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Sunday, May 11, 2008 |
CommonDreams: "There is direct evidence that President George W. Bush did not honorably lead this nation, but deliberately misled it into a war he wanted. Bush and his administration knowingly lied to Congress and to the American public - lies that have cost the lives of more than 4,000 young American soldiers and close to $1 trillion.
In his first nationally televised address on the Iraqi crisis on October 7, 2002, six days after receiving the National Intelligence Estimate (NIE), a classified CIA report, President Bush told millions of Americans the exact opposite of what the CIA was telling him - a monumental lie to the nation and the world."
George W. Bush and Anthony Blair ought to be prison for war crimes. The fact that they are not shows the dire state of our 'democracy'.
And the propaganda and lies continue unabated.
Sourcewatch: "The Pentagon military analyst program was launched in early 2002 by then-Assistant Secretary of Defense for Public Affairs Victoria Clarke. The idea was to recruit 'key influentials' to help sell a wary public on 'a possible Iraq invasion'. Former NBC military analyst Kenneth Allard called the effort 'psyops on steroids'."
Ledger: "The first high school dedicated to preparing students for the front lines in the Nation's homeland security has gone from theory to planning in Wilmington.
The Project Manager for the Delaware Academy for Public Safety and Security, New Castle Attorney Thomas Little, signed a contract with Innovative Schools, a professional firm which will coordinate the mechanics of preparing the school for its eventual opening.
Curriculum choices for students, who are to be called Cadets, range from SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics) through prison guard, water rescue, paramedic, fireman, professional demolition and emergency response operator, according to a Board statement."
12:41:46 PM 
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Monday, May 5, 2008 |
Indepenent: "Tony and Cherie Blair have bought the £4m former home of legendary actor Sir John Gielgud, it was reported last night. The Grade I listed stately home near Chequers is the Blairs' sixth property in their growing portfolio."
Tony Blair is a war criminal who should be on trial. He has destroyed the democratic process and destroyed the Labour party. Blair is not a socialist, he is a full-blown capitalist, who has lied and cheated to corrupt Britain. He has promoted a neocon world in which the benefits go exclusively to the rich.
Independent: "Giant agribusinesses are enjoying soaring earnings and profits out of the world food crisis which is driving millions of people towards starvation, The Independent on Sunday can reveal. And speculation is helping to drive the prices of basic foodstuffs out of the reach of the hungry.
The prices of wheat, corn and rice have soared over the past year driving the world's poor - who already spend about 80 per cent of their income on food - into hunger and destitution."
And then there is the military industrial complex of course. Or rather it's the private military industry that is slowly taking over the military tasks of our governments and are thriving enormously on war and destruction. What you destroy must be reconstructed, so the benefit is double. The taxpayers still pay for the illegal wars, but the profits are strictly for the private 'security forces' and the multinationals who play a role in destruction and rebuilding.
TheNation: "On September 10, 2001, before most Americans had heard of Al Qaeda or imagined the possibility of a 'war on terror', Donald Rumsfeld stepped to the podium at the Pentagon to deliver one of his first major addresses as Defense Secretary under President George W. Bush. Standing before the former corporate executives he had tapped as his top deputies overseeing the high-stakes business of military contracting - many of them from firms like Enron, General Dynamics and Aerospace Corporation - Rumsfeld issued a declaration of war.
The often overlooked subplot of the wars of the post-9/11 period is their unprecedented scale of outsourcing and privatization. From the moment the US troop buildup began in advance of the invasion of Iraq, the Pentagon made private contractors an integral part of the operations. Even as the government gave the public appearance of attempting diplomacy, Halliburton was prepping for a massive operation. When US tanks rolled into Baghdad in March 2003, they brought with them the largest army of private contractors ever deployed in modern war. By the end of Rumsfeld's tenure in late 2006, there were an estimated 100,000 private contractors on the ground in Iraq - an almost one-to-one ratio with active-duty American soldiers.
