The Whispering Campaign

Knowledge Is Power! Pass It On!!

2005-12-31T22:56:00.000-08:00

Archives by Subject
The following links lead to markers in the Archives. To go to the Archives directly, scroll down past this chart.
Political Corruption What's Wrong With Our Elections? Something Smells Fishy Here But We Don't See Any Fish Disaster As A 'Business Opportunity': Katrina And Her Aftermath What's Wrong With The President?	Synthetic Terror Fake Terror In The Middle East The 7/7 London Bombings A Brief History Of "The War On Terror" Anybody Remember 9/11?	Homeland Repression Torture: The New American Way Police State America Corporations Rule, Citizens Drool Recruiters and Counter-Recruiters
War Crimes Of War and Crimes Against Humanity Depleted Uranium, The Pentagon's Favorite WMD Quagmire: The War In Iraq The Sleeping Media and The Road To War The World Tribunal On Iraq	Anti-War Iraq Veterans Speak September 24th, Washington D.C. Cindy Sheehan and Casey Sheehan Live Blogging from Camp Casey Is It Time For Some Impeachment? Is It Time For Some Resistance?	Other Forewarned Is Forearmed Unclassified The Department of Endless Lies Republicans Awaken: Is It Too Late? Lest We Forget

The Whispering Campaign Archives

Unless otherwise noted, the following links lead to one-page articles. Links to smaller-font articles appear like this: (*).

History Has Proven Otherwise

2005-12-06T02:07:00.000-08:00

excerpts from a report by Riverbend. December 1, 2005

The electricity schedule in what appears to be most areas in Baghdad is currently FIVE hours of no electricity for every one hour of electricity. It’s very frustrating. Where is it all going?

I intend to spend the rest of the night reading about Bush’s ‘strategy’ for Iraq. I haven’t seen it yet, but I expect it’ll be a repetition of the nonsense he’s been spewing for two and a half years now. Don’t Americans get tired of hearing the same thing?

It’s unbelievable that he’s refused to set a timetable for withdrawal. It’s almost as if someone is paying him to intentionally sabotage American foreign policy. With every speech he seems to sink himself deeper into the mire. A timetable for complete withdrawal of American forces would be a positive step. It would give Iraqis hope that, eventually, sovereignty will return to Iraq.

As it is, people fear the Americans will be here for the next twenty years, unless they are bombed and attacked out of the country. Although many Iraqis support armed resistance in theory, I think that the average Iraqi simply wants to see them go back home in one piece; we feel sorry for them and especially sorry for their families at times. There are moments when you forget the personal affronts: the raids, the checkpoints, the fear of bombing, the detentions, etc. and you can see through it all to the actual person behind the weapons and body armor.

On the other hand, you never forget that it's a foreign occupation and will meet with resistance like all foreign occupations.

Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Rice can all swear that American troops will not pull out of the country no matter how many casualties they sustain, but history has proven otherwise…

You have been reading excerpts from "No voice..." by Riverbend. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/a7u8u. Thanks to Riverbend for "Baghdad Burning" at riverbendblog.blogspot.com. We visit often and we hope you will too.

The War on Al Jazeera

2005-12-03T03:22:00.000-08:00

from a report by Jeremy Scahill in The Nation. December 19, 2005

Nothing puts the lie to the Bush Administration's absurd claim that it invaded Iraq to spread democracy throughout the Middle East more decisively than its ceaseless attacks on Al Jazeera, the institution that has done more than any other to break the stranglehold over information previously held by authoritarian forces, whether monarchs, military strongmen, occupiers or ayatollahs. The United States bombed its offices in Afghanistan in 2001, shelled the Basra hotel where Al Jazeera journalists were the only guests in April 2003, killed Iraq correspondent Tareq Ayoub a few days later in Baghdad and imprisoned several Al Jazeera reporters, some of whom say they were tortured. In addition to the military attacks, the US-backed Iraqi government banned the network from reporting in Iraq.

The Falluja offensive, one of the bloodiest assaults of the US occupation, was a turning point. In two weeks that April, thirty marines were killed as local guerrillas resisted US attempts to capture the city. Some 600 Iraqis died, many of them women and children. Al Jazeera broadcast from inside the besieged city, beaming images to the world. On live TV the network gave graphic documentary evidence disproving US denials that it was killing civilians. It was a public relations disaster, and the United States responded by attacking the messenger.

Al Jazeera's real transgression during the "war on terror" is a simple one: being there. While critical of the Bush Administration and US policy, it is not anti-American--it is independent. In fact, it has angered almost every Arab government at one point or another and has been kicked out of or sanctioned by many Arab countries. It holds the rare distinction of being shut down by both Saddam and the new US-backed government. It was the first Arab station to broadcast interviews with Israeli officials. It is hardly the Al Qaeda mouthpiece the Administration has wanted us to believe it is. The real threat Al Jazeera poses is in its unembedded journalism.

You have been reading excerpts from "The War on Al Jazeera" by Jeremy Scahill. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/98yx3. Thanks to Jeremy Scahill and TheNation.com.

Are You With Us Or Against Us?

2005-12-03T01:34:00.000-08:00

Secrecy and deceit are the hallmarks of our government. They hide the truth whenever they can and the rest of the time they lie about it. The "news media" let them get away with it to an astonishing degree.

They cut funding from education and health care, and cut taxes for the wealthiest few. It's Robin Hood in reverse, robbing from poor to give to the rich. Then they sign "free trade" agreements that ship our jobs overseas.

Our civil liberties are vanishing and we're told this makes us safer. But our safety depends on our civil liberties. So we're not any safer, only less free.

The attack of September 11th appears to have been an "inside job". So the war in Afghanistan was based on a lie, just like the war in Iraq. Just like the whole "War On Terror".

Iraq had no WMDs, no ties to Al-Qaeda, no part in the attacks of 9/11. These were all lies, told to "justify" an attack against a defenseless country.

The attack became an occupation, and now our soldiers are being poisoned by their own depleted uranium ammunitions. And so is the entire Middle East.

Despite official statements, we're not bringing democracy to Iraq. The death squads that now terrorize Iraq were created by the Pentagon. This is apparently the "noble cause" for which our sons and daughters are dying.

It's disgraceful, and we know it. But how do we change it? Our voting systems are so insecure, we can't even trust the results of our own elections.

We'd better do something, and we'd better do it soon!

Are you with us or against us?

It Is The War Which Disgraces America

2005-12-01T01:54:00.000-08:00

excerpts from a column by Bob Harris. November 29, 2005

To those who repeat the current GOP spin that opponents of the war are motivated by a hatred of Bush or a desire to see America disgraced, I would like to respond:

I can speak for no one else, but it seems obvious to me that it is the war which disgraces America. It is the deaths of tens of thousands of innocent people which disgraces America. It is torture which disgraces America. It is imprisonment without trial which disgraces America. It is the use of chemical weapons which disgraces America. It is disdain for international law, the use of military power as a first resort, the intentional confusion of the Iraqi people with terrorists thousands of miles away in Afghanistan, and the corruption of the very word "democracy" which all disgrace America.

As an opponent of the war, I am trying to stop my country from being disgraced any further.

As to hatred, yes, I will confess: I hate the actions of everyone involved -- including Bush and his entire team, who are obviously most responsible, but also including plenty of Democrats (Biden, Lieberman, Clinton, etc.) -- in creating the current fiasco.

I would also eagerly forgive anyone able to admit that what they have done is wrong. I forgive John Murtha. I forgive Walter Jones. I forgive John Edwards. Forgiveness is, after all, one of the most important things we can offer.

I could be wrong, but I also believe the majority of humanity would agree.

You have been reading excerpts from "'Death squads' in the Iraqi police" by Bob Harris. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/9mrtu. Thanks to Bob Harris. We visit bobharris.com often and we hope you will too.

War Based On A Lie

2005-11-28T01:57:00.001-08:00

from a letter to the editor of Stars & Stripes, by Capt. Jeff Pirozzi, Camp Taqaddum, Iraq. November 28, 2005

Weapons of mass destruction? I’m still looking for them, and if you find any give me a call so we can justify our presence in Iraq. We started the war based on a lie, and we’ll finish it based on a lie. I say this because I am currently serving with a logistics headquarters in the Anbar province, between the cities of Fallujah and Ramadi. I am not fooled by the constant fabrication of “democracy” and “freedom” touted by our leadership at home and overseas.

This deception is furthered by our armed forces’ belief that we can just enter ancient Mesopotamia and tell the locals about the benefits of a legislative assembly. While our European ancestors were hanging from trees, these ancient people were writing algebra and solving quadratic equations. Now we feel compelled to strong-arm them into accepting the spoils of capitalism and “laissez-faire” society. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy watching Britney Spears on MTV and driving to McDonald’s, but do you honestly believe that Sunnis, Shias and Kurds want our Western ideas of entertainment and freedom imposed on them? Think again.

I’m not being negative, I’m being realistic. The reality in Iraq is that the United States created a nightmare situation where one didn’t exist. Yes, Saddam Hussein was an evil man who lied, cheated and pillaged his own nation. But how was he different from dictators in Africa who commit massive crimes again humanity with little repercussion and sometimes support from the West? The bottom line up front (BLUF to use a military acronym) is that Saddam was different because we used him as an excuse to go to war to make Americans “feel good” about the “War on Terrorism.” The BLUF is that our ultimate goal in 2003 was the security of Israel and the lucrative oil fields in northern and southern Iraq.

Weapons of mass destruction? Call me when you find them. In the meantime, “bring ’em on” so we can get our “mission accomplished” and get out of this mess.

You have been "War based on a lie" by Capt. Jeff Pirozzi. You can see it in its original context here: tinyurl.com/aldcd. Thanks to Capt. Pirozziestripes.com.

I Guess The Lucky Ones Go To Abu Ghraib

2005-11-23T02:04:00.000-08:00

excerpts from a report by Riverbend. November 18, 2005

Only last year in an area called Ghazaliya, a torture house was discovered. My cousin lives in Ghazaliya and he said that when the Americans got inside, they found several corpses and a man hanging from the ceiling on a makeshift noose. The neighbors had tried to get the Americans to check the house for months; no one bothered. They finally raided it because they got information from someone in the area that it was an insurgents' hiding place. I read once that in New York, if a woman is being raped, she should scream "fire" instead of "rape" because no one would come to save her if she was screaming "rape". That's the way it is with Iraqi torture houses -- the only way they'll check it is if you tell them it's a terrorist cell.

And another thing: you know when they say "men dressed in Ministry of Interior uniforms" or "men in official cars claiming to be from the Ministry of Interior", etc. when describing some horror committed by the new Iraqi security forces in the news? Here's a thought: they aren't "claiming" and they aren't in costume -- they actually ARE from the Ministry of Interior! One would think they'd do this covertly so as not to enrage Iraqis or humanitarian organisations, except that it doesn't matter to them because SCIRI and Da'awa aren't out to win hearts and minds. They have American favor -- what more does one need in the New Iraq?

For over a year corpses have been turning up all over Baghdad. Corpses of people who are taken from their homes and turn up dead somewhere. That isn't as disturbing as the reports about the bodies. The one I can't get out of my head is that many of the corpses are found with holes in the skull left by an electric drill.

I guess the lucky ones go to Abu Ghraib.

You have been reading excerpts from "House of Horrors..." by Riverbend. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/8blja. Thanks to Riverbend. We visit Baghdad Burning at riverbendblog.blogspot.com often and we hope you will too.

House Of Horrors

2005-11-23T02:03:00.000-08:00

excerpts from a report by Riverbend. November 18, 2005

The whole world heard about the one in Jadriya, recently raided by the Americans. Jadriya was once one of the best areas in Baghdad. It's an area on the river and is special in that it's greener, and cleaner, than most areas. Baghdad's largest university, Baghdad University, is located in Jadriya (with a campus in another area). Jadriya had some of the best shops and restaurants, not to mention some of Baghdad's most elegant homes... and apparently, now, a torture house.

We hear constantly about these torture dungeons. Right after the war, certain areas became infamous for them. The world knows them as 'torture houses' for the obvious reasons: they were once ordinary homes, and now they've become torture centers for suspects and innocents alike. The Iraqi government conveniently calls them 'detention centers' and the Iraqi Ministry of Interior oversees and funds them.

One area which was well-known for its torture houses immediately after the war was Sadir City in Baghdad. Except they weren't called torture houses back then. The people who ran them called them 'ma7akim' or 'courts'. They would bring 'suspects' in for interrogation -- often ordinary citizens -- and beat and whip them for various confessions involving accusations and alleged crimes. A 'Sayid' would then come in and sentence the culprit -- the sentence would sometimes involve cutting off a hand or a foot and at other times it might be death. We heard this from an aunt's neighbor who was mistakenly taken in and beaten as a suspected former security agent. His family connections with influential Shia clerics in the area were the only things that got him out alive -- bruised and broken -- but alive.

These torture houses have existed since the beginning of the occupation. While it is generally known that SCIRI is behind them, other religious parties are not innocent. The Americans know they exist -- why the sudden shock and outrage? This is hardly news for Americans in the Green Zone. The timing is quite interesting. It shouldn't matter that this raid came immediately after the whole white phosphorous story came out, but the Pentagon and American military have proven to be the ultimate masters of diversion.

You have been reading excerpts from "House of Horrors..." by Riverbend. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/8blja. Thanks to Riverbend. We visit Baghdad Burning at riverbendblog.blogspot.com often and we hope you will too.

This War Has Redefined ‘Conventional’

2005-11-22T02:10:00.000-08:00

excerpts from a report by Riverbend. November 17, 2005

No matter how prepared you think you are for that explosion, it always makes you flinch. I imagine children covering their ears and some of them crying, trying to cover up the mechanical sounds of war with their more human wails. I imagine that as the tanks got closer, and the planes got lower, the fear increased, and parents searched each other’s faces for a solution, for a way out of the horror. Some of them probably decided to wait it out in their homes, and others must have been desperate to get out, fearing the rain of concrete and steel and thinking their chances were better in the open air, than confined in the homes that could at any moment turn into their tombs.

