Just Foreign Policy Iraqi Death Estimator    

Saturday, May 06, 2006

Imagine...

Imagine that we PI-ers are standing on the shore of a lake. We look out, and we see people in the water. Many are struggling. Some are treading water, some are drowning. Some cry out, but most quietly slip beneath the waves as their strength wears out.

On the shore with us are two groups of people. They are both yelling at us. "Don't just stand there! Do something!" they cry out from one group, "mind your own business if you know what is good for you" say people in the other.

The people in one group, we will call them "right wingers," are throwing what appear to be bricks out into the water. The bricks have slogans written on them - "self reliance" and "personal responsibility" and "free enterprise" and "free markets."

"Why are you throwing bricks at those people?" we ask

"It is for their own good. They need to learn discipline and pull themselves up by their bootstraps. The bricks will trickle down, and they can stand on them" is the reply from one of them. "Besides, they asked us for the bricks, or at least half of them did."

We then point out "but some of your friends are intentionally throwing the bricks at the heads of the people."

"Collateral damage. Can't be helped. If we restrict the right of the brick thrower to take iniative, the moral fiber of the country will decline. Life is tough. That is the way it is. I climbed out on the bricks, and so can they," is the snarling reply from the man.

"But you yourself were born on a pile of bricks above the water," we remind him.

"Look, that may be true, but the principles are the same" he says. "Are you trying to start class warfare or make trouble? Lake America is the greatest lake on earth, and you are trying to tear it down."

The other group of people, who we will call "liberals," is mostly yelling. They yell at us "do something, you idiots!" They yell at the people in the water "are you all stupid? What good are bricks? How ignorant can you all be?" But they don't ever yell very much at the brick throwers. They yell about them a lot, but never at them. They send groveling letters to them begging and pleading with them. Some of them they even praise and admire.

The rest of their time and energy goes into throwing ping pong balls out into the water. The balls have inscriptions on them - "we care" and "make good choices" and "socially responsible investing" and "gun control" and "choice" and "organic" and "go green" and "help is on the way." Some of the balls look suspiciously like bricks, just painted white to look like ping pong balls. Instead of "personal responsibility" written on them, they say "personal choices" and an occasional "wake up you stupid Neanderthals." Those are thrown at anyone who criticizes liberals in any way.

"What is the point of doing that?" we ask.

"What do you mean? Can't you see that people are drowning?" is the reply.

"Well, yes," we say. "We do see that."

"Well then what's your problem? Are you trying to tell us that ping pong balls don't float or something?" is the comeback.

"They aren't saving anyone" we say.

"Oh, there you go with your negativity. At least we are doing something, which is more than I can say for you. You can stand by if you want to, but I will be able to say that I did something instead of just whining." they say, growing angrier.

"Doing something is fine," we say, "but can't we discuss doing things that might be more effective?"

"What are you trying to do? Discourage people? We need unity, and we need a positive attitude. It is your fault that the brick throwers are winning! Look, we don't have time for this. You have two choices - bricks or ping pong balls. Be realistic."

Then we say "nevertheless, what you are doing isn't working - hasn't worked for a long time. Maybe we don't have the situation analyzed correctly."

"Analyzed? We don't have time for a lot of talk and empty rhetoric. OK, if you are so smart, what is your alternative?"

"We could run off the brick throwers, and then wade in and rescue the people" we say.

"What??? Are you nuts? That is too radical. The people will never go for that. You and your kind are a bunch of wild eyed fanatics making us look bad. And you are just a tiny fringe who will never amount to anything. No one agrees with you. We will just see who makes the most progress - our constructive work or your crazy dreams."

And the people keep drowning.

We are obliged at this time to struggle, with all the Powers with which the Constitution hath furnished us, in Defence of our Rights; to prevent the most valuable of our Liberties from being wrested from us, by the subtle Machinations, and daring Encroachments of wicked Ministers. - Sam Adams 1771

Link

Cheney Urges Energy Export Routes That Bypass Russia

There is no end to their manipulation, is there.
May 5, 2006

Cheney Urges Energy Export Routes That Bypass Russia

By ILAN GREENBERG and ANDREW E. KRAMER

ALMATY, Kazakhstan, May 5 — A day after chastising Moscow for its use of oil and natural gas as "tools for intimidation and blackmail," Vice President Dick Cheney visited Kazakhstan today to promote export routes that bypass Russia and directly supply the West.

With his comments, Mr. Cheney waded into a messy geopolitical struggle for energy and influence in the countries of the former Soviet Union, rapidly developing into one of the world's largest producing regions.

The United States backs efforts to weaken Russia's grip by building new export routes for the enormous energy reserves of Central Asia, much of which now must pass through Russian territory to reach ports in the Black Sea or pipelines to Europe.

Mr. Cheney's visit to Kazakhstan, on Russia's southern rim, highlighted the balancing of United States interests, trying to counter Russian dominance in energy matters in the region by cozying up to states like Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan that have spotty human rights records and limited democracy — and plenty of oil.

"The United States is trying to strike a difficult balance," said Tanya Kostello, an analyst at Eurasia Group, a New York risk consultancy. "It is trying to encourage the regime in Kazakhstan to move toward democracy while maintaining the economic ties."

The Kazakh president, Nursultan A. Nazarbayev, won a third, six-year term in December 2005, with 91 percent of the vote in an election that international observers said was flawed. Two opposition politicians have been murdered in six months, raising the specter of instability and infighting among the elite.

Kazakhstan produced 1.2 million barrels of oil a day last year but is expected to pump 3 million barrels a day by 2015.

Link

Sometimes I Just Have To Laugh...

Ahahahahahahahaha, the wait has been a long time in coming, to the countdown to Ecstacy

MSNBC Resorts To "Tea Leaves"- Prosecutors may have more on Rove

...then Firedoglake drinks the tea - Countdown To Ecstacy

They should all have a big helping of Jason Leopold if it is accuracy they desire...the timetables may get juggled, but this journalist gets his facts straight and has my respect.

Fitzgerald to Frogmarch Rove


posted by Patrick J. Fitzgerald at 5/06/2006

The War The World Forgot- The Deadliest War Since World War 2


Congo's tragedy: the war the world forgot

In a country the size of Western Europe, a war rages that has lasted eight years and cost four million lives. Rival militias inflict appalling suffering on the civilian population, and what passes for political leadership is powerless to stop it. This is Congo, and the reason for the conflict - control of minerals essential to the electronic gadgetry on which the developed world depends - is what makes our blindness to the horror doubly shaming. Johann Hari reports from the killing fields of central Africa

Published: 05 May 2006

This is the story of the deadliest war since Adolf Hitler's armies marched across Europe - a war that has not ended. But is also the story of a trail of blood that leads directly to you: to your remote control, to your mobile phone, to your laptop and to your diamond necklace. In the TV series Lost, a group of plane crash survivors believe they are stranded alone on a desert island, until one day they discover a dense metal cable leading out into the ocean and the world beyond. The Democratic Republic of Congo is full of those cables, mysterious connections that show how a seemingly isolated tribal war is in reality something very different.

This war has been dismissed as an internal African implosion. In reality it is a battle for coltan, diamonds, cassiterite and gold, destined for sale in London, New York and Paris. It is a battle for the metals that make our technological society vibrate and ring and bling, and it has already claimed four million lives in five years and broken a population the size of Britain's. No, this is not only a story about them. This - the tale of a short journey into the long Congolese war we in the West have fostered, fuelled and funded - is a story about you.

I Rapes Within Rapes

It starts with a ward full of women who have been gang-raped and then shot in the vagina. I am standing in a makeshift ward in the Panzi hospital in Bukavu, the only hospital that is trying to deal with the bushfire of sexual violence in eastern Congo. Most have wrapped themselves deep in their blankets so I can only see their eyes staring blankly at me. Dr Denis Mukwege is speaking. "Around 10 per cent of the gang-rape victims have had this happen to them," he says softly, his big hands tucked into his white coat. "We are trying to reconstruct their vaginas, their anuses, their intestines. It is a long process."

We walk out into the courtyard and he begins to explain - in the national language, French - the secret history of this hospital. "We started with a catastrophe we just couldn't understand," he says softly. One day early in the war, the Unicef medical van he was using was looted. Coincidentally, a few days later, a woman was carried here on her grandmother's back after an eight-hour trek. "I had never seen anything like it. She had been gang-raped and then her legs had been shot to pieces. I operated on her on a table with no equipment, no medicine."

