. George McGovern of South Dakota was another.

We might ask why the Republican Party has not produced a similar collection of independent thinkers. We might mourn the fact that pursuing a career in the Senate no longer seems compatible with stubborn self-directed character. The media, instead of kissing off Feingold as a dumb politician, might do a little honest reporting on the substance of what he is saying.

For the moment, however, let us celebrate the man. The club will try to shove him in a closet and forget his little unpleasantness ever happened. I hope they fail and other Dems are properly embarrassed. Amid scandals in high places, Senator Feingold is fresh air. The country should rise up and sing.

_{Links added after posting}

Call Democrats/Republicans to Support Feingold

2006-03-14T12:10:00.000-05:00

It takes a lot of degeneration before a country falls into dictatorship--Sandra Day O'Connor

Incident upon incident of Bush administration's misrule is piling up in the public eye, to be neatly forgotten.Russ Feingold has the bull by the horns. His move to censure President Bush upholds our Constitution (read the Senators well crafted statement) and I think offers a sort of litmus test; would you like someone who lacks the backbone to hold the President to his oath and the houses of Congress to their duties as elected representitive of "We the People"?

Mr Frist deems this wrong in time of war:

I think it’s a crazy political move and I think it in part is a political move because here we are, the Republican Party, the leadership in the Congress, supporting the President of the United States as Commander in Chief, who is out there fighting al Qaeda and the Taliban and Osama bin Laden and the people who have sworn, have sworn to destroy Western civilization and all the families listening to us.

The ethically challenged Mr Frist shows an ignorance of history- another President was called to impeachment hearings for domestic wiretapping on a much smaller scale, during a different quagmire - excuse me - war. And think about it: Mr Bush "is not out there fighting" anyone. He has spent 365 days vacationing in Crawford Texas- all Americans should get the equivalent of a years paid time off scattered through each five. Vacationing pre 9/11. Vacationing during Katrina. Mr Frist, if anything the "War President" has been Missing In Action.

Offense being the best defense, Frist was pushing for a vote right away yesterday. Polticians need time to talk, to rally. This is a big break from the usual butt kissing, folding, converging to the Republican discipline- think Joe Lieberman, et all. A bit of time, and our phone calls may see Bush censured- a lesson of hope for all Americans- we have no King!

(If the poll watching, sinecure insecure politicos will put what is right before elite politics-as-usual. yup, I have BIG hopes) Hey, I'm Progressive. A bit cynical perhaps, but past performance, recent history have colored me that way. I have hope.

George W. Bush as the New Richard M. Nixon: Both Wiretapped Illegally, and Impeachably; Both Claimed That a President May Violate Congress' Laws to Protect National Security

The above quote the title from a FindLaw Writ article by John Dean, it is very illuminating concerning the issue of warrentless spying.

Mr Bush has poll ratings consistant with those of Mr Nixon during his second term, low 30's...

Members of both parties have said that Mr Bush is working outside the law.

I've written this on the fly. This WikiPedia page can help you do your own research. I need to call some of those folks who write me constantly asking for money for the Democratic Party to ask them why they are not supporting Mr Feingold, our Constitution and the future of our nation as we know it.

Where's the grit and backbone of the "opposition" party?

_{title change, minor editing since posted 2 hours ago}

Gordon Parks

2006-03-08T12:20:00.000-05:00

"I picked up a camera because it was my choice of weapons against what I hated most about the universe: racism, intolerance, poverty."--Gordon Parks

Gordon Parks has died. Explore some of his work at Legends Online; the video clips offer up some commentary on each photograph. Howard Greenberg Galleries offer 42 of his images from the exhibit "Moments Without Proper Names" Some photographs from his time with the Farm Services Administraion are available at a Library of Congress "Documenting America Photographic Series" which, if you enjoy photography is a must see from start to finish.

Mr Parks directed film, wrote technical books and poetry, composed and played music- a man truly alive.

Parks use of the camera as a tool to fight racism, intolerance and poverty touches me deeply; popular education beyond the spin of words... the image is of what it is, pulling the viewers out of themselves to touch on the world of another. Inspirational.

Mr Parks was 93.

If this isn't nice, what is?

2006-03-04T08:46:00.000-05:00

I've been away from this project, EP. Physically present before the keyboard, scanning the happenings of the day, but without voice; eyes wide in disbelief as incident after incident more fully illustrates the mendacious essence of the present administation - silenced by the fact that as bourgeoning body of truth concerning Bu$hCo sees light through the mainstream media nothing happens. The corporatist spinmeisters confuse and bamboozle. The liars lie on.

Hitler credited the loudspeaker for his rise to power. He was bankrolled by industry. That whole histoy repeating itself thing...

My sense is the "Unitary Presidency" is the deathknell of American "Democracy", which in itself is a stretch- "... the rich get richer, the poor get the picture...". Ms Clinton, Mr McCain, different strains of folk looking out for the American elite, the moneyed, the corporations. Looking out for the folks that bankroll them.

After calling legislators from both parties to urge a "no" vote on Mr "Unitary President" Alito (no one answered at Mr Byrds, of all people) and seeing him in I've, as I mentioned, grown quiet.

This Kurt Vonnegut piece from the Free Press has given me heart, somehow...

"I'm lucky enough to have known a great president, one who really cared about ALL the people, rich and poor. That was Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was rich himself, and his class considered him a traitor.

"We have people in this country who are richer than whole countries," he says. "They run everything.

"We have no Democratic Party. It's financed by the same millionaires and billionaires as the Republicans.

"So we have no representatives in Washington. Working people have no leverage whatsoever.

"I'm trying to write a novel about the end of the world. But the world is really ending! It's becoming more and more uninhabitable because of our addiction to oil.

"Bush used that line recently," Vonnegut adds. "I should sue him for plagiarism."

Things have gotten so bad, he says, "people are in revolt again life itself."

Our economy has been making money, but "all the money that should have gone into research and development has gone into executive compensation. If people insist on living as if there's no tomorrow, there really won't be one."

"As the world is ending," he says, "I'm always glad to be entertained for a few moments. The best way to do that is with music. You should practice once a night.

"If you really want to hurt your parents and don't want to be gay, go into the arts," he says.

Then he breaks into song, doing a tender, loving rendition of "Stardust Memories."

By now the packed hall has grown reverential. The sound system is appropriately tenuous. Straining to hear every word is both an effort and a meditation.

"To hell with the advances in computers," he says after he finishes singing. "YOU are supposed to advance and become, not the computers. Find out what's inside you. And don't kill anybody."

As for work, "there are no factories any more. Where are the jobs supposed to come from? There's nothing for people to do anymore. We need to ask the Seminoles: 'what the hell did you do?'' after the tribe's traditional livelihood was taken away.

Answering questions written in by students, he explains the meaning of life. "We should be kind to each other. Be civil. And appreciate the good moments by saying 'If this isn't nice, what is?'"

Then he leans back. "You're awful cute" he says to someone in the front row. He grins and looks around. "If this isn't nice, what is?

Read the whole article...

Humor, consciousness, shared humanity- qualities that cultivated can sustain us as we carry on shedding light and building community. Being human I mean.

Hillary, Progressives and the NeoCon Line

2006-01-25T14:27:00.000-05:00

You may have seen these articles, but here goes:

"I Will Not Support Hillary Clinton for President" by Molly Ivins.

"What Hillary Clinton Doesn't Know About Palestine" by Kathleen and Bill Christison

"Hillary Clinton, War Goddess: She wants permanent bases in Iraq – and threatens war with Iran" by Justin Raymondo

"Hillary talks Iran strike" by Glenn Thrush in Newsday

I really don't like what I see and hear of Hillary Clinton. Not progressive. Just different in degree from Bush.

Came across some interesting NeoConservative quotes:
From Townhall:

What Iran needs is a Saddam Hussein. -- Jonah Goldberg

From National Review:
Thank goodness for Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.-- Ilan Berman

From the Weekly Standard:
LET US STATE THE OBVIOUS: The new president of the Islamic Republic of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, is a godsend.--Reuel Marc Gerecht

Did you realize Iran was a threat to our country, say, oh, back before September 11, 2001? I admit I didn't know then and still don't. Back to Ms Clinton, I'll offer what I see as a telling couple quotes. From 8 paragraphs into her Princeton Speech of January 19:

The security and freedom of Israel must be decisive and remain at the core of any American approach to the Middle East.

Around 22 paragraghs in:

A nuclear Iran is a danger to Israel, to its neighbors and beyond.

About 26 paragraphs in:

The United States plays the central role as the guarantor of Israel's security...

Israel is a tiny country brimming with chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The Neocons got our soldiers into Iraq under the nuclear weapons pretext; finding no banned weapons leaves one to wonder at the coincidental nature
of US actions and those outlined in "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm"- the realm being referred to is Israel, Perle Feith and Wurmser are the authors as well as some of the folks behind the attack on Iraq.

I'll leave you with his article from the Jordan Times (click link for full article)

DAMASCUS (AFP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad and his Iranian counterpart Mahmoud Ahmadinejad closed ranks in talks between the two allies on Thursday, both nations facing growing international pressure.