That’s what we were told before the Americans came: it’s safer to be outside of the house during an air strike than it is to be inside house. Inside, a missile nearby would turn the windows into millions of little daggers and walls might come crashing down. In the garden, or even the street, you’d only have to worry about shrapnel and debris if the bomb was very close, but what were the chances of that?

That was before 2003… and certainly before Falloojeh.

That was before men, women and children left their homes only to be engulfed in a rain of fire.

The Pentagon spokesman recently said: "It's part of our conventional-weapons inventory and we use it like we use any other conventional weapon,"

This war has redefined ‘conventional’. It has taken atrocity to another level. Everything we learned before has become obsolete. ‘Conventional’ has become synonymous with horrifying. Conventional weapons are those that eat away the skin in a white blaze; conventional interrogation methods are like those practiced in Abu Ghraib and other occupation prisons…

You have been reading excerpts from "Conventional Terror..." by Riverbend. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/76cma. Many thanks to Riverbend. We visit Baghdad Burning at riverbendblog.blogspot.com often and we hope you will too.

I Imagine What It Must Have Been Like

2005-11-22T02:09:00.000-08:00

excerpts from a report by Riverbend. November 17, 2005

Few Iraqis ever doubted the American use of chemical weapons in Falloojeh. We’ve been hearing the terrifying stories of people burnt to the bone for well over a year now. I just didn’t want it confirmed.

I didn’t want it confirmed because confirming the atrocities that occurred in Falloojeh means verifying how really lost we are as Iraqis under American occupation and how incredibly useless the world is in general -- the UN, Kofi Annan, humanitarian organizations, clerics, the Pope, journalists… You name it, we’ve lost faith in it.

I finally worked up enough courage to watch it and it has lived up to my worst fears. Watching it was almost an invasive experience, because I felt like someone had crawled into my mind and brought my nightmares to life. Image after image of men, women and children so burnt and scarred that the only way you could tell the males apart from the females, and the children apart from the adults, was by the clothes they are wearing… the clothes which were eerily intact -- like each corpse had been burnt to the bone, and then dressed up lovingly in their everyday attire -- the polka dot nightgown with a lace collar… the baby girl in her cotton pajamas, little earrings dangling from little ears.

Some of them look like they died almost peacefully, in their sleep… others look like they suffered a great deal: skin burnt completely black and falling away from scorched bones.

I imagine what it must have been like for some of them. They were probably huddled in their houses; some of them -- tens of thousands of them -- couldn’t leave the city. They didn’t have transport or they simply didn’t have a place to go. They sat in their homes, hoping that what people said about Americans was actually true -- that in spite of their huge machines and endless weapons, they were human too.

You have been reading excerpts from "Conventional Terror..." by Riverbend. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/76cma. Many thanks to Riverbend. We visit Baghdad Burning at riverbendblog.blogspot.com often and we hope you will too.

I Didn’t Want To See It

2005-11-22T02:07:00.000-08:00

excerpts from a report by Riverbend. November 17, 2005

It sat on my PC desktop for five days.

The first day I read about it on the internet, on some site, my heart sank. White phosphorous in Falloojeh. I knew nothing about white phosphorous, of course, and a part of me didn’t want to know the details. I tried downloading the film four times and was almost relieved when I got disconnected all four times.

E. had heard about the film too and one of his friends S. finally brought it by on CD. He and E. shut themselves up in the room with the computer to watch the brief documentary. E. came out half an hour later looking pale, his lips tightened in a straight line, which is the way he looks when he’s pensive... thinking about something he'd rather not discuss.

“Hey -- I want to see it too…” I half-heartedly called out after him, as he walked S. to the door.

“It’s on the desktop. But you really don’t want to see it.” E. said.

I avoided the computer for five days because every time I switched it on, the file would catch my eye and call out to me… now plaintively -- begging to be watched, now angrily -- condemning my indifference.

Except that it was never indifference. It was a sort of dread that sat deep in my stomach, making me feel like I had swallowed a dozen small stones. I didn’t want to see it because I knew it contained the images of the dead civilians I had in my head.

You have been reading excerpts from "Conventional Terror..." by Riverbend. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/76cma. Many thanks to Riverbend. We visit Baghdad Burning at riverbendblog.blogspot.com often and we hope you will too.

'al-Qaeda' Was In Fact A Database

2005-11-21T02:27:00.000-08:00

based on a report by Kurt Nimmo. November 19, 2005

“al-Qaeda” never existed in the form now claimed by the Bushites and the corporate media.

“al-Qaeda” was in fact a database of CIA-recruited and -trained mujahideen and an email address connected to that database.

Osama bin Laden had nothing to do with that database and thus all references in the corporate media claiming he is the leader of “al-Qaeda” are false.

Terrorists falsely attributed to “al-Qaeda” were organized by the U.S. military and NATO and financed by a CIA front bank in Washington and unleashed in Bosnia.

The CIA front bank later shared a connection with prominent Saudi Arabians who are suspected of financing the 9/11 hijackers.

All of this information was predictably discarded by the 9/11 whitewash commission.

Of course, none of this arcane information means squat to the American people, many whom believe Osama teamed up with Saddam to pull of nine eleven and “al-Qaeda” is a real terrorist organization run by the elusive “devils” Bin Laden and his murderous cohort, al-Zarqawi.

In fact, the official story is so embedded in the American psyche, thanks to the relentless efforts of the corporate media, it may never be possible for the truth to emerge.

You have been reading excerpts from "Al-Qaeda the Database Unbound" by Kurt Nimmo. You can read the entire piece here: kurtnimmo.com/?p=131. Thanks to kurtnimmo.com. We visit often and we hope you will too.

The War Against Civilization

2005-11-21T02:26:00.000-08:00

excerpts from a column by Chris Floyd. November 21, 2005

It's not just a war on the poor, of course. No, it's also a war against working people, against the middle class, against the very idea that there is a common good beyond the raw bottom line, that individual human lives and human communities have any intrinsic value or meaning whatsoever, except as raw material to be squeezed for blood money and chump change.

It is a war that is destroying, very deliberately, a way of life that brought an unprecedented measure of security and stability and prosperity to millions of Americans across generations.

It's being systematically destroyed because the business elite can reap even higher, more obscene profits than they already command by gutting America and "outsourcing" its jobs to places that pay slave wages to unprotected, unorganized workers and kick back secret sweeteners to keep the corporate lords fat and happy.

And it's being systematically destroyed because the political elite prefer an atomized, terrorized, polarized rabble -- scrambling for survival, worn out with worry, broken down with untreated illness or bankrupted by medical costs, fighting each other for a dwindling number of ill-paid, going-nowhere jobs -- to a secure and confident citizenry that stands up for its rights.

The War on Civilization being waged by Bush and the elite has been far more destructive of the "American way of life" than the not-dissimilar war on civilization being pursued by the pockets of violent religious extremists could ever hope to be.

Both forces seek to destroy the idea of compassion, tolerance and inclusion that is the hallmark of true civilization, and instead impose a harsh, narrow vision of life, a society dominated by the arbitrary will of a privileged few.

You have been reading excerpts from "The War Against Civilization" by Chris Floyd. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/789qj. Thanks to chris-floyd.com. We visit often and we hope you will too.

Reclaiming The American Consensus

2005-11-20T02:30:00.000-08:00

excerpts from a column by William Frey. November 17, 2005

We must not surrender flag and faith to those who would use both to support a war which honors neither.

To those who would attempt to silence Americans with the call that “We must support our troops,” we must meet squarely on the issues: The troops are our sons, our daughters, our husbands, our wives. They volunteered to defend our nation, not to pursue a hidden agenda of those who do not honor our nations values. We must never abuse their courage, their patriotism, and their sacrifice.

To those who insist we must spread liberty: Our founders established our nation as a beacon of liberty. We must never confuse the defense of liberty with the pursuit of an agenda of domination that is offensive to our democratic values and counterproductive to our security, inflaming the passions and determination of those less powerful.

To those who exploit a climate of fear to assert that we must now abridge fundamental liberties for the sake of security, we must remind of the insights of wiser Americans,

"Any people that would give up liberty for a little temporary safety deserves neither liberty nor safety." Benjamin Franklin

"Liberty is always dangerous, but it is the safest thing we have." Harry Emerson Fosdick

"If Tyranny and Oppression come to this land, it will be in the guise of fighting a foreign enemy" .... "We are right to take alarm at the first experiment upon our liberties." James Madison

You have been reading excerpts from "Confessions of a Repentant Republican" by William Frey. You can read the entire piece here: tinyurl.com/854v9. Thanks to consortiumnews.com. We visit often and we hope you will too.

Home Away From Home

2005-10-27T14:31:00.000-07:00

The Whispering Campaign Archives

Unless otherwise noted, the following links lead to one-page articles. Links to smaller-font articles appear like this: (*).

What's Wrong With Our Elections?

Something Smells Fishy Here But We Don't See Any Fish

Disaster As A 'Business Opportunity': Katrina And Her Aftermath

What's Wrong With The President?

Fake Terror In The Middle East

The 7/7 London Bombings

A Brief History Of "The War On Terror"

Anybody Remember 9/11?

Torture: The New American Way

Police State America

Corporations Rule, Citizens Drool

Recruiters and Counter-Recruiters

Crimes Of War and Crimes Against Humanity

I Didn’t Want To See It Riverbend (*)
I Imagine What It Must Have Been Like Riverbend (*)
This War Has Redefined ‘Conventional’ Riverbend (*)

Depleted Uranium, The Pentagon's Favorite WMD

There Is A Reason Dahr Jamail
Global Terrorism? Look In The Mirror! Robert C. Koehler
The Danger Of Depleted Uranium In Weapons BenFrank.net

Quagmire: The War In Iraq

The Sleeping Media and The Road To War

The World Tribunal On Iraq

WTI Calls For Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal Dahr jamail
The Second Falluja Massacre: November 2004 WTI testimony from Fadhil Al Bedrani
The World Tribunal On Iraq Arundhati Roy

Iraq Veterans Speak

September 24th, Washington D.C.

Cindy Sheehan, Casey Sheehan and Camp Casey

Live Blogging from Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas

Is It Time For Some Impeachment?

Is It Time For Some Resistance?

Forewarned Is Forearmed

Unclassified

The Department Of Endless Lies

Republicans Awaken: Is It Too Late?

Lest We Forget

A Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal from a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
from THE DECLARATION OF INDEPENDENCE
from THE BILL OF RIGHTS
Inspirations the editors

Our menu changes frequently, so please come back often!

Knowledge Is Power! Pass It On!!

2005-10-01T21:23:00.000-07:00

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Current Features

The following links lead to one-page, large-font articles, ready for easy printing and copying. Unless otherwise noted, all articles are excerpts from material published by the indicated author(s).

The War Against Civilization Chris Floyd

from "Confessions of a Repentant Republican" by William Frey:
Confessions of a Repentant Republican
Eisenhower Warned Us About This
Concrete Speaks Louder Than Words
How Has It Come To This?
The Price Of Believing The Prevailing Myths
We Must Confront Them With The Truth
With Us Or Against Us
Reclaiming The American Consensus
Framing The Issues

Document: Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force Dana Milbank and Justin Blum

from John Aravosis at AmericaBlog:
Cheney Lies About The Lies He Told [part 1]
Cheney Lies About The Lies He Told [part 2]
Cheney Lies About The Lies He Told [part 3]

They Will Need A Lot More Time To 'Study' This The Bulldog Manifesto
Amman Bombings: Nothing Here, Move On Kurt Nimmo
Ohio '05 Election Results Staggeringly Impossible Brad Friedman
Our Most Basic Rights Are In Serious Trouble David Rose

excerpts from "Iron Fisted America" by Charles Sullivan:
The Antithesis Of Robin Hood
A Land Of Contradictions
We Must Come To Grips With Our History

GOP Voting Obstruction Case Bound for Trial Brad Friedman
Election-Tampering Pure And Simple Joshua Micah Marshall
NM Election Officials Try to Block Machine Inspections voteraction.org
Bush Administration Dishonors All Veterans Rev. Bill McGinnis
A Time Comes When Silence Is Betrayal from a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
Torturing Detainees Will Not Help Us Larry Johnson
Synthetic Terror On GOP Agenda AGAIN! Doug Thompson

Kerry Suspects Election 2004 Was Stolen Robert Parry
White House Opposes Oil Donations To Heating Fund Reuters
Straight Talk About Iraqi 'Sovereignty' Juan Cole
The Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime The World Can't Wait

More He-Man Action On The Warfront Chris Floyd
Big Don Rumsfeld Bats for Both Teams Chris Floyd
The Real Insurgency, And The Fake One Xymphora
Stop the Troops! Ingmar Lee
Don't Support The Troops Richard Hugus

Archives by Subject
The following links lead to markers in the Archives. To go to the Archives directly, scroll down past this chart.
Political Corruption What's Wrong With Our Elections? Something Smells Fishy Here But We Don't See Any Fish Katrina And The Aftermath What's Wrong With The President?	Synthetic Terror Fake Terror In The Middle East The 7/7 London Bombings A Brief History Of "The War On Terror" Anybody Remember 9/11?	Homeland Repression Torture: The New American Way Police State America Corporations Rule, Citizens Drool Recruiters and Counter-Recruiters
War Depleted Uranium, The Pentagon's Favorite WMD Quagmire: The War In Iraq The Sleeping Media and The Road To War The World Tribunal On Iraq Iraq Veterans Speak	Anti-War September 24th, Washington D.C. Cindy Sheehan and Casey Sheehan Live Blogging from Camp Casey Is It Time For Some Impeachment? Is It Time For Some Resistance?	Other Current Features Forewarned Is Forearmed Unclassified The Department of Endless Lies Republicans Awake Lest We Forget

The Whispering Campaign Archives

Unless otherwise noted, the following links lead to one-page, large-font articles.

What's Wrong With Our Elections?