Link

Fatal clashes follow Iraq chopper crash

Posted: 05:46 AEST

A curfew has been imposed on the southern Iraqi city of Basra after an angry crowd attacked British troops arriving at the scene of a helicopter crash.

[FULL STORY]

MOTHERS DAY VIGIL AT THE WHITE HOUSE with RANDI, CINDY SHEEHAN & SUSAN SARANDON




May 13-14 (Sat & Sun) there will be a 24-hour vigil outside the White House to send a message of peace to those who wage the wars. Randi will be there...will you?










Details Register to Attend

But he is not Osama

Part scapegoat, part wannabe killer, all crazy. Moussaoui is sentenced to life but he’s no Osama.

Plus, a shocking revelation of how Bush’s torture policy has prevented the prosecution of those who were actually connected to the 9/11 attacks.

Posted by Randy Rhodes

Judge: Libby wants to try 'legitimacy' of war on Iraq


Go get em Fitz

Court Dubious on Libby's Document RequestRecords on Wilson Trip Irrelevant, Judge Says

By Charles LaneWashington Post Staff WriterSaturday, May 6, 2006; A06

A federal judge dealt a setback to I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's defense in the CIA leak case yesterday, telling the former vice presidential aide's attorneys that he is likely to deny their request for a vast trove of government documents.

At a hearing, U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton did not formally deny Libby's request for all records related to a 2002 trip by former ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV to Niger. But he said the material is not directly relevant to the case and could only distract the jury.

"I'm just not going to let this case turn into a judicial resolution of the legitimacy of the war or the accuracy of the president's State of the Union address," Walton said.

Walton's reference was to the "16 words" in President Bush's 2003 State of the Union address, in which he cited British intelligence reports that Iraq was seeking uranium in Niger for use in developing nuclear weapons.

Link

MSNBC journo says 'tea leaves' suggest Rove indictment

Art Imitating Life...

Frank Rich slams exploitative 'United 93' film


Its only another bush ploy to play to the people, he has used 9/11 for his convenience from day one and does not give a shit what happened that day to the people of America, they are diviates each and every one of the wankers in that Administration.

He is going to use this to win the Senate and the House of Rep in November ASSHOLE, if the people are to brainless to realise it.

RAW STORY
Published: Saturday May 6, 2000

In his latest column set for Sunday's New York Times, Frank Rich, the former chief drama critic for the paper, slams the movie United 93 for exploiting tragedy and rewriting history, RAW STORY has found.

But Rich concedes that such exploitation is just "business as usual."

"This is America, for heaven's sake," Rich writes.

Also, Rich argues that, despite the movie's flaws, it isn't "too soon" for such a film to be released to the theaters, but, instead, "too late," since it had been preceded by two television movies and the message about the specific background of the hijackers from 9/11 has been "diluted" by the Bush Administration.

"Thanks to the administration's deliberate post-9/11 decision to make the enemy who attacked us interchangeable with the secular fascists of Iraq who did not, the original war on terrorism has been diluted in its execution and robbed of its support from the American public," Rich writes.

Excerpts from Rich's column entitled "Too soon? It's too late for United 93" from Sunday's Times:

#
Don't feel guilty if you, like most Americans, have not run or even walked to see "United 93."

The movie that has been almost unanimously acclaimed as a rite of patriotism second only to singing the national anthem in English is clinical to the point of absurdity: It reduces the doomed and brave Americans on board to nameless stick figures with less personality than the passengers in "Airport." Rather than deepening our knowledge of them or their heroism, the movie caps an hour of air-controller nail-biting with a tasteful re-enactment of the grisly end.

We also practice denial by manufacturing vicarious and symbolic victories at home to compensate for those we are not winning abroad. Two major liberties taken with the known facts in "United 93" -- sequences suggesting that passengers thrashed and possibly killed two of the hijackers and succeeded in entering the cockpit -- are highly cathartic but unsupported by the evidence.

In its way, the Moussaoui prosecution conducted its own Hollywood rewrite by exaggerating the stature of the only person to go to trial for crimes related to Sept. 11.

#
Developing...

IRAQIS CLASH with British troops after cheering chopper's crash, killing four.

*

House GOP Group Wants Portion Of Voting Rights Act To Expire To End Language Assistance At Polls...

LA Times Nicole Gaouette May 6, 2006 at 08:29 AM

A group of House Republicans wants to do away with bilingual ballots and translation assistance at the polls, a reflection of how tensions over immigration are pervading other issues.

As Congress readies to reauthorize the 1965 Voting Rights Act, the lawmakers are lobbying their colleagues to let the act's language assistance provisions expire.

The 56 lawmakers support the act, but say the language assistance to voters -- provided throughout much of California -- undermines national unity, increases the risk of election fraud, and puts an undue burden on state and local governments.

Read the whole article here.

Likely New Head Of CIA A Chief Architect Of Domestic Wiretapping Program...


Associated Press KATHERINE SHRADER May 6, 2006 at 09:24 AM
READ MORE: CIA

The White House planned to quickly nominate a new CIA director to replace outgoing Porter Goss, who offered little explanation in announcing his resignation from the embattled agency.

The leading candidate to replace him is Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden, top deputy to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, said a senior administration official. An announcement could come as early as Monday.

READ WHOLE STORY

Valerie Plame Signs Seven Figure Book Deal For "Fair Game"...


Now her book is worth 20 million, that is definitely going to come in at number 1

Associated Press May 6, 2006 at 09:24 AM
READ MORE: Investigations, Indictments, CIA, Valerie Plame

Valerie Plame, the former CIA operative whose unmasking led to a federal investigation and the indictment of a top vice presidential aide, has agreed to a book deal with the Crown Publishing Group.

Financial terms were not disclosed, but two sources close to the negotiations said the deal was in the low seven figures. Several publishers had competed for the memoir, scheduled to come out in the fall of 2007 and tentatively titled "Fair Game."

READ WHOLE STORY

Iraqi Crowd Cheers Crashed British Helicopter...

Associated Press BUSHRA JUHI May 6, 2006 at 09:50 AM

A British military helicopter crashed in Basra on Saturday, and Iraqis hurled stones at British troops and set fire to at least one armored vehicle that rushed to the scene. Clashes broke out between British troops and Shiite militias, police and witnesses said.

Police Capt. Mushtaq Khazim said the helicopter was apparently shot down in a residential district the city. He said the four-member crew was killed, but British officials would say only that there were "casualties."

READ WHOLE STORY

NY College’s Students, Staff And Faculty Protest McCain As Commencement Speaker…

Hell Yeah about time dont you think

Campaign Launched At University To Revoke Commencement Speaking Invitation For McCain...

Inside Higher Ed May 6, 2006 at 09:28 AM

For some students at the New School, in Manhattan, their institution and conservative politicians go together as well as Swiss cheese and peanut butter.

Bob Kerrey, the institution's president and a former Democratic governor and senator from Nebraska, announced this spring that U.S. Sen. John McCain, the Arizona Republican and past and possibly future presidential candidate, would be the commencement speaker at the New School. Kerrey said the senator's acceptance "is a big honor for our graduates and their families."

READ WHOLE STORY

Judge Slams Bush Admin. Arguments For Internet Wiretaps As “Gobbledygook,” “Nonsense”...




Associated Press May 6, 2006 at 10:33 AM
READ MORE: George W. Bush

A U.S. appeals court panel challenged the Bush administration Friday over new rules making it easier for the police and the FBI to wiretap phone calls made over the Internet. One judge told the government that its courtroom arguments were "gobbledygook" and suggested its lawyer return to his office and "have a big chuckle."

The skepticism expressed so openly toward the government's case during a hearing in the U.S. Circuit Court for the District of Columbia emboldened a broad group of civil liberties and education groups, which argued that the government improperly applied telephone-era rules to Internet services.




READ WHOLE STORY

CIA In Freefall...

How about Georgie and his Administration in FreeFall, they will be all Georgies men anyways, that go down, it is his CIA


Goss Forced Out as CIA Director; Gen. Hayden Is Likely Successor

An Animated Tribute To Stephen Colbert "Done In The Spirit Of A Roman Triumph"...