"Iran has the right to build up nuclear technology for peaceful purposes," Assad said at a joint press conference after their meeting, in which he also called for Israel to renounce its alleged nuclear weapons arsenal.

"We also reject the pressure being exerted on this country" over its nuclear programme, the Syrian leader said.

"Israel is the only country which possesses nuclear arms in the region," said Assad, calling for a Middle East "without weapons of mass destruction.

"If WMD is the pretext of the West, then it should start with Israel."

I feel no country should have nuclear weapons. Not the US. Not Israel, the UK, India, Pakistan or Iran.

Reading deeply shows me the Neoconservative "Israel First" ethic that is endangering our world.

This quote from an article penned November 10, 2002 paints the picture of the NeoCon process we are seeing:

The prevailing view in the Israeli military is that Iraq will be quickly defeated by U.S. forces, and then likely split into two or three cantons. Israel's North American supporters, however, are still being given the party line that Israel is in mortal danger from Iraq.

Iran is a different story. Iran is expected to produce a few nuclear weapons within five years to counter Israel's large nuclear arsenal, and is developing medium-range missiles, Shahab-3s and -4s, that can easily reach Tel Aviv.

With 68 million people and a growing industrial base, Iran is seen by Israel as a serious threat and major Mideast geopolitical rival. Both nations have their eye on Iraq's vast oil reserves.

Israel's newly appointed hardline defence minister, former air force chief Shaul Mofaz, who was born in Iran, has previously threatened to attack Iran's nuclear installations. Thanks to long-range F-15Is supplied by the U.S., plus cruise and ballistic missiles, Israel can strike targets all over Iran. This week, Israel's grand strategy was clearly revealed for the first time, though barely noticed by North American media, as Prime Minister Ariel Sharon called for an invasion of Iran "the day after" Iraq is crushed.

The information is out there for the googling.

ISRAEL’S Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has called on the international community to target Iran as soon as the imminent conflict with Iraq is complete.

In an interview with The Times , Mr Sharon insisted that Tehran — one of the “axis of evil” powers identified by President Bush — should be put under pressure “the day after” action against Baghdad ends because of its role as a “centre of world terror”

Another article states:

Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz told members of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations last week that after Iraq, the United States should generate "political, economic, diplomatic pressure" on Iran. "We have great interest in shaping the Middle East the day after" a war, he said.

A bit more on NeoCon aspirations for a Middle East conflagration for our troops to benefit Israel:

The War Won't End in Baghdad," wrote the American Enterprise Institute's Michael Ledeen in the Wall Street Journal. In 1985, as a consultant to the National Security Council and Oliver North, Ledeen helped broker the illegal arms-for-hostages deal with Iran by setting up meetings between weapons dealers and Israel. In the current war, he argues, "we must also topple terror states in Tehran and Damascus."

In urging the expansion of the war on terror to Syria and Iran, Ledeen does not mention Israel. Yet Israel is a crucial strategic reason for the hard-line vision to "roll back" Syria and Iran -- and another reason why control of Iraq is seen as crucial. In 1998, Wurmser, now in the State Department, told the Jewish newspaper Forward that if Ahmad Chalabi were in power and extended a no-fly, no-drive zone in northern Iraq, it would provide the crucial piece for an anti-Syria, anti-Iran bloc. "It puts Scuds out of the range of Israel and provides the geographic beachhead between Turkey, Jordan and Israel," he said. "This should anchor the Middle East pro-Western coalition."

Perle, in the same 1998 article, told Forward that a coalition of pro-Israeli groups was "at the forefront with the legislation with regard to Iran. One can only speculate what it might accomplish if it decided to focus its attention on Saddam Hussein." And Perle, Wurmser and Feith (now in the Pentagon), in their 1996 Israeli think tank report to Netanyahu, argued for abandoning efforts for a comprehensive peace in favor of a policy of "rolling back" Syria to protect Israel's interests. Now, however, Israel is given a lower profile by those who would argue for rollback. Rather, writes Ledeen, U.S. troops would be put at risk in order to "liberate all the peoples of the Middle East." And this, he argues, would be virtually pain-free: "If we come to Baghdad, Damascus and Tehran as liberators, we can expect overwhelming popular support." Perle concurs on Iraq -- "The Arab World ... will consider honor and dignity has been restored" -- as well as Iran: "It is the beginning of the end for the Iranian regime."

Haven't the American People heard enough of this BS? Isn't it transparent?

Save the Constitution

2006-01-17T18:55:00.000-05:00

Al Gore has done a powerful job of highlighting the current regimes ongoing campaign to
disembowel and destroy the Constitution. Read "US Constitution in Grave Danger".

We are the "demos" that fill out and fulfill our democracy.

It seems to me that everyone we know should read it.

I don't really cotton Mr Gore, especially after he rolled over and allowed the Republican/Neocon coup to occur without a whisper in 2000. But I thank him for speaking out,now,loudly and proudly for our nation.

Integrity Speaking

2006-01-16T20:01:00.000-05:00

Honoring Martin Luther King is important to me. I'm reaching out to the folks I love today; in real time...

Beyond Vietnam -- A Time to Break Silence is an important speech by a man who called on us to embrace Christ's example of humanity, and suffered, like Jesus, at the hands of those in power. The link offers both text and audio of MLK's speech, a talk that is as timeless as it is wise.

Cindy Sheehan likewise is a voice of conscience for our times. As the neocons work to rev up the common people in support of yet another war, this time with Iran I'd ask you to read Pulling No Punches where she offers some insight on an atomic Iran- did you know thirty years ago Rumsfeld and Cheney thought Iran could use atomic energy as a supplement to oil...

Ray McGovern is a veteran intelligence analyst who also strikes me as a person of integrity. Read his "Cheney's Other Trick NIE?" to reinforce Ms Sheehan's offering of historic perspective.

My post, "30 Years of "Cooked" Intelligence: Profiting From Fear" shows the same folks that lied the US into attacking Iraq have a long history of bending reality to get their ends. Past performance says a great deal, folks.

They have their sights set on Iran. Don't believe the hype.

Alito, Imperial Presidency Potpourri

2006-01-09T14:16:00.000-05:00

A quick thought and two old posts concerning "Imperial Presidency".

Samuel Alito has long been concerned with increasing the power of the President, as this memo from the Reagan Office Of Legal Counsel shows, dated 1986, wherein Alito offers up a new technique for increasing Presidential power: The Presidential signing statement.

In talking about the history of the use of presidential signing statements I'm in a bit over my head. What I have learned is that until the "project" of employing these these statements to further presidential authority was outlined by Alito's innovation they were mostly used to allow a President to disagree with a bill on Constitutional grounds, and that in itself was a late 20th century innovation. As Alito said in the memo linked above:

Presidents, unlike Congress, do not customarily comment on their understanding of bills. Congress churns out great masses of legislative history bearing on its intent--committee reports, floor debates, hearings. Presidents have traditionally created nothing comparable. Presidents have seldom explained in any depth or detail how they interpreted the bills they have signed. Presidential approval is usually accompanied by a statement that is often little more than a press release.

If you read the memo you see that Alito wishes to slowly over time e-a-s-e in this new presidential "technique". On Christmas the New York Times mentioned another memo, one just as timely given recent events:

One troubling memo concerns domestic wiretaps - a timely topic. In the memo, which he wrote as a lawyer in the Reagan Justice Department, Judge Alito argued that the attorney general should be immune from lawsuits when he illegally wiretaps Americans. Judge Alito argued for taking a step-by-step approach to establishing this principle, much as he argued for an incremental approach to reversing Roe v. Wade in another memo.

Slow but steady...

Pretty easy to sneak up on us. Ford, Carter, Reagan, Bush 1, Clinton have all used this, although the memo shows Alito worked on supersizing its scope. When did you become aware of Presidential signing statements?

Here's a thouhgt to hold, ruminate on as you hear/see the daily news:

The accumulation of all powers, legislative, executive, and judiciary, in the same hands, whether of one, a few, or many, and whether hereditary, selfappointed, or elective, may justly be pronounced the very definition of tyranny. Were the federal Constitution, therefore, really chargeable with the accumulation of power, or with a mixture of powers, having a dangerous tendency to such an accumulation, no further arguments would be necessary to inspire a universal reprobation of the system.

---James Madison Federalist Papers #47

The following post is from 2.25.04. Forgive me the optimism in popular education that had me thinking Mr Bush might only be a one term blight on American Democracy. What has me reposting this piece is the memory of this quote, part of the second to last article linked below.

When president Ronald Reagan was considering invading Nicaragua he issued a series of executive orders that provided the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) with broad powers in the event of a "crisis" such as "violent and widespread internal dissent or national opposition against a US military invasion abroad". They were never used.

Operation Garden Plot, FEMA: a bit of history

If this were a dictatorship, it'd be a heck of a lot easier, just so long as I'm the dictator
--George W Bush

George Bush, one term President? Like father like son; it looks as if that could be the case, even with the support of his corporate media cronies, the truth about him, and his administration, is getting mainstream. Black Box voting aside...

