GUANTANAMO
By Gary Corseri

Scratching their poems on styrofoam cups,
The orange jumpsuits pass them along,
Under the scorched-out Cuban sun, through bars,
Telling themselves—and reminding the world—
They are men, and this Inquisition
Also must pass, this auto da fe,
Flushed down history’s manhole,
Must bring shame in the Later Years
When men and women re-tell the past—
La Conquista, the Crusades, the Slaughter
Of the Innocents—all the lost causes.

There in the cups, drops of Christ’s blood
Appear out of nowhere, mingle with the tears
Of God, of Mohammed—the shepherd boys
Tending their flocks, dreaming under white-hot stars.
What distant fires illuminate their lives

On what worlds reaching beyond this hothouse?

Here is grief and love and hatred mixed
In bitter cups to be drunk at once
Tossing the head back carelessly; here is
The taste of this world—what we have become.
Does it go down easy, cause revulsion,
Trip-wire the memory? Does anything
Ever come to anything more than a dream
Of home, struggle, certainties of Truth,
A mother’s, father’s, lover’s, friend’s or child’s embrace?

Gary Corseri has posted/published work at Cyrano’sJournalOnline, ThomasPaine’sCorner, DissidentVoice, CounterPunch, CommonDreams, The New York Times, Village Voice, The Digest and over 200 other venues worldwide. He can be reached at garycorseri@gmail.com.
http://www.bestcyrano.org/THOMASPAINE/?p=113

ON REVOLUTION

" A RICH TAPESTRY THAT INCLUDES THE DARKNESS OF CARAVAGGIO AND THE LIGHT AND COLOR OF RENOIR. OURS TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO TAKE THE BEST OF WHAT WE'VE DONE AND KEEP IMPROVING, REFINING UNTIL WE TRANSCEND OUR BRUTISHNESS."
Gary Corseri

IRAQ
U.N. Security Council Dissolves Unit Looking for Iraqi Arms
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/29/AR200706...
The U.N. Security Council voted 14 to 0 Friday to immediately shut down the U.N. weapons-inspection unit for Iraq, drawing to a close 16 years of international scrutiny of Iraq's nuclear, chemical and biological weapons programs.The action ended more than four years of political deadlock between the United States and Russia over the fate of the inspection effort. Russia abstained, citing U.S. and British refusal to permit the inspectors to provide a final report confirming Iraq's disarmament. The resolution -- sponsored by the United States and Britain -- offers no formal judgment on the status of Iraq's weapons program. Instead, it refers to the findings of a CIA inspection team that concluded in 2004 that there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq

"Captain, you better get this down right now, boy! We're here to spread American democracy and the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ!"

Oil and turmoil an imperial mix in Iraq
By Ameen Izzadeen
The Iraq invasion had little to do with disarming Saddam. The war plan suited the agenda of the US capitalists, especially the oil and military supply industries... It suited Israel's strategic interest and it was appealing to the Bushite Christians — the likes of Jerry Farwell and Pat Robertson, who spread hatred against Islam. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17974.htm

"Let me tell you something. I've seen fascism up close and personal. . . . Not if, but when, it comes to America, fascism will be wrapped in the American flag carrying a cross."
Sinclair Lewis
both quotes above from Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein, founder and president of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation, Enlisting Christ: Not on my Watch
http://www.buzzflash.com/articles/articles/contributors/1124>

U.S.-tailored Iraqi Oil Alarm for Producers, Consumers
By Nicola Nasser
http://www.nilemedia.com/Columnists/Guest/2007/January/Nasser.html
While the Iraqis were busy counting their death toll of more than 650,000 since March 2003...After listening to the monotonous and incredible U.S. lies for four years about “we are not there for Iraq's oil,” the oil truth is now unfolding. Without a military victory the U.S. occupation of Iraq seems to be about to grab its oil prize by establishing a new sharing arrangement between a major national producer and the multi-national giants, an arrangement that Washington plans to set as the model to be followed both by the oil-rich region and the world at large.
This prize has been the dream of the successive U.S. administrations; on January 18, it came one step closer to reality when Iraq's Oil Committee approved the new draft hydrocarbon law, sent it to the cabinet within a week and, when approved, will go to the parliament immediately thereafter.
The early draft of the law was prepared by BearingPoint American consultants, hired by the Bush administration, and sent to the White House and major western petroleum corporations in July, and then to the International Monetary Fund two months later, while most Iraqi legislators and public remained in the dark. The approved production-sharing agreements (PSAs) favor investing foreign oil companies with 70 percent of oil revenue to recoup their initial outlay, then companies can reap 20 percent of the profit without any tax or other restrictions on their transfers abroad. [...]

IRAQ'S DOOMED 'SURGE' ONLY WIDENS GATES OF HELL
K Gajendra Singh
... In Iraq it is a question of naked illegal aggression followed by brutal occupation against the will of the people. The overall cause for eternal disaffection in the Middle East remains exploitation of Arab oil and its wealth by US led West in collaboration with local puppets regimes since colonial days , establishment of the state of Israel, for the crimes of Europe and others in the West, in the heart of the middle East , to act as the west's brutal and lawless bully. These are the existential reasons for anger, angst, insurgency , rebellion and for a fight against occupation and another war for independence in Iraq ( after the first against Britain in the last century ), to obtain freedom from foreign troops and their collaborators.. http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34176

"Under this plan Iraq would cease to exist"
"CIVIL WAR" TO CONQUER IRAQI RESISTANCE: MAJOR OBSTACLE to U.S. CONTROL of M.E. A NECESSARY STEP TOWARD U.S. GLOBAL HEGEMONY

As though this is some new scholarly solution to US defeat by Iraqi Resistance that is a hard sell to the administration:
Scholars Recommend Dividing Iraq Into 3
By BARRY SCHWEID
AP Diplomatic Writer
With President Bush's war strategy clouded by limited results and mounting casualties, two scholars are proposing a partition plan that would divide Iraq into three main regions. The authors, Edward P. Joseph of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, are hoping to draw the attention of Bush administration policymakers. The three main spheres proposed in the report would be Shiite, Sunni and Kurdistan. The Kurds already control Kurdistan.
http://www.timesdaily.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070705/APA/707050...

Biden supports three-part Iraq split
Plan maintains limited central government
Biden and Gelb, president emeritus of the nonpartisan Council on Foreign Relations, introduced their five-point plan for Iraq in a May 2006 op-ed piece in the New York Times. http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070304/NEWS/7...

why "sectarian strife", "al-Qaeda" & other BIG LIES are made-in-USA
The Case for 'Soft Partition' in [OF] Iraq
Saban Center Analysis, Number 12, June 2007
Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University
http://www.brookings.edu/printme.wbs?page=/fp/saban/analysis/june2007ira...

Edward P. Joseph, Visiting Scholar and Professorial Lecturer, Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies, Johns Hopkins University Michael E. O'Hanlon, Senior Fellow, Foreign Policy Studies
The time may be approaching when the only hope for a more stable Iraq is a soft partition of the country. Soft partition would involve the Iraqis, with the assistance of the international community, dividing their country into three main regions. Each would assume primary responsibility for its own security and governance, as Iraqi Kurdistan already does. Creating such a structure could prove difficult and risky. Indeed, soft partition in many ways simply responds to current realities on the ground, particularly since the February 2006 bombing of the Samarra mosque, a major Shi'i shrine, dramatically escalated intersectarian violence. If the U.S. troop surge, and the related effort to broker political accommodation through the existing coalition government of Prime Minister Nuri al-Maliki fail, soft partition may be the only means of avoiding an intensification of the civil war and growing threat of a regional conflagration. While most would regret the loss of a multi-ethnic, diverse Iraq, the country has become so violent and so divided along ethno-sectarian lines that such a goal may no longer be achievable.
It would require new negotiations, the formation of a revised legal framework for the country, the creation of new institutions at the regional level, and the organized but voluntary movement of populations. View Full Paper (PDF—638kb)

Following are 2 of many pieces of evidence that destroying Iraq and (all Arab national sovereignty and resistance to U.S. control) has long been planned
1] U.S. Considers Dividing Iraq Into Three Separate States After Saddam Is Gone
FORECASTS & TRENDS, Oct 1, 2002 http://www.profutures.comarticle.php/91/%20
Stratfor.com http://www.stratfor.com/ reports that one of the leading long-term strategies being considered by US war planners is to divide Iraq into three separate regions. Under this plan Iraq would cease to exist. [empasis added]
Stratfor says that such a plan reportedly was discussed at an unusual meeting between Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan and pro-US Iraqi Sunni opposition members in London in July. Further, they say that in September, the Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, stated that the US goal in Iraq was to create a United Hashemite Kingdom that would encompass Jordan and Iraq's Sunni areas. Also, Israeli terrorism expert Ehud Sprinzak recently echoed this sentiment on Russian television on September 24.
So whose idea is this? According to Stratfor, Sprinzak stated that the authors of the "Hashemite" plan are Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, both considered the most hawkish of Bush administration officials.[...]

2] 2004 Rand study “U.S. Strategy in the Muslim World After 9/11”
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali, exec. editor American Muslim Perspective
http://www.amperspective.com/html/neo_orientalists.html
Rand study titled “U.S. Strategy in the Muslim WorldAfter 9/11” suggests exploiting Sunni, Shiite and Arab, non-Arab divides to promote the US policy objectives inthe Muslim world. [...]

TERROR WAR MADE-IN-USA

"Top terrorist Ayman al-Zawahri makes plea for unity"
A new video by al-Qaida's deputy leader Thursday left no doubt about what the terrorist network claims is at stake in Iraq, describing it as a centerpiece of its anti-American fight and insisting the Iraqi insurgency is under its direct leadership.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003776814_iraq06.html

Al-Qaeda In Iraq Bush's Creation
By Bill Gallagher
http://niagarafallsreporter.com/gallagher321.html
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17967.htm
...The growth in the number of sorry souls buying the Saddam-Sept. 11 lie may be the result of the word games the White House and Pentagon use to sell the failed surge and the futile occupation of Iraq.
When people hear "al-Qaeda," it's natural that they think of Osama bin Laden and the Sept. 11 attacks. The insurgency, sectarian violence and opposition to the U.S. occupation in Iraq are not about fighting al-Qaeda, but that's how Bush's fiasco there is being branded.
McClatchy Newspapers' Baghdad correspondent Mike Drummond exposed the sinister rhetorical shift, noting in a recent report, "U.S. forces continue to battle Shiite militia in the south, as well as Shiite militia and Sunni insurgents in Baghdad. Yet America's most wanted enemy at the moment is Sunni al-Qaeda in Iraq. The Bush administration's recent shift toward calling the enemy in Iraq 'al-Qaeda' rather than an insurgency may reflect the difficulty in maintaining support for the war at home more than it does the nature of the enemy in Iraq."

In a major speech at the National War College last week, Bush mentioned al-Qaeda 27 times. McClatchy's Jonathan Landley reports, "Bush called al-Qaeda in Iraq the perpetrator of the worst violence racking that country and said it was the same group that carried out the 9/11 attacks."

Pure crap. Al-Qaeda has become a generic name, in many cases a self-proclaimed label for foes of the U.S. invasion. Since some of the Iraqi Sunnis started calling themselves "al-Qaeda in Iraq" or "al-Qaeda in Mesopotamia," the Bush propaganda ministry saw an opportunity to conflate the invasion of Iraq with the Sept. 11 attacks.
Bush went on to claim, "Al-Qaeda is the main enemy for Shia, Sunni and Kurds alike. Al-Qaeda is responsible for the most sensational killings in Iraq. They're responsible for the sensational killings on U.S. soil." Those are demonstrable lies. Bush hardly mentioned sectarian violence. U.S. military intelligence even disputes Bush's wild claims. All of this is intentional and meant to deceive and distort. ...
The true ties involving Iraq, deadly chemical weapons and the United States rarely get a mention. Saddam's allies in killings tens of thousands of Kurds included Ronald Reagan, George H.W. Bush, Donald Rumsfeld, Robert Gates and others. Reagan as president, Bush as vice president, Rumsfeld as special envoy to the Middle East and Gates as a senior CIA officer all provided help and support for Saddam's murderous assaults on his own people.

The Iraqi Special Tribunal has sentenced Saddam's cousin Ali Hassan al-Majid to death. Known as "Chemical Ali," he was the point-man in using chemical weapons first on Iranian troops during the Iraq-Iran war, and then later on Iraqi Kurds supporting the Iranians. ... What none of the reporters mentioned, however, was that when Saddam and Chemical Ali and the rest of the Saddam killers were doing their worst, the U.S. governments of Ronald Reagan and later George Bush Senior were their de facto allies, providing them with vital satellite intelligence, weapons and financing, while shielding them from U.N. investigations or efforts by the U.S. Congress to impose trade sanctions for their depredations."

Robert Parry, who broke many of the Iran-Contra stories for AP, wrote, "Hussein's silence was golden for the international arms dealers who supplied his regime and the foreign officials who facilitated the shipments." So when the "brutal dictator" -- as George W. liked to call him -- was sent to the gallows, Bush the Elder, Rumsfeld and Gates "were among those who could breathe a little easier after the hangman's noose had choked the life out of Hussein," Parry concluded. Bin Laden never had any kind of relationship with Saddam, but many intimates of our president did. So far, they have been able to choke the life out of that truth.
Bill Gallagher, a Peabody Award winner, is a former Niagara Falls city councilman who now covers Detroit for Fox2 News. His e-mail address is gallaghernewsman@sbcglobal.net

"The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media"
former CIA Director William Colby in Bernstein's 10/77 Rolling stone article

“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years . . . It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated now and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto determination practiced in past centuries” David Rockefeller. Bilderberg meeting, Germany, June 1991

"Al-Qaeda", Eternal Covert Operation: British "Terror" Incident Product of "War on Terror" Propaganda
by Larry Chin
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=CHI20070...
Global Research, July 5, 2007
It is a well-established and deliberately unaddressed historical fact that the CIA created "radical Islam" and Islamic "terrorism" during the Cold War. It is also a documented fact that the US, its allies, and their intelligence agencies (CIA, Pakistan’s ISI, Britain’s MI-6, [Mossad], etc.) have -- from the 1970s to the present day -- continued to use and guide terrorist groups, including "Al-Qaeda," as intelligence and propaganda assets. "Islamic terrorism" is a manufactured weapon of Western geostrategy, serving Anglo-American interests.

Planned covert operations and false flag operations using "terrorists" in direct and indirect military-intelligence roles are of imperial design. Such operations, exemplified by 9/11, and their predictable propaganda results ("the war on terrorism") are now routine events.

Official "war on terrorism" disinformation is repeated ad nauseum, accepted as fact by the mass populace, and used as the justification for ever-expanding Anglo-American war and ever-deepening criminality. Virtually no attention is paid to the Anglo-American support and management of "Al-Qaeda" and other "terror" groups. Little or no attention is devoted to the criminally fabricated nature of modern "terrorism" or the fact that every major "terrorism" event in recent times has been a US or US-allied covert operation, followed by political manipulation and cover-up.

September 11 was a false flag operation. The Mumbai transit bomb attack was a covert operation carried out by terror cells directly connected to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence, the ISI (a virtual branch of the American CIA), and the same (alleged "Al-Qaeda") apparatus. The London 7/7 attack was the work of

British intelligence, as well as Pakistan's ISI. Previously foiled London terror incidents pin the responsibility on "homegrown" terrorists with ties to Pakistan and "Al-Qaeda," and London 7/7 .
While new details continue to emerge, the botched July 30, 2007, Glasgow Airport and June 28, 2007, London nightclub incendiary attacks bear a marked resemblance to every other post-9/11 "terrorism" false flag operation.

The political choreography of the Glasgow/London incident
Regardless of the actual case evidence to come, what is clear and obvious is the propaganda and political effect that has already been achieved by the aggressive Anglo-American response to the events (violence that may have involved their own intelligence agencies and proxies).
Even before the fires at Glasgow Airport were put out, official accounts and worldwide media reports had already forcefully declared the event to be the work of "Al-Qaeda" and "Islamic extremists." The new British prime minister, Gordon Brown, quickly declared, "We are dealing, in general terms, with people who are associated with al Qaeda," and immediately enacted a draconian "security" agenda in the UK. The Telegraph attributed the incident to an "unknown Al-Qaeda terrorist cell thought to be preparing to launch a series of Baghdad-style car bombings."
An ABC account of the foiled London night club attacks suggests that there was foreknowledge (a typical aspect of all recent false flag events), and that warnings were issued by unnamed intelligence operatives weeks in advance, and that "Al Qaeda had targeted nightclubs and other soft targets" using cars laden with gasoline and propane cylinders. The ABC report concludes: "All of this comes just three weeks after what was described as an al-Qaeda graduation ceremony for suicide bombers at a training camp in Pakistan. A video obtained by ABC News shows commanders sending teams of 50 to 60 men to the United States, Canada, Germany and Great Britain."

Another piece from the Telegraph suggests that the US was already involved in steering British authorities towards an "Al-Qaeda" conclusion. The article states: "reports from the US that the three men had been identified and known to be an associate of Dhiren Barot [a British Al-Qaeda detainee - LC], a suspected terrorist who had planned to set off bombs across London, were dismissed by government officials."
While the worldwide propaganda and "war on terrorism" policy effect has been largely uniform and aggressive, as of this writing, the actual case details have been wildly inconsistent, speculative, and even contradictory...At least eight arrests have been made, including at least six medical workers: Bilal Abdullah (an Iraqi doctor), Mohammed Asha, a Jordanian physician (of Palestinian origin) and his wife, and Khalid Ahmed (a doctor and colleague of Abdullah’s), Mohammed Haneef (an Indian doctor). Foreign nationals from Iraq, Jordan, India and Saudi Arabia have been rounded up and arrested in connection with the case. Asha’s family insists that he is innocent. Friends, family and colleagues of many of the suspects are also expressing shock and doubt. Prime Minister Brown has begun a sweeping profiling operation of all Muslim medical personnel.