To the great satisfaction of the war industry, before Rumsfeld resigned he took the extraordinary step of classifying private contractors as an official part of the US war machine."
Blackwater, The Rise of the World's Most Powerful Mercenary Army.
12:35:55 PM
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Saturday, May 3, 2008 |
NYTimes: "In the summer of 2005, the Bush administration confronted a fresh wave of criticism over Guantánamo Bay. The detention center had just been branded 'the gulag of our times' by Amnesty International, there were new allegations of abuse from United Nations human rights experts and calls were mounting for its closure.
The administration's communications experts responded swiftly. Early one Friday morning, they put a group of retired military officers on one of the jets normally used by Vice President Dick Cheney and flew them to Cuba for a carefully orchestrated tour of Guantánamo.
To the public, these men are members of a familiar fraternity, presented tens of thousands of times on television and radio as 'military analysts' whose long service has equipped them to give authoritative and unfettered judgments about the most pressing issues of the post-Sept. 11 world.
Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.
The effort, which began with the buildup to the Iraq war and continues to this day, has sought to exploit ideological and military allegiances, and also a powerful financial dynamic: Most of the analysts have ties to military contractors vested in the very war policies they are asked to assess on air.
Those business relationships are hardly ever disclosed to the viewers, and sometimes not even to the networks themselves. But collectively, the men on the plane and several dozen other military analysts represent more than 150 military contractors either as lobbyists, senior executives, board members or consultants. The companies include defense heavyweights, but also scores of smaller companies, all part of a vast assemblage of contractors scrambling for hundreds of billions in military business generated by the administration's war on terror. It is a furious competition, one in which inside information and easy access to senior officials are highly prized.
Records and interviews show how the Bush administration has used its control over access and information in an effort to transform the analysts into a kind of media Trojan horse - an instrument intended to shape terrorism coverage from inside the major TV and radio networks."
PRWatch's John Stauber appears on PBS NewsHour to talk about the Pentagon Pundits scandal.
PRWatch: "The Pentagon military analyst program unveiled in last week's exposé by David Barstow in the New York Times was not just unethical but illegal. It violates, for starters, specific restrictions that Congress has been placing in its annual appropriation bills every year since 1951. According to those restrictions, 'No part of any appropriation contained in this or any other Act shall be used for publicity or propaganda purposes within the United States not heretofore authorized by the Congress.'"
Fiore's animation.
PRWatch: "As part of its plan to expand online 'information operations', the Pentagon is launching 'a global network of foreign-language news websites ... and hiring local journalists to write current events stories and other content that promote U.S. interests', reports Peter Eisler. The Pentagon launched Matawani.com last year, an Arabic-language site with Iraq news; other sites are being developed for Asian and Latin American audiences. Like the Pentagon's older 'news' sites, aimed at North Africa and Southeast Europe, the new sites only disclose U.S. Defense Department involvement on a single page reached via a small 'about' link at the bottom of the site. The goal of the Pentagon's 'Trans Regional Web Initiative' is to launch 'a minimum of six' websites run by regional U.S. military commands."
George W. Bush has announced he is going to spend some money on world hunger. Let me guess what will happen: he will pay all this money to a few American multinationals who will then send some stuff abroad. In fact, it is more a 'help American industry' program.
World hunger is the result of the machinations by neocons like Bush and the World Bank.
Their spin and lies cover all aspects of their policies.
Of course, America's first agitprop sorties date from much earlier.
Chalmers Johnson: "The RAND Corporation of Santa Monica, California, was set up immediately after World War II by the U.S. Army Air Corps (soon to become the U.S. Air Force). The Air Force generals who had the idea were trying to perpetuate the wartime relationship that had developed between the scientific and intellectual communities and the American military, as exemplified by the Manhattan Project to develop and build the atomic bomb.