What my reading has shown though is that the present regime in DC is much bigger than George W. Bush. In fact, when the highest office in the land is under threat and the Vice President goes into hiding, what are we to think? Who is the front man? Who is/are the brains of the operation?

"Am I the evil genius in the corner that nobody ever sees come out of his hole? It's a nice way to operate, actually." --Dick Cheney

The Neoconservatives that people the present administration have been involved in governance at some level for decades, bringing their marginal political philosophy to the fore; its' policy of endless war, and lies to control the subordinate masses, to head the most powerful nation on Earth. We all saw how this cabal got into the White House...

I really care about my work here at Estimated Prophet, and will offer documentation to back up what I have to offer;
I don't want you to wonder if I am wearing a tinfoil beanie.

Operation Garden Plot
There is a plan to allow the military to assist law enforcement in quieting "civil unrest".

Urban areas can be the scene of inner-city conflicts, labor disputes, and political struggles. Disturbances in urban areas are usually fueled by aggrieved members of the community.

I'd like you to take a look at Field Manual (FM) 19-15 which spells out the military policy in controlling civil disturbance. The Field Manual is comprehensive; but I think you will be a bit more enlightened by giving it a good read. The way crowds are managed, the psychology behind say, behind soldiers holding their weapons at "safe port" so their bayonets are apparent to the folks in the back of the crowd, or when exploding CS grenades might be used rather than burning grenades to greater effect, even how a to choose between shooting protesters with either a rubber ring airfoil projectile or a CS powder containing CS projectile from the M234 launcher on your M-16.

The term "Rules of Engagement" is not used for domestic operations- the term "Rules for Use of Force" applies.

Alright, so perhaps the military can be called out for such domestic disturbances as riots, you may be thinking, remembering Los Angeles after the police we watched beat Rodney King so many times on the tv were aquited. The Los Angeles Riots saw deployment of active duty Marines and Army Troops, as well as federalized California National Guard Troops. The National Guard is not constrained by Posse Comitatus Act. Once Federalized it is constrained, while under the command of the Govenor it is not.

What we saw in place in Los Angeles was Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan 55-2, better known as "Operation Garden Plot". This plan to use the military to deal with widescale domestic dissent had its origins in the rioting and unrest of 1967. Although the riots in Newark, New Jersey; New York City; Cleveland, Ohio; Washington, D.C.; Chicago, Illinois; and Atlanta, Georgia; and Detroit, Michigan were mostly confined to African Americans, the growing antiwar movement offered another domestic concern. There were 160
incidents such as these in 128 cities in the first nine months of 1967, the National Guard was called out at least 25 times. President Johnson called a National Advisory Commission on Civil Disorders into being to figure out the "why" of this mass unrest.

Army Chief of Staff Harold Johnson set up an task force to study the role of the Army in civil disturbances.

After Martin Luther King was assassinated rioting broke out in 19 US cities.

The army task force became the Directorate of Civil Disturbance Planning and Operations, which had a further name change to the Directorate of Military Support, working out of the basement of the Pentagon, it's headquarters known as "the domestic war room". A full time staff of 150 manned communications equipment in touch with the National Guard and the nation's military installations. A computer kept track of politcal dissent. And dissenters.

Ronald Reagan hired retired National Guard General Louis O. Giuffrida to implement a Garden Plot subplan called Cable Splicer. Giuffrida had earlier advocated "the detention of at least 21 million American Negroes in assembly centers or relocation camps" to counteract African American militancy. Reagan established a counter-terrorism training center, the California Specialized Training Institute; Guiffrida was commandant.

On October 30, 1969 President Nixon issued Executive Order 11490, cosolidating 21 Executive orders and 2 Defense Mobilization orders, assigning emergency preparedness functions to Federal departments and agencies.

President Ford created Federal Emergency Preparedness Agency (FEPA), in 1976, using Executive Order 11921, further consolidating Nixons order.

FEMA
In 1979 President Carter brought the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) into being with Executive Order 12148, expending on Ford's FEPA.

President Reagan made Louis Giuffrida his "emergency czar" as head of FEMA. Guiffrida created a Civil Security Division at
the agency, and set up a Civil Defense Training Center in Emmitsburg, Maryland, much like CSTI in California., where civilian defense personel were taught military police methods, counter-terrorism and survival skills. FEMA gained intelligence agency status by giving the National Security Council authority over the planning for civil defense and civil security by top secret National Security Decision Directive (NSDD) 26. Reagan further a senior-level interdepartmental board, the Emergency Mobilization Preparedness Board (EMPB) to develop a national policy statement on emergency mobilization preparedness.

Along with Guiffrida, Oliver North was a part of EMPB, having been assigned there by Robert McFarland from 1982 to 1984. Thier plans for an America run by FEMA and Presidential fiat where gaining attention. FEMA was collecting intelligence on American activists. A fact that placed them in conflict with Federal Bureau of Investigations Director William Webster. General Frank Salcedo, FEMA Director of Civil Security in the end had to turn over the 12,000 files his agency had collected. Attorney General William French Smith got wind of this and some of the details of the REX 84 readiness exercises conducted under President Reagan and involving 34 other agencies, an exercise that countenanced rounding up 100,000 Central American immigrants as well as taking control of the Department of Defense and shutting down the Constitution. Salcedo had been quoted saying "at least 100,000 U.S. citizens, from survivalists to tax protesters, were serious threats to civil security"

"Over the long term, the peacetime action programs of FEMA and other departments and agencies have the effect of making the conceivable need for military takeover less and less as time goes by. A fully implemented civil defense program may not now be regarded as a substitute for martial law, nor could it be so marketed, but if successful in its execution it could have that effect."-- Louis Giuffrida

Guiffrida was found to have used 170,000 dollars in FEMA funds to set himself up in a swank "batchelor pad" at the Emmitsburg training facility. He was let go and does not appear in FEMA's official history though he was there from its inception. FEMA was found to have spent its money on building a civil security infrastructure, but it neglected its given role, civil defense.

North was reappointed by McFarlane to the Office of Public Diplomacy, where he disseminated disinformation. Iran/Contra brought North's other crimes concerning Central America (including condoning Contra cocaine running into the US) and the crimes of many, some within the present administration into light. His FEMA/EMBP involvement became public as well; offering a glimpse into these malignant entities.

Reagan signed Executive Order 12656 putting the NSC at the helm of national security emergency preparedness policy. FEMA is now at hand to assist in policy implementation and co-ordination with Federal agencies, state and local governments. It advises the NSC on mobilization preparedness, civil defense and continuity of government among others.

FEMA is now... The Department of Homeland Security's Emergency Preparedness and Response Directorate.

What got me reading about this was the Sydney Morning Herald article "Foundations are in place for martial law in the US" The reading I've been doing points to the fact that a small group of hardliners has been in the background of GOP politics during some of the most shameful incidents of US history in the past 30+ years.

You should be aware, as stated in FM 100-19 "Principles of Operations Other Than War"

Perseverance - Prepare for the measured, protracted application of military capabilities in support of strategic aims. Domestic support operations may require years to achieve desired effects. They may not have a clear beginning or end decisively.

Shadowy Government (originally posted 2.23.04)

Deployed "on the fly" in the first hours of turmoil on Sept. 11, one participant said, the shadow government has evolved into an indefinite precaution.

In the current issue of Atlantic Monthly (March 04) James Mann has written an article called "The Armageddon Plan" which tells about the involvement of both Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld in a clandestine plan to ensure "continuity of government" in case of a nuclear attack hatched by the Reagan Administration.

Cheney and Rumsfeld, both partisans of the 1976 "Team B" effort to thwart approved intelligence were in the position
to know that a Soviet attack on the US was not a reality based threat assessment. Yet then Congressman Cheney and Rumsfeld, CEO of Searle, not even then a part of elected US government, were principle actors in a Reagan plan that would circumvent Constitutional lines of Presidential succession while leaving elected Congress out of the equation entirely.

Iran/Contra criminal Oliver North was a part of this secret project. He was also at this time involved in the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) planning that brought the disaster relief agency formed under President Carter into a new role: what was called "Civil Defense"planning.

They included executive orders providing for suspension of the constitution, the imposition of martial law, internment camps, and the turning over of government to the president and FEMA.

The above quote is from the Sydney Morning Herald. I hope to touch on this in another post, which may take a few days..
I find it very alarming to see a continuity of neoconservatives influencing government policy in ways that seem highly anti-democratic. Neoconservatives that are now in the highest posts of our government. That you see and hear on the airwaves, in the daily paper. People we need to learn about, whose "track records" need to be made familiar to every American.
It is as if "We the People" are left in the dark by the media that should serve as with the key information we need to form an informed electorate. But back to the case in hand.

The order of Presidential Succession runs like this, I'll offer the names of the present administrators, offering a partial listing, the "Top Ten".