According to the July 4 Los Angeles Times, "officials have still not determined whether a foreign terrorist group sent them to Britain or if they were recruited here (London)." The same piece declares, "one of more of the detainees may have been radicalized and in touch with extremist networks before arriving, while others may have been radicalized only after establishing themselves in Britain."
A July 3 article from the Los Angeles Times breathlessly speculates: "Although Islamic terror cells are often ethnically and sociologically diverse, the doctors’ background breaks with a pattern in a string of recent terror cases in England, including last year’s plot to bomb US-bound jets and the London transport bombings of 2005 . . . In contrast, the Middle Eastern angle could point at the Iraqi war theater, where a constellation of extremist networks operate -- among them an al Qaeda offshoot dominated by foreign fighters."
This coverage, like most Western media reporting, accepts official declarations without question, and strongly suggests the guilt of all suspects.
Of course, no mention is made regarding the key issue at the heart of every "terror" event, and at the heart of the entire post-9/11 world crisis: Anglo-American military-intelligence connections to "Al-Qaeda" and other "radical Islamic terror" groups.

Beneficiaries: Washington and London [digest note: and U.S. 'middle east' proxy Israel]
What is clear and predictable is that the British incidents, like all post-9/11 "terror," benefits the political agendas in Washington and London at a key moment, while undermining all political opposition to Anglo-American foreign and domestic policies:
Bush-Cheney and the equally complicit Democratic Party leadership is provided another justification to ramp up the "war on terrorism," and expand its intensifying world war and resource conquest, and step up of the pace of installing a police state within US borders. The Bush administration and its allies around the world have been planning a new 9/11 (blamed on "terrorists") that could create both a justification and an opportunity to retaliate against selected targets.
Britain’s incoming Gordon Brown government has been provided with a fresh London 7/7-9/11-style crisis around which it can now impose draconian police state measures upon the British people. Brown seamlessly inherits the "war on terrorism" agenda from war criminal and liar Tony Blair, and ups the ante. It is not clear if Brown’s ham-fisted actions are completely of his own design, to "appear tough" to his new constituents, or the result of pressure from Blair and Bush (who is "pleased" with Brown’s forceful response)....

Spreading Al-Qaeda everywhere
The British incidents come in the wake of a crescendo of "Al-Qaeda"-related events all over the world. Bush-Cheney’s "Al-Qaeda terror" propaganda is at full pre-Iraq invasion fervor.
A recent news search demonstrates the fact that "Al-Qaeda" activity is mushrooming, in Egypt, Pakistan-Iran, Spain, Iraq, Yemen, Gaza/Palestine, Afghanistan, Lebanon, as well as within the United States and the UK.
Given the true nature of "Al-Qaeda" as Anglo-American assets, this is a clear signal that Anglo-American covert operations are intensifying -- and that targets for the next round of Anglo-American wars are being lined up.

Al-Qaeda: eternal intelligence asset
The central issue of our time cannot be overemphasized: extensive historical (but ignored and covered-up) documentation establishes the fact that Al-Qaeda and Islamic "terrorism" are the creation as well as key instruments of Anglo-American military-intelligence, and Western geostrategy, managed and guided by the CIA, Pakistan’s ISI, Britain’s MI-6 and MI-5, etc.

No "terror" event, current or past, can be understood without a full inquiry against this context.

Books such as Michel Chossudovsky’s America's "War on Terrorism" and Michael C. Ruppert’s Crossing the Rubicon: The Decline of the American Empire at the end of the Age of Oil exhaustively detail this milieu.
As written by Michel Chossudovsky in America's "War on Terrorism", while "Islamic terrorists" are featured by the Bush administration and its allies as eternal threats, and blamed for every terror event including and since 9/11, "these same Islamic organizations constitute a key instrument of U.S. military-intelligence operations" all over the world.
"According to the CIA," writes Chossudovsky, "an ‘intelligence asset’ -- as distinct from a bona fide ‘intelligence agent’ -- need not be committed to the pursuit of U.S. interests. Rather, it is meant to act and/or behave in a way that serves U.S. foreign policy pursuits . . . Intelligence assets are invariably unaware of the precise functions and roles they are performing on behalf of the CIA on the geopolitical chessboard. In turn, for these covert operations to be ‘successful,’ the CIA will use various proxy and front organizations such as Pakistan’s extensive military intelligence apparatus (the ISI)."

A recently declassified French intelligence report details the extent to which "Al-Qaeda" and Osama bin Laden ran operations for the CIA. "Al-Qaeda" has also served multinational oil interests. Washington’s support and management of the "Militant Islamic Network", including "Al-Qaeda," has been continuous since the Carter administration, through the Bosnia/Kosovo/Macedonia NATO wars of the Clinton administration, and in full flower beginning with and since 9/11. "Al-Qaeda" as well as Al-Qaeda "foreign fighter hordes" propaganda is a key component of the Pentagon’s Iraq occupation and pacification program. Also see: "Who is Osama bin Laden?" and "Al-Qaeda: the database"

As written by Mike Ruppert in Crossing the Rubicon, "Great Britain -- one of the major players supporting the KLA in Kosovo -- also maintained secret relationships with bin Laden and al Qaeda that served its interests." Britain’s MI-6 funded and worked with Al-Qaeda to assassinate and overthrow Libya’s Muammar Qaddafy in 1996. Since 9/11, bin Laden was a guest of British intelligence, even as a wanted man. As noted by Ruppert, "a November 2002 UPI story by Arnaud de Borchgrave indicated not only that Pakistani ISI had helped Osama bin Laden escape from Afghanistan but also that the American government had deliberately paid little attention to offers from an Afghan warlord to pinpoint and capture the alleged mastermind of 9/11." The eternal cycle of real and manufactured murder and destruction since 9/11, from the false flag operations to the genocidal wars justified by "terrorism," has escalated beyond the ability of criminal governments to control and manage. It is now difficult, if not impossible, to distinguish assets of planned government covert operations from "homegrown" resistance and opposition to Anglo-America policy.

The idea of "blowback," the notion that terrorist assets have turned on their sponsors, is, however, bogus: Western intelligence has not severed its ties to "terrorists." The true "root cause" of "Islamic terrorism" remains Western manipulation and political guidance of "terror."

Al-Qaeda propaganda
As pointed out by Michel Chossudovsky in "The Anglo-American War of Terror: An Overview", the continuing US-led "war on terrorism" agenda rests squarely upon the perpetuation of the "Al-Qaeda" deception and the 9/11 lie, the perpetual threat of a fabricated outside enemy.
"Terrorism," from violent attacks against civilians to bogus "resistance movements" (made up of sponsored "Islamic terrorists") to pervasive propaganda and disinformation, undermines public support for all political opposition to Anglo-American foreign policy, and creates divisions within antiwar and peace movements.
More importantly, absolute control of mass populations is made possible by fear. Based on Pavlovian reactions to every new "terror" incident, the fear of "terrorists" and bone-deep racism inspired by Bush-Cheney’s manufactured 9/11 false flag operation remain tragically potent.

The imperial hand behind "radicalism"
Who or what is truly behind "Islamic terrorism" and "terror" catastrophes? Who or what created it, and funds, manages, nurtures and wields "terror"? Whose geostrategic interests have been exclusively served by "terror"? Whose political goals have been permanently destroyed? Cui bono? The answers lead directly t0 the highest levels in Washington, London, Tel Aviv, Islamabad, etc.
"Islamic terrorism" is a covert operation and a geostrategy. "Al-Qaeda" is a military-intelligence asset and a leading brand of war propaganda. [emphasis added]

DEJA VU
London Bombings and More - The "War on Terror" Facts Speak For Themselves
http://www.uruknet.info/?s1=1&p=24474&s2=08
Joe Quinn, Signs of the Times
One year ago, on the morning of July 7th 2005, someone detonated four carefully placed bombs in London. Three exploded on London underground trains within 50 seconds of each other at 8.50 am, the first on the sub-surface eastbound Circle Line, the second on the sub-surface westbound Circle Line, a third on the deep-level underground southbound Piccadilly Line. A fourth bomb exploded almost an hour later at 9.47 am on the upper deck of a double decker bus in Tavistock Square. Fifty two innocent British civilians were killed... Having initially believed that power surges in the underground power grid had caused explosions in power circuits, the British government quickly announced that this was a terrorist attack, and identified four ' home-grown Islamic suicide bombers' from CC camera footage of them allegedly entering Luton train station on the morning of July 7th.

Who Dunnit?
Later the same day, a claim of responsibility was made by a 'previously unknown group' calling itself 'The Secret Cell of al-Qaida of Jihad in Europe' and posted on an Islamic website. A little research turns up the following report from the UK Guardian which states:
"The claim of responsibility for the London attacks was first posted on one of the dozens of Islamic websites that are routinely 'monitored' by western intelligence services.
The statement, under the name of the Secret Organisation of the al-Qaida Jihad in Europe, said: "The heroic mujahideen have carried out a blessed raid in London. Britain is now burning with fear, terror and panic in its northern, southern, eastern and western quarters."
It was posted on an Arabic website, al-qal3ah.com, which is registered by Qalaah Qalaah in Abu Dhabi and hosted by a server in Houston. The Houston company that owns the server has intriguing connections. Everyone’s Internet was founded by brothers Robert and Roy Marsh in 1998 and by 2002 had an income of more than $30m (now about £17m).
Renowned for his charitable work, Roy Marsh counts among his friends President George Bush’s former sister-in-law, Sharon Bush...
Puppet on a String - 'al-Zawahiri'...[...]

in case you forgot...
Osama, Death Squads and the Biggest Lie Ever Told
Joe Quinn
http://signs-of-the-times.org/signs/editorials/signs20060704_OsamaDeathS...
... "Osama", "al-Qaeda", "al-Qaeda in Iraq", "al-Zarqawi" "al-Zawahiri" are, or were, all part of a US government psychological operation that pitched them as the likely suspects to take the blame for the US and Israeli government Middle Eastern predations, not to mention the imposition of a police state in the US and Britain...
...It has already been exposed that the killings and bombings are the work of "death squads" working out of the Iraqi interior ministry, which itself is entirely controlled by the CIA. Let me reiterate that in every war waged by the US government against a foreign nation, a counter-insurgency operation has immediately been implemented. Counter-insurgency operations are required in such circumstances because when a country is invaded, ! an insurgency of some form invariable arises to defend the country. Such insurgents are very difficult for an invading army to defeat given the extensive support and collaboration they enjoy from the general population. Essentially, an invading army finds itself at war with the population of the country they are invading rather than a separate and independent insurgency. Strategies developed over the years to deal with such situations has come to be known as "counter-insurgency", and include attempts to identify divisions within the society, usually religious, political or ethnic, however insignificant, and to then attempt to provoke these divisions...

CIA gives up "hunt for Osama"... A year ago
July 4, 2006
July 4 is always a special day for the United States, and today is no different -- although instead of celebrating past glories and canceled freedoms, today Americans are celebrating the utter failure of the U.S. government to capture the alleged mastermind behind the attacks of September 11, 2001. But that "failure" has been a terrific help to the Bush Administration, according to a shocking report released today. The CIA saw Bin Laden as "helping Bush's re-election," while the 9/11 attacks turned an unpopular, bumbling president who needed the Supreme Court to "elect" him into a "war president" who managed to barely win a second term. It was also revealed today that the CIA closed its special Osama bin Laden unit ... a whole year ago!

Only in a clumsily faked video put out by the Pentagon did "Bin Laden" even claim to have a few days' advance knowledge of the attacks -- the Pentagon, CIA, Justice Department, FBI and White House knew months in advance, while preparations for the attacks had been in the works for years.[see NORAD exercise had jet crashing into building Barbara Starr CNN Washington Bureau Monday, April 19, 2004
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- Sometime between 1991 and 2001, a regional sector of the North American Aerospace Defense Command simulated a foreign hijacked airliner crashing into a building in the United States as part of training exercise scenario, a NORAD spokesman said Monday.

No evidence ties al Qaida to recent bombing of a Shiite shrine
In a speech Thursday, President Bush called al Qaida the biggest threat in Iraq and said that al Qaida in Iraq was the same group that was responsible for the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. U.S. military spokesmen in Iraq also have begun citing al Qaida in Iraq more often after years of downplaying its importance.... Bush said the bombing "had all the hallmarks of al Qaida," while U.S. military officials in Baghdad say they have "indications" al Qaida was responsible.
On Friday, Gates said the June 13 attack on the al Askariya mosque in Samarra was one reason why U.S. forces are targeting the group. "I believe that it is al Qaida that has done the most in terms of trying to stoke sectarian violence, from the bombing of the Samarra mosque a year ago February to the second bombing of the mosque just a couple of weeks ago, and to try and provoke exactly the kind of reaction that happened after February of last year," Gates said. "So I think that at least in terms of the combat operations that we're conducting now, the principal enemy that they are facing is in fact al Qaida." But when a McClatchy reporter asked him about the assertion, Gates said that he knew of no hard evidence linking al Qaida in Iraq to the explosion. http://www.mcclatchydc.com/homepage/story/17530.html

U.S. Kills Worshippers During Prayer
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI)
The American occupation forces shelled Ahmad al-Moukhtar Mosque in Doura, south of Baghdad on Friday, 29 June 2007 by the military helicopters during the worshippers were going out from the Friday prayer. The bombardment led the killing of four civilians and wounding others. Near to al-Tawheed Mosque in al-Doura also attacked by these terrorist forces which killed two citizens, wounded four others while they were performing the Friday Prayer.... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34163

Capitalist Media Complicit in U.S. Genocidal War Crimes & Crimes Against Humanity
Killing 10,000 Iraqis a Month
...Certainly 300 Iraqis killed by Americans each day would be headline news, over and over again. And yet, the electronic and print media simply do not tell us that the U.S. is killing all these people. We hear plenty about car bombers and death squads, but little about Americans killing Iraqis...as independent journalist Nir Rosen described vividly and agonizingly in his indispensable book, In the Belly of the Green Bird, they involve a kind of energetic brutality that is only occasionally reported by an embedded American mainstream journalist.
This brutality is all very logical, once we understand the purpose and process of these patrols. American soldiers and marines are sent into hostile communities where virtually the entire population is supports the insurgency [SIC]. They often have a list of suspects' addresses; and their job is to interrorgate or arrest or kill the suspect; and search the house for incriminating evidence, particularly arms and ammunition, but also literature, video equipment, and other items that the insurgency depends upon for its political and military activities. When they don't have lists of suspects, they conduct "house-to-house" searches, looking for suspicious behavior, individuals or evidence.... any fighting age man is not just a suspect, but a potentially lethal adversary... "to break down doors, shoot at anything suspicious, and throw grenades into rooms or homes where there is any chance of resistance. If they encounter tangible resistance, they can call in artillery and/or air power rather than try to invade a building. Here is how two Iraqi civilians described these patrols to Asia Times reporter Pepe Escobar:"... the Americans usually come at night, sometimes by day, always protected by helicopters.' They "sometimes bomb houses, sometimes arrest people, sometimes throw missiles'"
If they encounter no resistance, these patrols can track down 30 or so suspects, or inspect several dozen homes, in a days work... 1000 or so patrols can invade 30,000 homes in a single day...
The Merriam Webster dictionary defines terror as "violent or destructive acts committed by groups in order to intimidate a population." The incident at Haditha was just such a violent act, and was one of about 100 that day that Lt. Mathes hoped would intimidate the population of Haditha and other towns in Iraq from continuing to support insurgents. http://www.counterpunch.org/schwartz07052007.html

U.S. Uses Drones Surges Over Iraq
LOLITA C. BALDOR, Associated Press Writer
The use of unmanned aircraft in Iraq has surged by nearly a third since the buildup of U.S. forces began early this year, and drones are now racking up more than 14,000 hours a month in the battlefield skies. The increase in unmanned aircraft - from high-altitude Global Hawks to short-range reconnaissance Ravens that soldiers fling into the air - has fueled a struggle among the military services over who will control their use and the more than $12 billion that will be spent on the programs over the next five years... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34269

'free press': state propaganda organs
Recycling Iraq Lies: The Washington Post and the Mysterious Miss Shelton
A. Alexander, Progressive Daily Beacon
Out of the blue, so it seemed, the Washington Post recently published an op-ed piece titled, "Iraq, al-Qaeda and Tenet's Equivocation." It was written by someone named Christina Shelton. As the author appeared to go out of her way to, in the most amateurish and laborious manner imaginable, rehash tired and thoroughly disproved tales of ties between Saddam's Iraq and al Qaeda; knowing who this Christina Shelton was, seemed central to understanding the true motivation behind the publication. Uncovering the identity of Christina Shelton, wasn't easy. The Post's recent piece said only that she was an "intelligence analyst at the Defense Intelligence Agency from 1984 to 2006." Which, perhaps, may be the understatement of the century. "Her boss, Douglas J. Feith, undersecretary of defense for policy and the point man on Iraq, was so impressed that he set up a briefing for Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, who was so impressed he asked her to brief CIA Director George J. Tenet in August 2002. By summer's end, Shelton had also briefed deputy national security adviser Stephen J. Hadley and Vice President Cheney's chief of staff, I. Lewis 'Scooter' Libby."
It seems rather odd that the Washington Post omitted the fact that this Christina Shelton was not only a member of the infamous Bush administration's pre-war Office of Special Plans (a small cadre of Bush-Cheney loyalists whose work has been entirely discredited as false, if not criminal), but, too, the paper failed to identify her as having played a key role in building the false case for going to war with Iraq. http://www.progressivedailybeacon.com/more.php?page=opinion&id=1592

Consider the Source: 'NYT' Reporter Targets Iran
http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/columns/pressingissues_display.jsp?vnu_co...
By Greg Mitchell
-- As if he hadn’t done enough damage already, helping to promote the American invasion of Iraq with deeply flawed articles in The New York Times, Michael R. Gordon is now writing scare stories that offer ammunition for the growing chorus of neo-cons calling for a U.S. strike against Iran – his most recent effort appearing just this morning...
The latest official effort to blame-blame Iran so that perhaps we can bomb-bomb Iran revolves around new claims by Brig. Gen. Kevin J. Bergner that the deaths of five American soldiers in Karbala in January were actually plotted by Iranian militants. Gordon’s breathless article first appeared on the Times’ site yesterday with absolutely no caveats – revealing his true motives and standards. "In effect, American officials are charging that Iran has been engaged in a proxy war against American forces for years," Gordon declared....
The story even has a lead character reminiscent of “Curveball” and “Baseball Cap Guy” from Judy Miller's reporting on Iraq in 2003.
Our new star informer is a Lebanese citizen named Ali Musa Daqdug aka “Hamid the Mute” who supposedly (this is all coming from Gen. Bergner) has a “24-year history in Hezbollah….The general said Mr. Daqdug had been sent by Hezbollah to Iran in 2005 with orders to work with the Quds Force, an elite unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, to train 'Iraqi extremists.'”
The Times article contains a number of howlers delivered with all seriousness. Here’s one: “General Bergner, seemingly keen to avoid a renewal of the criticism that the American command has used the allegations of Iranian interference here to lend momentum to the Bush administration’s war policy, declined to draw any broader political implications....”
That’s topped by this, in explaining that “Hamid the Mute” had suddenly started talking: “The official said the shift had been achieved without harming Mr. Daqduq. ‘We don’t torture,’ the official said. ‘We follow scrupulously the interrogation techniques in the Army’s new field manual, which forbids torture, and has the force of law.’”And who is Gen. Bergner? He arrived in Iraq just a few weeks ago from his previous job, as special assistant -- to President Bush in the White House. At his press conference on Monday, which supplied quotes for Gordon, he admitted he could not explain the motivation for the attack on the five U.S. soldiers; why the Iranians would feel any need to outsource to Hezbollah; or why they would risk this kind of "exposure."
The danger of the Times article -- given the prominence attached to it -- is real. For example, Sen. Joe Lieberman responded to the allegations by asserting that this means Iran "has declared war on us." [emphasis added] [...]