Soon enough, however, RAND became a key institutional building block of the Cold War American empire. As the premier think tank for the U.S.'s role as hegemon of the Western world, RAND was instrumental in giving that empire the militaristic cast it retains to this day and in hugely enlarging official demands for atomic bombs, nuclear submarines, intercontinental ballistic missiles, and long-range bombers. Without RAND, our military-industrial complex, as well as our democracy, would look quite different."
And the system has now embraced torture within its own ranks (previously relegated to their pawns in South America, or the Middle East).
CommonDreams: "'Why are we talking about this in the White House?' John Ashcroft nervously asked his fellow members of the National Security Council's Principals Committee. (The Principals were Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA Director George Tenet and Attorney General Ashcroft.)
'History will not judge this kindly,' Ashcroft predicted.
'This' is torture. Against innocent people. Conducted by CIA agents and American soldiers and marines. Sanctioned by legal opinions issued by Ashcroft's Justice Department. Directly ordered by George W. Bush.
An April 11th report by ABC News describes how CIA agents, asked by previous presidents to carry out illegal 'black ops' actions (torture and killings), had become tired of getting hung out to dry whenever their dirty deeds were revealed by the press. When the Bush Administration asked the CIA to work over prisoners captured in Afghanistan, Pakistan and elsewhere, Director George Tenet demanded legal cover. The Justice Department complied by issuing a classified 2002 memo, the so-called 'Golden Shield', authored by Office of Legal Counsel Jay Bybee. 'Enhanced interrogation techniques' - i.e., torture - were legal, Bybee assured the CIA."
2:55:28 PM
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Saturday, April 19, 2008 |
One of our leading cabaret artists has voiced his annoyance about the Tibet hype and said that the nonsense the Dalai Lama is ventilating is now being seen as 'wisdom'. He said that China is changing in a positive way and that the euphoria about the pitiful Tibetans is a sign of shortsightedness. When the Dalai Lama was in power his was not a gentle rule. He said we accepted the war against Iraq and the thousands of deaths there without too much scruples. So a boycot of the Olympics is not reasonable.
He is quite right. The present Tibet hype is largely fuelled by America and taken up by those xenophobic and simplistic new-agers who believe in the 'wisdom' of backward nations. They see the Tibetan monks as cute little animals, who need a cuddle. Get real!
It seems that much of the hype is simply diversion tactics, diversion from an economical crisis and unjust and catastrophic wars.
Guardian: "When it comes to rigging elections, countries like Jordan and Egypt have been happy to oblige in recent months - in the Egyptian case, jailing hundreds of opposition activists into the bargain - and almost nobody in the west has batted an eyelid. In Saudi Arabia there are no national elections at all, let alone the opposition MPs and newspapers that exist in Zimbabwe. In Africa, Togo has been a more flagrant rigger, while in Cameroon last week the president was given the job for life. And when it comes to separatist and independence movements, the Turkish Kurds have faced far more violence and a tighter cultural clampdown than the Tibetans.
The crucial difference, of course, and the reason why these conflicts and violations don't get the deluxe media and political treatment offered to the Zimbabwean opposition or Tibetan separatists is that the governments involved are all backed by the west, compounded in the Zimbabwean case by a transparently racist agenda. But it's not just an issue of hypocrisy and double standards, egregious though they are. It's also that British and US involvement and interference have been crucial to both the Zimbabwean and Tibetan conflicts."
Reuters: "A court said in a non-binding ruling on Thursday that Japan's dispatch of air force troops to Iraq was unconstitutional, but the government said it would press on with the military activity anyway."
This is something you see more and more: government leaders who breach national and international laws.
ACLU: "The American Civil Liberties Union obtained documents from the Department of Defense confirming the military's use of unlawful interrogation methods on detainees held in U.S. custody in Afghanistan. The documents from the military's Criminal Investigation Division (CID), obtained as a result of the ACLU's Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit, include the first on-the-ground reports of torture in Gardez, Afghanistan to be publicly released."
Fiore on Bush.
Bradblog: "As Pope Benedict XVI was met with a resplendent ceremony on the White House lawn this morning, George W. Bush noted the visit would remind Americans to 'distinguish between simple right and wrong'.