Something Smells Fishy Here But We Don't See Any Fish

Katrina And The Aftermath

US Rejects British Hurricane Relief Meals by Jamie Wilson
New Orleans Is A Toxic Cesspool by Robert C. Koehler
Headed For The Political Landfill by Mike Whitney
British Food Aid Going Up In Flames by Ryan Parry
CNN: General Says Iraq Hurt Katrina Response from CNN
Bodies Found In Freezer At Convention Center by Brian Thevenot
Local Neighborhood Cops as Militarized Thugs by Kurt Nimmo
N.O.: No Photos of Dead 'Cockroaches' Allowed by Kurt Nimmo
Did Deliberate Sabotage Open The Floodgates? by Cameron McLaughlin
Police Trapped Thousands in New Orleans by Rogers Cadenhead
CNN: General Says Iraq Hurt Katrina Response from CNN
Bodies Found In Freezer At Convention Center by Brian Thevenot
Criminal Plot Underway in the New Orleans Swamp by Kurt Nimmo
We'll Be Angry Long After Our Beloved City Is Dry from CNN
Food Distribution Was Staged For Photo Op by Laura Rozen
Levee Repair Was Staged For Photo Op by U.S. Senator Mary Landrieu
Bush Visit Halts Food Delivery For Photo Op by Michelle Krupa
Washington Post Caught Lying For Bush! from Editor & Publisher
Stranded in New Orleans and Facing Katrina from the Center for American Progress
Where Are The Relief Workers? by Tim Harper
Red Cross Forbidden to Enter New Orleans from the American Red Cross
How New Orleans Was Lost by Paul Craig Roberts
Chaos Erupts Amid New Orleans? Desperation from MSNBC
N.O. Was Sacrificed to Fund the Destruction of Iraq by Will Bunch
Waiting for a Leader a New York Times editorial

What's Wrong With The President?

Bush Is Nothing If Not Consummate Con Man by George McEvoy
On Liberating Something by Larisa Alexandrovna
One High Crime And Two Misdemeanors by Will Bunch
Is George Bush On A Mission From God? by Ewen MacAskill
Please Pay Attention by Molly Ivins
The President Is Losing It by Doug Thompson
George Bush Knows Why They Hate Us by Jason Miller
He Regrets Nothing by William Rivers Pitt
Pretty Hot in Crawford; Pretty Hot in Hell by Mike Whitney

Fake Terror In The Middle East

Amman Bombings: Nothing Here, Move On by Kurt Nimmo
The Real Insurgency, And The Fake One by Xymphora
Fake Terrorism Winning Hearts And Minds? by Matt Hutaff
Who Murdered 32 Iraqi Children? by Layth
Is The CIA Behind The Iraqi 'Insurgents'? by Frank Morales
'Combat Terrorism' By Causing It by Imad Khadduri
The Four Powers Behind The al-Qaeda Conspiracy by Matthew Parris
Innocent Civilians Killed By U.S. Troops by Richard C. Paddock
Straight-Shootin' George Galloway by Mike Whitney

The 7/7 London Bombings

Perverted And Twisted Logic by Adam Young
Five Shots To The Head For Fashion Mistake by Chris Floyd
The 7/7 London Bombings: How to Set Up a Patsy from What Really Happened
George and Tony Get their al-Qaeda Fix by Greg Palast
Light Years Beyond A Coincidence by Paul Joseph Watson and Alex Jones
The Stupidest People On This Entire Planet by Anthony Wade
Do I See A Pattern Here? by William Bowles

A Brief History Of "The War On Terror"

Caught On Film: US Troops Burning Bodies by Tom Allard
Radical Republicans Created Vast Terrorist Network by Juan Cole
Reagan Armed Radical Muslims; Bush Alienated Them by Juan Cole
The Bizarre Set Of Actions Called 'The War On Terror' by Juan Cole
Every Time A Child Is Murdered, A Terrorist Is Born by J.D. Englehardt
Fallujah Is The Model by Dahr Jamail
Field Health Clinic Bombed In Iraq by Doctors For Iraq
Standard Operating Procedure by Dahr Jamail
How Did Americans Become Mongol Terrorists? by Dr. Sam Hamod
Former Malaysian PM Calls US, UK 'Terrorist Nations' by Jasbant Singh

Anybody Remember 9/11?

Former MI5 Agent Says 9/11 An Inside Job from Prison Planet
Seven Things We Learned About 9/11 In 2004 by Jeff Wells
[normal font] Eight Things We Learned About 9/11 In 2004 by Jeff Wells
[two pages] The Coincidence Theorist's Guide to 9/11 by Jeff Wells

Torture: The New American Way

Torturing Detainees Will Not Help Us by Larry Johnson
Vice President For Torture from The Washington Post
Guantanamo Hunger Strike Takes A Serious Turn from Aljazeera
Prisoner Abuse: Investigation Aims Far Too Low by Joseph L. Galloway
McCain: Prisoner Abuse Hurts American Image Abroad from The Canadian Press
This Is About Who WE Are by Joseph L. Galloway
An Extraordinary Challenge To Extraordinary Evil by Tim Harper
Leaked Emails Claim Guantanamo Trials Rigged by Leigh Sales
Endless Nightmare, Ever Darker by Chris Floyd
If We All Had The Guts by Chris Satullo
Torture Fatigue by Silja J.A. Talvi
We Are Going To Send You To Hell by Dahr Jamail
US Faces Prison Ship Allegations from the BBC
[two pages] AP: Gitmo Detainees Say They Were Sold by Michelle Faul

Police State America

Our Most Basic Rights Are In Serious Trouble by David Rose
Documents Provide Glimpse Into Domestic Spying by Dan Eggen
Truth Becomes The Greatest Enemy Of The State by William Bowles
New Thought Crimes by xymphora
It Didn't Take Long, Did It? by Greg Palast
NY Commuters Face Random Searches from BBC News
Bush Sets Up Domestic Spy Service from BBC World News
Freedoms Lost Under George W. Bush by Chuck Baldwin
Wake Up And Smell The Fascism from the Project for the Old American Century
[normal font] Ten Big Problems with the PATRIOT Act from Unslaver News
[two pages] Freedoms Lost Under George W. Bush by Chuck Baldwin

Corporations Rule, Citizens Drool

The War Against Civilization from a column by Chris Floyd
The Antithesis Of Robin Hood from an essay by Charles Sullivan
A Land Of Contradictions from an essay by Charles Sullivan
We Must Come To Grips With Our History from an essay by Charles Sullivan
Put Down That Law Suit, Pardner, and No One Gets Hurt by Greg Palast
China Floats, America Sinks by Greg Palast
I Hope I Die Before The Next Re-Fill by Greg Palast

Recruiters and Counter-Recruiters

Don't Look For These Names from Velvet Revolution
Are the Bush Twins AWOL? by Richard Bradley
'Raging Grannies' Arrested For Trying To Enlist from News24.com
Journalists Charged At Army Recruiting Center Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press
Counter-Recruiting: Keeping Kids Out Of The Military Clint Coppernoll with Kevin Zeese
High School Student Stung Army Recruiters by Graham Webster

Depleted Uranium, The Pentagon's Favorite WMD

There Is A Reason by Dahr Jamail
Global Terrorism? Look In The Mirror! by Robert C. Koehler
The Danger Of Depleted Uranium In Weapons from BenFrank.net

Quagmire: The War In Iraq

Bush Administration Dishonors All Veterans by Rev. Bill McGinnis
Straight Talk About Iraqi 'Sovereignty' by Juan Cole
A Very Clear Message To The Occupiers Of Iraq by Dahr Jamail
The Situation Can Only Get Worse Now by Dahr Jamail
You Can’t Imagine The Situation by Dahr Jamail
Violence Leads Only To More Violence by Sabah Ali
We're Not Even Trying. It's Pathetic. by Paul Reickhoff
Talk About A Cruel Joke by Bob Herbert
1,900 Dead -- And The Truth We Dare Not Speak by Bob Geiger
The Catastrophe In Iraq by Dahr Jamail
Imagine What Will Happen by Mike Whitney
The Time Has Come To Stop The Madness by J.D. Englehardt
Stay The Course Of What? by Joshua Frank
The Time Has Come To Say We Must Leave Iraq by Army Maj. William E. Bailey (ret.)
Someone Tell the President the War Is Over by Frank Rich
Gloom Is Deeper In Baghdad Now by Patrick Cockburn
Iraqi Soldiers Afraid To Leave Their Base from ABC News of Australia
A War By Any Other Name by Juliette Kayyem
Some 'Christians' Give God A Bad Name by Felicity Arbuthnot
Iraq: Several Londons A Day from Ireland Online
Do People Really Still Believe This? by Riverbend
A 'Free Iraq'? When? by Riverbend
Why There Are No Yellow Elephants In Iraq by Max Blumenthal
Bush's Alternative Speech by Robert Parry
Blood And Lies by Robert C. Koehler
Iraq: A bloody mess by Patrick Cockburn
U.S. headed for disaster when efforts in Iraq collapse by John Patrick Grace
Iraq Is A Hell-Disaster by Robert Fisk
From an Iraqi citizen to the American people: e-mail received by Dahr Jamail
Imperial Defiance by Joel Miller
[normal font] From an Iraqi citizen to the American people: posted by Dahr Jamail

The Sleeping Media and The Road To War

They Will Need A Lot More Time To 'Study' This from The Bulldog Manifesto
Source: White House Iraq Group Included Judy Miller by James Gordon Meek and Kenneth R. Bazinet
The Plame Leak Is The Tale Of The Iraq War Itself by Michael Moore
Bush Told Blair Of 'Going Beyond Iraq' by Richard Norton-Taylor
Mapes: Mainstream Press Fell For Blogs' Critiques Editor & Publisher
Played For Fools by Charles Sullivan
Reuters Cameraman To Be Held In Abu Ghraib from ABC News Online [Australia]
Censorship by Dahr Jamail
American press behaving like Pravda by Linda McQuaig
With A Heavy Heart by Robin Cook
Opponents Of Intervention Were Absolutely Right by William Marvel
US Knew Iraqi Weapons Had Been Destroyed by Deep Blade
The Lie Of The Century from What Really Happened
[normal font] The Lie Of The Century from What Really Happened
Not Bad Intelligence -- An Orchestrated Effort by Sam Gardiner
A Massive Secret Bombing Campaign by Larisa Alexandrovna and John Byrne
Baiting, Not Debating by Robert Parry
General Admits To Secret Air War by Michael Smith
Bush rejects Saddam 9/11 link from BBC News, September, 2003
Perle Admits Invasion Was Illegal from The Guardian, Nov. 2003
[two pages] Secret Air War Seals Case Against Bush & Blair by Chris Floyd
[two pages] The Road To War In Iraq Was Paved With Lies from Bye The Times
[two pages] What The Downing Street Memo Really Means from Media Matters
[two pages] The Deceivers [The Bush/Blair War Crime] by Chris Floyd

The World Tribunal On Iraq

WTI Calls For Immediate, Unconditional Withdrawal by Dahr jamail
The Second Falluja Massacre: November 2004 WTI testimony from Fadhil Al Bedrani
The World Tribunal On Iraq by Arundhati Roy

Iraq Veterans Speak

Bush Teleconference With Soldiers Staged by Paul Rieckhoff
We Are Not Going To Win This War Zechariah with Celina R. De Leon
The Priorities In This War Zechariah with Celina R. De Leon
They Weren't Terrorists Until We Got There Zechariah with Celina R. De Leon
We Won't Be Coming Home For A Long Time by John Bruhns
Iraq Vet: Bush Statements 'Not Credible' by John Bruhns
We Need Honest Answers, Not Pep Rallies by Paul Rieckhoff
The Live Bait Approach To National Security by David Chasteen
A Grave Injustice Has Been Done by Dahr Jamail
Don't You Dare Do This To Us Again by Dahr Jamail
Trying To Undo The Evil by Dahr Jamail
A Cowboy In A Western Movie by Dahr Jamail
Get Packin', Georgie by Dahr Jamail
Military Diaries: 'Suj' from Objector.org
Military Diaries: 'Yadira' from Objector.org

September 24th, Washington D.C.

500,000 People Vanish in Washington,DC by Ron Scott
Huge: September 24, 2005 by William Rivers Pitt
Roll, Wheel: September 24, 2005 by William Rivers Pitt
Watching History Develop: September 24, 2005 by Scott Galindez
Hundreds Of Thousands: September 24, 2005 by Scott Galindez
BLACKOUT!! Washington DC, September 24, 2005 by William Rivers Pitt
Tilting at Windmills by Katrina Wilcox
Three Massive Days Of Action Against The War from UnitedForPeace.org
One Act Of Defiance And Strength And Solidarity by William Rivers Pitt

Cindy Sheehan, Casey Sheehan and Camp Casey

NYPD Unplugs Cindy Sheehan by Sarah Ferguson, Village Voice
Sheehan Arrested Outside White House by Daniela Deane and Petula Dvorak
Patriotic Dissent by Cindy Sheehan
We Don't Exist by Cindy Sheehan
Why Casey Sheehan Was Killed by Aaron Glantz
They Have Built It -- Will You Come? by Ray McGovern
What Is The 'Noble Cause'? by Amy Branham
The Peaceful Occupation of Iraq by Cindy Sheehan
This Is Not About Politics by Cindy Sheehan with John Byrne
Why Is The Left Lining Up Behind Cindy Sheehan? from Hoffmania.com
Cindy Sheehan's Political Agenda by Deda Divine
Letter to Cindy Sheehan by Ray McGovern
Bush Supporters Chant: We Don't Care! by Scott Galindez
May God Forgive Us For Our Apathy by Cindy Sheehan
A Lie of Historic Proportions by Cindy Sheehan
Military Families to Join Cindy Sheehan in Crawford from U.S. NewsWire
Who Is The Real Threat To National Security? by Bob Harris
What One Mom Has to Say to George Bush by Mike Ferner
Impeachment Tour: The Beginning Of The End? by Jim Downing
Meeting With Bush Was 'Bizarre And Disgusting' by Greg Szymanski
Cindy Sheehan Responds To Right Wing Smear Cindy Sheehan with Bill Press

Live Blogging from Camp Casey in Crawford, Texas

Saturday Evening, 8/13/2005; Crawford, Texas by Scott Galindez
Saturday Afternoon, 8/13/2005; Crawford, Texas by Nathan Diebenow
Friday Evening, 8/12/2005; Crawford, Texas by Nathan Diebenow
Friday Morning, 8/12/2005; Crawford, Texas by Scott Galindez
Thursday Evening, 8/11/2005; Crawford, Texas by William Rivers Pitt
Thursday Afternoon, 8/11/2005; Crawford, Texas by William Rivers Pitt
Thursday Morning, 8/11/2005; Crawford, Texas by William Rivers Pitt

Is It Time For Some Impeachment?