State terror privately owned and operated beyond public view or official accountability
U.S. has over 180, 000 contractors officially in Iraq plus the official 160,000count of troops now
4 ex-KBR workers sue over Iraq rape and sex harassment charges
By ROBERT CROWE Houston Chronicle
Four women who worked for Houston-based Halliburton Co.'s former subsidiary Kellogg Brown & Root have filed federal lawsuits against the companies, claiming they endured sexual harassment and, in two cases rape, while working in Iraq.

In Iraq, a Private Realm Of Intelligence- - Gathering Firm Extends U.S. Government's Reach
By Steve Fainaru and Alec Klein
Washington Post Foreign Service
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/30/AR200706...
BAGHDAD -- On the first floor of a tan building inside Baghdad's Green Zone, the full scope of Iraq's daily carnage is condensed into a 30-minute PowerPoint presentation. Displayed on a 15-foot-wide screen, the report is the most current intelligence on significant enemy activity...The intelligence was compiled not by the U.S. military, as might be expected, but by a British security firm, Aegis Defence Services Ltd. The Reconstruction Operations Center is the hub of Aegis's sprawling presence in Iraq and the most visible example of how intelligence collection is now among the responsibilities handled by a network of private security companies that work in the shadows of the U.S. military.
Aegis won its three-year, $293 million U.S. Army contract in 2004. The company is led by Tim Spicer, a retired British lieutenant colonel who, before he founded Aegis, was hired in the 1990s to help put down a rebellion in Papua New Guinea and reinstall an elected government in Sierra Leone. Several British and American firms have bid on the contract's renewal, which is worth up to $475 million and would create a force of about 1,000 men to protect the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on reconstruction projects. Protests have held up the award, which is expected soon.
The contract is the largest for private security work in Iraq... Contractors protect U.S. generals and key military installations and have served as prison guards and interrogators in facilities holding suspected insurgents, among other responsibilities...
Aegis's intelligence activities include battlefield threat assessments, the electronic tracking of thousands of private contractors on Iraq's dangerous roads, and community projects the company says are designed in part to win over "hearts and minds." The new contract calls for the hiring of a team of seasoned intelligence analysts with "NATO equivalent SECRET clearance." According to a summary of their responsibilities, the analysts are to conduct "analysis of foreign intelligence services, terrorist organizations, and their surrogates targetting DoD personnel, resources and facilities."

Known internally as Project Matrix, Aegis's U.S. Army contract has multiple aims. The company, for example, runs more than a dozen Reconstruction Liaison Teams in which contractors armed with assault rifles and traveling in armored SUVs visit reconstruction projects to assess their progress and the levels of insurgent activity. "Their mission is to provide 'ground truth' to the Army Corps," Clemens said. Aegis has also spent about $425,000 in company money and private donations on more than 100 small charity projects such as soccer fields and vaccination programs. The projects enable the company to build relationships in the communities in which it operates and gather information at the same time...
The company, for instance, spent $1,300 distributing tracksuits to girls' schools in an area of eastern Iraq where residents routinely pelted Aegis security teams with rocks, according to Justin Marozzi, Aegis's former director of civil affairs, who now is a London-based consultant. Through relationships forged on the project, the company learned of an insurgent cell that was working out of the governor's office, he said. The military "acted on" the tip, Marozzi said. He declined to elaborate.
Aegis recently launched a second charity to operate in Iraq and elsewhere called Hearts and Minds. The charity project "goes back to basic counterinsurgency doctrine," Clemens said. "You need local people on your side."

Aegis also provides on-demand "threat assessments for the people that travel the battlespace" throughout Iraq, said Robert Lewis, who directs Project Matrix as the company's chief of staff in Baghdad. One intelligence assessment, developed recently for the Army Corps of Engineers and provided independently to The Washington Post...

The military relies on private contractors to offset chronic troop shortages. "If we had a 2 million-man army, we wouldn't be having this conversation," said Ed Soyster, former director of the Defense Intelligence Agency. But the scope of the contractors' responsibilities is sometimes unclear, particularly in the area of intelligence-gathering. Singer, of the Brookings Institution, said intelligence contracting is growing "in a major, major way" with little government oversight....

In addition, Blackwater USA and DynCorp International, two of the largest security firms in Iraq and both American companies, refuse to participate in the Reconstruction Operations Center, essentially making their movements invisible to other private security firms....Three years ago, Aegis was an unlikely choice to run the center. The company had been co-founded in 2002 by Spicer, who commanded the 1st Battalion Scots Guards, a British army unit, and served in Northern Ireland, the Falkland Islands, the Persian Gulf War and Bosnia. Spicer titled his autobiography "An Unorthodox Soldier."
Spicer's experiences in Papua New Guinea and Sierra Leone are documented in multiple accounts, including Spicer's autobiography and Aegis's Web site.
In 1997, the government of Papua New Guinea hired Spicer and his former private military company, Sandline International, for $36 million to train and equip forces to put down a rebel movement that had closed a major copper mine. Rather than quelling the rebellion, Sandline's presence sparked civil unrest; Spicer was briefly jailed on a weapons charge that was subsequently dropped. The prime minister of the government that hired him soon fell...The following year, Sandline was contacted by an international businessman, Rakesh Saxena, to reinstate the elected government of Sierra Leone, which Saxena hoped would grant him diamond and mineral concessions. The operation was successful, but allegations that Spicer violated a U.N. weapons embargo caused a scandal that came to be known in Britain as the "Sandline Affair." Spicer says he conducted the operation with the British government's knowledge.
"Tim Spicer is a mercenary," said Robert Young Pelton, an adventure writer whose book "Licensed to Kill" is about the private security industry. "Didn't anyone Google him?" Spicer declined to be interviewed.

Blackwater brass forms intelligence company Total Intelligence Solutions
By BILL SIZEMORE, The Virginian-Pilot
http://content.hamptonroads.com/story.cfm?story=119833&ran=88794
Cofer Black, vice chairman of Blackwater USA, announced Tuesday the formation of a new CIA-type private company to provide intelligence services to commercial clients. The executive roster for the new venture, Total Intelligence Solutions, is loaded with veterans of U.S. intelligence agencies, including two other Blackwater officials.
Among the key personnel and their positions at Total Intelligence, which will be based in Alexandria:
*Black, chairman. He joined Blackwater two years ago after three decades in the CIA and State Department. He was director of the CIA's Counterterrorist Center and the State Department's coordinator for counterterrorism, a job with ambassador rank.
*Robert Richer, chief executive officer. He is vice president for intelligence at Blackwater and retired from the CIA in November 2005 as associate deputy director for operations.
*Enrique "Ric" Prado, chief operating officer. He is vice president of special government programs at Blackwater and a 24-year veteran of the CIA's Directorate of Operations, including 10 years with the agency's paramilitary Special Operations Group. In his last overt job with the CIA, Prado worked under Black as chief of operations for the Counterterrorist Center.
* Matthew Devost, president. He is an information security consultant and founding director of the Terrorism Research Center.
* Caleb "Cal" Temple, senior vice president for intelligence and analysis. A former FBI intelligence specialist, he was most recently chief of the Office of Intelligence Operations in the Defense Intelligence Agency.
Blackwater's primary specialties are tactical training and security, but it is no stranger to the intelligence world. The 10-year-old company's first security contract, awarded in 2002, was for a classified operation. In his book "Licensed to Kill: Hired Guns in the War on Terror," author Robert Young Pelton identified the company's client as the CIA.
The concept of marketing intelligence services to commercial clients is not new, Pelton said Tuesday, but the new venture represents "a continuing evolution in what Blackwater's doing."
"Total Intel brings the intelligence gathering methodology and analytical skills traditionally honed by CIA operatives directly to the board room," Black said in a statement Tuesday. "With a service like this, CEOs and their security personnel will be able to respond to threats quickly and confidently - whether it's determining which city is safest to open a new plant in or working to keep employees out of harm's way after a terrorist attack."
The statement said the company will operate a "24/7 intelligence fusion and warning center" that will monitor civil unrest, terrorism, economic stability, environmental and health concerns, and information technology security around the world.
Reach Bill Sizemore at (757) 446-2276 or bill.sizemore@pilotonline.com.

PALESTINE
u.s.-zionist genocide intensifies for a Palestinian "final solution"
Palestinian Resistance can Never Be "Wiped Out"
Hiyam Noir , PalestineFreeVoice
One of the Hamas Movement's political leaders in the Gaza Strip,affirmed in a pressrelease on Sundaythat the Hebrew state is passing through a real crisis as a result of continued Palestinian resistance attacks a retaliation for all the crimes the Hebrew state is conducting on Palestine territories. Khalil Abu Laila,said that Ehud Olmerts threats earlier Sunday against the Palestinians is not a new thing.The Israelis are trying to "end the Palestinian resistance once and for all through in conspiracy with certain "Palestinian parties". Abu Laila said that Olmert will never be able to "wipe out" the Palestinian resistance, on the contrary the Palestinian resistance will conquer the "enemy" and force it out of all occupied Palestinian lands.. http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34175

Imperialism's strategy in Iraq, Palestine, Africa...everywhere its bloody clutches strive for domination
DIVIDE~CONQUER~ KILL
Desert Peace
That is exactly what we see happening in front of our eyes... Palestine has been divided, Palestine has been conquered.... and now Palestinians are being killed. All to the tune of 'Give Peace A Chance'... as Tony Blair prepares to arrive here. Thursday Israel broke International Laws (even some of their own) by using human shields in this particular operation. Abbas sits back quietly as his people are being slaughtered... needless to say, the rest of the world has been silent as well. AlJazeera managed to send journalists to the scene and reported the following...: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34295

"There can be no erasing of the historical truth that the existence of Israel is predicated, indeed imposed upon, the obliteration of another society and people."
Edward Said

"...Here is the trick. Jewish progressive ethnic campaigners are interested in a singular one-sided discourse. They are happy to act as ‘Jews’ but refuse to be criticised as Jews. When they act politically they say we are ‘people like other people’ but when you criticise them politically they hide behind their racial identity. Whether this is funny or revolting is a matter of taste. However, this is a complete repetition of the Zionist tactic. In other words, we are entitled to conclude that Jewish Socialists and any form of Jewish exclusive activism is nothing but another form of Zionism..."
Gilad Atzmon

The Morning in Al Bureij Camp - After the Israeli Massacre
Hiyam Noir, PalestineFreeVoice
The Israelis attacked in Gaza Strip with high-tech weaponry yesterday - the Gaza City and two refuge camps - Alburij Refuge and the Almgazi Refuge camp's, targeted from the air and from the ground - with lethal missiles, bombs and machine guns.11 Palestinians are dead in this massacre - 25 Palestinians are reported wounded - some are seriously injured - and many Palestinian men have been abducted, in the latest of Israeli uncountable war crimes. The smoke and the dust is still lingering over Al Alburij refuge camp, destruction and rubble everywhere, sad eyes, bitter faces, agony, anger, grief and wrath !... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34267

Press Release
GAZA REFUGEES FACING MASSIVE WATER CUTS, DISEASE
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34274

ISRAELI TERRORISM CAPTURED ON FILM
Desert Peace
Israel forces opened fire on a photojournalist from Hamas' TV Station a late yesterday. Armed only with his camera, which can still be seen in his hand, he was rushed to hospital where both of his legs were amputated. Way to go Israel! Only this time the world is watching!! A clip of this horror can be seen HERE, in a Reuters report.... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34273
Journalists federation denounces Israel for shooting wounded Hamas camerama: A media watchdog group called for an investigation Friday into the shooting of a cameraman for Hamas TV who lay injured on a battlefield in Gaza.
http://tinyurl.com/2yfdoj

Israelis occupation forces kill 11 in Gaza attack:
http://www.columbiatribune.com/2007/Jul/20070706News010.asp

ISRAEL ESCALATES ETHNIC CLEANSING IN GAZA
1,160 HOMELESS IN 2 DAYS
http://www.alaqsaintifada.org/
Another Jenin?
Israeli Occupation Forces have invaded Rafah and cut it off from the rest of the Gaza Strip. Tanks, armored bulldozers, and helicopters have opened fire and demolished homes, while more Israeli forces are being massed on the town's outskirts.
The excuse used by the Israeli Occupation Forces is to search for Palestinian activists and weapons. In reality, it is an escalation in the consistent pattern of ethnic cleansing. More than 100 homes have been bulldozed in the past few days, leaving another 1,100 Palestinians homeless. One home was bulldozed with a family inside it; the father was killed, the mother is in the hospital, and the 3 children are safe. Other families were luckier, running from their homes with the clothes on their backs.
Israel's war crimes continue unchecked and fully supported by the Bush Administration (in spite of occasional criticism). More than 30 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza just within the past few days, and it doesn't look like its getting any better. It is urgent for activists everywhere to take action...

Israeli Offensive in Central Gaza Kills 11 Militants
Israeli Army incursion into central Gaza Thursday marked one of the bloodiest days for Hamas since it took control of the Gaza Strip three weeks ago.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/06/world/middleeast/06mideast.html?th&emc...

Abbas advisor says Hamas fighting collaborators
Hani al-Hassan, senior presidential advisor and member of Fatah's central committee said in a TV interview Gaza war was between Hamas and Fatah collaborators who aided Israel, US., the defeat of to plans of American Major General Keith Dayton and his Fatah followers. Gunshots fired at al-Hassan's home following statements, Abbas dismisses him from his role. Al-Hassan's words severely discredit Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas and other Arab leaders' claims that the Gaza takeover was a coup against Palestinian democracy. By making such statements the presidential advisor supports Hamas' claims that the war was between a small group of Fatah men who served Israel and the United States.
http://www.ynetnews.com/Ext/Comp/ArticleLayout/CdaArticlePrintPreview/1,...

"A true friend of the State of Israel," said Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert of his outgoing British counterpart Tony Blair. He was appointed this week as special envoy for the Middle East Quartet with a portfolio focused on Palestinian economic and political reform
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article7071.shtml

Israeli Troops Raid Nablus
by Mohammed Mar’i
RAMALLAH, West Bank, 29 June 2007 — In the largest Israeli military operation in the West Bank in months, Israeli troops yesterday opened fire at random, conducted house-to-house searches and blew open front doors in Nablus. Palestinian fighters retaliated. They hurled four explosive devices at the Israelis, severely injuring two officers and lightly wounding six soldiers...The operation came a day after 12 Palestinians were killed in twin Israeli operations in the Gaza Strip and was condemned by Prime Minister Salam Fayyad. "We condemn the Israeli military operation ongoing in Nablus, which was launched shortly after those in Gaza," said Fayyad. "Here we see an Israeli attempt to sabotage our efforts toward restoring security."...The Israeli raid comes two days after Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas signed a decree forbidding the brandishing of weapons without a license in the West Bank except for the official PA security services...
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34089

Israel tanks moves from Gaza to W. Bank and battles Fatah
Haitham, Sabbah's blog
... the Israelis really, really, really want peace. Honest... it would be so pleasant to have peace if they had ALL the land, the Palestinians were either dead, in prison, or moved over to Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia, even Iran…. as Israel’s infrastructure Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s political party writes on T-Shirts: "No Arabs, No Terror".
The spinsmasters are out in full force, all over Europe, and certainly in the US….Miri, Itzhak, the ambassadors, Olmert, saying things like "democratic elections have to have the right RESULT…. after all, even Hitler was elected", and "don’t forget what happened to US, WE are the victims here", "they want to destroy us" (and they can, they have so many STONES, rocks and little missiles, missiles that Israel with all its [U.S. financed & politically backed] troops, planes, drones, tanks, and bulldozers just CANNOT seem to find and take out... Israel will gladly sacrifice one or two Israelis in the town of Sderot to keep up the victim image!
###
Israeli army arrest 60 Palestinians, among them, 18 children
Hebron - Ma’an – At dawn on Thursday, Israeli military forces stormed the village of Qalqas, south of Hebron, arresting 60 people, taking them to an unknown area.Local sources reported to Ma’an that a large military force arrested 18 children, including three tawjihi students. A teacher and two university students were also seized. Most of the abducted citizens were cousins and relatives of one another. (read more)

Violent Israeli incursion into Nablus
Nablus - Ma’an - Eight Israeli soldiers were moderately injured in the northern West Bank city of Nablus on Thursday morning after explosive devices were hurled at the Israeli patrols, Israeli sources reported. In the ongoing incursion, at least four Palestinians have been arrested and numerous Palestinian houses have been transformed into military bases, eyewitnesses have reported.
The Israeli army also took control of local radio stations in order to issue orders to the local inhabitants over the airwaves.
Israeli sources added that Palestinian activists threw four explosive devices towards Israeli patrols in the Al-Qasaba (old city) neighbourhood, injuring eight soldiers, who were transferred to Israeli hospitals.
Heavy Israeli forces invaded the city on Wednesday evening amidst heavy gunfire. Our Nablus correspondent stated that the Israeli forces also blew up the electricity transformer which supplies power to Amman Street in Nablus.
The Al-Buraq Army, which is affiliated to Fatah, and the Al-Quds Brigades, who are the armed wing of Islamic Jihad, also claimed responsibility for detonating an explosive device next to an Israeli patrol and clashing with Israeli troops near Rafidia hospital on Thursday morning.