'We need your message to reject this dictatorship of relativism,' Bush said.
Is it just us? Or, given the news of late, concerning meetings in the White House to discuss what kind of torture America would officially carry out, isn't there something perversely discordant in Bush's remarks?
The Pope, who is celebrating his 81st birthday today, gave a few of his own remarks in turn (to which Bush replied 'awesome speech') before being serenaded with a rousing rendition of 'Battle Hymn of the Republic', as performed by a U.S. military choir."
WashingtonPost: "The Bush administration said yesterday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon, rebuffing challenges by House Democrats over the idea's legal authority."
The example of lawless behaviour is followed by other leaders and of course neocons.
JerusalemPost: "Opposition leader Binyamin Netanyahu has said if he is elected prime minister, he won't carry out any peace deal with the Palestinians reached by current Prime Minister Ehud Olmert, a newspaper reported Thursday."
NYTimes: "Hedge fund managers, those masters of a secretive, sometimes volatile financial universe, are making money on a scale that once seemed unimaginable, even in Wall Street's rarefied realms.
One manager, John Paulson, made $3.7 billion last year. He reaped that bounty, probably the richest in Wall Street history, by betting against certain mortgages and complex financial products that held them."
Soros: "Mr. Soros' opening sentence summarizes his sense of urgency about the turmoil in the financial world, where he is one of the most successful and enduring of investors: 'We are in the midst of the worst financial crisis since the 1930s.'"
RawStory: "US Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson said Tuesday that America's Social Security program for the retired is "financially unsustainable" and needs an urgent overhaul."
Of course, the neocons are so greedy they also want the social security money.
BBC: "The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has accused 112 construction companies of rigging bids for contracts."
The same has been happening for more than a decade in the Netherlands and the rest of Europe.
Volkskrant: Several Dutch firms which had a contract with the Dutch government to pay back part of their turn-over in the lucrative Joint Strike Fighter deal (after all, the government invested hugely in the project), are now refusing to pay the money back.
The spectre of neocon greed is haunting the world.
9:04:08 PM
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Saturday, April 5, 2008 |
Some days ago an American friend sent me the movie 'The White River Kid'. It is a dramatic comedy 'about people coming out from behind their disguises'. 'Brother' Edgar of the Little Brothers of St. Mortimer, a Church he invented himself after having been harassed by the police about a pedlar's licence for selling reject socks and knowing that in this disguise he could get away with his scam. Apart from one serial killer the film is full of con-men.
The Blair family came to mind. Well, you know, Tony being a first-class con-man himself, having subverted democracy by lying about Iraq and having started an illegal war. His wife is supposedly a human rights lawyer, but in fact she's living with a war criminal.
And now, after his conversion to Catholicism, his pièce de résistance, Blair urges bigger role for faith. He is fine material for a six-shilling novel.
But how cynical does it get? Here is a man who allowed torture flights to land in Britain, who collaborated with torture practices, started an illegal war, has been responsible for the killing of thousands of people, and he has the temerity, the indecency, the arrogance to tell us there should be a bigger role for faith. It shows how deep our civilization has sunk.
Blair is one of the architects of the new cold war. In fact, it is not cold at all. People are already dying. Revolutions are financed (Georgia, Poland, Chechnya, Tibet), wars are fought (remember Yugoslavia?) by the US and Britain, and plans are being made to encircle the enemy, no it's not al-Qaeda, but Russia and China, the economic 'threat'. A missile 'defense' system will be put up on the borders of Russia. If that is not a threat to Russia, I don't know what is.
The guns are put in place and the ideological support is being concocted.
In his new book Edward Lucas is accusing Russia of being a threat. After all, while the hatred for Russians is still hot, why not take advantage of it? Even Russia's own satellite 'snoopers' are seen as a threat, while right across Russia's border US missiles are installed. Lucas's new book is all agit-prop of the worst kind, of course. It's meant as a sensibilization of the gullible Westerner to accept the new cold war. The usual trick is to accuse the 'enemy' of what you are doing yourself.