READ MORE: Stephen Colbert

Hicks 'free' to become UK citizen


May 07, 2006

GUANTANAMO detainee David Hicks has the legal right to become a British citizen.

The British Court of Appeal has refused further appeals from the British Home Office on the Hicks case, lawyers were advised in London late on Friday, a Melbourne newspaper has reported.

This mean the Home Office, which has lost twice to Hicks' legal team, must resume the process of declaring Hicks to be a UK citizen.

David Hicks's father, Terry, said from his Adelaide home the decision was "absolutely brilliant".
Mr Hicks said late last night he expected to be briefed on the case by his son's US military lawyer, Michael Mori.

He believes Britain will be under pressure to get his son out of the US detention centre at Guantanamo Bay.

"It's going to be very, very interesting and I think the British should make overtures to the Americans to release him," Mr Hicks said.

"It does give me hope but it depends on whether the British will defend one of their own."

Link

Rescue close for miners, 12th day


TASMANIA'S two trapped miners have spent their 12th night deep in the Beaconsfield gold mine, but hopes are high that they'll be freed today.

The pair, Todd Russell, 34, and Brant Webb, 37, spent several hours yesterday grouting rock crevices they could reach from their cramped cage almost a kilometre underground to minimise the risk of rock being disturbed when their rescuers finally break through.

Link

Sophie defies the odds


WELLWISHERS have left candles, flowers, teddy bears and messages of support for the "bravest of the brave" outside the Sydney hospital where little Sophie Delezio is once again defying the odds.

Her doctor Jonny Taitz said the five-year-old had surprised him by fighting back from the brink after being critically injured in a car accident yesterday - the second to almost claim her life in almost three years.

Breakthrough: 'Wonder drug' saved Sophie

Dangerous driving: Driver charged after Sophie hit

"She really is a fighter," Dr Taitz said adding she had already proved doctors wrong the first time round.

"I didn't believe she would survive that first day (of the first accident).

"Everything she has done subsequently has proved the medical profession wrong," he said.

Pray for our Sophie http://www.wishesforsophie.com/

We are in serious, serious fucking trouble

Bush calls terror fight WWIII


May 06, 2006

US President George W. Bush has said the September 11 revolt of passengers against their hijackers on board Flight 93 had struck the first blow of "World War III".

In an interview with the financial news network CNBC, Mr Bush said he had yet to see the recently released film of the uprising, a dramatic portrayal of events on the United Airlines plane before it crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

But he said he agreed with the description of David Beamer, whose son Todd died in the crash, who in a Wall Street Journal commentary last month called it "our first successful counter-attack in our homeland in this new global war, World War III".

Mr Bush said: "I believe that. I believe that it was the first counter-attack to World War III.

Continues..

Amen

*

When Soldiers Can’t Take Any More Violence and Death


- LINK -

If You can read it A must read, Georgies war from the mouths of you own military. It is brutal in its telling of what is happening to the troops and the innocent Iraqi People.

What happens when soldiers can no longer cope with the horrors of war? What happens when a soldier can no longer stand the sight of death and violence?

Suicide attacker kills Iraqi soldiers

A SUICIDE bomber wearing an Iraqi army uniform has blown himself up inside an Iraqi military base in Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit killing at least three Iraqi officers.

More

British chopper crashes in Basra

May 06, 2006

A BRITISH military helicopter crashed and caught fire in the southern Iraqi city of Basra today, police said.

Firefighters said they had seen four charred bodies inside the wreckage.
It was not immediately clear what caused the crash but one policeman at the scene in central Basra said the aircraft had been fired on.

A British military spokesman in Basra said : "We can't confirm anything at this point but we all agree that an incident has happened."

A large crowd gathered at the scene of the crash and began throwing stones and yelling at British troops who cordoned off the area, witnesses said.

The helicopter crashed into a building near the provincial governor's office but there were no casualties on the ground, police said.

Basra, Iraq's second largest city, is 550km south of Baghdad.

Link

10 Soldiers Killed Afghan Chopper Crash



By JASON STRAZIUSO, Associated Press Writer
29 minutes ago


KABUL, Afghanistan - A U.S.-led coalition military transport helicopter crashed while conducting combat operations in eastern Afghanistan, killing all 10 American soldiers on board, a U.S. military spokeswoman said Saturday.

The CH-47 Chinook crashed late Friday while on a mission in support of Operation Mountain Lion, an offensive to root out Taliban and al-Qaida militants near the mountainous border with Pakistan. The crash was not the result of enemy fire, said Lt. Tamara D. Lawrence, a coalition spokeswoman.

"The remains of all the 10 soldiers have been found and there are no survivors," she told The Associated Press. "There is no indication that the helicopter came down due to some enemy action."

Link

Newly discovered Diebold threat described as "major national security risk"!


What's clear is that Morning Call's reporting that it was Diebold who found the "glitch" are flat wrong. The discovery of the "glitch" (which is anything but) emanated from the examination of Diebold AccuVote TSx (touch-screen) machines recently in Emery County, UT.

A source has told The BRAD BLOG that Diebold was "cornered" into admitting to the problem, a far cry from them having "found" it, as the Morning Call characterized it.

What's also clear is that neither Diebold themselves, nor federal officials at the Elections Assistance Commission (EAC) have been notifying states about the serious problem which apparently affects all Diebold AccuVote touch-screen systems, including both their newer TSx models, and the older TS and TS6 models. The Diebold TSx models, with the security vulnerability still intact, were apparently used in the primary election last Tuesday in Ohio.
>>>cont

Link

Truth Will Always Out


Green Party Congressional Candidate Carol Brouillet posts an op-ed she wrote recently at her website's blog.

In it, she tells how the powers-that-be use tactics to distract, divide, and conquer the people-- but will ultimately fail because the truth will out.

Distract, Divide, and Conquer

The case for impeachment grows daily, as more egregious, self-serving, war provoking, Presidential lies are revealed. Theologian, David Ray Griffin, has also shattered the credibility of the 9/11 Commission Report, exposing the lie at the foundation of the Bush regime.

Yet, the press attacks Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who bravely raised questions about 9-11, and who organized "The 9/11 Omission: What the Commission Got Wrong" panel at the Congressional Black Caucus Annual Legislative Conference. McKinney stars in Guerrilla News Network's award winning film, American Blackout, which questions the legitimacy of the 2000 and 2004 Presidential elections.

Congress fails to support McKinney, and attacks immigrant’s rights, causing the most vulnerable part of the population to organize resistance in defense of themselves, their families, their friends, and justice.

The tactics of fear, terror to confuse, divide, contain, and misdirect popular outrage are ancient. Emotional issues, like immigration, shaped by fears of job loss, overpopulation, racism, violent ‘imagined’ threats are a foil, to counter the direct evidence of lying to the public, admission of high crimes, and misdemeanors. In the game of chess, the best defense is an offence, and those who seek to maintain power choose to attack the most vulnerable, rather than focus their attention on the gravest threat to the country and world, the executive branch of government.

The leaks about impending nuclear attack on Iran, a bird-flu pandemic, are designed to terrorize people and distract them from the cornered rats, those capable of destroying the world, who will not willingly give up power. The situation makes me think of a game of chicken, with two vehicles careening towards one another, daring each other to get out of the way or face annihilation. Will the Bush cabal destroy the planet? Will the planet destroy the Bush regime? Will one survive the other?

Carol Cross, returning from Venezuela, told the story of Hugo Chavez, a victim of an attempted coup, orchestrated by the CIA in 2002. Chavez was kidnapped. The press, in the control of those behind the coup, said that Chavez had resigned. Throughout the country, newspapers, radios, televisions repeated that Chavez had resigned, and that is what the military was told. One soldier, who was supposed to be guarding Chavez, lent him a cell phone. Hugo called his wife and told her that he hadn’t resigned. She did not have the press to relay the news to the people of Venezuela, but through phone, word of mouth, text messaging, word got out. The people gathered, in huge numbers, they demanded the return of their President, their Constitution, their elected representatives, and they got them back. The coup failed.

We can learn from this story. Here, there has been a coup, a powerful faction, has stolen not one, but two Presidential elections, and has lied to the people, shredded our Constitution, committed treason, started multiple wars. The press has ignored the crimes.