Plan for a NATO force to take over where Dahlan failed
Arablink
The proposal for deployment of an international force in the Gaza Strip, mentioned by Abbas in talks with Sarkozy on Friday, reflects an attempt by the American administration to revive a plan that was first proposed during the Arafat captivity in 2001, for an international "peacekeeping" force to put down the Palestinian resistance. Al-Akhbar reports: "The proposal by Abbas for deployment of an international force in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank is a revival of an American plan for a 'mandate'", spelled out in a 68-page report by the Army School for Advanced Military Studies (SAMS) in the year 2001, whose implementation is said to have been blocked for various reasons in earlier years, but which is now again a topic of American interest... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34160

Israeli Report: "Israeli War Preparations Continue Attack on Iran not Imminent"
Michel Chossudovsky, Global Research, June 30, 2007
http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6187
While war preparations continue, a US-Israeli attack on Iran in 2007 is highly unlikely. The Jerusalem Post (June 22, 2007) quoting Israeli intelligence sources reports that: "The Israeli Air Force (IAF) has been training on long-range flights, including refueling in mid-flight, in preparation for potential strikes against Iranian nuclear targets. The training program has been taking place for some time but has only been released for publication Friday, the Ma'ariv daily reported.
Intelligence assessments received by the defense establishment concur that once Iran passes the point of no return in its nuclear efforts, the entire Middle East will enter a frantic nuclear armament race. Egypt and Saudi Arabia are expected to take the lead should such a scenario become reality."
The report, however, also, suggests that an attack on Iran is not imminent.
"At the end of 2007 the US and Israel are expected to hold a joint assessment to ascertain the influence of economic sanctions against Iran. A new package of upgraded sanctions prepared jointly by Israel and the US, includes exerting pressure on European governments to cancel US $22 billion in loan guarantees given annually to European companies trading with Iran. The new package also includes sanctions against banks working with Iran, non-renewal of oil infrastructure in Iran and a long series of economic actions that are meant to seriously hurt the Iranian economy. Following the end-of-year assessment, Washington will decide how to move forward in the struggle against Iran's nuclear race"
General Peter Pace ends his term as Chairman of the JCS at the end September 2007. Defense Secretary Gates has already announced that Admiral Michael Mullen, U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, has been nominated to replace General Peter Pace as Chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff. Senate confirmation hearings for the new Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff are slated for sometime during the Summer. Mullen, if confirmed, would take on his new position as CJCS in early October. No major military operation would be launched prior to the instatement of the new CJCS [sic].

IRAN

IRAN & THE ANTI-IMPERIALIST STRUGGLE
Dr. Hisham Bustani
The main enemy of all anti-Imperialists, and of the Arab liberation project, is US Imperialism and Zionism. Any other contradictions are secondary... US-imposed sanctions and/or a military strike against or invasion of Iran will principally harm the people..therefore stand against the threats to Iran and support it in the face of any attempted or actual aggression.

Iran is not a "Banana Republic," and its regime is not a puppet or a client regime of Imperialism. Iran has a regional project and works seriously to accomplish it. It holds many important political cards and uses them cleverly in the context of realizing its project. Some of these cards are Iran's nuclear program, its close relationship with the Syrian regime, its close relationship with Hezbollah in Lebanon, its close relationship with Hamas and Islamic Jihad in Palestine, its close commercial and economic ties with influential states like Russia and Germany, its close relationships with the "North Coalition" in Afghanistan, its oil reserves, and (most importantly) its role in Iraq, i.e. its strong connections with and influence on the militias and parties that cooperate with the US occupation.

For another, the project of Iran is not an anti-Imperialist project. In other words, Iran is not the Venezuela of the so-called "Middle East" (with all our reservations about the term "Middle East"). It does not promote a popular liberation project for the people of the region that is based on ending hegemony and exploitation and realizing the sovereignty of the people over their land and resources. Iran's is a pragmatic nationalist/sectarian project with expansionist aspirations. It occupies Arab land (Ahwaz, Tunb Islands). It saw no problem in seeking the assistance of its "enemy number one" during its war with Iraq (the Iran-Contra affair). It also sees no problem in helping the same "enemy" (the USA) on the logistic and intelligence levels during the US aggression against Afghanistan. And, finally, Iran is playing a very destructive role in Iraq through empowering and supporting the sectarian militias and parties in Iraq who are also the backbone of the US-dominated political process.
The Arab regimes are completely subordinate to Imperialism; they are incapable of influencing anything diplomatically or militarily. The recent attack on Lebanon is a key event through which to comprehend this fact: not only did Arab regimes stand idly by watching the destruction of Lebanon, but some of them went so far as to support Israel in its effort to eliminate Hezbollah. Also, during the attack on Lebanon, the Secretary General of the Arab League, Amr Musa, announced "the death of the Peace Process" with "Israel." This "Peace Process" is the main strategy (past, present and future) of the Arab regimes. Its failure on the Arab level reflects its success on the Zionist level. To put it more clearly, the Arab regimes were and are working according to a [U.S.] Zionist agenda...

Imperialism today is in crisis, but it is not defeated, and it is not destined to be defeated without the direct action of anti-Imperialists.
If we lose this historic opportunity by turning our back on the resistances in the Arab region and pretending they are not our problem, or the resistances do not represent us simply because they are Islamic or Ba'thist, or by directing our efforts away from the main enemy, or
by contributing to the stabilization of the sectarian project by adopting its mechanisms, or if the resistances, instead of fighting their common enemy, start fighting each other, or if we are deceived into transforming the main battle with Imperialism and Zionism into internal trivial political fights, then we will rescue Imperialism from its crisis, and will be obliged to wait for another 100 years or more, until Imperialism enters a crisis of similar proportions.
http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/bustani250607.html
Dr. Hisham Bustani is a leftist writer and activist from Jordan.  He is a founding member of the Resistant Arab People's Alliance, member of the Jordanian Higher Executive Committee for Resistin
from Gamila Zahran's Arabian Sights gzahran@wanadoo.fr 
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POLICY BRIEF #87 ABSTRACT ON U.S. - IRAN RELATIONS
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/policybriefs/pb87.htm
...In the long term, constructive bilateral relations between the two countries would offer even more meaningful gains for America's strategic interests in the Middle East and Central Asia...
The enduring estrangement between the United States and Iran represents the central paradox for American policy in the Persian Gulf. The world has changed dramatically since the 1979 Islamic Revolution gave rise to a religious government in Tehran and ruptured U.S.-Iranian relations. Those changes have been felt even within Iran's revolutionary politics, through the ascendance of a popular reform movement crystallized by moderate president Mohammad Khatami's 1997 election. This development prompted an abatement in comprehensive U.S. sanctions and fueled expectations of rapprochement.
But when it comes to U.S.-Iran relations, it seems the more things change, the more they stay the same. Despite Iran's tentative transformation, the impasse with the United States remains raw and unresolved. Neither Iran's internal moderation nor Washington's initiatives have diminished the primary U.S. concerns about Iranian foreign policy—support for terrorism and pursuit of weapons of mass destruction. As President Khatami embarks on his second term, the Bush administration must devise a more effective policy to confront these threats and address the wider scope of U.S. interests in this critical region.

AFRICA
By Salim Lone
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17975.htm
Western donors have widened the wealth gap by buttressing the rich and powerful.
In truth there was never any real prospect that western governments, which have gleefully presided over the creation of new classes of the super-super-rich, would use their considerable influence to push African leaders to pursue policies which would shift resources away from the rapacious national elites towards the poor. Nor was it likely the west would permit Africa to stray from the neoliberal orthodoxies prescribed for the continent by the World Bank and the IMF. These policies have generated wealth for elites and created economic growth in a few countries, but have proved over two decades singularly unable to reduce the human misery afflicting hundreds of millions. G8-approved plans are not going to end poverty. Africa needs strong, revolutionary leaders ...in the interest of humanity but also of security and stability... In the shadow of 9/11, aid is increasingly becoming an instrument of anti-terrorism strategy. This means that the US and Britain in particular are ready to countenance wars of aggression and other human rights abuses by governments which are partners in the war on terror - as recently witnessed when Ethiopia invaded Somalia and installed a client regime with US and British support, bringing massive bombing to the capital. Uganda has also committed appalling rights abuses against its northerners. None of these crimes elicited a peep from western leaders, who portray themselves as embarked on a mission to civilise, informed by deeply held humanistic values... only Africa's own leaders and people can address its rawest suffering... Africa's voice is rarely heard. It's the statements of its leaders that reach donors' ears, not the anguish and aspirations of its people.

U.S. Military Finds No Takers To Host North Africa Command
The Bush administration announced in February that it intends to create a separate military command for Africa this year. Responsibility for U.S. military operations on the continent is divided primarily between the Central Command in Tampa and European Command in Stuttgart, Germany. Defense officials acknowledge that one reason they are paying more attention to Africa is that the continent provides an increasingly large share of the United States' supply of imported oil and natural gas. Bush administration officials have also touted the new command as a key part of their strategy for countering terrorism threats on the continent. A U.S. delegation seeking a home for a new military command in Africa got a chilly reception during a tour of the northern half of the continent this month, running into opposition even in countries that enjoy friendly relations with the Pentagon. http://www.tbo.com/news/nationworld/MGBG3XCXA3F.html
Salim Lone is a columnist for the Daily Nation in Kenya. He is speaking this week at the 50th anniversary of the Society for International Development at The Hague - alimlone@yahoo.com

AFGHANISTAN
Occupiers call Resistance 'al-qaeda' & 'Taliban'
Afghanistan: US airstrikes kill 65 civilians
Agence France-Presse
ANTI-TALIBAN air strikes by US- and NATO-led forces in Afghanistan killed 65 villagers, including children, a local official said today, amid growing anger over civilian deaths. The toll from yesterday's operation in the southern province of Helmand given by a district mayor was the highest since 2001, when US-led forces used heavy bombing in their campaign to drive the extremist Taliban from power. An AFP photographer saw some of the wounded admitted to a clinic in the town of Girishk, about 15km south of the bombed area, and in Lashkar Gah, the provincial capital. Many were children. "Six houses have been bombed, three of them have been reduced to rubble," a local named Feda Mohammad said, claiming about 100 were dead and wounded. "People are still busy bringing out the dead from under the rubble, there are funerals at various places," he said.... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34117

VIDEO: Afghan Massacre : The Convoy of Death
In Afghanistan, filmmaker Jamie Doran has uncovered evidence of a massacre: Taliban prisoners of war suffocated in containers, shot in the desert under the watch of American troops. The film has been broadcast on national television in countries all over the world and has been screened by the European parliament. Human rights lawyers are calling for investigation ... no U.S. media outlet has broadcast the film.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3267.htm

Over 120 Afghan civilians and Taliban fighters were killed in a coalition airstrike following an ambush on Afghan and US forces in the country's south http://tinyurl.com/3at2wu

Anti-Taliban air strikes by US- and NATO-led forces inAfghanistan killed 65 villagers including children amid growing anger here over civilian deaths. http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070630/wl_sthasia_afp/afghanistanunrest

Pakistanis baffled [SIC] by U.S. support for their military regime
...Both liberal parties and hard-line mullahs are besieging him. Much of Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan is open to Taliban and al Qaida fighters. Musharraf’s power base is a military with a long history of coups. He himself took power in a 1999 military coup that ousted the sitting prime minister.
The latest challenge may be the most serious, motivated by tens of thousands of backers of the chief justice of the supreme court, whom Musharraf suspended and tried to force to resign. Rallies organized by liberal and relatively secular groups have called for Musharraf to step down.The outcome will have deep implications for U.S. standing in Pakistan, which is in an area awash with American interests. Pakistan’s borders touch Iran, with which Washington is in a showdown over Iran’s nuclear program; Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are embroiled in a counterinsurgency campaign; China, a rising great power; and India, one of the world’s fastest growing economies.

The U.S. Defense Department identified Pakistan last year as “a key partner in the war on terror” and one of the largest recipients of U.S. security assistance, including AH-1 Cobra attack helicopters, various missile systems and a planned sale of F-16 fighter jets.The White House and Defense Department have sent billions of dollars to the Musharraf government since Sept. 11, 2001.
While many U.S. officials mistrust Musharraf...the Bush administration considers him a man America can work with... in a nuclear-armed nation... Opposition politicians charge that the United States is selling out democratic principles in favor of a military strongman who’ll back its strategic plans in the region.... “People have begun to say that America has put this man (Musharraf) on our heads and there is nothing we can do but kill him and fight those who support him,” said Saad Saleem, who runs one of the country’s biggest broadband Internet companies and has helped organize anti-Musharraf street protests.
Musharraf began to lose his footing in March, when his suspension of the chief justice, Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, didn’t go as smoothly as planned. Asked why Musharraf would think he could brush aside the head of the supreme court, Syeda Abida Hussain, Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States from 1991 to 1993 and then a Cabinet member, waved her hand and laughed. The general, she said, is drunk on American power. “Poor Pervez Musharraf ended up believing that like a Louis XIV, that he is ‘le roi soleil,’ ” she said, rolling the French words for “sun king” with relish. “This poppa Nero . . . this mad Musharraf treads on all possible Pakistani toes because he feels that all he has to do is keep on the right side of Condi Rice and George Bush.” Hussain laughed again. “It’s the endgame for Musharraf,” she said, her voice growing more serious, “whether the Americans want it or not.”...
“The Americans ... don’t seem to notice that the wind is increasingly blowing against the Americans themselves.” U.S. officials, he said, seem to still think that “Musharraf is indispensable.”... “Graveyards,” he said, quoting the late French leader Charles de Gaulle, “are full of indispensable people.” http://www.mcclatchydc.com/world/story/17393.html

911
U.S., Afghanistan, 911
The 9/11 Joint Inquiry chairmen are in "conflict of interest":
September 11 Breakfast Meeting on Capitol Hill
by Michel Chossudovsky
4 August 2003
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO308C.html
Michel Chossudovsky, is the author of "War and Globalisation, the Truth behind September 11, Global Outlook, Shanty Bay, On. 2002.
The chairmen of the Joint Inquiry on 9/11 Sen Bob Graham and Rep Porter Goss are in "conflict of interest". Or are we dealing with something far more serious? The chairmen of the Joint Inquiry have dubious links to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) which is known to have actively supported Al Qaeda and the Taliban. Moreover, according to intelligence sources, including the FBI, Pakistan's ISI played a role in financing the 9/11 terrorist attacks. The two Joint Inquiry chairmen Sen Bob Graham and Rep Porter Goss were fully cognizant of the "Pakistani ISI connection" and the role played by its former head, General Mahmoud Ahmad. Why then did they choose to exclude an examination of the role of the ISI from the Joint Inquiry's 858 page Report? While hinting "Saudi support and involvement" in 9/11, the Report fails to mention that the Pakistani government, its military and intelligence apparatus (ISI), have actively supported and financed a number of terrorist organizations, with the support of Washington. Was it "an intelligence failure" to seek the cooperation of the Pakistani government in the "war on terrorism" in an agreement brokered by the head of the ISI, a spy agency, which is known to support the Islamic brigades? This support by Pakistan's ISI to various "Islamic terrorist" organizations was pursued prior as well as in the wake of 9/11, despite the commitment of the Pakistani government to "cooperate" with Washington
In late August 2001, barely a couple of weeks before September 11, Senator Bob Graham, Representative Porter Goss and Senator Jon Kyl were on a top level mission in Islamabad, which was barely mentioned by the US media. Meetings were held with President Pervez Musharraf and with Pakistan's military and intelligence brass including the head of Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) General Mahmoud Ahmad. Amply documented, the ISI is known to support a number of Islamic terrorist organizations. (See Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) at http://www.cfrterrorism.org/coalition/pakistan2.html ) According to the FBI, Indian Intelligence and several press reports, the ISI Head was instrumental in providing financial support to the 9/11 terrorists. General Mahmoud Ahmad had allegedly ordered the transfer of $100.000 to the presumed 9/11 ring-leader Mohamed Atta.
On the morning of September 11, the three lawmakers Bob Graham, Porter Goss and Jon Kyl (who were part of the Congressional delegation to Pakistan) were having breakfast on Capitol Hill with General Ahmad, the alleged "money-man" (to use the FBI expression) behind the 9/11 hijackers. Also present at this meeting were Pakistan's ambassador to the U.S. Maleeha Lodhi and several members of the Senate and House Intelligence committees. This meeting was described by one press report as a "follow-up meeting" to that held in Pakistan in late August.
When the twin towers were attacked, General Mahmoud Ahmad, head of Pakistan’s intelligence service, was, in Senator Graham's own words, "very empathetic, sympathetic to the people of the United States," (Stuart News Company Press Journal (Vero Beach, FL), September 12, 2001).

Bob Graham's description of the General Ahmad, contrasts with that of the Washington Post:
"On the morning of September 11, Goss and Graham were having breakfast with a Pakistani general named Mahmud Ahmed — the soon-to-be-sacked head of Pakistan’s intelligence service. Ahmed ran a spy agency notoriously close to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban." (Washington Post, 18 May 2002). While the Joint inquiry has collected mountains of intelligence material, through careful omission, the numerous press and intelligence reports in the public domain (mainstream media, alternative media, etc), which confirm that key members of the Bush Administration were involved in acts of political camouflage, have been carefully removed from the Joint inquiry's hearings.

9/11 and the Smoking Gun that Turned on its Tracker
by Chaim Kupferberg
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), Centre de recherche sur la mondialisation (CRM) 4 September/ septembre 2002
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/KUP209B.html
SUMMARY To go to the complete article by Chaim Kupferberg click here
A mere week after the destruction of the World Trade Center, authorities were gradually building toward an official announcement that would definitively link Osama bin Laden to the events of September 11 - a wire transfer of $100,000 to lead hijacker Mohamed Atta. To an increasingly skeptical public, here was the "smoking gun", a bona fide money trail that would demonstrate how al-Qaida planned and financed the operation...