Demand Impeachment Or Face Armageddon by Paul Craig Roberts
GOP Candidate Calls For Impeachment by Gordon Dritschilo, Rutland Herald
War or Impeachment by Robert Parry
Ten Good Reasons to Impeach George W. Bush by Gary Steven Corseri
Ten More Good Reasons to Impeach George W. Bush by Gary Steven Corseri
[two pages] Impeachment Time! by Greg Palast

Is It Time For Some Resistance?

The Call to Drive Out the Bush Regime The World Can't Wait
Three Massive Days Of Action Against The War from UnitedForPeace.org
One Act Of Defiance And Strength And Solidarity by William Rivers Pitt
Time To Tumble The Walls from The Lone Star Iconoclast
Unleashing The Resistance by Karen Kwiatkowski
NO to Imperial War! by Mumia Abu-Jamal
[two pages] Unleashing The Resistance by Karen Kwiatkowski

Forewarned Is Forearmed

Synthetic Terror On GOP Agenda AGAIN! by Doug Thompson
U.S. Pushing For War Against Iran by Dafna Linzer
No Proof Found of Iran Arms Program by Dafna Linzer
Pentagon Revises Nuclear Strike Plan by Walter Pincus
Do Not F*ck With Cindy Sheehan! from The Bulldog Manifesto, and
Do Not Mess With Cindy Sheehan! for those who prefer it this way
THIS IS YOUR WATCH! An open letter to President Bush
Are You Ready For Some Synthetic Terror? by Paul Joseph Watson & Alex Jones

Unclassified

White House Opposes Oil Donations To Heating Fund from Reuters
More He-Man Action On The Warfront by Chris Floyd
Stop the Troops! by Ingmar Lee
Don't Support The Troops by Richard Hugus
Slugging It Out Over Peanuts by Kurt Nimmo
Cheney 'Cabal' Hijacked Foreign Policy by Edward Alden
Army Is Broken And In Need Of Repair by Joseph L. Galloway
What Would He Say? by Daithí Mac Lochlainn
Global Warming Hits 'Tipping Point' by Ian Sample
Preoccupation With Literal Truth In Scriptures by Karen Armstrong
Friends, Americans, Countrymen... by Donn Witherspoon
A True US Patriot by True Patriot
[two pages] A True US Patriot by True Patriot
Dedication to the US Armed Forces by American Patriot
You Are An American by Larisa Alexandrovna
You Are Not An American by Larisa Alexandrovna
On Supporting Our Troops collected by Res Publica

The Department Of Endless Lies

Document: Oil Chiefs Met With Cheney Task Force by Dana Milbank and Justin Blum
Cheney Lies About The Lies He Told [part 1] by John Aravosis
Cheney Lies About The Lies He Told [part 2] by John Aravosis
Cheney Lies About The Lies He Told [part 3] by John Aravosis
Piling Lies On Top Of Lies by Molly Ivins
[two pages] The White House's White-Out Problem from Think Progress

Republicans Awake

Lest We Forget

Censorship

2005-06-25T00:35:00.000-07:00

based on a report by Dahr Jamail

At long last, the culminating session of the World Tribunal on Iraq is upon us. Like the other witnesses I’m being interviewed by many outlets. Today, one of them was by reporters for one of the larger newspapers in Turkey, the Yeni Safak Newspaper.

The newspaper has been translating various articles of mine into Turkish and running them, particularly those concerning the most recent Fallujah massacre. The report who was interviewing me today told me that the former American consulate here, Eric Edelman, asked the Prime Minister of Turkey to pressure his paper to not run so many of my stories.

“Why did he do this?” I asked him.

“Edelman said it was the wrong news,” he told me with a smile.

Turns out Edelman also asked that articles by Robert Fisk and Naomi Klein not be run so often in Yeni Safak either.

He smiled at me while he watched the wheels turning in my head before I smiled back and said, “That makes me very happy, it means I’m doing my job as a journalist.”

We laughed heartily together at this, as did everyone else at the table.

Reminds me of the obtuse hate mails I sometimes receive-confirmation that I am doing my job-they always make me smile.

So the American government is pressuring foreign countries to censor their news. Aside from the fact that this act is the height of arrogance by the United States, it makes it exceedingly clear why so many Americans who rely on the corporate media for their news continue to be so misinformed/un-informed about the goings on in Iraq. If the American government is attempting to censor the news in foreign countries, you can imagine what they are doing at home.

Because people like Edelman don’t want citizens of the United States to know that events like the massacre of Fallujah or the atrocities in Abu Ghraib are not isolated incidents.

Secret Air War Seals Case Against Bush & Blair

2005-06-18T13:55:00.000-07:00

based on a report by Chris Floyd. from The Moscow Times. July 1, 2005

This week, George W. Bush gave a big speech "explaining" the Iraq war to the American people. It was the usual load of lying blather and false piety – deeply, even murderously cynical. But there's no point in wasting a single thought over these clown shows anymore. Bush is a nasty little moral cretin fronting a gang of elitist thugs whose only concerns are loot and power. Nothing he says has the slightest credibility. Only his actions – crimes soaked with human blood – have any meaning or truth.

So let's deal in truth. Let's talk about crime. Specifically, the flagrant war crime committed by Bush and his comrade in moral cretinhood, Tony Blair, in May 2002, as TomPaine.com reports. Yes, 2002 – long before the ground invasion of Iraq in March 2003. The "Downing Street Memos" – top-level UK government documents whose authenticity has been confirmed by Blair's own office – show clearly that Bush and Blair began a ferocious air war against Iraq in May 2002, despite the unequivocal ruling by Blair's own lawyers that such a campaign constituted a clear act of military aggression: the "supreme international crime" for which the Nazi leaders were condemned at Nuremberg.

The avowed purpose of this bombing campaign – openly admitted by U.S. military brass – was to destroy Iraq's defenses in preparation for the long-planned ground assault. It began months before the U.S. Congress gave its rather vague approval for possible military action to enforce the disarming of Iraq's non-existent WMD. And it had nothing to do with the "no-fly zones" maintained for years over southern Iraq by the US and UK, ostensibly to prevent Saddam Hussein from using aircraft to suppress Shiite unrest. (Strangely enough, the only time Saddam actually tried to use airpower against the Shiites, in 1991, he was given explicit permission to do so by America's leaders at the time: George H.W. Bush and Pentagon chief Dick Cheney.)

Bush and Blair's secret air war against Iraq is perhaps the most blatant and indefensible aspect of their multi-headed war crime in Iraq. No amount of contorted legal quibbling or weasel-worded readings of UN resolutions can justify such a large-scale military action undertaken without the approval – or even the notification – of Congress and Parliament. And the documents make clear that the Anglo-American leaders knew the air campaign was illegal – as was the whole case for "regime change," which the memos admit was "weak" and unsupported by evidence.

But the memos reveal that Bush and Blair had already decided on war, during their April 2002 meeting at Bush's ranch in Crawford. No doubt the two Christian leaders – who bray their faith in Jesus at every opportunity – knelt in prayer together as they sealed their pact of blood. From that point on, the memos show, Blair and Bush ignored all concerns about legality, all questions about the shaky WMD evidence, and the extensive worries of many insiders about the near-total lack of planning for the post-war situation. They sought only to "create the political conditions" for war, manufacturing public consent through slick, fearmongering propaganda and, in the memos' most famous phrase, by "fixing the facts and intelligence around the policy" of aggression.

Thus, with full knowledge that they were following in the footsteps of the Nuremberg criminals, Bush and Blair began the war in May 2002, pouring tons of bombs on Iraq during the next 10 months. Not only were they clearing the path for the coming invasion; the memos show that the leaders also hoped to provoke Saddam into retaliating, thereby giving them a PR excuse for war: "self-defense" against Iraqi "aggression."

But Saddam – this "raging madman" lusting to destroy America with his fearsome weapons – did nothing. He sat meekly while his air and naval defenses were pounded into rubble. And here we see how the bombing campaign strips bare the Big Lie that drove the whole sinister enterprise: the supposed threat of Saddam's alleged WMD. The Crawford knee-benders never would have launched their war if they really believed Saddam might rain anthrax on Jerusalem or slip Osama a plutonium core. They knew – as the lack of response to the air assault proved – that the WMD threat was empty, that Saddam, their former ally, was a broken reed.

In fact, Saddam spent the months of bombardment frantically offering a virtual surrender: armed, unhindered WMD inspections; free elections under international supervision; support for any U.S. position on Israel-Palestine; vast oil concessions. But these offers – negotiated through back-channels with American intelligence and leading neoconservatives – were spurned by Bush, the NY Times reported in November 2003. The moral cretins wanted conquest, not disarmament or Iraqi freedom; they wanted the enhanced power and historical status given to "war leaders," as Bush himself told the family biographer, Mickey Herskowitz, in 1999, CommonDreams reports.

"One of the keys to being seen as a great leader is to be seen as a commander-in-chief," then-candidate Bush told Herskowitz. "My father had all this political capital built up when he drove the Iraqis out of Kuwait and he wasted it. If I have a chance to invade…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."

Thus by his own admission, Bush regards war – slaughter, ruin, chaos and terror – as the measure of success, the path to greatness. He sees blood as the prime lubricant for his rapacious domestic policies. He uses unprovoked military aggression to achieve his personal and political goals.

In what way, then, is he different from the moral cretins who were hanged at Nuremberg?

You have been reading excerpts from "Heaven's Gate: Secret Air War Seals the Case for War Crime Charges" by Chris Floyd. You can read the entire piece here: empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/2005/07/heavens-gate-secret-air-war-seals-case.html. Thanks to Chris Floyd for everything, including empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com. We visit often and we hope you will too.

From an Iraqi citizen to the American people:

2005-06-16T01:01:00.000-07:00

We always have thought that you are citizens; away from the savageness which controls many people in the world because you suffered from the injustice of your own occupation more than two hundred years ago. You picked up weapons against the occupiers until you forced him to go out of your land. It was a great victory for you.

Today your army is occupying our homeland, destroying our homes and killing our men, women, and children. The occupation is leaving this country full of chaos and facing many disasters, including looting and robbery. Sudden attacks and cruel murders have been perpetrated by your army who then prevent people from submitting judicial complaints. This encourages soldiers to kill thoughtlessly without any threat of trial. We have seen our Holy Quran desecrated by soldiers, but you continue to say your soldiers do not do it. Your soldiers did many immoral acts but your government leaders have done even more.

We, the Iraqi people, do not put the responsibility for this on your shoulders because you are a people and not your government. But when the people have a decision in the fate of their country and decide to go in a direction which only benefits the government, this means that the people are satisfied with their government's actions. When you elected Mr. Bush for the second time, this was a declaration from you of being satisfied with all his acts in violation of the holiness of a state which shares a place with yours in the United Nations Security Council.

Has the age of occupation returned back to a place where agreements and treaties and international laws which forbid aggression are useless? When the people who chose to defend their land and reject the occupier are then described by your government as a terrorist? How long have you heard that an occupation which continues will have no resistance against it? Do you refer to the patriots of your own country as terrorists in your history books?

American people, please remember the land of Iraq and remember the Iraqi people and think of yourselves as if you were in our place. In this way you will realize what Iraqis suffer. We wish that other people would realize our suffering now. The people who support these corrupted governments will be responsible for them, and history will hold them responsible for allowing this tragedy to have occurred. This will be a shame on their ancestors who will not be able to hide this black page of history.

I am wishing you reasonableness and the ability to comprehend the truth.

You have been reading excerpts from "Wake Up Calls" by Dahr Jamail. You can read the entire piece in its original context here: dahrjamailiraq.com/weblog/archives/dispatches/000258.php

The Deceivers

2005-06-10T02:35:00.000-07:00

based on a report by Chris Floyd

How many times must the truth be told before it conquers the lies? Again and again, the brutal realities behind the rape of Iraq – that it was planned years ago, that the aggressors knew full well that their justifications for war were false and that their invasion would lead to chaos, ruin and unbridled terror – have been exposed by the very words and documents of the invaders themselves. Yet the reign of the lie goes on.

Last [September], as hundreds of Iraqi civilians were being slaughtered by insurgents and invaders, as more pipelines exploded, more hostages were seized, more families sank into poverty and filth, the cynical machinations of the oh-so-Christian Coalition of Bush and Blair were revealed yet again. This time it was a tranche of leaked documents from March 2002, a full year before the war: reports to Tony Blair from his top advisors, stating plainly that the intelligence about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction was unsubstantiated, that there was no connection between Saddam and al Qaeda, that there was no legal justification for invading the country, and that any such invasion would lead to years of bloody, chaotic occupation, the Daily Telegraph (an arch-conservative, pro-war paper) reports.

Even more remarkably, Blair was told that the likely end result of the invasion would be – after years of horrific turmoil – the rise of yet another Saddam-like tyrant, who would then try to acquire the very weapons of mass destruction that the Coalition attack was ostensibly designed to destroy. In fact, Blair was told, with Iraq hedged in by a powerful Iran to the east and a nuclear-armed Israel to the west, any Iraqi leader, even a democratic one, will eventually seek WMD to defend the country.