1. Vice President of the United States - Dick Cheney
2. Speaker of the House - Denny Hastert
3. President pro Tempore of the Senate - Ted Stevens
4. Secretary of State - Colin Powell
5. Secretary of the Treasury - John Snow
6. Secretary of Defense - Donald Rumsfeld
7. Attorney General - John Ashcroft
8.Secretary of the Interior Gale A. Norton
9.Secretary of Agriculture Ann M. Veneman
10.Secretary of Commerce Donald Evans

As Mann relates the Reagan Administration fear was that the USSR would attempt to enact the same nuclear strategy that the US was planning; that is to "decapitate" the Russian civilian and military leadership through nuclear strikes targeting officials and their lines of communication. To prevent this end in America three teams were set up that included Cabinet officials and folks like Cheney and Rumsfeld who had high level executive branch experience and ideally a connection to the national security apparatus as well . James Woolsey, PNAC signer and later director of the CIA was a team leader at one point. The Cabinet members would be figureheads in the public eye, issueing orders as "President" while defering to the more experienced chief of staff in the background.

Reconvening Congress was seen as overly bothersome. There might be those that would balk at the administrators now held in charge. The primary goal of this project was to get a workable chain of command going in case of nuclear attack.
An unsworn President that could control the military was what was sought under Reagan. One has to wonder about just who would have their finger on the button of the worlds largest nuclear arsenal during these conditions. Six or seven three star generals had this responsibility, as did several NORAD big wigs. Yup, NORAD, the folks that have no answers concerning 9/11.

The program went from a policy of running the would be clandestine governments from a few hardened facilities that were predictable to more far flung ones it was thought the soviets would be unable to keep track of. Big rigs pulling lead lined trailer of communications equiptment and 4 bys with the administrators would light out to hidden spots on parklands and in resorts across the US. This mimicked the process US intelligence saw the Soviets practicing. FEMA base Mt Weather and Camp David were supplemented by other, more discrete, hardened hideaways. GlobalSecurity.com has an interesting list of them including one under the Green Briar resort.

During the Presidency of the elected President Bush these exercises went on. During the Clinton years they were shelved as being unrealistic in light of the fall of the Soviet Union. 16 year spy Robert Hanssen, who shares the distinction of belonging to the same church where the Tridentine Latin Mass is offered (a Mel Gibson favorite) and same fundamentalist fascist religious organization as his boss at the time Louis Freeh and Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia, Opus Dei revealed how these plans operated to the Soviet government.

The new millenium's Pearl Harbor, the 9/11 disaster brought these plans back to the fore.

Q Mr. President, is there a shadow government in place since September 11th? And --

THE PRESIDENT: A shadowy government or a shadow government?

Perhaps "to the fore" is not an accurate phraseing. Senate president pro tempore of the time, Robert Byrd had not been told that the Bush administration had instituted this "shadow government" plan; and he was third in line of Presidential succession.

In television interviews on Sunday, the leading congressional Democrat, Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, confirmed that neither he nor any other congressional leader had been consulted about the plan. Asked whether this constituted a secret government, not just potentially in the future, but in actuality today, he replied, "I don't know. I don't know what their role is, what their current authority is, because we haven?t been informed. You'd think one person in Congress would know, and whether a congressional and judicial component is included."

O.K, to be clear we live in a Constitutional Federal Republic with a strong democratic tradition. But if the third person in line for Presidential succession is unaware of the Bush Administration "Continuity of Government" plan does this plan strike you as either Constitutionally correct or in the least democratic? But there was a briefing given on this plan, that overlooked Robert Byrd who as was stated is in the line of Presidential succession. The Secretary of the Senate Jeri Thomson and the Senate Seargent at Arms were said to be told of these plans September 22, after the 9/11 disaster, but it seems they were not told much.

Lenhardt and Thomson said in a statement last night they "visited a classified location to receive information regarding [presidential] line of succession in the event of a national emergency. We were not briefed on a program involving executive branch personnel being assigned on a rotating basis to insure operation of the executive branch."

The WaPo article said this.

House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) first learned from a reporter about yesterday's classified briefing for congressional leaders on the contingency plans, his aides said. White House press secretary Ari Fleischer blamed a "scheduling matter" and said Gephardt had "already been talked to," which Gephardt's aides said was untrue.

The White House also disputed lawmakers' claims that they had not been advised of the administration's contingency plans, reported last week in The Washington Post, involving scores of career government officials taking rotations in underground bunkers outside of Washington. Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-W.Va.), who as Senate president pro tempore is third in line to the presidency, and Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) had said they were not informed of the plans.

So it seems although 70 to 150 civilian managers are sent to hardened bunkers to ensure continuity of government in the case of an attack on Washington these individuals are just there to implement executive branch policy. From my reading I could find no reference to House or Senate or Judicial members being included to insure the Constitutionally mandated "checks and balances", and a closer reading sees that members of the Democratic Party are kept outside the loop concerning this "shadow government".

Because Bush has decided to leave the operation in place, agencies including the White House and top civilian Cabinet departments have rotated personnel involved, and are discussing ways to staff such a contingency operation under the assumption it will be in place indefinitely, this official said.

The material I link to is from a year ago when the existence of this "shadow government" was made public to us and our legislators. What this body was up to was shadowy then, and just as indistinct now.

What I can find is that the American Enterprise Institute (which counts Perle, Jean Kirkpatrick, Gingrich, Michael Ledeen, Lynne Cheney and Irving Kristol and among its scholars and fellows) and The Brookings Institute (illuminating but dated reference), are working together to promote their Continuity of Government Commission that as Phyliss Schlafly stated to the Senate Judiciary Committee Subcommittee on the Constitution, Civil Rights and Property Rights on August 29, 2003:

An elite group of former Clinton advisers and former public officials of both political parties gathered at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington to announce their proposal to convert the House of Representatives from an elected body to an appointed body in the event of a national emergency. This group calls itself the Continuity of Government (COG) Commission, and the acronym is apt. The COG Commission is trying to be a cog that manipulates our constitutional process of self-government.

We need to be very vigilant. Tommy Franks spoke about what could occur with another 9/11 type terrorist attack.

the potential of a weapon of mass destruction and a terrorist, massive casualty-producing event somewhere in the western world-it may be in the United States of America-that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass-casualty-producing event. Which, in fact, then begins to potentially unravel the fabric of our Constitution.

On one hand a terrorist attack that could be used by the political elite to further curtail the very liberties we hold as defining what sets America apart, think PATRIOT Act, CAPPS. Police infiltration of civil rights and anti-war groups.

Keep in mind, here in the cradle of world democracy, a country that exports the democratic concept to the world, when all was said and done, despite the Supreme Court appointment, history shows Gore won the Presidency according to the vote in Florida

EP's third year

2006-01-05T15:23:00.000-05:00

Estimated Prophet celebrates its third birthday this week. As its author, I welcome a new year.

The year previous had seen 6 loved ones interred into the good earth, including my Dad. My relatives were old in their passing; losing their presence was painful, yes, but one accepts when a life's natural term comes to a close.

I cannot begin to imagine the pain felt by good folks like Cindy Sheehan, the empty space left by a loved one whos potential, whos future had yet to be realised. American and Iraqi and Coaltion folks have lost loved ones

David Letterman put "Loofa" Bill O'Rielly in his place when the loudmouth Fox commentator passed judgement on Cindy Sheehan, asking him if he had lost anyone in armed conflict. The clip is a bit long but quite entertaining. In Windows Media Player.

One highlight:

Letterman: “I’m not smart enough to debate you point to point on this, but I have the feeling, I have the feeling about 60 percent of what you say is crap. [audience laughter] But I don’t know that for a fact. [more audience applause]

Paul Shafer: “60 percent.”

Letterman: “60 percent. I’m just spit-balling here.”

Death is something often hidden in our culture, I suppose to keep us from the uncomfortable rumination that one day we too will we cease to be ... One thing that will stain consideration of the Iraq War and occupation in the future will e the fact that all those good people died for nothing. For idealogues dreams of American Empire, at the whim of a sitting President who wants to make the history books, corporaions that truly want to make a killing (cash) in a rich, defenseless oil state- for politicians wanting to further their careers by looking tough on terrorism while keeping corporate and AIPAC cash flowing into their coffers.

Hillary Clinton is the current Democratic Party top recipient of AIPAC largess. Her stance on Iraq reflects this I believe since it flies against the values of the majority of her constituents, should polls be believed. As does her belligerence toward Iran:

“I held a series of meetings with Israeli officials [last summer], including the prime minister and the foreign minister and the head of the [Israeli Defense Force] to discuss such challenges we confront. In each of these meetings, we talked at length about the dire threat posed by the potential of a nuclear-armed Iran, not only to Israel, but also to Europe and Russia. Just this week, the new president of Iran made further outrageous comments that attacked Israel’s right to exist that are simply beyond the pale of international discourse and acceptability. During my meeting with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, I was reminded vividly of the threats that Israel faces every hour of every day ... It became even more clear how important it is for the United States to stand with Israel...”

The article from the New Yorker can offer you a sense of the power of AIPAC.