On July 15, 2002, Omar Saeed was sentenced to die for the kidnapping and murder of Daniel Pearl. While some correspondents had briefly touched upon Omar Saeed's alleged additional role as 9/11 paymaster, most persisted in refusing to acknowledge this angle of the story, focusing instead on a 1994 kidnapping which was the subject of a "secret" indictment against Saeed by the Justice Department back in November 2001.
While the media may, one day, present a "plausible" explanation for many of these anomalies, the evidence nevertheless now irrefutably points toward the existence of a vast disinformation apparatus that has managed, manipulated, and obfuscated most of the information being fed to the public - the true smoking gun of 9/11.

remember...
The Propaganda Preparation for 9/11 & the mystery surrounding the death of John O'Neill:
by Chaim Kupferberg
Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca , 13 June 2002 (revised 19 September 2002)
In the immediate aftermath of the destruction of the World Trade Center, the finger of guilt was directed toward the only plausible author for such a sophisticated and ruthless act of terror - Osama bin Laden...

... to sum up, it appears that the events of September 11 were planned years in advance, with the groundwork being carefully laid by a propaganda campaign orchestrated to convince the public that the United States has a plausibly sophisticated nemesis with the motive, means, and opportunity to perpetrate a devastating act of terror against Americans. Toward that end, Saudi Arabia and Pakistan have been used as the primary proxy agents to run a "false flag" operation, setting up and financing the infrastructure of al-Qaida in Afghanistan. Through madrassas based in Pakistan, Saudi and Yemenite militants were instructed in the Saudi brand of Wahabbi Islam, and subsequently "graduated" to the camps that were set up in Afghanistan - again, under Saudi and Pakistani sponsorship. Stateside, the operative agents were mostly based out of New York City and Florida. In the aftermath of 9/11, elements in the American government are now widely disseminating information in vast quantities, overwhelming the populace and lending credibility to the government's version of events. Thus, post-9/11, the actions of this formerly insular propaganda clique are no longer perceptible. Information is now being doled out in generous portions to credulous reporters who are outside the loop, yet perform their unwitting service as "bottom feeders" in the downward flow of information. ... the obvious geostrategic gains of those who are clearly managing the flow of information - the pipelines, oil, wealth, and so forth....An infrastructure is being laid out - one that will, finally, provide a dissident-proof [SIC] totalitarian oligarchy composed of like-minded elites served by an under-class kept under constant surveillance. The edifice of this regime is being constructed, brick by brick... well-documented attempts by the CIA and FBI to subvert, surveil, and propagandize the populace through programs such as Project Mockingbird (media infiltration) and MK-Ultra (mind control through chemical, hypnotic, or electro-magnetic means). These programs are effected primarily through "think tanks" that are set up across the United States for the purpose of disseminating information and propaganda under the rubric of "expertise"... various foundations, such as the Rockefeller or Ford Foundations, are often used as funnels to finance and feed the arteries of these propaganda networks. In the 1970's, a good deal of this structural corruption was officially exposed - in a "limited hang-out" - by way of the Church Commission, as well as the House Select Committee on Assassinations... the most damaging revelations played down or ignored by the mainstream media, and the waters muddied by a stream of outlandish conspiracy theories - aliens, Elvis, etc. - that merely served to discredit the information that was most credible. "Muddying the waters", incidentally, is a tried and true staple of the intelligence craft....Any simple keyword search of the following terms may be helpful in pointing toward a more substantive understanding of the elites who ultimately guide your fortunes: "Iran-Contra" , "Mena", "BCCI", "Project Paperclip", "Michael Aquino", "Paul Bonacci", "Operation Northwoods", "MK-Ultra". Much of the information on these topics is credible and well-documented...

Hilariously delirious...
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues - Reflections in a sealed bottle...
...When 9.11 happened, I was watching ZE CNN as Hosny Mubarak calls it. The commentator and the cameraman showed the rubbles and the pile of dust covering screaming bloody faces. And in the middle of tons of rubbles, what did they find unscathed, untouched, in perfect mint condition? Mohammed Atta's passport. The commentator flashed it to the camera lenses. I saw it with my own eyes on ZE CNN . At that point, I was gripped with a hysterical laughter...Mohammed Atta's passport was found in perfect condition. And just by chance they also found some flying manuals in Arabic...I laughed even harder. Arabic speaking pilots confirmed to me that flying manuals in Arabic do not exist. Of course at that point, I could not be bothered to ask what happened to the third plane in Pennsylvania (...) Bad scripts and bad plots and Iraqis have paid their price with a million deaths in just 4 years... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34264

.........

Liberal imperialists-zionists ok, not left-liberals exposing and opposing US-ISRAEL
Google, the Daily Kos, and the End of Free Speech
Schuyler and Ragnar, editors @ thepeoplesvoice.org
Today's corporate media misinforms and misleads people on most of the issues, the Israeli occupation of Palestine is one....
When we pointed out that Israel dropped 500-pound bombs on Lebanese neighborhoods and they dropped small American made guided bombs on ambulances, and occasionally Israeli soldiers shoot school children in the head, we made some new enemies who wanted to hurt our site.
Labeling and slander are used to subvert criticism and freedom of speech, to smear the critic. The most common slander is to be accused of 'anti-Semitism'. This term is used on anyone who criticizes Israel and the cultural and ideological system behind Israel's brutality towards the Palestinian people.
Google News isn't using terms like 'prejudice' or 'racism' to describe what is unacceptable to them. Those terms have clear definitions and cannot be used by special interest groups to skirt the U.S. Constitution and deny people their freedom of speech. Taking their cue from the tiny mob making all the noise, Google subscribes to the nebulous and ever-changing rules of "hate speech"...
A second term ...is: 'hate speech'. Mark Glenn's article, which criticizes Judaism- the belief system, has been labeled as hate speech in order to silence the criticism.... don’t... let Google violate this basic human right by removing legitimate web sites simply because special interest groups want to silence them. Please write a few words or a letter to Contact Google News http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34090
The Daily Kos members never let up with their false accusations and attacks and eventually they used Eileen's manufactured crime of guilt by association with thepeoplesvoice.org as an excuse to remove her from posting on the Daily Kos.

KOS and the CIA
by: Stu Piddy
Fri May 25, 2007
Markos Moulitsas spent 6 months in 2001 interviewing with the CIA. He was accepted by the CIA, went through the entire interview process (talking to dozens of people including “psychologists and people in the leadership” ) and given his first assignment to work in clandestine services. His assignment, he says was to act as a “spy” in Washington D.C. for the CIA. He was told by the CIA that this particular assignment in Washington D.C. would last for at least 6 years before he would be given the overseas assignment he preferred. Moulitsas spoke to the CIA about his “blog”. Moulitsas had been an active blogger at the time of his 6 month CIA interview process with My DD. He discussed his blogging with the CIA and the viewpoints he expressed in posts in what he referred to as “his blog”. He said he found the CIA receptive, and in general, in agreement with his views. Moulitsas started Daily Kos on May 26th, 2002.
http://www.myleftwing.com/showDiary.do?diaryId=16893#232835

.......

no surprises in criminal capitalist justice...
Watada can be tried again, judge rules
Trying 1st Lt. Ehren Watada again for his refusal to deploy to Iraq won't violate his constitutional right not to be prosecuted twice for the same crime, an Army judge ruled Friday. Watada's new lawyers, Kenneth Kagan and James Lobsenz, immediately filed notice they will appeal that double-jeopardy ruling to the Army Court of Criminal Appeals in Arlington, Va. Watada is charged with missing his unit's deployment in June 2006 and with conduct unbecoming an officer for comments he made about President Bush and the Iraq war. His first trial ended in a mistrial. The judge also is expected to rule on admissibility of evidence, including whether Watada may call witnesses to testify about the legality of the war.
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2003778640_watada07m.htm...

Challenge to Secret Wiretaps Is Dismissed
A federal appeals court panel ruled that ACLU lawsuit plaintiffs could not show injury from a National Security Agency program.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/07/07/washington/07nsa.html?th&emc=th

Grants of Executive Clemency for Criminals a Bipartisan Affair
I, GEORGE W. BUSH, President of the United States of America, pursuant to my powers under Article II, Section 2, of the Constitution, do hereby commute the prison terms imposed by the sentence upon the said Lewis Libby...

Marc Rich was indicted in 1983 for evading $48 million in taxes. The 51 counts included allegations of having illegal oil transactions with Iran while that nation held U.S. hostages in 1979-80. Rich fled to Switzerland to avoid trial. Libby, Rich's lawyer from 1985-2000, urged Bill Clinton to issue the pardon, among 141 granted on Clinton's last day in office, and more than 200 granted after the 2000 election.

On the day Libby's prison sentence was lifted, Mordechai Vanunu was sentenced to prison, again, in Israel
Dr. Daniel Ellsberg, http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6232

...........

Entertainment as Propaganda: exporting U.S. ideological imperialism...
Plot Thickens in a Tom Cruise Film, Long Before the Cameras Begin to Roll
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/30/movies/30valk.html?th&emc=th
LOS ANGELES, June 29 — When the director Bryan Singer decided to cast Tom Cruise as Col. Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, the German Army officer who tried to blow up Hitler toward the end of World War II, he thought he had dealt with all the possible pitfalls.
There was the knotty matter of accents, but the director figured that Mr. Cruise and everybody else in the movie, “Valkyrie,” would do fine if they spoke unaffected English. The cost of affording the high-wattage Mr. Cruise could also be problematic, but the star took the job for a nominal salary, agreeing to get his cut after the tickets were sold — a deal helped by his part ownership of United Artists, the studio behind the picture... Mr. Cruise and his producing partner, Paula Wagner, had taken charge after the end of their longstanding deal at Paramount ...
Mr. Singer did not reckon with is Germany’s open hostility toward Mr. Cruise’s religion. “Frankly, I was not aware of the issue of Scientology here in Germany,” Mr. Singer said in a telephone interview from Berlin this week, shortly after news reports that military officials would ban “Valkyrie” from filming at the Bendler Block, where Colonel Stauffenberg was executed in July 1944 for his leading role in the conspiracy to assassinate Hitler....Josef Joffe, a German journalist who has criticized what he views as the German “obsession” with Scientology, said that in this case the combination of star and subject was simply too combustible. “Stauffenberg for Germans is like Jefferson and Lincoln, motherhood, and apple pie all rolled into one,” he said in an interview. “Germany is a country of established churches, and so Scientology is viewed as a cult and, worse, totalitarian and exploitative. A professing Scientologist in the role of Stauffenberg is like casting Judas as Jesus. It is secular blasphemy.”...“Scientology is a totalitarian ideology,” said Berthold Graf von Stauffenberg, the eldest son of Colonel Stauffenberg and a retired West German army general. “The fact that an avowed Scientologist like Mr. Cruise is supposed to play the victim of a totalitarian regime is purely sick.”
“Tom Cruise is not just an actor who is a Scientologist,” Ms. Caberta said. “He is an ambassador for Scientology. All totalitarian systems have their celebrities to open doors for them.”

============

Note from ICH
Our sister website ichblog.eu has been hijacked and is making a fraudulent solicitation for funds. I ask that you do NOT send money or in any way support those who have taken over the website. For further information send an email to emailtom@cox.net and place "ichblog.eu" in the subject line. Thank you. Tom Feeley

"To make a contented slave it is necessary to make a thoughtless one. It is necessary to darken the moral and mental vision and, as far as possible, to annihilate the power of reason."
 "Power concedes nothing without a demand. It never did and it never will."
Fredrick Douglas
 

"I'm not an American. I'm one of the twenty-two million Black people who are the victims of Americanism. One of the 22 million Black people who are the victims of democracy--nothing but disguised hypocrisy. So I'm not standing here speaking to you as an American, or a patriot, or a flag-saluter, or a flag-waver--no, not I. I'm speaking as a victim of this American system. And I see America through the eyes of the victim. I don't see any American dream; I see an American nightmare."
 
“Why here in America the seeds of racism are so deeply rooted in the white people collectively, their belief that they are ‘superior’ in some way is so deeply rooted, that these things are in the national white sub consciousness. Many whites are even actually unaware of their own racism until they face some test then their racism emerges in one form or another.

  Malcolm X
from Gamila Zahran's Arabian Sights
gzahran@wanadoo.fr
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Losing What We Never Had: White Privilege & the Deferred Dreams of Black America, Part 2 [excerpt]
Wednesday, 04 July 2007
by BAR contributing editor Dr. Edward Rhymes
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...
Modern political mythology, also believed by Blacks, maintains that Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal and the post-World War Two college and housing benefits for veterans were unmitigated boons for African Americans. However, in many ways, the opposite is true. The New Deal, largely shaped to appease racist southern lawmakers, actually codified Black inferior status, while elevating poor whites. And returning Black veterans got only a tiny fraction of the benefits of the GI Bill. President Johnson's Sixties War on Poverty effectively lasted only three years –  at the end of which, the hopes of the Black poor were smashed.
"Blacks were directly injured by New Deal policies; then ignored when it came time to dispense New Deal dollars."
The NAACP's publication The Crisis, for example, decried the monopoly powers granted to racist unions by the NRA, noting in 1934 that "union labor strategy seems to be to obtain the right to bargain with the employees as the sole representative of labor, and then close the union to black workers." Members of the Black press took up the charge, attacking the NRA, rechristening it the "Negro Removal Act," "Negroes Robbed Again," "Negro Run Around," and "No Roosevelt Again."
There was also a counter-narrative during this time. European immigrants were learning that whiteness was more than skin color. It was the privilege of opportunity and above all, exclusive. There was this very standard narrative of the European mobility model. We came here with nothing. We worked hard. We, we pulled ourselves up by our bootstraps. And it's offered up as proof of the openness of the American economic order. Left out of the bootstrap myth of European ethnics was access to opportunities closed to non-whites. Roosevelt's New Deal reforms offered many Americans a path out of poverty.

The New Deal's Social Security measure gave at least some protection to 30 million citizens, but it excluded farm workers and domestics, most of whom were non-white. Many unions locked Blacks and Mexicans into low paying jobs, or kept them out all together. Perhaps the best example of how European ethnics would finally gain the full benefits of whiteness, to the exclusion of others, would come with an innovation in housing at the end of World War II.

It was a time when hundreds of thousands of GIs came home ready to start families, but had no place to live. FHA came to the rescue by insuring long term, low monthly payment mortgage loans. Home ownership was made possible for additional millions of families and stimulated a tremendous volume of construction. Veterans needed homes for families. They turned to the revolutionary New Deal housing program. It would, however, racialize housing, wealth, and opportunity for decades, in ways few could have imagined.

"The FHA underwriters warned that the presence of even one or two non-white families could undermine real estate values in the new suburbs."

In the 1930's the federal government created the Federal Housing Administration, whose job it was to provide loans or the backing for loans to average Americans so they could purchase a home. In order to purchase a house in America prior to 1930s, you had to pay 50 percent of the sales price up front. The new terms of purchasing a home was that you put 10 percent or 20 percent down, and the bank financed 80% of it - not over five years but over 30 years at relatively low rates. This opened up the opportunities for Americans to own homes like ever before. The average person could own that home.

Almost a million Black GIs came home after WWII. They had fought for the country in segregated ranks. They returned hoping for equality and at least a small slice of the American pie. For many, that slice was (potentially) a new home for little money down and some of the easiest credit terms in history. The FHA underwriters warned that the presence of even one or two non-white families could undermine real estate values in the new suburbs. These government guidelines were widely adopted by private industry. Race had long played a role in local real estate practices. Starting in the 1930's, government officials institutionalized a national appraisal system, where race was as much a factor in real estate assessment as the condition of the property. Using this scheme, federal investigators evaluated 239 cities across the country for financial risk.

So those communities that were all white, suburban and far away from inner-city areas, they received the highest rating. And that was the color green. Those communities that were all Black or in the process of changing, they got the lowest rating and the color red. They were "redlined." As a consequence, most of the mortgages went to suburbanizing America, and it suburbanized it racially (this practice is still with us).

"Between 1934 and 1962, the federal government underwrote 120 billion dollars in new housing. Less than 2% went to non-whites."

This racial logic adopted the principle that an integrated neighborhood was a bad risk - a financial risk; that an integrated neighborhood was likely to be an unstable neighborhood socially. Unstable socially translated into unstable economically. For example, in the 1940's, when the white residents of Eight Mile Road in Detroit were told they were too close to a Black neighborhood to qualify for a positive FHA rating, they built a six foot wall between themselves and their Black neighbors. Once the wall went up, mortgages on the white properties were approved. Between 1934 and 1962, the federal government underwrote 120 billion dollars in new housing. Less than 2% went to non-whites.

Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal increased poverty and joblessness among Blacks; empowered discriminatory labor unions; and when the Supreme Court overturned Lochner v. New York (the right of the individual to contract their services), removed an effective legal tool to challenge segregation laws and other racist state actions.

The Short Life of the Great Society and the Forgotten Kerner Report

An enormous deal has been said about the Great Society programs of President Lyndon Johnson - especially as it pertains to Black America. And I would agree with those who say that opportunities that were not thought possible before 1964 (when Johnson rolled out the first of his Great Society programs), were beginning to be realized. There were three major pillars of Johnson's agenda: a war on poverty, addressing racial injustice and urban renewal & conservation. Nevertheless, these strides were short-lived. Yes, programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, PBS and federal education funding (albeit with minimized funding) continue with us to this day, the initiatives that were specific to the Black community were (and have been) effectively neutralized, diminished or were constantly in peril. This onslaught is not of recent origin, but began at the genesis of his Great Society.

"Initiatives that were specific to the Black community were (and have been) effectively neutralized." [...]

Note: the welfare and affirmative action section will be continued in the next installment in the series. Dr. Rhymes can be contacted at edwardrhymes@yahoo.comThis email address is being protected from spam bots, you need Javascript enabled to view it

How to Destroy an African-American City in Thirty-Three Steps – Lessons from Katrina
Wednesday, 04 July 2007
by Bill Quigley
http://www.blackagendareport.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&...