Lucas has written The New Cold War. And guess who's the danger again? Yes, Russia. Putin is supposed to be responsible for the rise of oil prices, Putin is accused of harbouring in his government oligarchs who control the Russian economy, etc. etc.
Mr Lucas wants to whitewash the Bush regime. It is clear that the rise in oil prices is the result of the war in Iraq. Moreover, it's the US oligarchs who are profiteering from it immensely. Then, if Russia is now capitalist and the Russian top is involved in the Russian economy, what difference is there with the US, where the involvement of government and military with industry is even greater? The US wanted capitalism in Russia, they got it, but now Mr Lucas is still not satisfied. Of course not, the purpose of the US neocons was to grab the Russian industry and resources, and have a puppet president installed like Yeltsin who caters to their US needs. Putin is a danger for the greedy financial interests of the Western neocons, British and American, and that is why the US and UK governments are actively working towards the overthrow of all governments that want their resouces to benefit their own nation.
Never before have politics in the West been so dirty. Britain is supporting some pretty obnoxious parties in Russia. The same procedure is used as in Afghanistan where the Taliban were practically created by the West to fight the Russians.
And the Bush administration is the most corrupt ever.
A huge propaganda campaign is being put on the rails, and it involves Litvinenko and other so-called 'dissidents', strangely enough most of them also oligarchs with a KGB past (I guess Mr Lucas is not against these criminals who want to grab power in Russia).
And significant 'mistakes' are being made all the time.
"The Defense Department announced on Tuesday that it mistakenly shipped non-nuclear components for an intercontinental ballistic missile to Taiwan but has recovered them and launched an investigation."
Also the 9/11 event is still riddled with anomalies.
CommonDreams: "Last week, during a question-and-answer session following a speech he delivered San Francisco, Attorney General Michael Mukasey revealed a startling and extremely newsworthy fact. As I wrote last Saturday, Mukasey claimed that, prior to 9/11, the Bush administration was aware of a telephone call being made by an Al Qaeda Terrorist from what he called a 'safe house in Afghanistan' into the U.S., but failed to eavesdrop on that call.
If the Attorney General of the United States, out of the blue, makes an extraordinary and new assertion in a public speech about an easy opportunity the Bush administration had to detect those attacks - an opportunity he claims was lost because of eavesdropping laws - Hamilton ought to say whether the Commission was ever told about this incident and/or whether Mukasey is telling the truth. Preventing high government officials from lying about the 9/11 attacks or exposing concealment of key 9/11 facts is his obligation as Vice Chairman of the Commission. Some type of comment from 9/11 Commission officials on Mukasey's claims is vital for generating further attention to this story and for compelling Mukasey to account for what he said."
And what about the American Dream? What exactly is it? Has it come true?
IPS: "Dr. Martin Luther King recognized that the next phase in the African-American's quest for civil rights and equality was one that would focus on the economic divide between the wealthiest Americans, the working class, and those in poverty. King's analysis of economic inequality as the foundation of racial inequality remains as valid today as it was 40 years ago.
40 Years Later: The Unrealized American Dream examines the progress in and challenges to economic equality between African Americans and whites since April 4, 1968 using data from the US Census Bureau, the Economic Policy Institute, the Survey of Consumer Finances, and other sources. Findings conclude that despite educational advances, economic equality for African Americans is still a dream, not a reality."
Of course, African Americans and the poor are the basic material for cannon fodder. When, or if, they come home from one of the neocons' wars they don't even get proper health care.
Lefti: "At least eight Californians die every day because they don't have health insurance.
An estimated 3,100 adults in the state died in 2006 because they lacked insurance and either couldn't afford the care they needed, got substandard care or got treatment after it was too late, determined researchers with Families USA, a national health care advocacy organization based in Washington.