Hillary as President means more war. Oh, and about AIPAC- members have been spying on the US for Israel... Here is an extensive archive of Israeli spying on America related articles.
Israel has what are warmly called WMDs. The state used the nuclear threat to advantage in 1973:

The Israelis assembled 13 twenty-kiloton atomic bombs. The number and in fact the entire story was later leaked by the Israelis as a great psychological warfare tool. Although most probably plutonium devices, one source reports they were enriched uranium bombs. The Jericho missiles at Hirbat Zachariah and the nuclear strike F-4s at Tel Nof were armed and prepared for action against Syrian and Egyptian targets. They also targeted Damascus with nuclear capable long-range artillery although it is not certain they had nuclear artillery shells.

U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger was notified of the alert several hours later on the morning of 9 October. The U.S. decided to open an aerial resupply pipeline to Israel, and Israeli aircraft began picking up supplies that day. Although stockpile depletion remained a concern, the military situation stabilized on October 8th and 9th as Israeli reserves poured into the battle and averted disaster. Well before significant American resupply had reached Israeli forces, the Israelis counterattacked and turned the tide on both fronts.

On 11 October, a counterattack on the Golan broke the back of Syria's offensive, and on 15 and 16 October, Israel launched a surprise crossing of the Suez Canal into Africa. Soon the Israelis encircled the Egyptian Third Army and it was faced with annihilation on the east bank of the Suez Canal, with no protective forces remaining between the Israeli Army and Cairo. The first U.S. flights arrived on 14 October. Israeli commandos flew to Fort Benning, Georgia to train with the new American TOW anti-tank missiles and return with a C-130 Hercules aircraft full of them in time for the decisive Golan battle. American commanders in Germany depleted their stocks of missiles, at that time only shared with the British and West Germans, and sent them forward to Israel.

Thus started the subtle, opaque use of the Israeli bomb to ensure that the United States kept its pledge to maintain Israel's conventional weapons edge over its foes. There is significant anecdotal evidence that Henry Kissinger told President of Egypt, Anwar Sadat, that the reason for the U.S. airlift was that the Israelis were close to “going nuclear.”

To be clear: I am not for a nuclear weaponed Iraq. Or Israel. Or India, Pakistan, the US...

In a two party system, can the will of regular Americans be represented by members of the monied elite? To me the system seems broken. We saw Kerry last year, anybody but Bush and all. We had to pick the least bad candidate.

Death. Ariel Sharon seems in bad shape (link contains Israel National News video report as well as text). Do you remember when Israeli fundamentalists put a curse on him last summer? I bet ol Pat Robinson would be comfortable at their Seder.

Nutcase Pat Robertson is once again foaming at the mouth:

Conservative Christian evangelical broadcaster Pat Robertson on Thursday linked Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's stroke to God's "enmity against those who 'divide my land.'"

"He was dividing God's land and I would say woe unto any prime minister of Israel who takes a similar course to appease the EU, the United Nations, or the United States of America," Robertson said on his television program, "The 700 Club," broadcast from his Christian Broadcasting Network in Virginia Beach. "God says 'this land belongs to me. You better leave it alone.'"

I think of Sharon as a war criminal blinded by nationalism. His history shows this to be true; I am ot relying on style here but on the facts. I see his humanity too- offered the same life circumstances, upbringing, milleu, etc anyone of us could turn out just the same. that is how life is, we are the sum total of our experiences.

Ehud Olmert is standing in for Sharon at this point. Here is a link I came across while trying to learn about him (scroll down for full Yedi'ot Aharonot Weekend Magazine article)

Ehud Olmert:

"We are approaching the point where more and more Palestinians will say: we have been won over. We agree with [National Union leader Avigdor] Liberman. There is no room for two states between the Jordan and the sea. All that we want is the right to vote.

"The day they do that, is the day we lose everything. Even when they carry out terror, it is very difficult for us to persuade the world of the justice of our cause. We see this on a daily basis. All the more so when there is only one demand: an equal right to vote.

"The thought that the struggle against us will be headed by liberal Jewish organizations who shouldered the burden of the struggle against apartheid in South Africa scares me."

If the problem is only the right to vote, I said, right-wing elements have a solution. They suggest giving the right to vote to Israeli emigres wherever they are or to all the Jews around the world.

"All these smart-alecky solutions," Olmert says, "will not rescue us from a boycott, isolation, and other scenarios that I prefer not to go into.

"Had I believed that there is a real chance of reaching an agreement, I would have recommended making an effort. But that is not the case. The choice we will be facing will be between less than a Geneva Accord -- which means a return to the 1967 border, the crushing of Jerusalem, and a struggle to our last breath to ward off the international pressure to absorb hundreds of thousands of refugees into the shrinking State of Israel -- and a comprehensive unilateral move, and I stress the word comprehensive. Through such a move we will define our borders, which under no circumstances will be identical to the Green Line and will include Jerusalem as a united city under our sovereignty."

"From where do you intend to withdraw?" I asked.

"I will not go into detail about the border," Olmert said. "I will merely say that it will be based on a maximization of the number of Jews and a minimization of the number of Arabs inside the State of Israel. I believe that will leave us with a proportion of 80 percent Jews and 20 percent Arabs. That way we can continue having a Jewish and democratic state.

"These borders will definitely not overlap the borders of the Land of Israel on which I grew up and was educated, and which I believed in most of my adult life."

Whoever says 80 versus 20, I said, must also withdraw from Jerusalem's Arab neighborhoods.

"The principle that I raise," Olmert said, "allows for all sorts of maps. I will only say this: I was once asked what will happen if there is a Palestinian official presence in Al-Ayzariyah or Abu-Dis, which are located outside Jerusalem's jurisdiction. I replied: When the Old City is entirely in our hands, when the Temple Mount and the Mount of Olives and Al-Shaykh Jarrah are in our hands, united Jerusalem is in our hands."

I just wanted to share some thoughts and food for thought. Thanks for coming by. I am happily amazed by the traffic this project recieves even when I take time off from posting.

Best in the New Year to you,
M Prophet

2006-01-04T09:02:00.000-05:00

I just posted an incomplete piece accidently; the work will be reposted, finished, in the next few hours...

Age-ism and the Law

2005-12-16T10:13:00.000-05:00

Here are excerpts from two articles concerning counterfeit money:

The 10-year-old boy admitted he made the cash on his home computer. Police say he enlisted the help of another boy and a girl to help him pass off the cash:

"We were very surprised. We're working with the Secret Service and they say this is the youngest they've ever seen. And, some of it is pretty good quality for a 10-year-old to do by himself," said Det. Cpl. Darlene Breitenstein with the Gary Police Department.

But there were several giveaways that the bills weren't quite right. All of the serial numbers were the same. Some of the bills weren't cut too well, and the paper didn't feel right.

The three children face charges of forgery and theft.

The kids are facing charges; counterfeiting a handful of twenties is a Federal offense, after all.

Prosecutors in federal court decided to drop all charges yesterday against an Israeli man who had wanted to plead guilty to smuggling $1.5 million in fake U.S. currency into Maryland.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Craig Michael Wolff asked U.S. District Judge Andre M. Davis to dismiss the indictment against Hazki Hen, 65, because he is severely ill and wants to return to Israel to die.

Further into the article

He was indicted last November by a federal grand jury in Baltimore for allegedly importing and attempting to sell about $1.5 million in high-quality counterfeit $100 bills for 35 cents on the dollar. In discussions with an alleged accomplice and an undercover U.S. Secret Service agent, they talked about future transactions upward of $100 million, according to court records.

Lesson: Wait until you are an elder, kids, or you and your accomplices will fall under the penalties of the law.

Airman Big Brother?

2005-12-16T09:29:00.000-05:00

"Today, our world is fast paced, constantly shifting and filled with a wide range of challenges," Secretary of the Air Force Michael W. Wynne and Air Force Chief of Staff Gen. T. Michael Moseley wrote in a joint Letter to Airmen. "Our mission is our guiding compass, and now more than ever we need it to be clear and precise."

The mission statement defines the "where and what" the Air Force accomplishes on a daily basis:

The mission of the United States Air Force is to deliver sovereign options for the defense of the United States of America and its global interests -- to fly and fight in Air, Space, and Cyberspace.

[more]

So, alongside the frightening prospect of the militarization of space now the US Airforce will be fighting and flying in cyberspace.

Beef up your firewalls folks...

Computer difficulties...

2005-12-06T19:26:00.000-05:00

Computer difficulties for a bit now; please use the information sources offered up on the sidebar and keep coming around- the project will be up and running again soon.
M Prophet

A Full Reading Rack

2005-10-27T18:52:00.000-04:00

To compliment the Raimundo article referenced below I offer links that illustrate the insidious nature of the Neoconservative influence on America.

Brent Scowcroft is featured in an article in the latest New Yorker magazine; The Republican Rift offers this former national-security adviser to and current best friend of the truly elected George Bush (41) opines on the current administration'in " Q&A: Breaking Ranks: What Turned Brent Scowcroft Against the Bush Administration?