How can we destroy a Black city? -  let us count the ways. Federal, state and local officials appear to have compiled a comprehensive list of destructive acts of commission and omission -  and pursued every possible tactic to permanently de-Blacken New Orleans.  The author is just as thorough in compiling a 33-count indictment of the city-killers, with the Bush Gang as chief conspirators.  The crimes against Black New Orleans are so malevolent, so unremitting, and on such a grand scale, they cannot have been the result of mere incompetence. The crime is premeditated attempted murder, motivated by pure racism and greed. [...]

AMERICAN CAPITALISM IS RACIST TERROR & GENOCIDE: Martial law, forced labour and some other niceties of American political life.
"Rex 84 provided for the detention of at least 21 million American Negroes in assembly centers or relocation camps."
posted by lenin http://leninology.blogspot.com/
A few years back, when some newspapers suggested that Bush had laid in place the foundations for martial law, and Tommy Franks... told some cigar magazine that another 9/11 would certainly eventuate in that, one couldn't help thinking of Oliver North. Details of North's plan for introducing martial law in the event of widespread civil disobedience came out during the Contra hearings, and the Miami Herald exposed a programme called Rex 84 in which such measures were envisaged. The plan, "was said to be similar to one Mr. Guiffrida had developed earlier to combat a national uprising by black militants. It provided for the detention of at least 21 million American Negroes in assembly centers or relocation camps."

It's now 2006, post-Katrina, and the Bush government has handed Kellogg, Brown & Root another fat little contract to build and maintain "temporary detention facilities" in the event of an emergency influx of immigrants, or in case of another natural disaster in which thousands of people are displaced - because detaining people in a hellhole of a flooded city, depriving them of food, water & medical aid, and then subjecting them to martial law, doesn't look good on teevee (supposing one could get more than a glimpse of this picture from teevee)... After Guantanamo, and the mass post-9/11 detentions in the US, it's hard to even raise an eyebrow. Mass detention camps for Arab-Americans? Blurring the distinction between terrorism and dissent? Criminalising protest? We've seen that old schtick before, over and over again.
Because these things are not a fixture of daily life for most Americans, one assumes that outright government repression is an anomaly. From John Africa to Waco, from suppression of labour to Cointelpro, the record suggests otherwise. http://leninology.blogspot.com/2006/02/martial-law-forced-labour-and-som...

Capitalism is Racism: An Update on the New Orleans Tragedy
by Thomas Harrelson
It was reported in a headline of the Jan. 27, 2006 New York Times that a “ Study Says 80% of New Orleans Blacks May Not Return .” Why might they not return?
(full article )

THE DEMOGRAPHICS OF RACIST GENOCIDE:
Six Months After Katrina: Who Was Left Behind Then and
Who is Being Left Behind Now? By Bill Quigley
Bill Quigley is a civil and human rights lawyer and
Professor of Law at Loyola University New Orleans
School of Law. You can reach Bill at Quigley@loyno.edu
Introduction. Nearly six months ago, my wife Debbie and I boated
out of New Orleans. We left five days after Katrina
struck.
...The Katrina evacuation was totally self-help. If you
had the resources, a car, money and a place to go, you
left. Over one million people evacuated ...Twenty-seven
percent of the people of New Orleans did not have access
to a car. Government authorities knew in advance that “
…100,000 citizens of New Orleans did not have means of
personaltransportation.” Greyhound and Amtrak stopped service
on the Saturday before the hurricane. These are
people who did not have cars because they were poor -
over 125,000 people, 27% of the people of New Orleans,
lived below the very low federal poverty level before
Katrina.
The sick were left behind. Some government reports
estimated 12,000 patients were evacuated. I estimate
at least an additional 24,000 people - staff and
families of patients - were left behind in the
twenty-two hospitals which were open at the time.
The elderly were left behind. The 280 plus local
nursing homes remained mostly full. Only 21%
evacuated and as a consequence 215 people died in
nursing homes, at least six people died at a single
nursing home while they waited four days for busses.
The aged who lived at home also certainly found it
more difficult than most to evacuate as they were more
likely to live alone, less likely to own a car and
nearly half were disabled.
Untold numbers of other disabled people and their
caretakers were also left behind. There were tens of
thousands of people with special needs in New Orleans.
A physician reported hundreds of people in
wheelchairs were in front of the Convention Center. A
comprehensive study of evacuees in Houston shelters
found one in seven physically disabled, 22% physically
unable to evacuate, 23% stayed behind to care for
someone physically disabled, and 25% had a chronic
disease such as heart disease, diabetes or high blood
pressure. There were no provisions made for their
evacuations.
Children were left behind. While there are no
official estimates breaking out children left behind,
I know from what we saw during our evacuation that
many, many children were among those left behind.
About one-fourth of the people living in the areas
damaged were children, about 183,000 kids, including
47,000 children under the age of 5. Over half of the
children displaced were African-American and 30% of
children in the damaged areas were poor, nearly double
the 2000 national census rate for child poverty of
16.6%. These children were almost twice as likely to
live in a female-headed home than children nationally.
Prisoners were left behind. Local prisons held 8300
inmates, most on local minor charges awaiting trial
and too poor to post bond. Thousands were left
behind with no food, water, or medical attention.
Jails depend on electricity as much as hospitals do –
doors of cells and halls and pods and entrances and
exits are electronically opened and closed. More than
600 hundred prisoners, one entire building, were left
behind once the prisons were evacuated – left in chest
deep water, locked into cells.
Ultimately as many as 40,000 people took refuge in
the Superdome which lost power, lost part of its roof,
the water system failed and the toilets backed up.
Another 20-30,000 people were dropped off at the
Convention Center. Conditions at the Convention
Center were far worse than at the Superdome because
the Convention Center was never intended to be used
for evacuees it did not have any drinking water, food,
or medical care at all. Ten people died in or around
the Superdome, four at the convention center.
Unfounded rumors flew about rapes and murders inside
these centers – and the myth that rescue helicopters
were fired upon – have all been found to be untrue..
But those rumors so upset military and medical
responders that many slowed down demanding protection
from the evacuees – only to be greeted by “a whole lot
of people clapping and cheering” when they arrived.
Debbie and I left the hospital after five days.
Helicopters finally came and airlifted out many
patients, their families and staff. Others, like us,
left in small fishing boats piloted by volunteers.
The Coast Guard reported it rescued 33,000 people and
the National Guard reported rescues of another 25,000
people. Louisiana Department of Homeland Security
said 62,000 people were rescued from rooftops or out
of water – not including those already in shelters.
Many, many others, like us, were rescued by volunteers
in boats and trucks.
Some people never made it out of metropolitan New
Orleans. February 2006 reports from the Louisiana
Department of Health and Hospitals show 1,103 bodies
were recovered from the storm and flood, with over
2,000 people still reported missing. About 215
people died in local hospitals and nursing homes.
Where did the survivors end up? According to FEMA,
evacuees ended up all over – applications came in from
18,700 zip codes in all 50 states – half of the
nation’s residential postal zones. Most evacuee
families stayed within 250 miles of New Orleans, but
240,000 households went to Houston and other cities
over 250 miles away and another 60,000 households went
over 750 miles away.
Who ended up in shelters? Over 270,000 evacuees
started out in shelters. The Washington Post, the
Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard
School of Public Health surveyed 680 randomly selected
adult evacuees in Houston shelters on September 10-12,
2005. The results of that survey illustrate who ended
up in shelters:
64% were renters
55% did not have a car or a way to evacuate
22% had to care for someone who was physically unable
to leave
72% had no insurance
68% had neither money in the bank nor a useable
credit card
57% had total household incomes of less than $20,000
in prior year
76% had children under 18 with them in the shelter
77% had a high school education or less
93% were black
67% were employed full or part-time before the
hurricane
52% had no health insurance
54% received their healthcare at the big public
Charity Hospital
The people who were left behind in Katrina were the
poor, the sick, the elderly, the disabled, children,
and prisoners – mostly African-American.

Who is Being Left Behind Now?
“Hurricane Katrina likely made one of the poorest
areas of the country even poorer….Both those who were
poor before the storm and those who have become poor
following the storm, are likely to face a particularly
difficult time in reestablishing their lives, have few
if any financial resources upon which to draw.”
Congressional Research Service 2005

... the same people who were left behind in the evacuation for
Katrina are being left behind again in the reconstruction of New
Orleans....
Hundreds of thousands of people have not made it back.
There were 469,000 fewer people in the metropolitan
New Orleans area in January 2006 than in August 2005.
Why? Many reasons.... But, as the Brown
University study concluded “… storm damage data shows
that the storm’s impact was disproportionately borne
by the region’s African-American community, by people
who rented their homes and by the poor and
unemployed.”
Poor people were hardest hit and are having the
hardest time returning. “The population of the
damaged areas was nearly half black (45.8% compared to
26.4% black in the rest of the region), living in
rental housing (45.7% compared to 30.9%), and
disproportionately below the poverty line (20.9%
compared to 15.3%.”
Renters are not coming back because there is little
affordable housing. With tens of thousands of homes
damaged, the cost of renting has skyrocketed. An
apartment down the block from my house rented for $600
last summer – it now rents for $1400. Trailers have
not arrived because of federal, state and local
political misjudgments. Over 10,000 trailers were
still sitting unused on runways in Hope, Arkansas in
February 2006. In my interviews with evacuees who
were renters, few were protected by any insurance -
most lost everything.
The little reconstruction that has started is aimed at
home-owners. Louisiana is slated to receive $6.2
billion in Community Development Block Grant money and
the Governor says $1 billion “could be used to
encourage the rebuilding of affordable housing.” So
with 45% of the homes damaged occupied by renters,
affordable housing “could” end up with 16% of the
assistance.
Public housing is politically out of the question in
early 2006. There is no national or local commitment
to re-opening public housing in the city. U.S.
Congressman Richard Baker, a longtime critic of public
housing in New Orleans, was quoted in the Wall Street
Journal after the storm saying "We finally cleaned up
in New Orleans. We couldn't do it, but God did."...
“New Orleans is at risk of losing 80% of its black population.”

The people left behind in the rebuilding of New
Orleans are the poor, the sick, the elderly, the
disabled, children, and prisoners, mostly
African-American. Again left behind.
The television showed who was left behind in the
evacuation of New Orleans after Katrina. There is no
similar easy visual for those who are left behind now,
but they are the same people....
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Feb06/Quigley21.htm

Warning flags are flying over America’s public schools [excerpt]
http://www.malcolmxmlk@gnn.tv/
...The ensuing New Orleans-style exodus has since transformed the public schools into America’s Superdome. Huddled inside of those school buildings now are the mostly Black and Latino children of poor and working-class parents. Their broken bodies and spirits will be found amid the wreckage after the very idea of universal public education has been demolished.
Their game plan counts heavily on racism. While they fully intend to leave behind African-American, Latino, Native American and immigrant children, they will wring their hands in public over the “achievement gap” because it helps obscure other gaps in the nation’s social fabric. America’s household assets gap, the average white family owns 14 times the average Black family, is never factored into test score analysis. Nor the infant mortality gap, more than twice the rate for Black mothers, the life expectancy gap, the health care gap, nutrition gap, the employment gap or any of the chasms created by racial discrimination.

The nature of their crusade forces them to buy influence in the Black community. It is enemy territory and snake oil salesmen like Armstrong Williams and charlatans like Rod Paige must carry their message. The US Department of Education had to pass thirty pieces of silver to Williams for his No Child Left Behind promotion. Paige put a Black face on the phrase “the soft bigotry of low expectations” and was able to call the biggest education fraud in history “the Houston Miracle” with a straight face. He was rewarded with a spot in George Bush’s cabinet.

Their game day slogan is “No Excuses” because it helps excuse away certain damning realities. Historically low levels of federal education spending and lower state funding of public schools, “No Excuses”. The perfect correlation of poverty and low standardized test scores, “No Excuses”. The re-segregation of America’s schools, “No Excuses”. Excuses are reserved for corporate downsizing, the outsourcing of jobs, escaping from pension and health care plans through bankruptcy filings, corrupt accounting practices and insider trading, offshore tax avoidance schemes, and obscene profit making.

Then there is the most potent rhetorical weapon in the CEO’s arsenal. They shout it in the faces of 9-year-old children. They bludgeon parents, teachers, administrators, elected school boards and whole school districts with it. Failed! Failure! Failing! F! When the time is right they will condemn the very idea of educating all of America’s children—a noble but failed experiment. On the ashes they will create their brave new education system.

Racist Genocide in New Orleans Continues: "Like 911 But Add Water"
by liz burbank
originally published 9/3/05 as "A Catastrophic Success": A Holocaust Shaped by Race

A renaissance of Black resistance and leadership, historically the leading edge of revolution is what the postmodern slavemasters fear most in the racist "homeland".
Katrina was no accident, no surprise, no act of 'mother nature', the 'gods' , or bureaucratic incompetence. The human and environmental and impact on New Orleans of a hurricane of this magnitude had been scientifically calculated. Rescue and recovery were deliberately withheld, working class Black people militarily imprisoned, forcibly dispersed and murdered by the armed state.

This intensification of america's historical genocide, a crime of U.S. imperialist state terrorism, is a premeditated physical and psychological attack on the Black Nation to destroy its strength, pride, cultural cohesion and resistance to capitalist white supremacy's fascist global juggernaut.

Central to the U.S. strategy for global domination, Katrina and the brutal aftermath was engineered to serve this fascist agenda in two interrelated ways: uprooting, dispersing and weakening the Black Nation, while simultaneously inflaming racist support for the consolidation of a fascist mode of state capitalism with martial law under the guise of "rescue, relief and recovery” from a "major casualty-producing event" the state declared a “natural disaster” (see military and 'think-tank briefings following) [...]

full article at http://lizburbankdigest.blogspot.com/2006/03/racist-genocide-in-new-orle...
also at http://www.burbankdigest.com/]

.............

OFFICIALLY: NEW ORLEANS IN THE CONTEXT OF U.S. WAR OF TERRORISM FOR GLOBAL DOMINATION

9/11, Katrina, and the Future of Interagency Disaster Response
Admiral Thad W. Allen, Commandant, United States Coast Guard
Foreign Policy Studies, The Brookings Institution
Tuesday, May 29, 2007
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20070529.htm
A recent article on our guest speaker in U.S. News and World Report was entitled "Always Ready for the Storm," and that about says it all about Admiral Thad Allen. He is the 23rd Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, and he's going to lead us today in a discussion of disaster response interagency operations.... a discussion of what the role is for the Coast Guard in the 21st century because it's really those issues that he's touching on right now....they might involve issues of homeland defense, in other cases, disaster management, in other instances, immigration control or, in other cases, counter-narcotics operations. The reality is that all of these are a part of his life and a part of the functions and the roles of the U.S. Coast Guard today.

It, in effect, demands the integration of defense and civilian agencies and functions. It demands an integration of international and domestic capabilities perhaps in a way that is unique internally within our government.
Read the full transcript (PDF—85kb)
On May 29, the Brookings Institution's 21st Century Defense Initiative will host Admiral Thad W. Allen for a discussion of how the U.S. Coast Guard can contribute to enhanced unity of interagency responses to disasters. Admiral Allen has first-hand experience with the challenges of interagency collaboration. In 2001, he led the Coast Guard Atlantic Area operations in response to the 9/11 attacks, and in 2005, he was the principal federal official for Hurricane Katrina response in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. In his long and distinguished career, he has served in both coastal and offshore positions, internationally and at home. Admiral Allen graduated from the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in 1971. He holds master's degrees from George Washington University and the Sloan School of Management at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Hurricane Katrina: Where Do We Go from Here?
http://www.brookings.edu/comm/events/20050908.htm
We're going to begin by looking at this through the lens of what has happened in the government thinking about response to crises and events of great national significance in the post-9/11 environment with Richard Falkenrath, who was the—really the point man in many respects in the early years, the first term of the Bush Administration, in thinking about how both to reorganize the Federal Government and how to think about incidents of national catastrophe, looking through the lens not only of the post-9/11 environment, but the whole effort to think about the role of the Federal Government in addressing these questions.
Then we're going to turn to Michael O'Hanlon, who's going to focus on one particular dimension of the response, which is the question of what is and should be the role of the military, not only the National Guard and Reserve, but also the active duty military, which, as you've seen, has become more actively involved in the response in recent days....
Read the full transcript (PDF—196kb)
On Thursday, September 8, the Brookings Institution sponsors a panel discussion aimed at analyzing the federal, state and local response to Hurricane Katrina ...Experts on homeland security, the armed services, federalism and cities will unravel the questions that will be most important to policymakers moving forward at all level of government: How should disaster relief be organized? How can we better prepare for a natural disaster or a terrorist attack—including coordinating the national guard and active duty military?...

...........

 
  On Feb. 21, 1965 Malcolm X was murdered by agents of the state identified as Black Muslims as he was about to address a rally in New York City
Read The Autobiography of Malcolm X by Malcolm X --again...

Malcolm X (1925 - 1965), Autobiography of Malcolm X chap 4
Power in defense of freedom is greater than power on behalf of tyranny and oppression.

Our nation was born in genocide when it embraced the doctrine that the original American, the Indian, was an inferior race. Even before there were large numbers of Negroes on our shore, the scar of our racial hatred had already disfigured colonial society. From the sixteenth century forward, blood flowed in battles over racial supremacy. We are perhaps the only nation which tried as a matter of national policy to wipe out its indigenous population. Moreover, we elevated that tragic experience into a noble crusade. Indeed, even today we have not permitted ourselves to reject or feel remorse for this shameful episode. Our literature, our films, our drama, our folklore all exalt it. Our children are still taught to respect the violence which reduced a red-skinned people of an earlier culture into a few fragmented groups herded into impoverished reservations.