The national Institute of Medicine concluded that between 2001 and 2004, a lack of insurance caused roughly 18,000 deaths nationwide per year."
TomDispatch: "In Iraq, in Afghanistan, and at home, the position of the globe's 'sole superpower' is visibly fraying. The country that was once proclaimed an 'empire lite' has proven increasingly light-headed. The country once hailed as a power greater than that of imperial Rome or imperial Britain, a dominating force beyond anything ever seen on the planet, now can't seem to make a move in its own interest that isn't a disaster. The Iraq government's recent offensive in Basra is but the latest example with - we can be sure - more to come."
DieZeit: "Das Unbehagen am Kapitalismus wächst. Nicht einmal Manager vertrauen noch dem Markt. Gerät nun das ganze System ins Wanken?"
"The unease about capitalism is growing. Even managers don't trust the market system any longer. Is the whole system collapsing?"
Zeit: "Karl Marx predicted it. Capitalism nowadays functions exactly as he described it. Wherever the great world builder turns up, not one stone remains upon another. Here capitalism has milk and honey flowing, there it creates misery. Here it builds, there it destroys. Nothing remains as it was."
"Doch wer sagt eigentlich, dass westliche Demokratien auf diese neue Herausforderung genauso reagieren werden wie bei der Systemkonkurrenz mit dem Kommunismus? Wer sagt, dass sie auf die Freiheit setzen, um dem autoritären Ausbeutungskapitalismus Paroli zu bieten? Es könnte auch ganz anders kommen. Politische Eliten und rechte Intellektuelle könnten aus der ökonomisch verursachten Legitimationskrise der Demokratie die Lehre ziehen, dass auch der liberale Kapitalismus endlich autoritärer werden und durch Demokratieverzicht neue ökonomische Triebkräfte entfesseln muss."
"But who says that Western democracies will react to this challenge exactly like with the system competition with communism? Who says that they are putting their money on freedom to counteract the authoritarian exploitative capitalism? It can turn out quite differently. Political elites and right-wing intellectuals could draw the lesson from the economically created crisis of legitimacy that also the liberal capitalism must finally become more authoritarian and engage new driving forces by abandoning democracy."
So that is our future: totalitarianism, exactly that what the present crooks and liars are saying they are fighting against.
Capitalism has lost all legitimacy. The question is when the supporting system of money, banks and wars will collapse. It can take time, but it will eventually.
12:26:24 PM
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Friday, March 28, 2008 |
Geert Wilders' film is out.
Just a few preliminary thoughts on this.
Quoting the Koran and highlighting some dubious sentences is not really convincing. The Bible too contains some unpalatable stuff.
Then we see the WTC attack for the umpteenth time. I still ask myself why the US government did everything to prevent intercepting the 'hijackers'. Too much remains uncertain.
Moreover, which countries have wreaked havoc all over the world for decades? Yes, the US and Britain, and they are still going at it. Millions of people have been murdered with the help of the CIA and US governments, from South America to Asia, from Argentina to Vietnam. So what is the main source of violence nowadays? It's the neocon United States. And presidents like George W. Bush also say 'Gott mit uns!'. He calls himself a 'Christian', but allows torture, and thinks he is above national and international law. And that is not typical of just one president. The US is convinced of its droit de seigneur, its right to invade and pillage any country without any accountability to the United Nations and its charter.
Guardian: "US courts are not bound by the international court of justice or by direct orders from the president, the supreme court ruled today when it refused to allow a fresh hearing for a Mexican on death row."
The US supplied Saddam Hussein with weapons and the Taliban with weapons and extremist propaganda for 'strategic' purposes, and so in fact created them. Now they are fighting the spectre they let loose themselves. It's cynical and mad.
10:44:02 AM
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Tuesday, March 25, 2008 |
Michael Moore: "It would have to happen on Easter Sunday, wouldn't it, that the 4,000th American soldier would die in Iraq. Play me that crazy preacher again, will you, about how maybe God, in all his infinite wisdom, may not exactly be blessing America these days. Is anyone surprised?"