Add to this the talk given by Colonel Larry Wilkerson, former chief of staff of the State Department between 2002 and 2005 under Colin Powell.He also worked for Bush 41. He touches on a great deal of what the current Bush administration has done to besmirch America in the eyes of the world and, as a profesional soldier cecries the Bush/NeoCon sacrifice of America's people serving under arms- for lies...

Jim Lobe weighs in on both.while offering some context.

Good reading to you. Do something with what you learn/know.

Fundamentalist Nutcases, Neocons and More

2005-10-27T17:33:00.000-04:00

Looks like another religious fundamentalist will join Mr Bush in bringing the world to non-stop incendiary conflict. The President of Iran is also saber rattling and spewing hate:

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared Wednesday that Israel is a "disgraceful blot" that should be "wiped off the map" — fiery words that Washington said underscores its concern over Iran's nuclear program.

George Bush, Karl Rove and cabal must be overjoyed; fear of another war will overshadow their lies and treason as their spree of misrule becomes common knowledge in mainstream America.

Nationalism, Fundamentalism and hate are the time honored tools of governance for authoritarians...

Background to Betrayal:Behind the CIA leak investigation by Justin Raimondo connects the dots between the players in the outing of under cover CIA officer Valerie Plame and the front company that afforded her and her colleagues the ability to work clandestinely on nuclear, biologocal and chemical weapon proliferation issues throughout the world. The article offers a view of the larger picture of how the US got into the war on Iraq. Read it and decide where the loyalties of Mr Bush's neoconservative pals lie.

There are quite a few links to explore in this piece I recommend, but we are looking at complexities behind a simple issue; a web of deceit that when waded through offers a startling and undeniable overview, a perspective that you will not gain from a 45 second evening news segment- a perspective that the NY Times will not illustrate or admit. Please take the time to read the article, follow down links and gain the context for understanding.

Share what you learn.

Undercover troops provoked stone-throwing

2005-10-15T13:31:00.000-04:00

An article from Haaretz...

Prison Service troops disguised as Arabs incited Palestinian youths to throwing
stones at Israel Defense Forces troops during a weekly demonstration against the
separation fence in the West Bank village of Bil'in, village residents said on
Friday. The residents said that the disguised troops told the youths to throw
the stones and then joined them in doing so. When they were asked their
identity, they presented themselves as Arabs from Lod, a city in central Israel,
who arrived with the Israeli and foreign demonstrators.When the troops, members
of the Prison Service special unit Masada, did not heed a request to show
identification and were found to be in the possession of firearms, their
identities were reportedly exposed. IDF soldiers came to the scene and dispersed
them.
Advertisement
A few months ago, the same unit was accused of
similar activities in a Bil'in demonstration, after which a military court judge
ruled that the unit lacks the authority to operate in the Palestinian
territories. It is unclear whether the unit received special permission to
operate in this case.

(Read more)

Some Reflections

2005-10-12T08:10:00.000-04:00

I have neglected this project for a bit now, I feel badly about that, as well as about not having the mental/temporal space to work at it.

My Dad died. Last month.

I keep my "stuff" pretty much out of this project; popular education being the goal it seems to me not to matter much who the messenger is, just that the truth about issues be communicated, with context for one to reason about the issue at hand available. I'll get back to this pursuit.

He was my friend as well as my father. I miss his physical presence greatly.

My worldview has been enlarged, my belief system tested- when Life comes to things like this, it is where "the rubber hits the road" as the saying goes.

Hold the folks you love dearly, closely. Be the integrity you feel as life's fabric, the love that holds the weave together. Honor the lost amongst us (all crave respect) while not suffering fools. Fight hard for what you know is right... Some things my salt of the earth, conservative, working class Dad taught me, by example.

Clean and Clearly Put

2005-08-31T00:30:00.000-04:00

Peter Daou of the Daou Report states the obvious in a crisp clear manner: Why do a majority of us see the Iraq conflict in moral terms? Because our honor rests with our collective intelligence. Read and decide for yourself.

Disclaimer: His site linked to a piddly assed piece of mine once, musings I released into the rareified air of the blogosphere and I recieved 500 visitors. If only it were a good piece, long and well thought out...

Did I mention William Rivers Pitt's piece "Here's the Funny Part "? Digest, dicuss, disseminate.

We are many.

Some Headlines Of Interest

2005-08-30T13:30:00.000-04:00

Poverty Rate Rises to 12.7 Percent, Un-Insured up to 45.8 Million GOP Ecomomics at work!

Almanac Warns of Temperature Fluctuations OK, it's not The Old Farmers Almanac, but predictions are for snow and cold in my neck of the woods, which initially got my notice...

David Sirota: Only One Thing Left to Conclude: The Media Want the War Read through this linkfest- his conclusion seems obvious.

Necessary Context: Iraq

2005-08-14T17:24:00.000-04:00

With no chemical biological or nuclear weapons in Iraq, the goal of building a Democracy in Iraq was grabbed onto by our Miserable Failure of a President, Mr Bush and his supporters as a face saving excuse for the attack and occupation of a non threatening country far from our shores that, coincidently, has both a strategic geopolitical location and vast oil reserves.

If one gets past the partisan ya-ya the Fibber-in- Chief and his minions repeat robotically (always on message, the whole crew of them) with no regard for the situations realities one can see that Democracy in a NeoConservative vein, "the best of all worlds: an iron-fisted Iraqi junta without Saddam Hussein" as Thomas Friedman put it , aint gonna happen.. The Bushies act surprised.

My guess is that the NeoCons are pleased. A federalized Iraq, broken up into Sunni Shiite and Kurdish areas will prove to be pliable, if not pliable then at least it will be a weaker entity than Iraq was. I have linked to a paper titled "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties"" by Oded Yinon dated 1982 which states:

Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precendent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target

as well as a paper presented to Benjamin Netanyahu by The Study Group "A New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000:" entitled A Clean Break:A New Strategy for Securing the Realm that was penned by, among others Bush NeoConservatives Richard Pearl, Douglas Feith David Wurmser and Meyrav Wurmser, in 1996. Here is a timeline of NeoConservative efforts to get the United States involved in a war with Iraq. It offers supporting links from NeoCon websites and articles; judge for yourself the reasons our young people are dying in Iraq. Take the time to read and reason.

This article from the Washington Post shows that the attack of Iraq was ill-conceived and badly managed :
U.S. Lowers Sights On What Can Be Achieved in Iraq
Administration Is Shedding 'Unreality' That Dominated Invasion, Official Says

The Bush administration is significantly lowering expectations of what can be achieved in Iraq, recognizing that the United States will have to settle for far less progress than originally envisioned during the transition due to end in four months, according to U.S. officials in Washington and Baghdad.

The United States no longer expects to see a model new democracy, a self-supporting oil industry or a society in which the majority of people are free from serious security or economic challenges, U.S. officials say.

"What we expected to achieve was never realistic given the timetable or what unfolded on the ground," said a senior official involved in policy since the 2003 invasion. "We are in a process of absorbing the factors of the situation we're in and shedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning."

"...{S}hedding the unreality that dominated at the beginning"
The NeoConservative claims of flowers strewn at our soldiers feet. .. Look at this letter from a writer associated with The Project for A New American Century from May 2001, yup, pre 9/11 folks, urging Mr Bush to attack Iraq:

One of those costs would be the deployment of U.S. soldiers. To refuse to send large numbers of them would clearly signal that the United States still wasn't serious. For the opposition to have legitimacy and hayba in Iraqi eyes, U.S. ground forces would have to be deployed in the south to seize and protect zones under U.S.-opposition control. That alone would quickly transform Iraq's political landscape. We must shatter the bonds of fear that are the primary glue holding Saddam's totalitarian society together. U.S. ground troops are the key to instigating insurrection against the Ba'ath party.

And ground troops would also be a military necessity. Combined U.S.-opposition military operations would be inevitable. American helicopter gunships -- essential for neutralizing Baghdad's armor -- don't go anywhere without mechanized foot soldiers to back them up. American foot-soldiers don't go anywhere in significant numbers without tanks in front of them. At minimum, two divisions -- roughly 50,000 troops -- would probably be needed in the beginning. Given the U.S. military's doctrine of overwhelming force -- more Field Marshal Montgomery than General Patton -- the Army would likely press for far more...,

How about this snippet of a letter, composed at a 19 hour Rumsfeld meeting of Defense Advisory Board and PNAC associates, that Mr Powell was not invited to, published September 20th, 2001:

It may be that the Iraqi government provided assistance in some form to the recent attack on the United States. But even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the attack, any strategy aiming at the eradication of terrorism and its sponsors must include a determined effort to remove Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq

Retired General Anthony Zinni weighs in ( He was once US Envoy to Israel).

Well, it starts with at the top. If you're the secretary of defense and you're responsible for that. If you're responsible for that planning and that execution on the ground. If you've assumed responsibility for the other elements, non-military, non-security, political, economic, social and everything else, then you bear responsibility,” says Zinni. “Certainly those in your ranks that foisted this strategy on us that is flawed. Certainly they ought to be gone and replaced.”