My thinking had been opened up wide in Mecca. I wrote long letters to my friends, in which I tried to convey to them my new insights into the American black man’s struggle and his problems as well as the depths of my search for truth and justice. “I’ve had enough of someone else’s propaganda,” I had written to these friends. “I am for truth, no matter who tells it. I am for justice, no matter who it is for or against. I am a human being first and foremost, and as such I’m for whoever and whatever benefits humanity as a whole.” The American white man’s press called me the angriest Negro in America. I wouldn’t deny that charge; I spoke exactly as I felt. I believe in anger. I believe it is a crime for anyone who is being brutalized to continue to accept that brutality without doing something to defend himself. I am for violence if non-violence means that we continue postponing or even delaying a solution to the American black man’s problem. White man hates to hear anybody, especially a black man, talk about the crime that the white man perpetrated on the black man. But let me remind you that when the white man came into this country, he certainly wasn’t demonstrating non-violence.

Sitting at the table doesn't make you a diner, unless you eat some of what's on that plate. Being here in America doesn't make you an American. Being born here in America doesn't make you an American.

Time is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. Truth is on the side of the oppressed today, it's against the oppressor. You don't need anything else.

The future belongs to those who prepare for it today

Power in defense of freedom is greater than power in behalf of tyranny and oppression

............

Mumia Abu-Jamal - Legal Update (federal and state procedings)

Dear Friends:
On May 17, 2007, we presented oral argument in the U.S. Court of
Appeal of the Third Circuit, Philadelphia, on behalf of Mumia Abu-
Jamal. Abu-Jamal v. Horn, U.S. Court of Appeals Nos. 01-9014,
02-9001 (death penalty). It was an extraordinary day in my
experience of three decades of death penalty litigation. This was
certainly the most promising legal proceeding since the arrest of my
client over 25 years ago. At last there is light at the end of the
tunnel. Even though there is no way to know when or how the federal
court will rule, the three-judge panel’s numerous questions certainly
reflected their concern about what the prosecution had done wrong. A
decision could be forthcoming anytime from mid-July to the fall.

It was encouraging to see the courtroom packed with supporters for my
client. A large crowd also waited outside during the hearing. There
were international observers from various countries including France,
and a prominent human rights lawyer from Berlin who is also a member
of the German parliament.

The focus of the federal court was on issues concerning the death
penalty, misrepresentations by the prosecutor in his argument to the
jury, and his racism in jury selection. The atmosphere was far
different than previously experienced in this case, as reflected by
the judges' overriding concern regarding misconduct by the
prosecution. Early on one judge asked opposing counsel in reference
to the prosecutor’s misrepresentations to the jury during the 1982
trial: “Isn't that a denial of one of the rights secured by the Bill
of Rights?” I therefore concluded the hearing by pointing out that
even though it is judicially recognized that the Philadelphia
District Attorney employed racism in cases both before and after that
of Mr. Abu-Jamal, can anyone seriously believe that racism was not at
work in this case involving an outspoken journalist who was a former
member of the Black Panther Party and a supporter of MOVE's right to
exist.

Even though Mr. Abu-Jamal began writing me in 1986, it was not until
2003 that I was finally able to agree to take over as lead counsel.
Since then my focus has been on raising his level of credibility,
convincing courts to give serious consideration to the many
constitutional violations what have occurred in this complex case,
and overcoming the errors of the past case lawyers. To date we have
been largely successful. Interestingly, every motion I have filed
since briefing was ordered federally has been granted.

Oral argument aimed to calmly and candidly dealing with the questions
and concerns of the judges. It was not a time for political speeches
or emotional-type arguments which I have successfully made before
juries in countless murder cases. All possible arguments with
supporting legal authority were previously made in our extensive
written briefs. Supporting us with excellent briefs and argument was
the NAACP's Legal Defense Fund, and the National Lawyers Guild, both
of whom I brought into the case some years ago.

People frequently ask what can happen now. The federal court's
choices involve various scenarios. These include remanding the case
back to the U.S. District Court for further hearings, or granting an
entirely new trial, or ordering a new jury trial limited to the
penalty issue of life or death, or denying all relief with the case
headed towards an execution. Our objective is a reversal of the
conviction and death sentence, and the granting of a new trial.

The primary problem we have experienced in Mr. Abu-Jamal’s case, in
additional to prosecution misconduct and racism, has been mistakes
made by prior counsel ranging from not pursing an adequate
investigation to failing to raise certain fundamental issues, e.g.,
judicial bias at trial. This has been evident in the federal appeal,
accentuated by some of the judges’ questions on May 17. We have
taken all possible steps to overcome these shortcomings.

The issues in the case of Mr. Abu-Jamal concern the right to a fair
trial, the struggle against the death penalty, and the political
repression of an outspoken journalist. Racism and politics are
threads that have run through this case since his 1981 arrest. The
issues under consideration, all of great constitutional significance,
are:
Whether Mr. Abu-Jamal was denied the right to due process of law and
a fair trial under the Fifth, Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments to the
U.S. Constitution because of the prosecutor’s “appeal-after-appeal”
argument which encouraged the jury to disregard the presumption of
innocence and reasonable doubt, and err on the side of guilt.
Whether the prosecution’s use of peremptory challenges to exclude
African Americans from sitting on the jury violated Mr. Abu-Jamal’s
rights to due process and equal protection of the law under the Sixth
and Fourteenth Amendments, and contravened Batson v. Kentucky, 476
U.S. 79 (1986).
Whether the jury instructions and verdict form that resulted in the
death penalty deprived Mr. Abu-Jamal of rights guaranteed by the
Eight and Fourteenth Amendments to due process of law, equal
protection of the law, and not to be subjected to cruel and unusual
punishment, and violated Mills v. Maryland, 486 U.S. 367 (1988),
since the judge precluded the jurors from considering any mitigating
evidence unless they all agreed on the existence of a particular
circumstance.
Whether Mr. Abu-Jamal was denied due process and equal protection of
the law under the Sixth and Fourteenth Amendments during post-
conviction hearings as the result of the bias and racism of Judge
Albert F. Sabo which included the comment that he was “going to
help'em fry the nigger.”
It is a pleasure to announce that we are once more engaged in
briefing before the Pennsylvania Supreme Court. On June 1, 2007, we
filed on behalf of Mr. Abu-Jamal the opening Brief for Appellant.
Commonwealth v. Abu-Jamal, Pa. Sup. Ct. No. 485, Capital Appeals Div.
(death penalty). The issues presented include the prosecution
falsely manipulating eyewitness testimony, and its use of fabricated
evidence. There are procedural problems which occurred before I
entered the case, these are issues of such constitutional importance
that they must be aggressively pursued. A copy of our brief is
attached.

I am in this case to win a new and fair trial for Mr. Abu-Jamal.
That is his and my wish. The goal is for his freedom following a
retrial. Nevertheless, Mr. Abu-Jamal remains in great danger. If
all is lost, he will be executed.

Your interest in this struggle for human rights and against the death
penalty is appreciated.

Yours very truly,

Robert R. Bryan
London
[Law Offices of Robert R. Bryan
2088 Union Street, Suite 4
San Francisco, California 94123-4117]
Lead counsel for Mumia Abu-Jama

In The Name Of Freedom
There is a verse in my language that goes like this;
Chaand uss raat bhee nikla tha magar uss ka wajood,
Itna khoonrang tha jaisay kissi masoom ki laash.

In English it means;
The moon ascended the skies that night too,
But was as bloody as the corpse of an innocent man.

Ladies and gentlemen, steel your hearts for this 12 minutes video. Click here for a guided tour of hell and then shout from the rooftops.

What the Flag Means To Me: 'Old Gory,' red represent the blood, white, the bones, of my murdered ancestors."
by S. Brian Willson
July 4, 2000
http://www.brianwillson.com/awoljuly4.html

Commentary: FREEDOM
What's the reality behind the word freedom? Whose freedom, to do what, to whom, how, why? Does freedom mean the same thing for the rulers and the ruled? For whom are 'bombs bursting in air', whose and what kind of freedom do we pledge allegiance to by celebrating July 4?

Freedom for 'us' and 'them' worldwide is diametrically and dialectically opposed. Imperialist capital is free to wring profits and power out of our hides through brutal exploitation and oppression, to wage terror, tyranny and perpetual war against the world, the planet and human beings.

Freedom has different faces because it is class - based, the property of the ruling class with state power.
For most of the world It is a desperate struggle to survive capitalism's white supremacist freedom to secure global 'full-spectrum' dominance, 'manifest destiny', to expand its basis for further maximizing capital accumulation, profit and power.

Freedom and life for capital means death and destruction for millions. Peoples' freedom worldwide means revolutionary resistance against capitalism. All the heroic freedom fighters called "terrorists" for impeding imperialist freedom are our sisters and brothers, our allies and inspiration in the struggle for freedom.

Fascist state terror, 24/7 racist "perception management" psywar, torture and death, nothing can destroy the reality born out by history: oppression breeds resistance. Reality will trump rhetoric. We will decide our friends and enemies based on their actions. Here in the "homeland" class and race privilege buys the loyalty -- the enslavement -- of many who betray their true allies and interests for blood-soaked crumbs.

In a world-historic conjuncture such as this, contradictions reach a boiling point that presents rare opportunities -- as well as exceptional dangers -- for making fundamental global shifts in the balance of forces of political power. Individual political positions too are shifting under pressure, becoming clarified into powerful active forces for the revolutionary change necessary.

This is a rare historical moment: U.S. imperialism's predatory life is on the line, in deep capitalist crisis, increasingly vulnerable--and dangerous-in the face of defeats it is suffering from growing international resistance and unity. Karl Marx examined why democracy is the best shell for capitalism. V.I. Lenin analyzed how capital's geostrategic nature, its necessity to eliminate rivals and resistance to expand its basis for capital accumulation, drives capitalism to unjust imperialist wars to redivide the world to restructure capital under its global control.
Desperation drives it to crimes that reveal its inherent predatory nature, even to those 'normally' protected and blinded by class/race privilege. The state's 'free' press/media, essential propaganda organs, along with education, religion and 'culture', perpetuate north america's founding white supremacist patriotic myths --- freedom, democracy, equality -- blaming the victims especially of racist oppression for capital's crimes against them.

The scales are tipping: our common enemy is strategically weak, desperate and ever more deadly. The enemy will never admit or accept defeat. To tip the scales for good all of us committed to justice and peace must take responsibility for doing what is JUST and NECESSARY for the peoples' and the planet's future-- RESIST -- seize the rare opportunity this crisis and reign of terror presents. Capitalist fascism will be defeated only when capitalism is: pretending capitalism and fascism are divisible is as opportunistic as pretending zionism is divisible and independent of capitalist imperialism.

The greatest human challenge and opportunity faces us now: to take a stand, decide what must be done and do it. To join the struggle with our Palestinian, Iraqi, African, Latin American, Black and Chicano sisters and brothers worldwide to end the barbaric reality of imperialist democracy, to become part of the material force that will transform the enemy's freedom of terror and tyranny into a new reality based on cooperation, justice, peace and freedom. The choice for the peoples', the world's and the planet's future is freedom from capital -- capitalist freedom is killing us.

"We are the ruling race of the world. . . . We will not renounce our part in the mission of our race, trustee, under God, of the civilization
of the world. . . . He has marked us as his chosen people. . . . He has made us adept in government that we may administer government
among savage and senile peoples."
Sen. Alfred Beveridge

American Hypocrisy: This Fourth of July is Yours, Not Mine
By Frederick Douglas, 1852
Fellow citizens, pardon me, and allow me to ask, why am I called upon to
speak here today? What have I or those I represent to do with your national
independence? Are the great principles of political freedom and of natural
justice, embodied in that Declaration of Independence, extended to us? And
am I, therefore, called upon to bring our humble offering to the national
altar, and to confess the benefits, and express devout gratitude for the
blessings resulting from your independence to us? ...

This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must
mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of
liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman
mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by
asking me to speak today?..

What, to the American slave, is your 4th of July? I answer: a day that
reveals to him, more than all other days in the year, the gross injustice
and cruelty to which he is the constant victim.

To him, your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty, an unholy
license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing
are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass fronted
impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your
prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious
parade, and solemnity, are, to him, mere bombast, fraud, deception,
impiety, and hypocrisy, a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace
a nation of savages.

There is not a nation on the earth guilty of practices, more shocking and
bloody, than are the people of these United States... Go search where you
will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World,
travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found
the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this
nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless
hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article13837.htm

IMPERIALIST FREEDOM
“We are on the verge of global transformation. All we need is the right
major crisis and the nations will accept the New World Order.”
David Rockefeller 1994 Statement to the United Nations Business Council

"We have about 60 per cent of the world's wealth but only 6.3 per
cent of its population. In this situation we cannot fail to be the object of
envy and resentment. Our real task in the coming period is to devise a
pattern of relationships which will permit us to maintain this position of
disparity. We need not deceive ourselves that we can afford today the luxury
of altruism and world benefaction. We should cease to talk about such vague
and unreal objectives as human rights, the raising of living standards and
democratisation. The day is not far off when we are going to have to deal in
straight power concepts. The less we are then hampered by idealistic
slogans, the better."
George Kennan, ex-US State Department Policy Planning Staff Chief, Document PPS23, 24 February 1948

THE GLOBAL IMPERIALIST WAR for a U.S. 'NEW WORLD ORDER'
World events since the attacks of September 11, 2001 have not only been predicted, but also planned, orchestrated and - as their architects would like to believe - controlled. The current Central Asian war is not a response to terrorism, nor is it a reaction to Islamic fundamentalism. It is in fact, in the words of one of the most powerful men on the planet, the beginning of a final conflict for total world domination by the United States... This, says Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) member and former Carter National Security Advisor, Zbigniew Brzezinski, will lead to nation states being incorporated into a new world order... the alternative, a world in chaos unless the U.S. controls the planet by whatever means are necessary...
Dr. Johannes B. Koeppl, Ph.D. a former German defense ministry official and advisor to former NATO Secretary General Manfred Werner told FTW, "The interests behind the Bush Administration... have prepared for and are now moving to implement open world dictatorship within the next five years. They are not fighting against terrorists. They are fighting against citizens of all countries... creating so much fear that people don't know how to respond. But they must... This is a move to implement a world dictatorship within the next five years. There may not be another chance."

"If the people are not convinced (that the Free World is in mortal danger) it would be impossible for Congress to vote the vast sums now being spent to avert danger. With the support of public opinion, as marshalled by the press, we are off to a good start. It is our Job - yours and mine -- to keep our people convinced that the only way to keep disaster away from our shores is to build up America's might."
Charles Wilson, Chairman of the Board of General Electric and Truman appointee to head the Office of Defence Mobilization, speech to the Newspaper Publishers Association, 1950

increasingly despised and defeated, still hell-bent on global conquest, U.S. is sowing seeds for new 911
with phony "al-Qaeda" & Iranian "terror threats"

"Terror Spectacular" coming soon says DHS
LA VOZ DE AZTLAN
Los Angeles, Alta California
July 1, 2007
Brian Ross of ABC News, a "front man" of the Bush Administration, is reporting that a secret U.S. law enforcement report, prepared for the Department of Homeland Security, warns that al Qaeda is planning a terror "spectacular" this summer.  The attack will be of a magnitude similar to 911 said the senior official with access to the document.  "This is reminiscent of the warnings and intelligence we were getting in the summer of 2001," the  unidentified official said.
U.S. airports and mass-transit systems are tightening security before the Fourth of July holiday, and more air marshals will travel on overseas flights because of concerns about potential terrorism threats... not because of a specific piece of credible threat information, but because we are going into a holiday season..." Chertoff said. http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003770720_marshals02....

11/21/03 Franks, who successfully led the U.S. military operation to liberate Iraq, expressed his worries in an extensive interview he gave to the men’s lifestyle magazine Cigar Aficionado. Discussing the hypothetical dangers posed to the U.S. in the wake of Sept. 11, Franks said that “the worst thing that could happen” is if terrorists acquire and then use a biological, chemical or nuclear weapon that inflicts heavy casualties. If that happens, Franks said, “... the Western world, the free world, loses what it cherishes most, and that is freedom and liberty we’ve seen for a couple of hundred years in this grand experiment that we call democracy.” Franks then offered “in a practical sense” what he thinks would happen in the aftermath of such an attack. “It means the potential of... a terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event somewhere in the Western world – it may be in the United States of America – that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event. Which in fact, then begins to unravel the fabric of our Constitution....
Already, critics of the U.S. Patriot Act, rushed through Congress in the wake of the Sept. 11 attacks, have argued that the law aims to curtail civil liberties and sets a dangerous precedent. But Franks’ scenario goes much further. He is the first high-ranking official to openly speculate that the Constitution could be scrapped in favor of a military form of government. http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article5267.htm

"you're either with us [US] or you're with the terrorists"
GWB

Into the Dark: The Pentagon P20G Plan to Provoke Terrorist Attacks
According to a classified document prepared for Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, the new organization--the "Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)"--will carry out secret missions designed to "stimulate reactions" among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to "counterattack" by U.S. forces.... the classified Pentagon program puts it this way: "Their sovereignty will be at risk."[...]
by Chris Floyd, November 1, 2002
http://www.counterpunch.org/floyd1101.html
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/

“We face an enemy that has an ideology, they believe things. The best way to describe their ideology is to relate to you the fact that they think the opposite of the way we think.”
GWB

Conquered states that have been accustomed to liberty and the government of their own laws can be held by the conqueror in three different ways. The first is to ruin them; the second, for the conqueror to go and reside there in person; and the third is to allow them to continue to live under their own laws, subject to a regular tribute, and to create in them a government of a few, who will keep the country friendly to the conqueror
Niccolo Machiavelli, The Prince

  "The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media"
former CIA Director William Colby in Bernstein's 10/77 Rolling stone article

“We are grateful to the Washington Post, the New York Times, Time and other great publications whose directors have attended our meetings and respected their promises of discretion for almost 40 years . . . It would have been impossible for us to develop our plan for the world if we had been subjected to the lights of publicity during those years. But, the world is more sophisticated now and prepared to march towards a world government. The supranational sovereignty of an intellectual elite and world bankers is surely preferable to the national auto determination practiced in past centuries” David Rockefeller. Bilderberg meeting, Germany, June 1991

Ordinary people in the United States have been manipulated into imagining they are a people under siege whose sole refuge and protector is their government. If it isn't the Communists, it's Al Qaeda. If it isn't Cuba, it's Nicaragua. As a result, this, the most powerful nation in the world - with its unmatchable arsenal of weapons, its history of having waged and sponsored endless wars, and the only nation in history to have actually used nuclear bombs - is peopled by a terrified citizenry, jumping at shadows. A people bonded to the state not by social services, or public health care, or employment guarantees, but by fear. This synthetically manufactured fear is used to gain public sanction for further acts of aggression.
Arundhati Roy

"The United States must cultivate a mental view toward world settlement after this war which will enable us to impose our own terms,
amounting perhaps to a pax-Americana."
U.S. Department of State - Source: Minutes S-3 of the Security Subcommittee,
Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy, 6 May, 1942, Notter File, Box
77, Record Group 59, Records of the Department of State, National Archives, DC.