There is no single woman to get the truth out to the country, but there are many women and men, working very hard to wake people up, and alert them to the truth. They are using every means of communication to break the spell of the Big Lies that have been repeated by the press. They are calling for impeachment; they seek to rein in a criminal government that has hijacked our country, and seeks to hijack the entire world.

Truth unites all of us, but hoaxes are used to distract, divide, and conquer. We need to discern the truths from the avalanche of deceptions. David Ray Griffin, speaking recently in the Bay Area to full houses and responsive audiences, suggested a non-violent, "anti-imperialist movement." The truth is our best tool, to bring all of us together, and to disarm those whose power is built upon a pyramid of lies.

Link

Seymour Hersh versus the Bush Administration (and the DC Press Corps)

"The End of This War Will Be Very, Very Messy"

Seymour Hersh versus the Bush Administration (and the DC Press Corps)

By ROBERT FISK
The Independent

Sy Hersh is an ornery, cussed sort of guy, not one to suffer fools gladly. As the man who broke the My Lai story and the atrocities at Abu Ghraib, I reckon he has a right to be ornery from time to time--and cussed.

He's dealing with powerful folk in Washington, including one--George W Bush--who would like to cut him down. And when Hersh wrote--as he did in The New Yorker this month--that "current and former American military and intelligence officials" have said Bush has a target list to prevent Iran obtaining nuclear weapons and that Bush's "ultimate goal" in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change--again!--you can see why Bush was worried. "Wild," he called the Hersh story. Which must mean it has some claim to veracity.

So when I cornered Hersh at Columbia University in New York and dropped him a note during a Charles Glass presentation asking for an interview, I expected a stiff reply. "Anything you ask," he scribbled obligingly on a piece of paper.

His own lecture was frightening. Bush has a messianic vision--and intends to go down in history (probably he has chosen the right direction) as the man who will have "saved" Iran. "So we're in a real American crisis ... we've had a collapse of congress ... we have had a collapse of the military ... the good news is that when we wake up tomorrow morning, there will be one less day (of Bush). But that is the only good news."

Hersh might have said that we'd also had a "collapse" of the media in the United States, a total disintegration of the Ed Murrow/Howard K Smith/ Daniel Elsworth/Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward school of journalism. The greying, bespectacled, obscenity-swearing Hersh is about all we have left to frighten the most powerful man in the world (save for the jibes of Maureen Dowd in The New York Times).

more...

The Great Conservative Hoax


Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

excerpts

The conservatives denounce their presidents for the same reason that the left denounces Stalin: they want to evade responsibility for the results of the policies imposed by monsters that they themselves created. When the left does this, we know not to take it too seriously. If you give the state the right to expropriate all private property, you can't be too surprised when dictators take over.

Similarly, when the whole of your intellectual enterprise has been wrapped up in celebrating the nation-state and its wars, condemning civil liberties, casting aspersions on religious liberty, and heralding the jail and the electric chair as the answer to all of society's problems, you can't complain when your policies produce tin-pot despotic imperialists like Bush. You have no intellectual apparatus with which to beat them back.

The problem with American conservatism is that it hates the left more than the state, loves the past more than liberty, feels a greater attachment to nationalism than to the idea of self-determination, believes brute force is the answer to all social problems, and thinks it is better to impose truth rather than risk losing one's soul to heresy. It has never understood the idea of freedom as a self-ordering principle of society. It has never seen the state as the enemy of what conservatives purport to favor. It has always looked to presidential power as the saving grace of what is right and true about America.

For my part, I'm hoping that the whole conservative movement will go down in flames with the decline and fall of the Bush administration. The red-state fascists have had their day and instead of liberty, they gave us the most raw and stupid form of imperial big government one can imagine. They have given America a bad name around the world. They have bamboozled millions. They have looted and bankrupted the country. If they don't crack up on their own, we must do what we can to discredit them and their ideology forever.

Link

The Salvador Option has been invoked in Iraq

The American public is being prepared. If the attack on Iran does come, there will be no warning, no declaration of war, no truth.

By John Pilger

05/04/06 "ICH" -- -- The lifts in the New York Hilton played CNN on a small screen you could not avoid watching. Iraq was top of the news; pronouncements about a "civil war" and "sectarian violence" were repeated incessantly. It was as if the US invasion had never happened and the killing of tens of thousands of civilians by the Americans was a surreal fiction. The Iraqis were mindless Arabs, haunted by religion, ethnic strife and the need to blow themselves up. Unctuous puppet politicians were paraded with no hint that their exercise yard was inside an American fortress.

And when you left the lift, this followed you to your room, to the hotel gym, the airport, the next airport and the next country. Such is the power of America's corporate propaganda, which, as Edward Said pointed out in Culture and Imperialism , "penetrates electronically" with its equivalent of a party line. The party line changed the other day. For almost three years it was that al-Qaeda was the driving force behind the "insurgency", led by Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, a bloodthirsty Jordanian who was clearly being groomed for the kind of infamy Saddam Hussein enjoys. It mattered not that al-Zarqawi had never been seen alive and that only a fraction of the "insurgents" followed al-Qaeda. For the Americans, Zarqawi's role was to distract attention from the thing that almost all Iraqis oppose: the brutal Anglo-American occupation of their country.

Now that al-Zarqawi has been replaced by "sectarian violence" and "civil war", the big news is the attacks by Sunnis on Shia mosques and bazaars. The real news, which is not reported in the CNN "mainstream", is that the Salvador Option has been invoked in Iraq. This is the campaign of terror by death squads armed and trained by the US, which attack Sunnis and Shias alike. The goal is the incitement of a real civil war and the break-up of Iraq, the original war aim of Bush's administration. The ministry of the interior in Baghdad, which is run by the CIA, directs the principal death squads. Their members are not exclusively Shia, as the myth goes. The most brutal are the Sunni-led Special Police Commandos, headed by former senior officers in Saddam's Ba'ath Party. This unit was formed and trained by CIA "counter-insurgency" experts, including veterans of the CIA's terror operations in central America in the 1980s, notably El Salvador. In his new book, Empire's Workshop (Metropolitan Books), the American historian Greg Grandin describes the Salvador Option thus: "Once in office, Reagan came down hard on central America, in effect letting his administration's most committed militarists set and execute policy. In El Salvador, they provided more than a million dollars a day to fund a lethal counter-insurgency campaign . . . All told, US allies in central America during Reagan's two terms killed over 300,000 people, tortured hundreds of thousands and drove millions into exile."

Although the Reagan administration spawned the current Bushites, or "neo-cons", the pattern was set earlier. In Vietnam, death squads trained, armed and directed by the CIA murdered up to 50,000 people in Operation Phoenix. In the mid-1960s in Indonesia CIA officers compiled "death lists" for General Suharto's killing spree during his seizure of power. After the 2003 invasion, it was only a matter of time before this venerable "policy" was applied in Iraq.

According to the investigative writer Max Fuller (National Review Online), the key CIA manager of the interior ministry death squads "cut his teeth in Vietnam before moving on to direct the US military mission in El Salvador". Professor Grandin names another central America veteran whose job now is to "train a ruthless counter-insurgent force made up of ex-Ba'athist thugs". Another, says Fuller, is well-known for his "production of death lists". A secret militia run by the Americans is the Facilities Protection Service, which has been responsible for bombings. "The British and US Special Forces," concludes Fuller, "in conjunction with the intelligence services at the Iraqi defence ministry, are fabricating insurgent bombings of Shias."

On 16 March, Reuters reported the arrest of an American "security contractor" who was found with weapons and explosives in his car. Last year, two Britons disguised as Arabs were caught with a car full of weapons and explosives; British forces bulldozed the Basra prison to rescue them. The Boston Globe recently reported: "The FBI's counter-terrorism unit has launched a broad investigation of US-based theft rings after discovering that some of the vehicles used in deadly car bombings in Iraq, including attacks that killed US troops and Iraqi civilians, were probably stolen in the United States, according to senior government officials."

Link

AFP: Bush says fight against terror is 'World War III'


Now we are in World War 111, so says the decider in chief

WASHINGTON (AFP) - US President George W. Bush said the September 11 revolt of passengers against their hijackers on board Flight 93 had struck the first blow of "World War III."