All of this echoed similar warnings given to George W. Bush by the State Department, the CIA, top military brass – even his own father. Most of these alarms were reported – obscurely at times – in the press before the invasion. The Coalition's maniacal drive to war without evidence or provocation was later confirmed – again, often obliquely – by Congressional probes, the 9/11 Commission, the Hutton Report, the Butler Report, Bush's official WMD investigators and a raft of revelations by top insiders on both sides of the Atlantic, such as Robin Cook, Richard Clarke, Bob Graham, John O'Neill and others.

The public record, available to anyone who wants the truth, is undeniable: the war was waged on false pretenses – and the war leaders knew it. They knew it would bring unimaginable death and suffering to multitudes of innocent people in Iraq – and to thousands of their own soldiers and civilians as well. They knew it would lead to more terrorism, more chaos, more insecurity in the world. Yet they plunged ahead anyway, deliberately deceiving their own people with a poison cloud of lies, exaggeration and bluster. Why? Because for the warmongers, the game was worth the candle: the loot, the power, the "dominance" to be won was an irresistible temptation.

The Telegraph exposé centered on papers prepared for Blair's March 2002 summit with the true ruler of the United States: Dick Cheney. Cheney was a key figure in the corporate/militarist faction Project for the New American Century, along with Don Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and other bloodthirsty elites. In September 2000 – before Bush was installed as the faction's White House frontman – PNAC issued the final version of a plan, years in the making, to ensure American geopolitical and economic "dominance" through military control of key oil regions and strategic pipeline routes, either directly or via client states. This would be accompanied by a "revolutionary" transformation of American society into a more war-like state: a transformation that PNAC said could only be accomplished if the American people were "galvanized" by "a catalyzing event – like a new Pearl Harbor."

The conquest of Iraq was a vital cog in this long-range plan, and the depredations of the Baath Regime – the worst of which occurred with the full support of PNAC's top players during the Reagan-Bush years – had nothing to do with it. The Cheney-Rumsfeld group put it plainly in 2000: the need to establish a military presence in Iraq "transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein." Likewise, 9/11 and "the new threats in a changed world" – evoked so often as a justification by the warmongers – were equally irrelevant to an invasion planned years before the CIA's ex-ally Osama bin Laden obligingly provided that longed-for "new Pearl Harbor."

What's more, the warmakers knew that Saddam's WMD arsenal and weapons development programs had been dismantled at his order in 1991. This was confirmed in 1995 by crateloads of documentary evidence supplied by top defector Hussein Kamel, Saddam's son-in-law and WMD chieftain – as Time Magazine reported years ago. It was confirmed again by UN inspectors, who independently verified the elimination of 95 percent of Iraq's WMD arsenal – before they were summarily pulled out of the country ahead of a US-UK punitive strike in 1998.

Any remaining questions about Iraqi WMD – stoked by false intelligence provided by paid agents of the Pentagon's war clique (Ahmad Chalabi), the CIA's hired terrorist leader (Iyad Allawi), and assorted Iranian and Israeli agents – were carefully hedged with doubts, caveats and qualifications from U.S and UK intelligence officials. But Cheney and his frontman were having none of that sissy caveat stuff. As one CIA officer revealed to investigator James Bamford: "We were told if the president wants a war, it's your job to give him a reason to go to war." As ordered, cooked intelligence was then served up piping hot.

Bush, Blair, Cheney and the rest knew all of this when they made their decision to launch what the Nuremberg Tribunal called "the supreme international crime": aggressive war. So when they stand before the world to justify the coming outrage, remember this, and hold to it: everything they say about their war is a lie. And it has been from the beginning.

You have been reading "The Deceivers: The Known Knowns of the Bush/Blair War Crime", written by Chris Floyd in September of 2004. To see the original article please visit this page: empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/2005/06/deceivers-known-knowns-of-bushblair.html. To read more from Chris Floyd, visit his website at empireburlesquenow.blogspot.com/.

AP: Gitmo Detainees Say They Were Sold

2005-06-10T01:19:00.000-07:00

based on a report by Michelle Faul

They fed them well. The Pakistani tribesmen slaughtered a sheep in honor of their guests, Arabs and Chinese Muslims famished from fleeing U.S. bombing in the Afghan mountains. But their hosts had ulterior motives: to sell them to the Americans, said the men who are now prisoners at Guantanamo Bay. Bounties ranged from $3,000 to $25,000, the detainees testified during military tribunals, according to transcripts the U.S. government gave The Associated Press to comply with a Freedom of Information lawsuit.

A former CIA intelligence officer who helped lead the search for Osama bin Laden told AP the accounts sounded legitimate because U.S. allies regularly got money to help catch Taliban and al-Qaida fighters. Gary Schroen said he took a suitcase of $3 million in cash into Afghanistan himself to help supply and win over warlords to fight for U.S. Special Forces. "It wouldn't surprise me if we paid rewards," said Schroen, who retired after 32 years in the CIA soon after the fall of Kabul in late 2001. He recently published the book "First In: An Insider's Account of How the CIA Spearheaded the War on Terror in Afghanistan."

Schroen said Afghan warlords like Gen. Rashid Dostum were among those who received bundles of notes. "It may be that we were giving rewards to people like Dostum because his guys were capturing a lot of Taliban and al-Qaida," he said.

A wide variety of detainees at the U.S. lockup at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, alleged they were sold into capture. Their names and other identifying information were blacked out in the transcripts from the tribunals, which were held to determine whether prisoners were correctly classified as enemy combatants.

One detainee who said he was an Afghan refugee in Pakistan accused the country's intelligence service of trumping up evidence against him to get bounty money from the U.S. "When I was in jail, they said I needed to pay them money and if I didn't pay them, they'd make up wrong accusations about me and sell me to the Americans and I'd definitely go to Cuba," he told the tribunal. "After that I was held for two months and 20 days in their detention, so they could make wrong accusations about me and my (censored), so they could sell us to you."

Another prisoner said he was on his way to Germany in 2001 when he was captured and sold for "a briefcase full of money" then flown to Afghanistan before being sent to Guantanamo. "It's obvious. They knew Americans were looking for Arabs, so they captured Arabs and sold them — just like someone catches a fish and sells it," he said. The detainee said he was seized by "mafia" operatives somewhere in Europe and sold to Americans because he was in the wrong place at the wrong time — an Arab in a foreign country.

A detainee who said he was a Saudi businessman claimed, "The Pakistani police sold me for money to the Americans. This was part of a roundup of all foreigners and Arabs in that area," of Pakistan near the Afghan border, he said, telling the tribunal he went to Pakistan in November 2001 to help Afghan refugees.

The military-appointed representative for one detainee — who said he was a Taliban fighter — said the prisoner told him he and his fellow fighters "were tricked into surrendering to Rashid Dostum's forces. Their agreement was that they would give up their arms and return home. But Dostum's forces sold them for money to the U.S."

Several detainees who appeared to be ethnic Chinese Muslims — known as Uighurs — described being betrayed by Pakistani tribesmen along with about 100 Arabs. They said they went to Afghanistan for military training to fight for independence from China. When U.S. warplanes started bombing near their camp, they fled into the mountains near Tora Bora and hid for weeks, starving.

One detainee said they finally followed a group of Arabs, apparently fighters, being guided by an Afghan to the Pakistani border. "We crossed into Pakistan and there were tribal people there, and they took us to their houses and they killed a sheep and cooked the meat and we ate," he said.

That night, they were taken to a mosque, where about 100 Arabs also sheltered. After being fed bread and tea, they were told to leave in groups of 10, taken to a truck, and driven to a Pakistani prison. From there, they were handed to Americans and flown to Guantanamo. "When we went to Pakistan the local people treated us like brothers and gave us good food and meat," said another detainee. But soon, he said, they were in prison in Pakistan where "we heard they sold us to the Pakistani authorities for $5,000 per person."

In March 2002, the AP reported that Afghan intelligence offered rewards for the capture of al-Qaida fighters — the day after a five-hour meeting with U.S. Special Forces. That day, leaflets and loudspeaker announcements promised "the big prize" to those who turned in al-Qaida fighters. Said one leaflet: "You can receive millions of dollars. ... This is enough to take care of your family, your village, your tribe for the rest of your life — pay for livestock and doctors and school books and housing for all your people."

Helicopters broadcast similar announcements over the Afghan mountains, enticing people to "Hand over the Arabs and feed your families for a lifetime," said Najeeb al-Nauimi, a former Qatar justice minister and leader of a group of Arab lawyers representing nearly 100 detainees.

You have been reading excerpts from "Gitmo Detainees Say They Were Sold", by Michelle Faul of the Associated Press. You can read the entire article here: winterpatriot.blogspot.com/2005/06/need-terror-suspects-buy-some.html

Freedoms Lost Under George W. Bush

2005-06-09T01:01:00.001-07:00

based on a report by Chuck Baldwin

Supporters and apologists for President G.W. Bush will often assail my assertion that the Bush administration has done more to dismantle constitutional protections of our liberties than any president in modern memory. It seems that these people believe that until federal Storm Troopers knock down the doors of their homes and drag them off to the gulags, they have lost no freedoms. Nothing could be further from the truth.

If history is any teacher, it instructs us in the incremental process that elitists use to implement their totalitarian agenda. The first step is to use an incessant, highly orchestrated propaganda. For all practical purposes, the major media in the United States is providing that propaganda. At the national level, there is hardly any investigative journalism going on. Instead, the national press corps has become little more than lazy lackeys for the White House.

The second step is to lay the foundation for totalitarianism by passing legislation that may later be used against the citizenry. And that is exactly what the Bush administration has very successfully accomplished. It very adroitly succeeded where the Clinton administration failed.

For example, most conservatives would be surprised to learn that the Patriot Act and Department of Homeland Security was the brainchild of one William Jefferson Clinton. However, a recalcitrant Republican Congress denied Clinton the opportunity to implement these plans. Of course, with the Republican, G.W. Bush, serving as President, that same Republican Congress was all too eager to pass these bills into law.

The third step is to demonize and marginalize anyone and everyone who opposes the government's plans and ambitions. Such opponents are characterized as "unpatriotic," "obstructionist," "uncompassionate," or even "ungodly." Once again, the Bush minions have very skillfully done just that. Anyone who dares to oppose or even question Bush must be regarded as enemies of America or even as enemies of God.

Of course, the last step is to begin using the power and force of government to physically silence or remove those who are determined to require such treatment. And, as Germany's National Socialists proved, by the time this happens, there is no one around who is capable of coming to the assistance of such people.

For those who are willing to objectively analyze Bush's actions and policies, the truth is clearly seen: this President has systematically put in place laws, policies, and bureaucracies that can, are, and will continue to strip the American citizenry of the constitutional protections of their liberties.

Following are examples of freedoms which President Bush and his fellow Republicans in Congress have already expunged (as reported by the Associated Press):

* FREEDOM OF ASSOCIATION: Government may monitor religious and political institutions even if no criminal activity is suspected.

* FREEDOM OF INFORMATION: Government has closed once-public immigration hearings, has secretly detained hundreds of people without charges, and has encouraged bureaucrats to resist public records questions.

* FREEDOM OF SPEECH: Government may prosecute librarians or keepers of any other records if they tell anyone that the government subpoenaed information related to a terror investigation.

* RIGHT TO LEGAL REPRESENTATION: Government may monitor federal prison jailhouse conversations between attorneys and clients, and deny lawyers to Americans accused of crimes.

* FREEDOM FROM UNREASONABLE SEARCHES: Government may search and seize Americans' papers and effects without probable cause.

* RIGHT TO A SPEEDY AND PUBLIC TRIAL: Government may jail Americans indefinitely without a trial.

* RIGHT TO LIBERTY: Americans may be jailed without being charged or being able to confront witnesses against them.

These rights have already been lost! Whether individual Americans have been personally subjected to the resultant tyranny or not doesn't change the fact that they have already lost these freedoms! This fact, alone, should be enough for any studious lover-of-liberty to be outraged!

That good men are compliant and unconcerned regarding G.W. Bush's propensity to trample constitutional freedoms bespeaks a great ignorance or a great apathy, or both!

You have been reading "Freedoms Lost Under George W. Bush" by Chuck Baldwin. For more information, please visit Chuck's website at http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com.

The Road To War In Iraq Was Paved With Lies

2005-06-09T01:01:00.000-07:00

President Bush has claimed this war against Iraq was inevitable. As this timeline shows, nothing could be further from the truth.

October, 2000: A think-tank, the Project for a New American Century (PNAC), publishes a policy statement. "Rebuilding America's Defenses" is signed by Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Jeb Bush, Paul Wolfowitz, and others whose names you will read shortly. It says the USA must dominate the world through force of arms, and calls for wars in as many as six countries, beginning with Iraq and building up to Russia and China. It admits that such a program would take a long time, without a "Pearl Harbor-type event".

January, 2001: After a disputed election, the George W. Bush administration takes office. Many PNAC members get key posts, including: Cheney: Vice President; Rumsfeld: Secretary of Defense; Wolfowitz: Deputy Secretary of Defense; Richard Perle: Chairman of the advisory Defense Policy Board; and John Bolton: Undersecretary of State for Disarmament.

January, 2001: Secretary of the Treasury Paul O'Neill attends Bush's first National Security meeting, where the chief topic is finding a reason to invade Iraq.

February 24, 2001: Secretary of State Colin Powell says Iraq "has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction."

July, 2001: National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice says Saddam is not a threat.

morning of September 11, 2001: Hijacked planes attack; nobody defends. No one is held responsible.

that afternoon: Rumsfeld orders aides to come up with plan to attack Iraq.

the next day: Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Cheney urge Bush to attack on Iraq. Richard Clarke says Saddam has no connection to Al-Qaeda or the events of 9/11. Bush orders Clarke to keep looking for one.

December, 2001: Bin Laden escapes as troops are moved from Afghanistan to prepare an invasion of Iraq.

January, 2002: Bush's handler, Karl Rove, addresses the Republican National Committee and urges them to take advantage of the "War On Terror" in the upcoming mid-term elections.