Zinni is talking about a group of policymakers within the administration known as "the neo-conservatives" who saw the invasion of Iraq as a way to stabilize American interests in the region and strengthen the position of Israel. They include Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz; Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith; Former Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle; National Security Council member Eliot Abrams; and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, Lewis "Scooter" Libby.

Zinni believes they are political ideologues who have hijacked American policy in Iraq.

“I think it's the worst kept secret in Washington. That everybody - everybody I talk to in Washington has known and fully knows what their agenda was and what they were trying to do,” says Zinni.

“And one article, because I mentioned the neo-conservatives who describe themselves as neo-conservatives, I was called anti-Semitic. I mean, you know, unbelievable that that's the kind of personal attacks that are run when you criticize a strategy and those who propose it. I certainly didn't criticize who they were. I certainly don't know what their ethnic religious backgrounds are. And I'm not interested.”

Adds Zinni: “I know what strategy they promoted. And openly. And for a number of years. And what they have convinced the president and the secretary to do. And I don't believe there is any serious political leader, military leader, diplomat in Washington that doesn't know where it came from.”

Read about The Office of Special Plans, the NeoCon stovepipe that promoted false intelligence to get this war accomplished.

Look at the key players, their connections, their long term strategy. Read deeply and reason.

The truth is not pretty. Don't be afraid to talk about it.

Unless the American people wake up, shake off this media fostered trance so many are in, more of the same is going to come straight from the Land of the Free. Death, the GOP/NeoConservative export:

In Washington it is hardly a secret that the same people in and around the administration who brought you Iraq are preparing to do the same for Iran. The Pentagon, acting under instructions from Vice President Dick Cheney’s office, has tasked the United States Strategic Command (STRATCOM) with drawing up a
contingency plan to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States. The plan includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons. Within Iran there are more than 450 major strategic targets, including numerous suspected nuclear-weapons-program development sites. Many of the targets are hardened or are deep underground and could not be taken out by conventional weapons, hence the nuclear option. As in the case of Iraq, the response is not conditional on Iran actually being involved in the act of terrorism directed against the United
States. Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections.

2005-08-05T11:53:00.000-04:00

After not posting for a bit I realize that jumping out of the chute with a piece on the Israeli "disengagement plan" that offers no context was a disservice to folks who stop by here and may not be well informed about the issue.

I offer this quote from Haaretz:

"The significance of the disengagement plan is the freezing of the peace
process," Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's senior adviser Dov Weisglass has told
Haaretz. "And when you freeze that process, you prevent the establishment of a
Palestinian state, and you prevent a discussion on the refugees, the borders and
Jerusalem. Effectively, this whole package called the Palestinian state, with
all that it entails, has been removed indefinitely from our agenda. And all this
with authority and permission. All with a presidential blessing and the
ratification of both houses of Congress." Weisglass, who was one of the
initiators of the disengagement plan, was speaking in an interview with Haaretz
for the Friday Magazine."The disengagement is actually formaldehyde," he said.
"It supplies the amount of formaldehyde that is necessary so there will not be a
political process with the Palestinians.."

Read the full article.

For background explore:
Removing the Accidental Protection
Withdrawal means more indiscriminate violence in Gaza by Justin Podur

The Podur piece links to Disengagement??by Phyllis Bennis; Institute for Policy Studies.

I feel that Uri Avnery of Gush Shalom needs to be read for people to gain a perspective of the present Israeli reality. His "The March of the Orange Shirts"is pretty chilling, offering an 80+ years old Zionists perspective of the religio-nationalism that animates the settlers. The Moment of Truth speaks of various scenarios around getting the settlers out of their illegal settlements, and what Sharon may do next.

An interview with Illan Pappe really had me thinking; I am amazed that the Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Territory has gone on so long, been so bloody, yet the people of Israel and the West seem largely to accept it. Just as decent American accepts what they hear of it- and Abu Ghraib. Denial. A paucity of information and denial. From the interview Mechanisms of Denial:

Podur: You explained how this can happen last night in your talk. You talked
about what you called ‘Mechanisms of Denial’. Can you explain this?
Pappe:
The Palestinian case is paradoxical. The people who live there can see the
results of 56 years of continuous ethnic cleansing, discrimination, a whole
legal and practical apparatus that is the definition of apartheid. And yet
within the media, the academy, and even the public consciousness, Israel is ‘the
only democracy in the Middle East’. Nothing of this reality seems to reach
journalists, academics, and therefore the public. The reason is that our society
is very well protected by these mechanisms of denial. Even very good-hearted
Israelis who consider themselves to be part of the peace camp live in denial.
There are various mechanisms, going back historically.
One of them is
physical and has to do with place names. In the original ethnic cleansing of
Palestinians that took place in 1948, when hundreds of thousands of Palestinians
were expelled, the names of towns were changed. Towns were physically wiped out
and reduced to rubble, and then planted over with European pine trees. The idea
was at once to wipe out the past, to make it like it never existed, and
simultaneously to change a Mediterrenean, Arab village into a European forest.
Israeli archaeologists were consulted to select names from the Bible that
would correspond to the sites. But the names were selected even more
deliberately, and even more vindictively, than that. So the Palestinian village
of Lubia became the Israeli village of Levi. The names are similar, and they
were made that way on purpose. So that children growing up would think only of
Levi, but the Palestinians who were expelled would know. They would know, and
the name would be close enough to the old name that it would be a
reminder.
It was the Jewish National Fund (JNF) that planted these pine
trees, to wipe out the memory of the place and Europeanize it. I was bewildered
in Toronto, seeing signs for the JNF, asking for support for the JNF as if it
was some kind of ecological organization dedicated to protecting whales. It is
not. It is a colonialist agency of ethnic cleansing.
And the mechanisms of
denial are not only about 1948. They were and are used and re-used to prevent
seeing Palestinians. There were Palestinians living in Israel under military
rule until 1967. These were the people who experienced the arbitrary rule of the
whim of a military officer, whose lives were in the hands of someone who knew or
cared nothing about them, long before the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza
in 1967. After that, the denial simply extended to the occupied
territories.
An even greater paradox is the denial that has gone alongside
the exposure of crimes in the past four years. For the past four years things
have gotten ever more horrendous. Daily killings of children, demolition of
houses, confiscation of land, the denial of the most basic rights and freedoms.
How is it possible that Israel succeeded in concealing that from its own society
and from the rest of the world?
Podur: It hasn’t been concealed, but even
when it is presented there is no impact.
Pappe: There are incredible
examples. Here is one. There is a music show that is on Israeli television,
called ‘Taverna’. It is Israeli music, which means it is Greek music with Hebrew
lyrics. After the Israeli Army committed the massacre in Jenin in April 2002,
the producer – another ‘leftist’ from the ‘peace camp’ – wanted to do a music
show in order to give some comfort to the troops in this trying time. So the
producers set up a stage in the zone of total destruction in Jenin. If you have
been to Jenin or seen films about it, you know there was a hole in the middle of
the camp – everything had been destroyed and reduced to rubble, people had been
killed, people were buried in the rubble. They set up a stage in the midst of
that rubble and had their music show. I talked to the producer afterwards, I
asked him – ‘don’t you see a problem with having the stage in the middle of the
hole’? He said: ‘no, the stage worked fine’ – as if my question had been about
the technical aspects of the stage rather than the macabre scene.
A second
example: every so often there is a bold crew of Israeli journalists who will
film something. One such crew had heard that some of the Israeli soldiers at the
Erez checkpoint (Erez is the highly militarized checkpoint which is the sole
entry and exit point to the Gaza strip) were playing a game of roulette with the
lives of Palestinians. This was a time when a very small number of Palestinians
were being allowed to enter Israel through the checkpoint in order to go to
work. The gate at the Erez checkpoint is an electric fence, with interlocking
‘teeth’ that make a complete seal, controlled by remote control. The soldiers
would play a game to see if they could catch a Palestinian worker in the gate.
One worker had died this way. The film crew investigated and filmed the game
being played in secret. When the film was broadcast, the studio got hundreds of
letters – protesting that the crew should not have filmed this, that it was
helping the enemy and sapping the morale of our soldiers when they need support!
This is another way of denial, of not facing the barbarization of society. This
is very similar to the American public reaction to what happened in Abu Ghraib.

Read and consider for yourself. I see Mr Sharon as a butcher with his thumb on the scale of justice; but that is my time considered opinion. The best people want to believe in their leaders, they believe them to be just as decent and lawbiding as they themselves, the hoi polloi everyman and everywoman are. We on the whole tend to deny the painful truths about our leaders, our nation. Lately the Iraq War has given we Americans a taste of this.

Read, consider- you be the judge...

Disengagement

Thanks to Bill for the Heads up on the informative Podur piece at ZNet

Warning or Foreshadowing?

2005-08-02T11:06:00.000-04:00

Lifted whole cloth from Yahoo News:

Israel would launch a massive ground operation if Palestinian militants fire on Israeli soldiers and settlers during next month's Gaza pullout, the deputy defense minister said Sunday.