In an interview with the financial news network CNBC, Bush said he had yet to see the recently released film of the uprising, a dramatic portrayal of events on the United Airlines plane before it crashed in a Pennsylvania field.

But he said he agreed with the description of David Beamer, whose son Todd died in the crash, who in a Wall Street Journal commentary last month called it "our first successful counter-attack in our homeland in this new global war -- World War III".

Bush said: "I believe that. I believe that it was the first counter-attack to World War III.

"It was, it was unbelievably heroic of those folks on the airplane to recognize the danger and save lives," he said.

more

Link

Libby lawyer to argue Bush's role in leak at trial

Libby lawyer to argue Bush's role in leak at trial

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The lawyer for former White House aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby said on Friday he would argue that his client revealed intelligence on Iraq after Vice President Dick Cheney authorized it and President George W. Bush declassified the information.

At a hearing on what documents the prosecution must turn over to the defense, lawyer Theodore Wells also said he believed there may be testimony or statements by Bush and Cheney that the disclosure of the intelligence was authorized.

Wells also said he planned to attack the credibility of Wilson, a former ambassador. He said he planned to call five witnesses who would say that Wilson told them about his wife working at the CIA.

Wells also said top White House aide Karl Rove would likely be a defense witness at the trial and the prosecutor must turn over information about Rove, who remains under investigation.

Link

Gen. Hayden, Negroponte aide to replace Goss after apparent power struggle


(CNN) Officials:

General to head CIANegroponte aide to replace Goss after apparent power struggle

Link

Friday, May 5, 2006; Posted: 11:09 p.m. EDT (03:09 GMT)

Gen. Michael Hayden, right, is a deputy to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte, left.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- President Bush has settled on Air Force Gen. Michael Hayden as his choice for CIA director, and an announcement is planned for Monday, senior administration officials told CNN late Friday

.Hayden, 61, is the principal deputy to National Intelligence Director John Negroponte.

If confirmed by the Senate, Hayden would replace Porter Goss, who abruptly resigned the CIA post earlier Friday after losing what intelligence sources described as a power struggle with Negroponte.

Hayden was director of the National Security Agency in 2001 when Bush authorized a controversial program allowing the agency to monitor the communications of people inside the United States who were in contact with suspected terrorists overseas without first obtaining a warrant.Critics charge the surveillance program is a violation of law and an assault on civil liberties.

Hayden has defended the program, insisting that it is a necessary tool to thwart terrorists and that the process of obtaining warrants is too slow and cumbersome to deal with "a lethal enemy."

more .....

Army Says "West Point" Off Limits For Name Of Alumni Anti-War Group...


'West Point' Off Limits to Anti-War Alums

Associated Press WILLIAM KATES May 6, 2006 at 12:40 AM

The Army warned an anti-war group of former U.S. Military Academy cadets to stop using the words "West Point" in its name, saying they are trademarked.

A co-founder of West Point Graduates Against the War countered Friday that his organization is simply following the cadets' code.

READ WHOLE STORY

US Helicopter Crashes In Afghanistan...


Reuters May 6, 2006 at 12:40 AM
READ MORE: Afghanistan

A U.S. military helicopter with nine personnel aboard crashed while on combat operations in easternAfghanistan, the U.S. military said on Saturday.

The crash of the CH-47 Chinook late on Friday evening near Asadabad, capital of Kunar province, was not the result of enemy fire, the U.S. military said, adding there was no word on the fate of the nine passengers and crew.

READ WHOLE STORY

Sophie 'needs another miracle'


Link


THE father of critically-injured Sophie Delezio is praying for another miracle to speed his daughter's recovery after a second life-threatening accident.










Please leave a get well Message for Sophie at




http://www.wishesforsophie.com/

Friday, May 05, 2006

Iraqi Soldiers at graduation: Rip off their clothes in protest over assignment


***CrooksandLiars***

On Hardball today, they played this clip of Iraqi soldiers protesting over their new assignments at a graduation ceremony.

Video-WMP Video-QT
(rough transcript)

Matthews: ...when they found out they wouldn't be serving right there in Fallujah, near their homes-look what they did. They started ripping off their uniforms-they say, "we won't go." (inaudible)Trainor, are those the people we are betting our future on

Blood Pact: American Hegemony and the True Bush "Base

***Chris Floyd***

Friday, 05 May 2006
The American conquest of Iraq is an emotional matter. Passions flare at white heat on both sides of the issue. This is understandable. It is indeed very difficult to remain dispassionate while watching a mass murder take place. Opponents of the conquest are naturally driven into chaotic furies of outrage and despair, while supporters are necessarily pushed to rhetorical and political extremes in their frantic attempts to countenance such an appalling crime. It is not a situation conducive to rational analysis.

Nevertheless, it is instructive to step back from the barricades now and again, to remind ourselves of the hard ground of reality so often obscured by the blood-red mist of emotion clouding our eyes. The chief reality, of course, is that the invasion and occupation of Iraq is primarily about oil and the preservation of the American way of life. It is based on the premise that the latter is a question of supreme importance, a moral value overriding all others. That "the American way of life" is itself riddled with gross inequalities is beside the point here, for these inequalities greatly benefit all those who have the power to make or influence policies in "the national interest."

Once this basic premise is accepted, the conquest – which otherwise seems a pointless, reckless paroxysm of elitist greed – can be seen as a logical if difficult step undertaken in accordance with a carefully reasoned strategy. War, mass death, torture, repression and the monstrous lies surrounding the instigation of the conquest can thus be justified as "necessary evils" to secure a greater good.

To put it simply, America must have unfettered access to Persian Gulf oil in order to maintain the infrastructure of its economy – indeed of its entire society, which is based on the availability of cheap gasoline and other petroleum-based products. In the coming decades of oil scarcity, the vast reserves in the Middle East will be even more crucial. The Bush Administration estimates that Iraq's current reserves, when fully developed, could reach as high as 220 billion barrels; if the still unexplored territories of its western wasteland are counted, this figure could top 300 billion – far surpassing the reserves of Saudi Arabia, as Canadian journalist Paul William Roberts reports in his important book, A War Against Truth. What's more, Iraqi oil is remarkably easy to extract – hence remarkably profitable.

Anyone who controls or dominates Iraq's oil industry will ultimately be able to break the Saudi-led OPEC cartel, inhibit or at least modulate the rise of China and India to superpower status – and squeeze Russia, whose economy now depends on exports of its increasingly expensive, hard-to-extract oil, as Roberts notes. Thus none of these potential rivals will be able to challenge America's global hegemony – the "full spectrum dominance" that has been publicly touted as the overarching goal of American policy by Bush Factionists such as Dick Cheney, Don Rumsfeld and Paul Wolfowitz since 1992.

Such hegemony can only be maintained by military means; hence the more than 700 U.S. military installations, ranging from vast city-fortresses, like the permanent U.S. bases now being built in Baghdad and Balad in Iraq, to small "lily-pad" jumping-off points for quick strikes around the globe. Hence the Bush Administration's ongoing militarization of space and its accelerated drive to test and develop new nuclear weapons. Hence the unleashing of secret Pentagon forces to conduct "military operations other than war" in dozens of countries without any legal restraints, as noted here last week.

Military force is essential because the American economy is in an advanced state of decadence and cannot win its way to continued dominance by peaceful means. The American elite is now given over almost entirely to the manipulation of financial instruments to produce vast private profits, disconnected from the surrounding community. The actual production of actual goods is in steep decline, bringing with it a corresponding decay in the quality of American life below the elite level. Without cheap oil – and despite the panicky sticker-shock at the pump today, Americans still pay far less than most people for fuel – the whole fragile house of cards could fall. Thus dominance and survival have become intertwined; and both depend on mastery of the Middle East's resources.

Saddam Hussein became a target not because he oppressed his people or warred with his neighbors or threatened Israel or once developed WMD – all of which he did during his years as an American ally. He had to be removed because he would not allow American and British oil firms to exploit Iraqi resources, but was instead signing deals with Chinese, French and Russian companies. This was intolerable. It put the preservation of the American way of life – and the global dominance on which it now depends – in the hands of foreign interests. With global reserves dwindling, Iraq's oil was simply too important to be entrusted to others any longer; direct intervention was required.