April 7 & 8, 2002 British Prime Minister Tony Blair meets with Bush and agrees to wage war on Iraq, even though Blair has received legal advice that such a war would be criminal.

July 23, 2002: At a meeting of Blair's "War Council", the director of Britain's foreign intelligence service reports on his meeting in Washington. He says "Bush wanted to remove Saddam, through military action, justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." In other words, intelligence reports were being falsified to sell the planned invasion. This and other excerpts from the Downing Street Minutes show clearly that this was not a war of self-defense; it was cold-blooded, pre-meditated mass murder!

September -- December, 2002: The administration makes 90 claims that Saddam is developing WMD, all of which even then are demonstrably false. Contradictory evidence or interpretations are suppressed and erased. Honest officials are ignored or intimidated into silence.

October 10, 2002: Congress, deceived on the facts, facing elections, and with the voters terrorized, grants Bush power to make war at his whim.

January 28, 2003: State of the Union Address contains the famous false "16 words". Almost everything else in it turns out to be false as well, even statements not connected to Iraq.

March 19, 2003: Bush, before going on TV to announce the start of the war, pumps his fist and shouts: "I feel good!" Tens of thousands of Americans and Iraqis will be killed and maimed in the years ahead.

We thank the editors of Bye The Times for most of the material included in this message. Please visit www.byethetimes.com for more information. This message was derived from the page www.byethetimes.com/id2.html.

Amazing Facts About Our Electoral System

2005-06-09T01:00:00.000-07:00

1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.

2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.

3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.

4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."

5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based on votes counted by ES&S machines.

6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.

7. Senator Chuck Hagel was on a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.

8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.

9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.

10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.

11. Diebold is based in Ohio.

12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as consultants and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.

13. Jeff Dean was Senior Vice-President of General Election Systems when it was bought by Diebold. Even though he had been convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree, Jeff Dean was retained as a consultant by Diebold and was largely responsible for programming the optical scanning software now used in most of the United States.

14. Diebold consultant Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.

15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.

16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it!

17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out on unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.

18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.

19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.

20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.

21. In the December 2004 Gallup Polls, 1 in 5 Americans said they believe the elections were fraudulent. That's over 41 Million Americans. You are NOT alone!

Thanks to Angry Girl, author of the article on which this whisper is based. You can read more from her at Nightweed.com. For detailed supporting information pertaining to this page, please visit her article at http://nightweed.com/usavotefacts.html.

20 Good Reasons to Impeach George W. Bush

2005-06-09T00:23:00.000-07:00

based on an article by Gary Steven Corseri

1. He lied us into war in Iraq. According to the "Downing Street Minutes", he "fixed" intelligence around a pre-determined policy of preemptive war.

2. Under his watch, the U.S. suffered its worst terrorist attack on its soil. He opposed an official investigation, then stalled for months on testifying before a hand-picked committee. Finally he testified behind closed doors, and no one was allowed to take notes.

3 and 4. He was "elected" under dubious circumstances in both 2000 and 2004.

5. He has approved torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib, Bagram and elsewhere, while opposing the International Criminal Court established to check such abuses.

6. He failed to support the Kyoto Protocols, reducing greenhouse gases. But he worked to open up Alaska's ANWR to drilling, thus despoiling an eco-system and increasing greenhouse gases.

7. He chose Halliburton toady Dick Cheney to be his running mate -- twice.

8. He has attempted to pack the courts with ideologue-judges intent on overthrowing Roe v. Wade, and institutionalizing the police-state abuses of Patriot Acts I and II.

9. His "No Child Left Behind" education policies have replaced learning with testing.

10. He is attempting to dismantle the Social Security system.

11. He has failed to develop a coherent energy policy and fails to acknowledge the reality and impending disasters of Global Warming.

12. He has continued the Globalization project of his predecessors: outsourcing jobs, hollowing our middle class.

13. He has undermined the legitimate protective protocols of the C.I.A., politicizing the agency, awarding positions on the basis of ideological orthodoxy rather than merit.

14. He has subjugated his Administration to Neocon ideologues like Richard Perle, William Kristol and Douglas Feith, sowing the seeds of war and destruction for generations to come.

15. In spite of his rhetoric about freedom and democracy, he has allied himself with dictators in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, Egypt and elsewhere. He has increased the flow of arms to these states and others, fomenting instability, turmoil and war.

16. He chose Rumsfeld as DoD Secretary twice, in spite of Rumsfeld's obvious failure to adequately plan for the post-Saddam era in Iraq, inducing massive "collateral damage," the looting of ancient treasures, and infrastructure destruction in a country we were legally and morally bound to rehabilitate.

17. He endorses the weaponization of space, "Rods from Gods," and other exotic, Star-Wars technologies to establish a twenty-first century American global empire that is doomed to create an arms race with China and other opposing coalitions, sowing discord and wasting the resources of the world.

18. He lied about, misled, or misunderstood the astronomical costs of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars. He continues to do so, diverting tax money for education, health care, the EPA, transportation and social infrastructure into war-making and destruction.

19. He has continued and enlarged the depraved Clinton policy of using depleted uranium on the battlefield; a policy bound to cause massive suffering and death to Americans and others for generations to come.

20. He has alienated our traditional allies and more than a billion Muslims around the world. He has ransacked the good will extended to the nation after the 9/11 attacks, leading a crusade of vengeance and reprisal, most often against innocents.

You have been reading excerpts from Gary Steven Corseri: "25 Reasons to Impeach George W. Bush". For more information, please see the original at counterpunch.org/corseri06062005.html. Thanks to counterpunch.org for this and much more. We visit their site often and we hope you will too.

Eight Things We Learned About 9/11 In 2004

2005-06-08T06:36:00.000-07:00

1. The World Trade Center Black Boxes were recovered, though officials claim they weren't.

2. FEMA really did arrive early in New York City, for the "bioterror drill" Tripod II, and Rudi Giuliani's testimony to that effect before the 9/11 Commission is its only public testimony which remains officially untranscribed.

3. The Total Information Awareness program was ready to roll out before Sept 11, and John Poindexter's office was established in the Pentagon no later than Sept 12.

4. A recording of six air traffic controllers' same-day detailing of their communication with two hijacked planes on September 11 was purposefully destroyed by the FAA.

5. NORAD was conducting a live-fly simulation of multiple hijackings on the morning of 9/11, which effectively hamstrung a fighter response already compromised by exercises which took the bulk of interceptors far from the eastern seaboard.

6. Dick Cheney was running a separate command and control communications system on 9/11, which whistleblower Indira Singh said was "the exact same functionality I was looking to utilize [for] Ptech," the high-tech terrorist and intelligence cut-out that "was set up in the basement of the FAA" for two years before the attacks.

7. George Bush was unwilling to reluctanctly meet members of his reluctantly struck 9/11 Commission unless Cheney accompanied him, both were unsworn, their words were unrecorded and untranscribed, the meeting was private and in the White House, and the members' notebooks were confiscated afterwards.

8. John Ashcroft argued for a gag order against Sibel Edmonds by claiming that disclosure of her testimony would "cause serious damage to the national security interests of the United States". This suggests that he is at least an accessory after the fact, since Edmonds has said that her testimony involves "specific information implicating certain high level government and elected officials in criminal activities directly and indirectly related to terrorist money laundering, narcotics, and illegal arms sales."

You have been reading excerpts from Ten things we learned in 2004 about 9/11, by Jeff Wells. For full details and live links, see the original post: rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/12/ten-things-we-learned-in-2004-about.html. To read more from Jeff Wells, visit his excellent blog, Rigorous Intuition, here: rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/.

Impeachment Time!

2005-06-06T07:33:00.000-07:00

based on a report by Greg Palast

Here it is. The smoking gun. The memo that has "IMPEACH HIM" written all over it.

The top-level government memo marked "SECRET AND STRICTLY PERSONAL," dated eight months before Bush sent us into Iraq, following a closed meeting with the President, reads, "Military action was now seen as inevitable. Bush wanted to remove Saddam through military action justified by the conjunction of terrorism and WMD. But the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy."

Read that again: "The intelligence and facts were being fixed...."

For years, after each damning report on BBC TV, viewers inevitably ask me, "Isn't this grounds for impeachment?" -- vote rigging, a blind eye to terror and the bin Ladens before 9-11, and so on. Evil, stupidity and self-dealing are shameful but not impeachable. What's needed is a " high crime or misdemeanor."

And if this ain't it, nothing is.

The memo, uncovered this week by the Times, goes on to describe an elaborate plan by George Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair to hoodwink the planet into supporting an attack on Iraq knowing full well the evidence for war was a phony.

A conspiracy to commit serial fraud is, under federal law, racketeering. However, the Mob's schemes never cost so many lives.

Here's more. "Bush had made up his mind to take military action. But the case was thin. Saddam was not threatening his neighbors, and his WMD capability was less than that of Libya, North Korea or Iran."

Really? But Mr. Bush told us, "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

A month ago, the Silberman-Robb Commission issued its report on WMD intelligence before the war, dismissing claims that Bush fixed the facts with this snooty, condescending conclusion written directly to the President, "After a thorough review, the Commission found no indication that the Intelligence Community distorted the evidence regarding Iraq's weapons."

We now know the report was a bogus 618 pages of thick whitewash aimed to let Bush off the hook for his murderous mendacity.

Read on: The invasion build-up was then set, says the memo, "beginning 30 days before the US Congressional elections." Mission accomplished.

You should parse the entire memo and see if you can make it through its three pages without losing your lunch.

Now sharp readers may note they didn't see this memo, in fact, printed in the New York Times. It wasn't. Rather, it was splashed across the front pages of the Times of LONDON on Monday.

It has effectively finished the last, sorry remnants of Tony Blair's political career. (While his Labor Party will most assuredly win the elections Thursday, Prime Minister Blair is expected, possibly within months, to be shoved overboard in favor of his Chancellor of the Exchequer, a political execution which requires only a vote of the Labour party's members in Parliament.)

But in the US, barely a word. The New York Times covers this hard evidence of Bush's fabrication of a casus belli as some "British" elections story. Apparently, our President's fraud isn't "news fit to print."

My colleagues in the UK press have skewered Blair, digging out more incriminating memos, challenging the official government factoids and fibs. But in the US press …nada, bubkes, zilch. Bush fixed the facts and somehow that's a story for "over there."

The Republicans impeached Bill Clinton over his cigar and Monica's affections. And the US media could print nothing else.

Now, we have the stone, cold evidence of bending intelligence to sell us on death by the thousands, and neither a Republican Congress nor what is laughably called US journalism thought it worth a second look.

My friend Daniel Ellsberg once said that what's good about the American people is that you have to lie to them. What's bad about Americans is that it's so easy to do.

You have been reading Impeachment Time: "Facts Were Fixed.", by Greg Palast, via the good folks at BuzzFlash. For the original article, see this page: www.buzzflash.com/analysis/05/05/ana05013.html. To read more from Greg Palast, visit his website: gregpalast.com. And please visit buzzflash.com often for more real news.

Not Bad Intelligence; An Orchestrated Effort

2005-06-05T21:58:00.000-07:00

It was not bad intelligence. It was an orchestrated effort. It began before the war and it continues to this day.

The United States (and UK) conducted a strategic influence [i.e. propaganda] campaign that:

* distorted perceptions of the situation both before and during the conflict.

* caused misdirection of portions of the military operation.

* was irresponsible in many ways.

* may have been illegal in some ways.

* cost big bucks [$200 million so far].

* will be even more serious in the future.

There is more to come. Distortions continue. Major players are working on ways to do it “better” in future conflicts. We have reason to be concerned.

Clearly, some in the government believe the people of the United States and the United Kingdom will come to a wrong decision if they are the given truth. We probably have taken “Information Warfare” too far. We allowed strategic psychological operations to become part of public affairs.

You have been reading excerpts from an interview with Sam Gardiner, Colonel, USAF (Retired). For the complete text see this page: informationclearinghouse.info/article9240.htm. And be sure to visit informationclearinghouse.info often for real news.

The Lie Of The Century

2005-06-05T00:18:00.000-07:00

There is nothing new in a government lying to their people to start a war. Most people prefer living in peace. So any government that wants to start a war must lie to its people, to create the illusion that supporting the war is the only possible choice they can make.

President McKinley told the American people that the USS Maine had been sunk in Havana Harbor by a Spanish mine. Investigations after the war proved that there had been no mine.

Hitler told the people of Germany that Poland had attacked first. The Germans, convinced they were being threatened, followed Hitler into Poland and into World War II.

FDR claimed Pearl Harbor was a surprise attack. It wasn't. Roosevelt intentionally provoked Japan into attacking. Tricked by the lie of a surprise attack, Americans marched off to war.

President Johnson lied about the Gulf of Tonkin to send Americans off to fight in Vietnam. There were no torpedoes in the water in the Gulf.

It is inescapable historical reality. Leaders lie to their people to trick them into fighting wars. It is not "conspiracy theory" to suggest that they do this; it is undeniable fact.

Did President Bush and his Neocon associates lie to Congress, to initiate a war of conquest in Iraq? A leaked British memo clearly indicates a decision to go to war followed by the "fixing" of information around that policy. This is, as they say, a smoking gun. But long before this memo surfaced, it had become obvious that the US Government, aided by that of Great Britain, was lying to create public support for a war in Iraq.

You should be more than angry. You should be in a rage. You need to be in a rage and you need to act on that rage because the writing is on the wall; having lied to start the war in Iraq, the US Government will lie to start a war in Iran, and after that another, and after that another, and another and another and another ... because as long as you remain silent, and as long as you remain inactive, the liars have no reason to stop. None. It is time to fire the liars.

You have been reading passages from "The Lie Of The Century", via whatreallyhappened.com/. To read the entire article, see whatreallyhappened.com/lieofthecentury.html.