In such a scenario, the evacuation of settlers would be halted for 10 days to two weeks while Israeli forces occupy Palestinian towns near the Jewish settlements, said Deputy Defense Minister Zeev Boim.

Boim told Israel Radio the ground operation would be massive, on the scale of the "Defensive Shield" offensive of 2002, in which Israel reoccupied West Bank towns in response to a series of suicide bombings.

Palestinians fighting Israeli occupation firing on Israeli soldiers during a pullout from Palestinian territory? Seems counter-intuitive.

I've linked this before but it seems pertinent- only Mr Sharon/Likud would gain from such a scenerio.

Impersonation units," have been key to the Israeli anti-terror fight Erez says.

Of the 2,200 arrests Israelis made in the West Bank last year, about 1,500 were conducted by special operation forces (SOF), including 366 by a special Arab impersonation unit, he explained. These specially selected and trained personnel have demonstrated the ability to completely blend into the opposing population for intelligence and operational purposes.

An attack on Israeli soldiers and settlers would bolster the Israeli Right while crippling the Peace movement, paint an international media picture of Palestinians as "ungrateful", unreasonable war mongers -terrorists and figure well in Sharon and company's quest to keep the occupied West Bank... No benefit to the Palestinian cause of independent statehood occurs to me...

I'll check 'comments' for your insights.

Conyers Hearings, Downing Street Minutes

2005-06-16T13:29:00.000-04:00

The Conyers Hearings will be carried on C-Span3, which, oddly enough, is not widely available.

They will be available on the world wide web at 2:30 pm ET here: http://www.c-span.org/

You can listen at Pacifica Radio, which lists the time from 2:00 pm through 6pm ET

For more information:

http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/

"By Way of Deception, Thou Shalt Make War."

2005-06-15T13:03:00.000-04:00

Reading an article in Asian Times had me draw some connections. See what you think.

Compare this quote:

Breaking up Iraq
Several Iranian websites have widely reported a plan to break up Iraq into three Shi'ite southern mini-states, two Kurdish mini-states and one Sunni mini-state - with Baghdad as the seat of a federal government. Each mini-state would be in charge of law and order and the economy within its own borders, with Baghdad in charge of foreign policy and military coordination. The plan was allegedly conceived by David Philip, a former White House adviser working for the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC). The AFPC is financed by the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, which has also funded both the ultra-hawkish Project for a New American Century and American Enterprise Institute.

with this quotation from "A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties" by Oded Yinon, here is it's source.

This essay originally appeared in Hebrew in KIVUNIM (Directions), A Journal for Judaism and Zionism; Issue No, 14--Winter, 5742, February 1982, Editor: Yoram Beck. Editorial Committee: Eli Eyal, Yoram Beck, Amnon Hadari, Yohanan Manor, Elieser Schweid. Published by the Department of Publicity/The World Zionist Organization, Jerusalem.

I think you'll be amazed at the prescience of the 1982 document:

Lebanon's total dissolution into five provinces serves as a precendent for the entire Arab world including Egypt, Syria, Iraq and the Arabian peninsula and is already following that track. The dissolution of Syria and Iraq later on into ethnically or religiously unqiue areas such as in Lebanon, is Israel's primary target on the Eastern front in the long run, while the dissolution of the military power of those states serves as the primary short term target. Syria will fall apart, in accordance with its ethnic and religious structure, into several states such as in present day Lebanon, so that there will be a Shi'ite Alawi state along its coast, a Sunni state in the Aleppo area, another Sunni state in Damascus hostile to its northern neighbor, and the Druzes who will set up a state, maybe even in our Golan, and certainly in the Hauran and in northern Jordan. This state of affairs will be the guarantee for peace and security in the area in the long run, and that aim is already within our reach today.

But there's more:

Iraq, rich in oil on the one hand and internally torn on the other, is guaranteed as a candidate for Israel's targets. Its dissolution is even more important for us than that of Syria. Iraq is stronger than Syria. In the short run it is Iraqi power which constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. An Iraqi-Iranian war will tear Iraq apart and cause its downfall at home even before it is able to organize a struggle on a wide front against us. Every kind of inter-Arab confrontation will assist us in the short run and will shorten the way to the more important aim of breaking up Iraq into denominations as in Syria and in Lebanon. In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. It is possible that the present Iranian-Iraqi confrontation will deepen this polarization.

The Asia Times article describes a possible US divide and conquer technique that could be being used in Iraq to keep the many militias there from uniting terming this move to pit Iraqis against Iraqis "Iraqification".

In October 2002, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld invented a secret army - one of his pet projects. According to the Pentagon's Defense Science Board, the goal of Rumsfeld's army - the 100-member, US$100 million-a-year Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG) - would carry out secret operations designed to "stimulate reactions" among "terrorist groups", thus exposing them to "counter-attack" by the P2OG. The stock in trade of Rumsfeld's army is assassinations, sabotage, deception, the whole arsenal of black ops. Iraq is the perfect lab for it. "Iraqification" means in fact "Salvadorization". No wonder old faces are back in the game. James Steele, leader of a Special Forces team in El Salvador in the early 1980s, is in Iraq. Steve Casteel, a former top official involved in the "drug wars" in Bolivia, Peru and Colombia, is also in Iraq. He is a senior adviser in - where else - the Interior Ministry, to which friendly militias are subordinated.

Hamas was allowed to exist by the Israeli Government as a fundamentalist stick-in-the-spokes to the PLO; could that be the role model for Rumsfelds black ops group?

"You can’t fight terror [conclusively] in the midst of a counter-insurgency campaign" like Iraq, Lt. Col. Erez Wiener, Israel Defense Forces (IDF) division operations chief for the West Bank region, tells Defense Daily. "It requires continuous presence in the field and operations amongst the entire population."

"Impersonation units," have been key to the Israeli anti-terror fight Erez says.

Of the 2,200 arrests Israelis made in the West Bank last year, about 1,500 were conducted by special operation forces (SOF), including 366 by a special Arab impersonation unit, he explained. These specially selected and trained personnel have demonstrated the ability to completely blend into the opposing population for intelligence and operational purposes.

"[O]perational purposes" include commiting violent acts to sabotage the peace process, further ensuring Israels hold on territory as illegal settlements grow into ever larger "facts on the ground"? The US would likewise lose its hold on Iraq if peace there was achieved.

A phony Al Qaeda cell in the Occupied Territories, actually Israel's Mossad in action has been well documented.

Could Rumsfeld's P2OG be committed to simuliar activities? A pretty awful thought, but with the neocons in control...

Read deeply, factor in all of the above, reflect in context... What do you think?

Leaked British Papers

2005-06-14T12:17:00.000-04:00

Cryptome has mirrored the leaked British Cabinet papers in a .zip file that show the Bush will to war with Iraq, for no reasons that "We The People" were told. The site also offers some toothsome analysis.

Looks like I have a bunch of reading to do...

Link gleaned at Blah3

Help get these papers out into light.

Timeline of Deceit and Death

2005-06-14T12:14:00.000-04:00

Timeline of Deceit and Death

The Path of War Timeline - By Larisa Alexandrovna and Muriel Kane, Raw Story

Wonder how it is that Iraq was attacked? The timeline offered above illustrates (with supporting links) the trajectory of the Bush regimes deadly neocon folly through mid 2003, just past "Mission Accomplished" and just before "Bring Em On"

Timeline link gleaned at the always excellent mousemusings, where Timeline of Looting and Incompetency appeared last October

How many dead thanks to Mr Bush and company? 1775 as of June 11- and, sadly, counting.

Linking Thoughts

2005-06-13T10:34:00.000-04:00

Are you familiar with the twenty-second ammendment to our Constitution?

Why would there be a move to repeal it?

"FBI Whistleblower: White Supremacists Are Major Domestic Terrorist Threat", I link to the Democracy Now! transcript page where the audio is also available.How do you define "Terrorist"?

One last link that lassoes this entry together: George E. Lowe: Can "It" Happen Here? Hasn't "It" Already? A Fascist Christian America Strong word, 'Fascism", perhaps to follow Mussolini's lead we should use the less controversial term 'Corporatism". I have Theocracy Watch easily accessible in the sidebar; go look there, see how Christian Conservative voting toes the Corporate line- lots of cash flow there for the legislators as well as the Christian Right organizations, courtesey of "Big Business."

And how about Mr Bush wanting to attack Iraq- to "prove" himself and get out of Poppy's shadow:

"He was thinking about invading Iraq in 1999," said author and journalist Mickey Herskowitz. "It was on his mind. He said to me: 'One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief.' And he said, 'My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it.' He said, 'If I have a chance to invade·.if I had that much capital, I'm not going to waste it. I'm going to get everything passed that I want to get passed and I'm going to have a successful presidency." Herskowitz said that Bush expressed frustration at a lifetime as an underachiever in the shadow of an accomplished father. In aggressive military action, he saw the opportunity to emerge from his father's shadow.