And so the war came, with its lies, murder, ruin, and corruption. Yet how many of those now opposed to this horrific military action are prepared to pay the actual cost of ending it: i.e., relinquishing the guarantee of cheap oil and the lifestyle it sustains? The number is doubtless very small. The large remainder should perhaps be seen as the true "Bush base." For while they may oppose his tactical incompetence in this instance, they share, wittingly or unwittingly, his strategic goal. With this basic common cause between the elite and the majority, the wars for oil will go on – no matter who sits in the White House.

Chris Floyd/A version of this column appears in the May 5 edition of The Moscow Times. Links to more sources can be found after the jump.

Coverage of Rumsfeld Speech Incident Has a Gap

***Truth Dig***

Posted on May 5, 2006

While almost all media organizations reported that CIA veteran Ray McGovern publicly clashed with Rumsfeld, most labeled him a “heckler” or a “hostile war critic.” Few bothered to mention that McGovern was indisputably correct: Rumsfeld’s 2003 comments on Iraqi WMD were flat-out false.

Think Progress:

... While the media has been quick to cover McGovern’s accusation that Rumsfeld lied, many news accounts have failed to report Rumsfeld’s own words from March 2003. The lead AP story, written by Shannon McCaffrey, fails to make any mention of it. Versions of the AP story have been reported in today’s Washington Post, Houston Chronicle, and many other papers.

Cox News Service also wrote a story that failed to report Rumsfeld’s own words. The Cox story was reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, among other papers.

Fortunately, there have been a small number of reports that reported Rumsfeld’s statements, most notably in the L A Times and the Chicago Tribune.

Are newsrooms across the country afraid of being perceived as anti-war “hecklers” and “hostile war critics” if they accurately report the administration’s false claims?

Link

Rumsfeld's CIA Critic Swats Away Paula Zahn

Ray McGovern, the retired CIA veteran who sharply challenged Rumsfeld’s war rationales, angrily swatted away CNN’s Paula Zahn’s questions about McGovern’s motives. This was “not a matter of axes to grind. It’s a matter of telling the truth.”


Bio of McGovern


Truthdigger of the Week: Ray McGovern





Truthdig salutes Ray McGovern, the 27-year CIA veteran who articulated the outrage of a nation by publicly and heroically challenging Donald Rumsfeld’ lies about Iraqi WMDs. Click here to see a video of the encounter, biographical info on McGovern, collections of his articles, interviews, book excerpts and one of the cheekiest pieces of anti-Rumsfeld propaganda ever to grace a public forum.>>> cont

Media Lapdogs


***Truth Dig***

In a new book, Salon senior writer Eric Boehlert chronicles “one of the great journalistic collapses of our time”: the media’s failure to sufficiently challenge the president in the run-up to the Iraq war. Check out the extended excerpt.

Hookergate: No-Tell Motel?


By Justin Rood - May 5, 2006, 4:28 PM

We reported yesterday that the Watergate Hotel had received multiple subpoenas relating to the federal probe of Wilkes, Cunningham et al. But news accounts have mentioned a second hotel -- the Westin Grand -- as a favorite of Wilkes for entertaining lawmakers, their staff, and CIA officials with booze, food, cards and possibly prostitutes.

I have been calling the Westin Grand -- both the hotel and its corporate headquarters -- since yesterday afternoon, but they have yet to speak with me for the record. In fact, despite promises to do so, they have yet to return any of our calls requesting comment.

Link

Limo Outfit's Owner Lawyers Up - and Up - and Up

By Paul Kiel - May 5, 2006, 6:03 PM

Wow.

In the course of our research into Christopher Baker, the owner of the limo company that allegedly ferried prostitutes to lawmakers, we've been confronted with a widening constellation of legal representation. And it's gotten more impressive as we've gone along.

First, there's Sandy Roberts, a business attorney who is Shirlington Limousine's original counsel. He didn't return our call.

And then there's Baker's personal criminal attorney, Bobby Stafford. He's the one who made a questionable denial to the San Diego Union-Tribune about what Baker may or may not have seen.

When we called Stafford today, he referred us to a third lawyer -- Michael York -- who is handling all media inquiries, Stafford's office told us.

It's not hard to figure why. York is a former Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative journalist:

After graduating from law school in 1978, he spent eight years at the Lexington Herald-Leader, where he and another reporter won a 1986 Pulitzer for exposing corruption within the University of Kentucky athletic program. In 1987, York moved to the Washington Post.

He went on to a career in law, where he's represented such heavy hitters as Phillip Morris. So far, has not returned our calls.

So it appears that Baker is in a number of good -- and increasingly expensive -- hands. Pretty impressive for a guy who just got out of bankruptcy.

Link

My worst nightmare: If someone blew up the White House, would anybody even care?

by Jane Stillwater

Corruption is so bad at the Bush White House and Americans are so disgusted with the situation that if the Bush bureaucracy disappeared off the face of the planet tomorrow no one would miss them! But hands off the White House itself. I still remember the wonderful ideals that it used to stand for.

Link

Witch hunts enough to go around

By Joan Chittister, OSB
Here’s a story we might need to worry about a bit. In 1918 during World War I, The New York Times reports, 79 Montanans were convicted of sedition for speaking out “in ways deemed critical of the United States.”

Forty-one of them got prison terms of one to 20 years and were fined from $200 to $20,000. In one case, 12 children of one family were put up for adoption after the father went to prison and the family farm failed. One of these children, now 90, is still alive. She will be present for the ceremony in which the present governor of Montana, Brian Schweitzer, pardons these German-Americans, one of whom went to jail for saying that the food regulations put in place during the war were a “big joke.”

Sedition. Convictions. Jail sentences. Pardons for being critical of government policies. Impossible? Don’t be too sure. It looks as if we could launch a few witch hunts ourselves these days.

James Risen and Eric Lichtblau of The New York Times and Dana Priest of The Washington Post were just awarded journalism’s highest honor, the Pulitzer Prize, for their stories on our secret torture chambers in Eastern European countries and domestic spying on U.S. citizens.

As I understand it, Bill Bennett, former secretary of education, would like, on the other hand, to put these three reporters in jail.

Bennett was clear in his condemnation of that kind of journalism. He said that the reporters “took classified information, secret information, published it in their newspapers, against the wishes of the president, against the request of the president and others that they not release it.”

Nothing to be doubted here. Bennett calls these journalists traitors. He says they ought to be in prison rather than picking up prizes.

“I don’t think what they did was worthy of an award,” he said. “I think what they did was worthy of jail. These people who reveal our secrets, who hurt our war effort, who hurt the efforts of our CIA, who hurt efforts of the president’s people -- they shouldn’t be given awards for this. They should be looked into (through) the Espionage Act.”

He did not, however, say anything about the president’s “selective declassification” -- leak, in common parlance -- of classified material for political reasons. To bolster his defense of the invasion of Iraq, the reason for which was beginning to unravel, Bush, we know now, had aides leak what to that point had been classified but unsubstantiated material. So, we have to assume that if Bennett wants reporters in jail for publishing material that “hurt our war effort, hurt the efforts of our CIA, hurt efforts of the president’s people,” he must mean the president, too.

Who, in fact, endangers the country more: A president by lying about the certain need for pre-emptive war, domestic spying or outsourced torture sites or journalists by telling the truth about the corner-cutting on the Constitution?

After all, not only was classified material “leaked” by the president -- former chief of staff to the vice president Lewis Libby’s word, not mine -- it was suspect. Knowingly suspect.

The president’s own intelligence community said it could not be verified. But the president used it anyway to justify what could not be justified. It was error upon error -- or treason upon treason -- if we apply Mr. Bennett’s value system broadly. And since Bill Bennett has become the “Value Czar” of the country, probably we should.

But that’s the obvious -- and almost irrelevant -- part of the situation. The real question is what, if anything, will be left of the checks and balance structure of the republic if we begin to jail reporters for telling us what we need to know to preserve the Constitution and the character of the country.

Ironically enough, the very week the Pulitzer Prize was awarded, Mark Felt appeared on national TV to discuss his guiding role as “Deep Throat” in exposing the Watergate cover-up and the eventual resignation of Richard Nixon.

Question: Should Bernstein and Woodward have gone to jail rather than Chuck Colson, Gordon Liddy, and Bob Haldeman, who planned the robbery and, worse, the cover-up by the Oval Office?

Think carefully here. The whole future of the country may be at stake.