The Conyers Report: What Went Wrong In Ohio

2005-06-04T23:43:00.000-07:00

There were massive and unprecedented voter irregularities and anomalies in Ohio. In many cases these irregularities were caused by intentional misconduct and illegal behavior, much of it involving Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, the co-chair of the Bush-Cheney campaign in Ohio.

First, in the run up to election day, the following actions by Mr. Blackwell, the Republican Party and election officials disenfranchised hundreds of thousands of Ohio citizens, predominantly minority and Democratic voters:

* The misallocation of voting machines led to unprecedented long lines that disenfranchised scores, if not hundreds of thousands, of predominantly minority and Democratic voters.

* Mr. Blackwell's decision to restrict provisional ballots resulted in the disenfranchisement of tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of voters, again predominantly minority and Democratic voters.

* Mr. Blackwell's widely reviled decision to reject voter registration applications based on paper weight may have resulted in thousands of new voters not being registered in time for the 2004 election.

* The Ohio Republican Party's decision to engage in illegal preelection "caging" tactics, selectively targeting 35,000 predominantly minority voters for intimidation had a negative impact on voter turnout.

* Mr. Blackwell's illegal order preventing voters who requested absentee ballots but did not receive them on a timely basis from being able to receive provisional ballots likely disenfranchised thousands, if not tens of thousands, of voters, particularly seniors.

Second, on election day, there were numerous unexplained anomalies and irregularities involving hundreds of thousands of votes that have yet to be accounted for:

* There were widespread instances of intimidation and misinformation in violation of the Voting Rights Act, the Civil Rights Act of 1968, Equal Protection, Due Process and the Ohio right to vote.

* We learned of improper purging and other registration errors by election officials that likely disenfranchised tens of thousands of voters statewide.

* There were 93,000 spoiled ballots where no vote was cast for president, the vast majority of which have yet to be inspected.

* There were numerous, significant unexplained irregularities in other counties throughout the state.

Third, in the post-election period we learned of numerous irregularities in tallying provisional ballots and conducting and completing the recount that disenfanchised thousands of voters and call the entire recount procedure into question (as of this date the recount is still not complete):

* Mr. Blackwell's failure to articulate clear and consistent standards for the counting of provisional ballots resulted in the loss of thousands of predominantly minority votes.

* Mr. Blackwell's failure to issue specific standards for the recount contributed to a lack of uniformity in violation of both the Due Process Clause and the Equal Protection Clauses. We found innumerable irregularities in the recount in violation of Ohio law.

* The voting computer company Triad has essentially admitted that it engaged in a course of behavior during the recount in numerous counties to provide "cheat sheets" to those counting the ballots. The cheat sheets informed election officials how many votes they should find for each candidate.

You have been reading excerpts from the Executive Summary of the Report. You can read the complete Executive Summary here: http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/01/ale05001.html and/or download the entire report (102 pages in PDF format) here: http://www.buzzflash.com/alerts/05/01/images/WhatWentWronginOhio.pdf

Thanks to our good friends at buzzflash.com. We visit them often for current news and analysis.

The Coincidence Theorist's Guide to 9/11

2005-06-03T21:46:00.000-07:00

based on a column by Jeff Wells

* That so many influential figures in and close to the Bush White House had expressed, just a year before the attacks, the need for a "new Pearl Harbor" before their militarist ambitions could be fulfilled, demonstrates nothing more than the accidental virtue of being in the right place at the right time.

* That on May 8, 2001, Dick Cheney took upon himself the job of co-ordinating a response to domestic terror attacks even as he was crafting the administration’s energy policy, circumventing the established infrastructure, merely shows the VP to be someone who finds it hard to delegate.

* That the standing order which covered the shooting down of hijacked aircraft was altered on June 1, 2001, taking discretion away from field commanders and placing it in the hands of the Secretary of Defense, is simply poor timing.

* That Dave Frasca of the FBI’s Radical Fundamentalist Unit received a promotion after quashing multiple, urgent requests for investigations into al Qaeda assets training at flight schools in the summer of 2001 does appear odd, but undoubtedly there's a good reason for it.

* That over the summer of 2001 Washington received many urgent messages warning of impending attacks using hijacked aircraft and did nothing, demonstrates the need for a new Intelligence Czar.

* That George Bush had plans to invade Afghanistan on his desk before 9/11 demonstrates only the value of being prepared.

* The suggestion that securing a pipeline across Afghanistan figured into the White House’s calculations is as ludicrous as the assertion that oil played a part in determining war in Iraq.

* That FEMA arrived in New York on Sept 10, and had a triage centre ready to go the next day, was a lucky twist of fate.

* That George Bush's telephone logs for September 11 do not exist should surprise no one, given the confusion of the day.

* Reports of insider trading on 9/11 are false, because the SEC investigated and found only respectable investors involved, so the windfall profit-taking was merely coincidental.

* That heightened security for the World Trade Centre was lifted immediately prior to the attacks illustrates that it always happens when you least expect it.

* That multiple military war-games and simulations were underway the morning of 9/11 – one simulating the crash of a plane into a building; another simulating multiple hijackings – may have confused field commanders but must be classed as a bizarre coincidence.

* That the National Military Command Center ops director asked a rookie substitute to stand his watch at 8:30 am on Sept. 11 is nothing more than bad timing.

* That a former flight school executive believes the hijackers were "double agents" proves he's an unreliable witness, since there is no conspiracy.

* That at the battle of Tora Bora, where bin Laden was surrounded on three sides, Special Forces received no order to advance and capture him and were forced to stand and watch as two Russian-made helicopters flew into the area, loaded up passengers and returned to Pakistan, demonstrates how confusing modern battle can be.

* That upon returning to Fort Bragg from Tora Bora, the same Special Operations troops who had been stood down from capturing bin Laden, suffered a unusual spree of murder/suicides, is nothing more than a series of senseless tragedies.

* That the White House balked at any inquiry into the events of 9/11, then starved it of funds and stonewalled it, was unfortunate, but since the commission didn't find for conspiracy it's all a non issue anyway.

This message highlights only a small sample of the coincidences documented in rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/coincidence-theorists-guide-to-911.html.
Thanks to Jeff Wells for compiling this truly impressive list of coincidences. See the original article for supporting documentation.

A True US Patriot

2005-06-03T10:16:00.000-07:00

We, the People of the United States of America, finding ourselves repeatedly misled by those charged with the care and governance of our nation, know that partisan politics have resulted in a serious breach of the public trust.

We have suffered attacks against our Constitutional rights and the founding tenets of this Democratic Republic. We have suffered the infringement of our freedoms. We have suffered insult to our honor and integrity as proud citizens.

We will no longer suffer in silence this continued assault that has now passed beyond intolerable.

We do hereby now and forever reject the bastardization of this nation's core principles through this proclamation, and define this reminder to our wayward leaders just what it takes to be a True US Patriot:

1. A True US Patriot realizes if the rights of one are violated, the rights of all are at risk, and objects to any attempt to alter the Constitution in order to specifically undermine the rights and freedoms of others, ensuring that the Constitution will never be amended to endorse discrimination of any kind.

2. A True US Patriot holds the founding principles of the Declaration of Independence to be self-evident, and defends the Constitutional rights of others even when those rights conflict with personal and religious beliefs; believing that all men are created equal, even in times of war, the basic principles of humanity apply not only to one group of people or nation, but to all.

3. A True US Patriot supports the checks and balances within the three branches of government and rejects any attempts to circumvent or undermine them.

4. A True US Patriot exercises the right to openly challenge and hold accountable at all times, even and most particularly in times of war, those who do not honor their oaths of office, who purposely mislead the nation, who abdicate responsibility when those in their employ are caught engaging in criminal and unethical activities, and who fail to serve the nation with integrity.

5. A True US Patriot recognizes the contributions of the older generation and values the potential of the next, and that in order to promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves, our elders, and our Posterity, we must ensure that the basic rights of those we hold dear to access quality healthcare and education is steadfastly supported, uncompromisingly and without discrimination based on race, color, creed, gender, or orientation.

6. A True US Patriot believes that human rights are inherent to the human condition and should not be given to non-living entities; the rights of corporations should not equal or exceed the rights of any individual, and the right to fair and equal trade as well as fair and equal pay are a vital part of those expectations.

7. A True US Patriot recalls that our citizens consist of the tired and the poor, huddled masses yearning to breathe free, the "wretched refuse", and homeless, tempest-tossed people, and welcomes fair and balanced immigration with managed borders to ensure an open policy while maintaining and increasing security for both those who would call this land their home as well as those who already dwell within.

8. A True US Patriot respects the personal religious choices of others, refrains from imposing their own beliefs upon others, refuses to support war in the name of religion, and offers foreign humanitarian aid unconditionally without tying it to religious dogma.

9. A True US Patriot knows that due process of law and the protections against illegal search and seizure are core principles upon which our nation is founded, and the respect of an individual's right to privacy and security within their own home is critical to the preservation of our freedom.

10. A True US Patriot respects the diversity and culture of all nations, recognizing that our continued success lay not in spite of other nations but in alliance with them in a uniform approach toward promoting the global general welfare.

These ten basic tenets characterizing a True US Patriot can perhaps best be summed up in the words of Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune, paraphrased below:

A True US Patriot loves what his country stands for, not necessarily what his country does, and will not shrink from holding America to her ideals.*

* Eric Zorn, The Chicago Tribune, "Durbin should have stood up for his opinion", June 23, 2005.

You have been reading "A True US Patriot". You can see the original document here: http://tinyurl.com/dht5c.

What The Downing Street Memo Really Means

2005-06-02T21:42:00.000-07:00

The Downing Street Memo contains minutes of a British cabinet meeting. It indicates that British intelligence officials believed the Bush administration was manipulating intelligence to support its case for war in Iraq. Conservatives have attempted to dismiss the Downing Street memo, insisting that the term "fixed" has a different meaning in British English than in the United States. The memo describes Sir Richard Dearlove, head of British foreign intelligence, stating that in Washington, "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy." In fact, British reports -- including one that quoted the memo itself six weeks before the British Sunday Times published its full text on May 1 -- refute the notion that "fixed" means anything different in Britain than it does in The United States.

Robin Niblett, executive vice president and chief operating officer of the Center for Strategic and International Studies, claimed that "'Fixed around' in British English means 'bolted on' rather than altered to fit the policy." In an exclusive interview with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on the June 15 edition of MSNBC's Hardball with Chris Matthews, Rice eagerly agreed with Matthews's suggestion that in Britain the word "fixed" really "means just put things together." In the June 20 issue of the conservative Weekly Standard, contributing editor Tod Lindberg wrote of the memo: "'Fix' here is clearly meant in its traditional sense, in the sort of English spoken by Oxbridge dons and MI6 directors -- to make fast, to set in order, to arrange."

Other conservatives questioned the meaning of "fixed" without explicitly suggesting transatlantic miscommunication. On the June 10 edition of PBS' NewsHour with Jim Lehrer, National Review editor Rich Lowry claimed "it was meant in the sense that the intelligence is supporting the policy asking questions like what will a post-invasion Iraq look like and questions of that nature." National Review Online contributing editor James S. Robbins also doubted the meaning of "fixed around the policy" in a June 6 column and in a June 16 article on the conservative website CNSNews.com. The June 14 edition of CNN's Inside Politics cited a commentary making this argument by the conservative blog Dean's World.

But British sources contradict these claims. In a British Broadcasting Corp. (BBC) documentary from March, which quoted the Downing Street Memo more than a month before the Sunday Times published it, BBC reporter John Ware explained: "By 'fixed' the MI6 chief meant that the Americans were trawling for evidence to reinforce their claim that Saddam was a threat." The headline of a Sunday Times preview of the documentary -- "MI6 chief told PM: Americans 'fixed' case for war" -- also makes it clear how the British understand "fixed."

Similarly, Sunday Times reporter Michael Smith, who first disclosed the memo on May 1, ridiculed the notion that "fixed" has a different meaning in Britain in a Washington Post online chat:

SMITH: There are number of people asking about fixed and its meaning. This is a real joke. I do not know anyone in the UK who took it to mean anything other than fixed as in fixed a race, fixed an election, fixed the intelligence. If you fix something, you make it the way you want it. The intelligence was fixed and as for the reports that said this was one British official. Pleeeaaassee! This was the head of MI6. How much authority do you want the man to have? He has just been to Washington, he has just talked to George Tenet. He said the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy. That translates in clearer terms as the intelligence was being cooked to match what the administration wanted it to say to justify invading Iraq. Fixed means the same here as it does there.

Moreover, when the Sunday Times first disclosed the memo on May 1, it noted the Bush administration's attempt "to link Saddam to the 9/11 attacks" as an example of "fixing" the intelligence around the policy:

The Americans had been trying to link Saddam to the 9/11 attacks; but the British knew the evidence was flimsy or non-existent. Dearlove warned the meeting that "the intelligence and facts were being fixed around the policy".

In a May 2 column in London's Daily Mail, political editor David Hughes argued that the meeting detailed in the Downing Street memo "led inexorably to the publication of the 'sexed-up' Iraq weapons dossier two months later," referring to a now-famous 2003 report by BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan alleging that a British dossier on Iraq had been "sexed up" to hype the Iraqi threat. Gilligan's report became the subject of intense controversy when British weapons expert Dr. David Kelley committed suicide following the revelation that he was a key source for that report. An official inquiry into Kelley's suicide criticized Gilligan, his report, and the BBC, which prompted claims that the inquiry was a whitewash.

You have been reading British sources confirm that meaning of "fixed" -- as in "manipulated" or "cooked" -- is the same in Britain and America, from the Media Matters website. For more information on this matter, including links to supporting documentation, see the original at: mediamatters.org/items/printable/200506170003. You can read more good reporting from Media Matters every day at their website: mediamatters.org.

Unleashing The Resistance

2005-06-02T01:01:00.000-07:00

based on an a column by Karen Kwiatkowski, USAF lieutenant colonel (retired)

The Downing Street Memo explains in brisk understated English what I didn’t fully understand when I worked for Secretary Rumsfeld and Dough Feith in the Pentagon in 2002 and early 2003. But accountability for George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and the rest of the war gamers is not likely.