Send Us Not Our Grandchildren: "10 grandmothers and supporters, ages 57 to 80, tried to enlist in the US Army at an Atlanta recruiting office on St. Paddy's Day. Following the nurturing instincts of grandmas everywhere, they offered to replace young Americans in harm's way in Iraq. When their generous offer was refused, these gritty grannies stood their ground. 'We insist! We enlist!' When will the paddy wagons go to the White House for the real criminals?"
If you would like to make a contribution to the Atlanta Grandmothers for Peace Legal Defense Fund, send checks to:
Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition/Atlanta
P.O. Box 133016
Atlanta GA 30333
On the memo line, write Grandmothers Legal Defense.
Compare those peacefully protesting granmas to the violently rampaging, looting and killing Tibetan monks, and you'll see which police intervention is justified or not.
RawStory: "Associated Press president Tom Curley says his news organization does not buy the government's argument that one of its photographers arrested in Iraq was working on behalf of the enemy, and he alleged the US is rounding up journalists in an attempt to control information."
Reuters: "More than 200 people were arrested across the United States on Wednesday as protesters marking the fifth anniversary of the U.S. invasion of Iraq obstructed downtown traffic and tried to block access to government offices."
Guardian: "Somewhere in the Middle East, Jesus Christ is strapped to a bench, his head wrapped in clingfilm. He furiously sucks against the plastic. A hole is pierced, but only so that a filthy rag can be stuffed back into his mouth. He is turned upside down and water slowly poured into the rag. The torturer whispers religious abuse. If you are God, save yourself you fucking idiot. Fighting to pull in oxygen through the increasingly saturated rag, his lungs start to fill up with water. Someone punches him in the stomach.
Perhaps this is how we ought to be re-telling the story of Christ's passion. For ever since the cross became a piece of jewellery, it has been drained of its power to sicken. Even before this the Romans had taken their hated instrument of torture and turned it into the logo of a new religion. Few makeovers can have been so historically significant. The very secular cross was transformed into a sort of club badge for Christians, something to be proud of.
Two weeks ago, the most powerful Christian in the world vetoed a bill that would have made it illegal for the CIA to use waterboarding on detainees. 'We need to ensure our intelligence officials have all the tools they need to stop the terrorists,' said George Bush in a passable impersonation of Pontius Pilate. 'This is no time for Congress to abandon practices that have a proven track record of keeping America safe.'"
10:31:10 AM
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Friday, March 21, 2008 |
Reuters: "The U.S. dollar's value is dropping so fast against the euro that small currency outlets in Amsterdam are turning away tourists seeking to sell their dollars for local money while on vacation in the Netherlands."
5:12:11 PM
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Thursday, March 20, 2008 |
CNBC: "A British judge has lifted a $12 billion freeze on Venezuelan assets awarded to U.S. oil major Exxon Mobil in a spat over a seized oil project.
An English court had frozen the assets of Venezuela's state oil company in January so cash would be available if Exxon won arbitration over an oil project which was lost in President Hugo Chavez's nationalization drive."
11:01:40 AM
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A small demonstration of ten Tibetans in say Seattle gets loads of attention in the media. When thousands and thousands of people protest against the war in Iraq, you won't find much on the mainstream media in the US or the neocon Netherlands.
FAIR: "Dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars gathered in Silver Spring, Maryland last weekend for the Winter Soldier: Iraq and Afghanistan hearings (3/13/08-3/16/08), where they offered harrowing testimony about atrocities they had witnessed or participated in directly. The BBC predicted that the event, organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War, 'could be dominating the headlines around the world this week' (3/7/08). The hearings were covered as far afield as the U.K. (Guardian, 3/17/08), Australia (Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 3/14/08), Croatia (Javno, 3/16/08), and Iran (Press TV, 3/14/08). Yet there has been an almost complete media blackout on this historic news event in the U.S. corporate media."
Iraq veterans against the war.