What will happen to this democracy’s commitment to the Fourth Estate, that institution of protected public voice that emerged out of the French Revolution to act as a brake on the human tendency to autocratic pretensions even in republics? If the media are denied the right to uncover and publish acts of government wrongdoing, what will happen to democracy itself?

If we begin to jail journalists for telling us what we have a right -- a need -- to know about the way any given administration is frittering away the Constitution, the nation’s integrity will at best be the stuff of history. We will be one more banana republic governed by successive gangs of opportunists, thugs and despots.

If journalists are denied the right to investigate those who do not investigate themselves, how is this country to have any hope of stopping corruption in its tracks, of really being the country we have always thought ourselves to be?

From where I stand, when it becomes traitorous for an American reporter to let Americans know about torture being done in their name or the domestic spying to which their neighbors are being subjected, we won’t need newspapers anyway. Collections of fairy tales will do. That, it seems, is a lot of what we’re getting right now anyway -- and that goes for what they claim are our values.

Comments or questions about this column may be sent to: Sr. Joan Chittister, c/o NCR web coordinator. Put "Chittister" in the subject line. E-mails with attachments are automatically deleted.For information about Sr. Chittister's other work visit her publisher: Benetvision

International neocon ploy to discredit anti-U.S. politicians in countries ranging from Europe to Latin America.

***Wayne Madsen Report***

May 4, 2006 -- International neocon ploy to discredit anti-U.S. politicians in countries ranging from Europe to Latin America. The recent so-called "scandal" in France said to involve French Prime Minister Dominique de Villepin (a notable anti-Iraq war diplomat when he served as Foreign Minister) is nothing more than a continuation of the neocon "Big Lie" practice. In this case, French and other international media neocons have claimed DeVillepin orchestrated a scandal involving French Interior Minister and presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy. Sarkozy is a strong supporter of Israel's theocratic kleptocracy and a darling of global neocon interests.

The Sarkozy scandal was said to have involved bribes paid to him in numbered bank accounts in Luxembourg. The "Clearstream affair" -- said to involve bribery payments to Sarkozy in return for a deal to sell French frigates to Taiwan -- is claimed by Sarkozy to be a deliberate smear.

DeVillepin ordered French intelligence to investigate Sarkozy. Interestingly, DeVillepin argued that as Foreign Minister, it was his job to investigate Sarkozy's possible involvement with "mafia money." Sarkozy's major political supporters are tied to the Russian-Israeli-Ukrainian mafia that has been capitalizing on the Iraq war, nuclear proliferation involving the A Q Khan network, diamond smuggling financing of "Al Qaeda," and drug smuggling.

Meanwhile, neocon media are spinning the story that Mexico's leftist presidential candidate Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador has slipped to second place in polls that have shown him as much as ten percentage points ahead of his two rivals. In Obrador's case, his two conservative rivals have the support of Carlos Slim, the world's third richest man and a Silvio Berlusconi-style media mogul who dominates Mexican business and politics. With the neocon media arrayed against him, it is no wonder Obrador is reported as "slipping" in polls to his closest conservative rival, Felipe Calderon, the Energy Minister under Vicente Fox and someone with close ties to the oil industry.

With so much neocon domination of the global media, DeVillepin and Obrador cannot get fair coverage. WMR will strive to break through the neocon fog and report the facts.

Link

One of the arch neocons is out as British Foreign Secretary.

May 6, 2006 -- One of the arch neocons is out as British Foreign Secretary. Jack Straw, one of the co-conspirators in the Iraq war and a darling of the global neocon movement, is out as British Foreign Secretary after Tony Blair's New Labor suffered a drubbing in yesterday's local elections in England. George Galloway's anti-neocon Respect Party was expected to gain control of London's Tower Hamlets council, consolidating gains made in last year's parliamentary election. The Conservatives, Liberal Democrats, and neo-Nazi British National Party also registered gains against Labor. Blair, in an indication that his new Labor Party is on the run, also ousted a number of other Cabinet ministers amid rumors that Blair's days are also numbered.

The number one priority in the "Blair Watch Project" is to see where he lands after he leaves Number 10. It is rumored that he will join his predecessor, John Major, and George H. W. Bush as a key player in The war profiteering Carlyle Group.

Link

TGIF...

***From the Desk of Patrick J. Fitzgerald ***

I think.

I took some phenergan and ambien and have no recollection of today's events.

Libby Denied Access To CIA Leak Data(AP) A federal judge refused on Friday to give I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby access to a wide range of information from several government agencies, saying he would not allow the former White House aide's trial in the CIA leak case to become a debate over the war in Iraq.

"You want to try the legitimacy of us going to war," U.S. District Judge Reggie B. Walton told lawyers for Vice President Cheney's former chief of staff. "I don't see how that will help us determine whether Mr. Libby lied when he talked to the FBI and went before the grand jury."

Walton ordered Special Counsel Patrick Fitzgerald to turn over evidence, if he has any, of when and how President Bush and Vice President Cheney decided to declassify part of a secret government intelligence report on Iraq so Libby could disclose it to favored reporters in an effort to discredit administration critics in 2003.

The judge also seemed to be leaning toward denying a defense request for documents Fitzgerald has related to the activities of White House adviser Karl Rove, who remains under investigation and will be a defense witness if the prosecutor doesn't call him to testify. [continued]

posted by Patrick J. Fitzgerald at 5/05/2006

SOUNDTRACK TO THE REVOLUTION

***Come Armageddon***
I know too much, the government is tryna murder me

- Immortal Technique

It looks like I'm gonna have to rely on the underground rap community to compose the music for the revolution. Unfortunately, you'll NEVER hear any of these groups on the radio/MTV or BET. Not that that's a bad thing, cuz any rap group that blows up on either of these outlets pretty much completely sucks and raps strickly about bitches, bling and cash, topics that are neither interesting nor relevant to the times. Mainstream rap music SUCKS.

I listen to a shit load of rap music (truth be told, I listen to a shit load of MUSIC. Period. All genres included), but all of it is considered "undergroud." The artists are extremely talented but have choosen NOT to sell out to the music industry which would force them to change their lyrics and their style to attract 13 year old white girls who like to dance around their spacious rooms and believe they are somehow bucking authority (their parents) by bringing "black " music into their McMansions.

There's alot of political rap music out there, you just have to go looking for it. To save you some time and effort, I will name a few groups for you so you can listen to them for yourself. I highly recommend you download the file sharing program BearShare (http://www.bearshare.com/. Choose the FREE program) so you can listen to the music before you purchase the album. Some of the best political rap groups include The Lost Children of Babylon (their new album, dealing solely with the 9/11 conspiracy, is pictured above. It's super hot), Immortal Technique (you've seen his lyrics quoted here numerous times. ALL of his albums are hot and deal with the criminality of the Bu$h cabal and their involvement in 9/11), The Coup, Dead Prez, The Reavers (pick up their album 'Terror Firma' asap) Non-Phixion, Mos Def, Pharaoh Monch, Talib Kweli, Army of the Pharaohs (their new album 'The Torture Papers' is ALSO hot) and Jedi Mind Tricks (everything they have ever done is hot) just to name a few.

The truth IS out there, it's just not receiving any airtime on the republican owned radio conglomerates and the similarly reich-wing owned record companies. One can't say it's not being talked about, it's just being supressed, whether directly (by threatening the artists to change their lyrics and intentionally NOT allowing their work to be heard on the radio) or indirectly (by pricing their albums in the $20 to $30 dollar range, making their albums hard to find, discrediting their message with the 'mainstream music consumer' as 'crazy conspiracy music' or, as Bill O'Reilly has done a few times, invite the artist on his "show" and then demonize him as unpatriotic and treasonous. When the lights go out, I get O'Reilly.)

Even if you're not a fan of rap music (my mom says it all sounds the same to her but she's also 500 years old, so I shouldn't expect her to understand nor appreciate rap music. Don't tell her I said that. The 500 years old part.) I still hope you will check out the groups and individual artists mentioned above and support their work for they are the ONLY ones speaking up for us on a regular basis and detailing what's REALLY going on in this country (yes, I'm aware that there are a FEW rock acts who are also putting out protest music, but compared to the politically conscious acts of the 1960's, they are few and far between. But I still respect them for their work) for it will be artists like this who will provide us with the soundtrack to the revolution. It's a shame that the venerable rap artist Tupac Shakur was gunned down at such an early age. With the talent he posessed and his penchant for taking on the issues relevant to the underclass and the dispossessed, I can only imagine what he would accomplish lyrically with the issues we are facing today.