At this time, impeachment for Bush and Cheney is politically impossible. A successful impeachment requires a certain balance of political power. This balance was tenuous even in the early years of the Republic.

Today we have not even a shadow of political and media power competition. Instead, we see only unbalanced power, unbalanced perspective, unbalanced minds -- a warped political-media borg warning us that resistance is futile. George W. Bush said it best after the 2004 election: "[my] accountability moment has passed."

Interestingly, the Downing Street Memo has been reported by CNN and FOX News. It's been discussed in the major papers. Congress intends to examine it. This has has not dispossessed me of the belief that a state suicide is impossible. Thus, my gentle thoughts are increasingly turning to murder. Murder of the state. In self-defense, of course!

To murder the state you need strong citizens who understand their rights, have honed their abilities and stocked their mental and physical arsenal, and have adopted the quiet determination and moral confidence that often appears as fearlessness, but is not.

We might take a lesson from the growing Iraqi insurgency and the response of that nation nearly destroyed by our invasion and possession of that country. The U.S. Army wonders about the robustness and fluidity of the insurgents. Clearly, all Iraqi insurgents do not swear allegiance to any single creed or leader. Understanding this and dealing with Fourth Generation warfare is not Washington’s forte.

It remains wrong and immoral to demonstrate our government’s arrogance, greed and incompetence each dreadful day in Iraq. But it is a helpful demonstration for patriotic Americans at home.

How do the Iraqi insurgents do it? How are they defending themselves from the oppressive U.S. managed state in Baghdad? How are they killing it? They know what they don’t want, and have made a personal commitment to resist it.

The majority of Iraqis are angry, hurt, underemployed and under extreme stress. Yet most have not rejected or blamed God. Most retain a devotion to a religion, that like most, gathers its believers together, studies great and holy men and women, and attempts to explain human suffering while simultaneously embracing an all powerful God, whose creatures include both beasts of the field and the American enemy.

They don’t trust the central government in Baghdad. They judge the American state's intent solely from the American state's actions, never its words. They are wary of state efforts at law enforcement, and work hard to stay out of its dangerous and lumbering way.

They love their country, and have no intention of permanently leaving its future in the hands of either the Americans or beholden U.S. allies in the region, be they of Saudi, Kuwaiti, Turkish or Israeli persuasion.

Some resist passively, some actively. They don’t understand everything that is happening, but most Iraqis have decided to pursue one or more of the countless paths of resistance to the state. Iraqis, like Russians and East Europeans before them, honed these skills under Saddam Hussein, as we hone our skills today in early totalitarian America.

All are qualified to resist. None are excluded.

French-born composer and musician Nadia Boulanger, a major influence on American music in the 20th century, once said:

Liberty has never come from the government. Liberty has always come from the subjects of it. The history of liberty is a history of resistance. The history of liberty is a history of limitations of governmental power, not the increase of it.

"Liberty" is also a concept George W. Bush favors. He said "liberty" fifteen times in his 2005 inaugural speech, second only to his 25 mentions of "freedom." Bush didn’t specifically advocate the murder, or even the restraint, of the state. On the other hand, perhaps he did.

The way ahead is clear. We should promote our Great Leader’s love of liberty and resist, resist, resist!

You have been reading excerpts from Unleashing the Resistance, by retired USAF lieutenant colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, who spent her final four and a half years in uniform working at the Pentagon. For more information, see the original article: lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski113.html. To read more from Karen Kwiatkowski, please visit this page: lewrockwell.com/kwiatkowski/kwiatkowski-arch.html.

The White House’s White-Out Problem

2005-06-01T21:40:00.000-07:00

The Bush administration has fallen into the nasty habit of doctoring its reports whenever the facts don’t match its preconceived agenda. Here are some instances of the White House’s magic pen at work:

Cattle Grazing: “The Bush administration altered critical portions of a scientific analysis of the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands before announcing relaxed grazing limits on those lands, according to scientists involved in the study…conclusions that the proposed rules might adversely affect water quality and wildlife, including endangered species, were excised and replaced with language justifying less-stringent regulations favored by cattle ranchers.”

Hog Farming: Nationally respected Agriculture Department microbiologist Dr. Zahn discovered that hog farms were emitting drug-resistant airborne bacteria that “if breathed by humans, would make them harder to treat when ill. Zahn presented his findings at a scientific conference in 2000, but the Bush administration stopped him from publishing his data 11 times between September 2001 and April 2002, he said. When Danish researchers sought to learn more about his work, Zahn wasn’t allowed to share his techniques.”

Climate Change: “A White House official who once led the oil industry’s fight against limits on greenhouse gases has repeatedly edited government climate reports in ways that play down links between such emissions and global warming, according to internal documents…[The] official, Philip A. Cooney, removed or adjusted descriptions of climate research that government scientists and their supervisors, including some senior Bush administration officials, had already approved. In many cases, the changes appeared in the final reports.”

Air Quality at Ground Zero: “In the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attack on the World Trade Center, the White House instructed the Environmental Protection Agency to give the public misleading information, telling New Yorkers it was safe to breathe when reliable information on air quality was not available. That finding is included in a report released Friday by the Office of the Inspector General of the EPA. It noted that some of the agency’s news releases in the weeks after the attack were softened before being released to the public: Reassuring information was added, while cautionary information was deleted.”

Toxicology of Mercury: “The White House and the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) made changes to a report from the National Academy of Sciences on the toxicology of mercury, a powerful neurotoxin that is especially dangerous to pregnant women and young children…White House staff made editorial interventions in the report, which was commissioned by Congress to establish the science on the risks associated with mercury. The White House’s alterations downplayed the risks of mercury, replaced specific enumerations of mercury-related harms with bland, general references, and introduced additional emphasis on uncertainty.”

Effectiveness of Condoms: “The federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and USAID have removed or revised fact sheets on condoms, excising information about their effectiveness in disease prevention, and promoting abstinence instead.”

Effects of Oil Drilling on the Arctic Refuge: “Interior Secretary Gale Norton substantially altered biological findings from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service concerning effects of oil development in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge before she transmitted them to Congress, according to documents released October 19 by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.” In one instance, Norton’s defense was that she “simply made an error in her testimony – saying ‘outside’ when she meant to say ‘inside.’”

HIV/AIDS: “During the latter half of 2002, the Administration began removing scientific information, relating to the spread of HIV, from government websites, including those of the Department of Health and Human Services, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institutes of Health. Much of the information that was removed contracted [sic] claims made by the administration’s abstinence-only agenda.”

Cancer: Earlier this year, “EPA’s guidelines acknowledge[d], for the first time, that children under 2 years of age are 10 times more likely to get cancer from certain chemicals than adults who are similarly exposed. But the White House Office of Management and Budget undermined that acknowledgment by inserting language in the guidelines that make it easy for industry to block EPA from following them when assessing cancer-causing chemicals.”

Ground-Water: Vice President Dick Cheney’s old company Halliburton “pioneered” an oil-drilling technique that “can contaminate drinking water supplies with carcinogens and is therefore required by law to be regulated by the EPA.” Halliburton has spent years trying to get the federal government to exempt the technique from environmental regulations.” A senior Environmental Protection Agency recently revealed that “the EPA [initially concluded] that the technique can be dangerous to public health, but then [deleted] the conclusion after Cheney’s office demanded it.” Furthermore, six of the seven EPA panel members who decided that the technique was “safe” had all come from the energy industry.

Thanks to Mipe at Think Progress for compiling the [even longer] list on which this article is based. You can read the original article at http://thinkprogress.org/index.php?p=1127.

Ten Big Problems with the PATRIOT Act

2005-06-01T05:54:00.000-07:00

1: The government can conduct "sneak and peek" searches in which agents enter your home or business and search your belongings without informing you until long after.

2: Government agents can force libraries and bookstores to disclose the titles of books that you've purchased or borrowed and can demand the identity of anyone who has purchased or borrowed certain books. The government can also prosecute libraries and bookstores for informing you that the search occurred or even for informing you that an inquiry was made.

3: Federal agents are authorized to use hidden devices to trace the telephone calls or emails of people who are not even suspected of a crime. The FBI is also permitted to use its Magic Lantern technology to monitor everything you do on your computer -- recording not just the websites you visit but EVERY SINGLE KEYSTROKE as well.

4: Government agents are permitted to arrest and detain individuals "suspected" of terrorist activities and to hold them INDEFINITELY, WITHOUT CHARGE, and WITHOUT an ATTORNEY.

5: Federal agents are permitted to conduct full investigations of American citizens and permanent legal residents simply because they have participated in activities protected by the First Amendment, such as writing a letter to the editor or attending a peaceful rally.

6: Law enforcement agents are permitted to listen in on discussions between prisoners and their attorneys, thus denying them their Constitutional right to confidential legal counsel.

7: Terrorism suspects may be tried in secret military tribunals where defendants have no right to a public trial, no right to trial by jury, no right to confront the evidence, and no right to appeal to an independent court. In short, the Constitution does not apply.

8: Allows the CIA to spy on American citizens, a power that has previously been denied to this international espionage organization.

9: In addition to the Patriot Act, the Bush administration has given us Operations TIPS, a government program that encourages citizens to spy on each other and to report their neighbors' activities to the authorities. Fortunately, Operation TIPS seems to have been recalled to the factory -- at least for now.

10: Total Information Awareness [TIA] will link commercial and government databases so that the DOD can immediately put its finger on any piece of information about you that it wants.

You have been reading excerpts from "USA Patriot Act and the Nazi Enabling Act", posted at unslaver.com/forum/index.php?topic=70.0. Please see the original article for more details.

Vote-Rigging Sofware Fit For A Congressman

2005-06-01T01:01:00.000-07:00

based on a report by Brad Friedman

In an affidavit and sworn testimony, Florida software programmer Clint Curtis told members of the U.S. House Judiciary committee that U.S. Congressman Tom Feeney (R-FL) asked him to design a "vote-rigging software prototype". This request, according to Curtis, took place in October 2000 during a meeting at Yang Enterprises, Inc. (YEI), a computer consulting firm in Oviedo, Florida.

Curtis, until then a life-long Republican, had been a programmer at YEI, which had several top-secret clearance contracts with the state, NASA and other government agencies. Curtis thought Feeney was worried that the Democrats might try to rig the election and wanted to know what to look out for. But Mrs. Yang later told him the program was needed to "rig the vote in South Florida".

At the time of the alleged meeting, Feeney was the incoming Speaker of the Florida House, and a registered lobbyist and the general corporate counsel for YEI. He had been the running mate of Jeb Bush during his 1994 unsuccessful first bid for Florida Governor. In November 2000, Feeney gained national notoriety after declaring open defiance of the Florida Supreme Court by vowing to choose Presidential electors for George W. Bush regardless of whether a court-ordered recount showed that Gore won Florida. He eventually ascended to the U.S. Congress and today sits on the House Judiciary Committee. Although he was out-spent two to one by his Democratic opponent in 2002, Feeney beat him handily at the polls and then ran unopposed for the same seat in 2004.

Curtis claimed in his affidavit and to the Florida State Inspector General that YEI employed an illegal Chinese alien named Hai Lin "Henry" Nee, who inserted "wire-tapping modules" into sensitive database programs which YEI had built for NASA and other companies. Curtis also alleged that the brother of Mrs. Li-Woan Yang, the YEI CEO, had been a deported Chinese spy. Since the time of Curtis' allegations, Hai Lin "Henry" Nee has been indicted, and pleaded guilty to charges of espionage related to attempting to send chips used in Hellfire anti-tank missile systems to China. The arrest followed a four year sting operation by the Homeland Security Office's Immigration and Customs Export (ICE) bureau.

Although Nee admitted in his pleading to have sent such chips "ten to twenty times in the past year" to China, he was sentenced to just three years probation and a $100 fine! Federal investigators have confirmed that Nee was an illegal alien as of January 2000. Yet Federal officials refused to disclose information on Nee's alien status to the Florida IG until after Nee's prosecution had concluded in October of 2004.

Mrs. Yang and the attorneys for YEI (Tom Feeney's former law-partner and current contributor, Michael O'Quinn) still insist that Nee never worked for them even though the Florida Inspector General’s report confirmed otherwise. Moreover, his weekly time cards show that Nee worked 40 to 60 hours a week at YEI on their contract with the Florida Dept. of Transportation (FDOT).

The original Inspector General assigned to the case, Raymond Lemme, had contacted Curtis in mid-June of 2003, after both Curtis and the other whistleblower on the case had been fired without cause – both on the same day. Curtis says in his sworn affidavit that Lemme had advised him in mid-June that he would be very happy about his upcoming report and he should keep his ears open for it because, he told Curtis, "this goes all the way to the top."

Two weeks later, Lemme was found dead in a Valdosta, Georgia motel room.

The police report called the death a suicide, but this report contains many troubling inconsistencies and anomalies. The Valdosta police department re-opened the Lemme case in December 2004, but then re-closed it quickly after they received a phone call fom FDOT.

Tom Feeney has categorically denied all charges made by Curtis and has refused to comment on the record about any of the allegations beyond telling MSNBC that "Curtis has defamed a lot of people". The bulk of Curtis’ claims have so far been proven truthful based on a multitude of hard evidence obtained from public documents, court records, newspaper accounts, emails and other materials from a long three year paper trail. On the other hand, statement after statement made by Feeney, YEI and their attorneys on this matter have turned out to be false.

After many months and many requests and many challenges Clint Curtis took a polygraph test on March 3rd, 2005, and passed! The lie-detector test, administered by Tim Robinson, retired chief polygraph operator for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement, found that Curtis was truthful in all of his responses!

The story and the investigation continue…

You have been reading excerpts from "The Clint Curtis / Tom Feeney / Yang Enterprises Inc Vote-Rigging Scandal", by Brad Friedman. For more information, see the original article: BradBlog.com/ClintCurtis.htm. You can read more from Brad Friedman at BradBlog.com. We visit often and we hope you will, too.

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