Guardian: "If George Bush and Tony Blair had presided as CEOs over deceptive and fraudulent practices in the City comparable to those they are guilty of with regard to Iraq, they would have been immediately and unceremoniously sacked.
Five years on, the legacy of the Iraq war is now clear. Let us look at the balance sheet.
Based on an extrapolation from the figures of the Lancet study, more than 1 million Iraqi civilians have died - a figure that might even eclipse the genocide in Rwanda.
In terms of casualties, 3979 US soldiers have died to date, and almost 30,000 have been seriously wounded.
Four million refugees have been created. Two million of these have fled the country altogether; 2 million have been internally displaced."
Ah well, Tony Bliar is probably having a cigar and reading one of his Wodehouse books, about the 'splendid idyll' that was, don't you know. And George, well, George actually doesn't read very much.
WallStreetJournal: "America's decision to topple Saddam Hussein has left Iraqis a people uprooted. Iraq's Ministry of Health estimates that 180,000 Iraqis have been killed; other estimates put the numbers much higher.
An estimated four million Iraqis - over 14% of the country's population - have been displaced inside Iraq or to neighboring countries, largely due to the chaotic aftermath of the American-led invasion that began on March 19, 2003."
IHT: "British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said in a letter published Monday that the U.K. will hold an inquiry into the Iraq war - but not soon."
Gordon has first to finish one of his Wodehouse books first, probably. Right Ho, Jeeves!
But the disgruntlement among soldiers (the real ones, not the toy-boys like Harry) and veterans is growing.
ON: "It's an old story in America. During the civil war the weapons corporations delivered inferior rifles to the soldiers of the Union army and they maximized their profits. We see the same thing happening today in Iraq and Afghanistan."
AlterNet: "Not so long ago in the United States, presidentially sanctioned assassinations abroad were illegal. But that was then, this is so now. Nonetheless, it's a fact that the 'right' to missile, bomb, shell, 'decapitate', or assassinate those we declare to be our enemies, without regard to borders or sovereignty, is based on nothing more than the power to do it. This is simply the 'right' of force (and of technology). If the tables were turned, any American would recognize such acts for the barbarism they represent."
10:53:29 AM
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Thursday, March 13, 2008 |
Beyond-Petrol: "Old and new communication techniques are permitting oil companies to communicate 'green' while delivering the same huge value to stockholders."
The truth behind the facade.
Ex-DEA Head Admits CIA Imported Cocaine
The privatization of war and government:
FreeInternetPress: "The Carlyle Group, one of the world's largest private equity funds, may soon acquire the $2 billion government contracting business of consulting giant Booz Allen Hamilton, one of the biggest suppliers of technology and personnel to the U.S. government's spy agencies. Carlyle manages more than $75 billion in assets and has bought and sold a long string of military contractors since the early 1990s. In recent years it has significantly reduced its investments in that industry. If it goes ahead with the widely reported plan to buy Booz Allen, it will re-emerge as the owner of one of America's largest private intelligence armies."
Bush the torturer:
Reuters: "President George W. Bush on Saturday vetoed legislation passed by Congress that would have banned the CIA from using waterboarding and other controversial interrogation techniques."
10:51:52 AM
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5YearsTooMany: "March 19th offers a unique opportunity for our movement to grow after 5 years of war. We know there are key pillars of support that enable this illegal and immoral war for oil and global domination to continue. On March 19th we will take nonviolent direct action to disrupt each of these key pillars in Washington DC and in communities across this country. In what we hope will be an unprecedented day of collective action and solidarity we will take a variety of actions over a 24-hour period to commemorate 5 years of war."
AlterNet: "This week, on March 13-16, a new generation of Winter Soldiers - veterans of the conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq - will descend on the nation's capitol to tell America in their own words what they saw during their service in the 'war on terror', the Bush administration's signature policy."
Iraq Veterans Against War.
10:37:38 AM
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© Copyright 2008 Hetty Litjens.
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