The revolution will NOT be televised. But it WILL be reported, by artists not afraid to speak out.

posted by America Is Fucked at 5/04/2006 08:12:00 PM

*Stephen Colbert's new parody song



Jackson Thoreau:

*Stephen Colbert's new parody song

Here's a parody song that I recently sent to Stephen Colbert - if he doesn't want to sing it, he could do what a lot of stars do and lip sync it or just say the words as Bush would if he tried to sing.

It's sung to the tune of "What a Wonderful World" by Sam Cooke. New York songwriter Joel Landy rewrote the words shortly after Bush stole the White House, and I recently updated the words.

To those who think liberal/progressive types should stick to more serious topics, many writers and comedians, from Twain to Orwell to Colbert, have recognized that satire is one of our best weapons to expose the hypocrisy and lies of the powerful. I can just see Colbert singing something like this at the next White House correspondent's dinner attended by Bush and Laura. That is, IF the Bushes ever attend another one and IF Colbert is ever invited back. Maybe he can sneak in by using Gannon's media credentials.....

Don't know much ‘bout hist’ry,
Don't know much fer’n policy,
Don't know much ‘bout the troops who died,
Don’t know why it matters that I lied.
But I do know who has paid my way,
For corp'rate int'rests and the NRA,
What a wonderful world this will be.

Don't know much ‘bout the Patriot Act,
Don't know much ‘bout Iran and Iraq,
Don't know much ‘bout prison abuse,
In Texas we just used a noose.
But there's one thing that I know f’sure,
If the rich stay rich and po’ stay po’,
What a wonderful world this will be.

I never claimed to be an A student,
But I don't have to be,
If you have deep pockets and sell NU-KU-LAR rockets
You're a friend of my famileeeeeeeeee…...

Don't know much ‘bout air pollution,
Don't know much ‘bout the Constitution,
Don't care much for solar energy,
There's nothing in it for m’friends and me.
And if we can't find any on our serl
We can go to war and get more earl,
And what a wonderful world this will be.

Don't know much ‘bout the public schools,
Don't know much ‘bout playing by the rules,
Don't know why the inner cities fail,
Why can't folks get Dad to pay for Yale?
And if my cheating that is causing you to lose
Is never covered by the ev’nin’ news,
What a wonderful world this will be.

I never claimed to be an A student,
But I don't have to be,
If you have a broda who's Flor’da guv’na,
The result's no mystereeeeeeee…….

Don't know much ‘bout being a uniter,
Don't know much ‘bout that big jet fighter,
Don't know 'bout paying a debt,
I ne’er had to pay one yet.
But if I control voting machines,
I will reach my empire dreams,
And what a wonderful world this will beeeeeeeeee…..

[Leave with a big smirk flashing the victory signs, a la Nixon, saying, "Yeeee-hawwwwww!!!!! Thanks ye, and Gard bless ya, garddammit!!! Polls? What low poll numbers? I am not a crook!"]
Link

*Washington Post Blogger Makes Laughable Attempt to Defend Rumsfeld Against McGovern

David Swanson:

There is not a word here on the topic of whether Rumsfeld lied. Arkin should resign immediately.

Link Here

From the Mother of a Marine

by Missy Comley Beattie
http://www.opednews.com

Elaine Brower is a “big-mouth woman” and she has a lot to say, especially, to the Bush Administration but also to military families and, well, everyone who has a stake in the survival of this country.

Elaine is a military parent, a member of World Can’t Wait/Drive Out the Bush Regime, and Military Families Speak Out. She can’t wait for Bush to be impeached and she is definitely speaking out. Her son James is a Marine who served a tour of duty in Afghanistan and deployed to Iraq in March 2006. Elaine drove him to Twentynine Palms, California where she held a peace vigil outside the military base as he left.

For this mother and so many military parents, every minute of the day is a nightmare. Elaine writes:

DISGUSTED WITH BEING A MARINE MOM

I’d like to describe the life of a military mom in 2 words: IT SUCKS! My beautiful son is in the Marine Corps now stationed in Fallujah, eating dirt and sleeping with rats. I vehemently protested the war from the beginning. Not only the war, but I really do hate the man who smirks a lot sitting in the White House, and all those cronies alongside him. How dare he send my son and other young American soldiers who signed on the dotted line to protect our country, not to fight an illegal, immoral, and illegitimate war, for the personal gains of the rich and elite.

But I digress. Every single day, sometimes twice a day, I receive these ghastly emails from the Military Volunteer Network, made up of Stepford Wives and Mothers. There’s lots of rah-rah stuff and how we should support “Our Boys”. They include pictures of them in full-battle gear running through the streets, or sleeping in the dust with their M-16s. The captions read anywhere from “Our Marines hard at work” to “Here are our Marines, giving out candy to Iraqi children.” How disgusting. We have bombed that country back to the Stone Age, committed genocide, torn apart families and a culture that goes back thousands of years, and we give the kids candy! Are they nuts or is it me?

Here’s an email on the network from one of the mothers:

‘Hello Families of our Deployed Marines,

Just wanted to forward the attached update from (I omitted the name). please enjoy!
If you have any questions, or if there is anything I can do to help you, please let me know.
Hope to see all of you at Family Day on Saturday, May 20th!!!
Take care.'

'May 1, 2006

I figured it out. Oh yea, see I have a new religion it is sort of like Tom Cruise’s, not scientology though, it is Americantology. That is right. See I was looking at my new flag pole/light pole and listening to the usual Muslim prayer song when I thought about freedom of religion and how we all have different religions and can accept them all and by DOD policy and everybody’s policy we have to respect them all and can not discriminate against religion. So that means they have to respect my religion, heck they even have the Wiccas now I’ve read. So here is what I see. As I need to express my religion, just like I listen to their prayers five times a day here, I plan to play my religious music once a day off the roof of my building in downtown Fallujah. I figure my religion will spread like wildfire through the boys if I could play the National Anthem, Marines Hymn, Lee Greenwood God Bless America, and some of the many patriotic songs written by people like Toby Keith courtesy of the red, white, and blue. They all fall under my religion. Brass can’t make me take down my religion. I will run an extension cord with a converter up to power it. If it works as well as I think it will, maybe I will play it 5 times a day like my neighbors. They say everyone in a foxhole finds religion, I guess that must be true.’

Certainly, it’s this kind of nationalism that will put James and our soldiers in even more danger.

My son agrees that this war is bad, but he was trained by our “New” military. They learned from Viet Nam that you must train in groups so there is now this buddy system. He fights to keep his buddies alive, and himself alive. What a dilemma this is for me! I want him to be alive, I want to hear about his life in Iraq, but am absolutely appalled that there is a sub-culture of loving death and destruction belonging to this “Military Family” which I want no part of, but find myself stuck in.

Pictures, emails, letters, parties, and stupid smiley faces are the way they group together, these people who have absolutely no clue as to what is really happening over there. Or maybe they do. One mother I spoke with said she has to believe her son is helping the Iraqi people, or she would go mad. I think she is already there. The devil inside me wants to send these flag-wavers every single horrible thing I find to scare them into seeing the stark reality of war. But then I stop myself, because maybe I envy their ignorance. My existence is one of raging daily against not only this war, but everything this Republican Administration is doing. They are crooks, pedophiles, megalomaniacs, and warmongers, only to name a few. I would love to wake up in the morning and have nothing better to do than think that my son is someplace nice, helping people. I wouldn’t have grey hair, lines on my face, and a knot in my stomach and would stop screaming at everyone all day long.

So what to do? Be consumed by the Stepford existence of our rah-rah Military Family organizations packaging up candy, or fight the fight? I know which course I am taking, do you?

As peace organizations plan the Mother’s Day Rally in DC, think about Elaine’s challenge. There will be hundreds of thousands of “big-mouth” women in our Nation’s Capital, calling for the immediate withdrawal of our troops from Iraq and Afghanistan and an end to future wars. Let’s help Elaine bring James and all our soldiers home. NOW!

Link
free hit counter