"War is nothing but a continuation of politics by other means."
von Clausewitz

'Strategic nonviolent struggle is all about political power.' And I thought, 'Boy is this guy speaking my language,' that is what armed struggle is about."
Col. Robert Helvey, Washington's New World Order "Democratization" Template
b Jonathan Mowat, http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MOW502A.html

The Secret History of the American Empire
 Author: John Perkins
 Video:
 John Perkins talks about his follow-up to his 2005 book, "Confessions of an Economic Hitman," at Barnes & Noble in New York City. In his new book, Mr. Perkins argues that the United States uses its foreign policy to further U.S. business interests around the globe, often to the detriment of poor countries.
http://www.booktv.org/program.aspx?ProgramId=8345&SectionName=&PlayMedia...
 

Imperialist freedom...
"Free" & Ruined Lives
Layla Anwar, An Arab Woman Blues - Reflections in a sealed bottle...
July 1, 2007
...Free, Freedom, Democracy. I shudder at these words. I want to burn Plato's Republic and spit on your Constitution, on your Founding Fathers, on your Laws...

Free limbs, detached, solitary limbs, scattered to the four cardinal points and a bleeding heart in the middle, like a compass.
An arm to the West, a leg to the East, a head down South and a torso up North...And that damned bleeding heart in the Center.

Free, so free...
Free, free in Prisons. Free, so free in Detention centers...
Detention centers in the Mnistry of Interior, Ministry of Defense and Ministry of Justice!
Crammed, packed, jammed... The smell of blood, urine and feces...covering the infected wounds. Wounds of torture born on transparent skins covering rib cages...
Free, so free.
Tortured and Free in American camps. Sodomized and Free - American democracy flavor. Tortured and Free, whipped by sectarianism - Iranian flavor. Oh so Free.

Free to die. Free to cry. Free to mourn. Free to flee. Free to escape. Free at the borders...jammed, packed.

Two thousand "free souls" flee a day. They amass at frontiers, waiting for a stamp on that damned Green passport...that cursed passport.
The passport with a broken winged eagle as an emblem. Clipped wings of Freedom.
It reads "Republic of Iraq."
Republic of whom? Iraq? What Iraq?

Two thousand a day. Grave faces, desperate eyes, lost voices...
A forgotten, abandoned people. A despised, humiliated, tortured, stolen people.
A raped people.
Lost voices in the wilderness of your indifference. The Lost voices of Freedom and Democracy...
" I have 8 children. Look at how I am living. Has anyone asked me how I feed those kids. I have been without a job for 2 years. I tell you how I feed them...I can't feed them. I spit on the U.N. I spit on the thief Bush. If I ever return to Iraq it will be to free my country from those criminals. I will either kill or be killed by them. There is no other way " says this worn out father who looks 3 times his age...
The father wipes his tears and you can see the look of being stuck in "Freedom".
Ah the look of America on his and his son's face. The look of " Freedom ".
Another one plays the lute. A melodious tune that makes your heart quiver. A languorous tune of longing that fills the empty space like smoke. A smoke soon dissipated into that nothingness of " Freedom ."
A couple with a paralysed little girl who needs urgent treatment. They have been there, waiting since the crack of dawn, at the gates of some embassy or the UNHCR. Others take to the pavements. They sit and wait some more... Long hours of waiting in the space of " Freedom ".

Free, Freedom...
Free comments on a blog.
And the rats crawl from the gutters...Rats droppings, Albert Camus's "the Plague". The same kind of rats that rule Baghdad with their droppings...Rats everywhere, crawling the streets, crawling on this page, leaving behind them a trail of excrement wherever they pass.

Rats on the go. Rats exiting. Rats entering again through a different door. The rat with the grey steel eyes. The eyes of lies and deception has exited only to re-enter again after having ruined our lives with Freedom. Now another rat has taken up his place. The fat rat of Baghdad. The rats of Iran. The rats of America...
The plague of Freedom.
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34147

Post-9/11 Reflections on Multiculturalism and Racism
By E. San Juan, Jr., Co-Director, Philippine Forum, New York City
http://www.axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/article_13554.shtml
"...This racial genealogy of the empire followed the logic of capital accumulation by expanding the market for industrial goods and securing
sources of raw materials and, in particular, the prime commodity for exchange and maximizing of surplus value: cheap labor power. This confirms
the enduring relevance of Oliver Cromwell Cox's proposition that 'racial exploitation is merely one aspect of the problem of the proletarianization
of labor, regardless of the color of the laborer. Hence racial antagonism is essentially political-class conflict'." 
E. San Juan, Jr. (1948, 485)

WHERE DWELLS THE ENEMY?
By Zdzislaw Zmijewski
http://zzmijewski.blogspot.com/
Sep 20, 2005
Their liberty is libertinism. Their freedom: the unbridled Capitalism perniciously plundering the planet and its people.

"As democracy in Iraq takes root, the enemies of freedom, the terrorists, will become more desperate, more despicable, and more vicious ..."

"We can expect such atrocities to increase in the coming months because the enemy knows that its greatest defeat lies in the expression of free people in freely enacted laws and at the ballot box."
G.W. Bush Aug 28, 2005

"No cause, no movement and no grievance can justify the intentional killing of innocent civilians and noncombatants...This is unacceptable by any moral standard." ... while Americans bombs have killed millions of civilians and non-combatants for the last 60+ years, even to this hour in Iraq and Afghanistan....

Virtually all major terror attacks, especially 9/11.are State initiated, sponsored, fabricated for the benefit of the War Machines
Mr. Bush without respite invokes the "Enemy" to further the programs of his true constituencies. Let us search for the enemy that he grandiloquently mongers before our unconscious and acquiescently negligent minds. There must now be an earnest attempt at clarity and understanding by most human beings, because we all stand at the edge of the collapsing precipice overlooking a pit that is without bottom, terrible and terminal. Only when we answer these questions can we wisely and accurately discriminate about the true distinguishable nature of "who is the enemy?"

These questions must be answered before we all go marching meekly - pulled like white buffalos with ropes and rings in our noses - to the doom concocted by the authentic enemies in our midst....in the context of current world events, it must be precisely understood what forces and groups are the main antagonists - against what do they fight and what motivates this vicious, vibrant and seemingly infinite lust for death and destruction. Only then, with an awakened, compassionate and adamantine consciousness, can we begin to disarm and eradicate the long entrenched, habitual lunacy ruling over nations and Western Civilization. This discernment - with actions - must happen now!

The true enemies are emboldened and empowered - even daily - by our numb unconsciousness, unbearable stupidity and silence.

The PNAC: Project for the New American Century is the primary intellectual foundation and inspiration for the Empire of "Lily Pads". The authors (who now run things) openly pined for another Pearl Harbor, which then serendipitously happened on 9.11. Within a few hours/days of the attacks, an orgy of pre-prepared plans, Patriot Acts, Carte Blanche resolutions and military mobilizations were executed. The orchestration was breathtakingly vehement. The 9/11 production, the greatest spectacle beyond even Cecile B. DeMille's wildest visions, stunned Americans into stupefaction....

Where dwells the enemy?
Exquisite as well as utterly buffoonish ironies abound every time Bush spouts forth: "we", "terror", "evil", "homeland", "they", "safe", "freedom" "democracy", "enemy" and a host of hackneyed cants. Watching the propaganda machine promulgating his speeches to groveling elites and nescient, distracted Americans, is a sickening and disorienting experience for persons who are half-conscious of what is really happening....

Since 9/11, the terms "Ground Zero" and "Homeland Security" have been slipped into the American lexicon and taken on sinister connotations: Amy Kaplan, Homeland Insecurities: Reflections on Language and Space Radical History Review 85: pg. 82-93 "Freedom" as belched forth from the maws of the Bush puppets is true slavery, the dingy gouache smeared across the Big Lie blinds.

Their liberty is libertinism. Their freedom: the unbridled Capitalism perniciously plundering the planet and its people.
"Terrorism" is a tactic, not an enemy to be vanquished by War. War itself is the debauched revelry of terror. To destroy terrorism with terrorism is an oxymoronic paradox. It is beyond belief that millions of intellectuals and academic scholars and their like have bought the sham…rather… they have sold out for 30 pieces of silver.

Virtually all the major terror attacks are State initiated, sponsored, fabricated and for the benefit of the War Machines - especially 9/11.
As "Operation Gladio", demonstrated, State sponsored terrorism is a tried and true technique to instill fear and corral the masses into submission.
"Almost three-quarters of the (British) public believe that it is right to give up civil liberties to improve our security against terrorist attacks" as reported by the Guardian on Aug 22, 2005. This poll of course followed the 7/7 contrived bombings in London. It works every time. How incredibly piteous it is. The mass medias are now the mass herders for the Plut-Oligarchs.

Where dwells the enemy?
The United States has morphed into the purest form of Fascism the world has yet to suffer, its delineations now so plain as to be parodic were it not so grave. Totalitarianism is being carefully crafted by thousands of Executive Orders, Congressional Resolutions, and Judicial Decisions.

..the covert CIA has caused the deaths of millions of civilians while it also thrashed about thirty (publicly known) democratic countries.... budgets amounting to more than forty billion annually are kept secret even from Congress - this with the full and continuous consent of Americans and their tax dollars. Thousands of billions of taxpayer dollars have been feeding the CIA Underworld since 1947 alone. This does not include trillions more of illicit dollars off the books....for lack of just a meager fraction of these sums, billions live/ed indigently and die/d in misery. Each one a sentient human being, wanting only happiness and freedom from extreme suffering....

American foreign and military policies exist for and serve the agenda of the Elites. There is little "National Security "at stake from foreign attacks. The wars of the 20th century were feasts for the warmongers and weapons manufacturers. The unimaginable suffering and blood letting of millions upon millions gives the Elites opportunity to create more wealth and consolidate power. The more blood, deprivation and depredation their great machines of death can havoc – the better. Viet Nam’s lessons cast aside! Iraq is now the newest playground with cannon-fodder suckers abounding....

By the force of blades and barrels of fire, the Elites rose to the top, lording over, abusing and exploiting the people. Tears and toil, blood and bones were and are their feasts and fat. The systems they instituted more than 2000 years ago, rot and stink like the waters of New Orleans. Truly, they are the overlaying scum of the Earth. Their citadels to self are crumbling. The veneer of civilization is peeling fast....

...snippet from one doc. of U.S. imperialist freedom....
The Pentagon's "Joint Vision 2020", blueprint the United States Department of Defense.
http://www.dtic.mil/jointvision/jvpub2.htm

"The label full spectrum dominance implies that US forces are able to conduct prompt, sustained, and synchronised operations with combinations of forces tailored to specific situations, and with access to and freedom to operate in all domains - space, sea, land, air and information. Additionally, given the global nature of our interests and obligations, the United States must maintain its overseas presence forces and the ability to rapidly project power worldwide in order to achieve full spectrum dominance."
"Vision 2020" has just been updated in recent days with the insistence that the State has the right under the puissant guidance and wisdom of the Commander in Chief G.W. Bush, to inflict a nuclear pre-emptive attack against any enemy groups or countries - even on the suspicion of malevolent intentions that he deems to be a threat to the "Homeland".
In more than 300 American Universities and thousands of corporate factories and labs, hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars are expended by millions of scholars, intellectuals and the most educated and trained America professors and professionals for one sole mission - satisfying the Pentagon and the weapons merchants' insatiable lust for profits. The statistics are mind-boggling. The same story occurred before the Two World Wars....

PENTAGON'S JOINT VISION 2020
Joint Vision 2020 builds upon and extends the conceptual template established by Joint Vision 2010 to guide the continuing transformation of America's Armed Forces.
Joint Vision 2020 has been broken down into two parts for download (PDF version):
Joint Vision 2020, Part 1 - 1.12M (jv2020a.pdf)
Joint Vision 2020, Part 2 - 2.03M (jv2020b.pdf) Text only version of Joint Vision 2020:
Joint Vision 2020, text only - 97K (jv2020.doc)
Joint Vision 2020 Briefing- 417k (2020briefing.ppt)

Confronting Empire: Freedom Next Time
Today, two-thirds of Americans want their country out of Iraq, according to the polls. To achieve that, they voted for the Democratic Party last November. And what did they get? They got the usual bipartisan bullshit, and Bush got another $124 billion to extend the war. There have been some great demonstrations against the war, but the so-called liberal Democrats have been allowed to confuse and divide the forces of dissent, and not for the first time. This was the same party in government that attacked Vietnam, then produced a carpet-bagger, Robert Kennedy, and a false prophet, Jimmy Carter, and clever, head-wagging Bill Clinton, who rained bombs on Iraq and destroyed its children, while ending the last decencies of the New Deal.

It’s surely time to abandon wishful thinking, the lesser of two evils, and the Democrats completely...And it’s surely time for the antiwar movement to address the alienation of ordinary Americans, and express their dissent and anger and frustration. It’s simply not good enough for certain groups to claim their own territory. This week, in Los Angeles, the theme of the gay pride celebration was being who you are. That’s fine. But was there anything said about the 655,000 Iraqis who have no choice ever again to be who they are?

I believe people are never still, and that human renewal is not a phenomenon. Yes, the continuation of a struggle at times appears frozen. But there’s always a sea beneath the snow....Look at countries where it seemed hopeless--where people had nothing except their will and courage, like South Africa, East Timor and many others. Look at Latin America today. The sheer ferocity of the propaganda coming from the American media tells us that something good and exciting and hopeful must be happening down there, and it is....Witness the triumph of indigenous people in Bolivia--the poorest of the poor. Remember Sánchez de Lozada running for his plane to Miami. Look at Venezuela, and the tens of thousands of people who came down from the barrios to rescue their president. Witness the Venezuelan children who no longer die from preventable disease.... at the Middle East, where every day, Palestinian families get their children to school against odds that we can’t imagine. Look at the ordinary people, who, unarmed, marched toward the Israeli army in southern Lebanon last year, and saw them off.

And of all the headlines about Iraq, the one we never read is that a popular Iraqi national resistance is defeating the most powerful invader in history.

I believe, in conclusion, that our task is straightforward. It is to reject outright the notion that collusive liberalism sets the limits of free debate. It is to end indulgence of parliaments and congresses and governments that commit and sanction crimes in our name. It is to persuade people that their precious freedoms were not handed to them, but won by the struggle of people just like them... never believe that ordinary people are as conservative as you might think they are. Remember always, how isolated people often are. And as activists, be brave. Always speak your mind in the face of the most casual bigotry, bullying and hypocrisy.... those who regard humanity merely as useful or expendable should be warned. People all over the world are rising. Indeed, I would say that their resistance never stopped--and is unbeatable...
Video - John Pilger http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17944.htm

FOOD FOR THOUGHT & ACTION: SOME REVOLUTIONARY MARXIST POLITICS AND PHILOSOPY
"Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism", V. I. Lenin
LCW vol.22, http://www.marxists.org/glossary/frame.htm
Lenin analysed the following five features characteristic of the epoch of imperialism, the final stage of capitalism, when
imperialist nations go to war against each other, as well as against oppressed nations, for global dominance:
"Production becomes social, but appropriation remains private. The social means of production remain the private property of a few. The general framework of formally recognized free competition remains, and the yoke of a few monopolists on the rest of the population becomes a hundred times heavier, more burdensome and intolerable." p.205

(1) the concentration of production and capital has developed to such a high stage that it has created monopolies which play a decisive role in economic life; (2) the merging of bank capital with industrial capital, and the creation on the basis of this “finance capital”, of a financial oligarchy; (3) the export of capital as distinguished from the export of commodities acquires exceptional importance; (4) the formation of international monopoly capitalist associations which share the world among themselves, and (5) the territorial division of the whole world among the biggest capitalist powers is completed. Imperialism is capitalism at that stage of development at which the dominance of monopolies and finance capital is established; in which the export of capital has acquired pronounced importance; in which the division of the world among the international trusts has begun, in which the division of all territories of the globe among the biggest capitalist powers has been completed.
[Lenin, Imperialism the Highest Stage of Capitalism, LCW Volume 22

MATERIALISM and EMPIRIO-CRITICISM, Critical Comments on a Reactionary Philosophy
V.I. Lenin
The Theory of Knowledge of Dialectical Materialism and of Empirio-Criticism, ch.3

Freedom and Necessity
[Dialectical Materialism] ... [Engels'] recognition of the objective reality of the external world and of the laws of [that] external nature, and of the fact that this world and these laws are fully knowable to man but can never be known to him with finality. We do not know the necessity of nature in the phenomena of the weather, and to that extent we are inevitably slaves of the weather. But while we do not know this necessity, we do know that it exists. Whence this knowledge? From the very source whence comes the knowledge that things exist outside our mind and independently of it, namely, from the development of our knowledge, which provides millions of examples to every individual of knowledge replacing ignorance when an object acts upon our sense-organs, and conversely of ignorance replacing knowledge when the possibility of such action is eliminated....
For Engels all living human practice permeates the theory of knowledge itself and provides an objective criterion of truth.... [...] http://marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1908/mec/three6.htm

"Freedom is the recognition of necessity" Friedrich Engels (1820–1895), in Anti-Duhring, http://www.bartleby.com/66/17/21617.html

Digest commentary:
Moans and groans from the left and right combine to deceive. Whining about the 'loss of america', the need to 'take back' some mythical peoples' democracy they claim is now held hostage by a rabid rightwing republican/neocon aberration. Not only is that racist and revisionist history, it's setting us up for another round on the endless electoral merry-go-round to secure our consent and loyalty to the dictatorship of capital. Capitalism is a bipartisan economic-political system, united around the essential need for U.S. world supremacy, not one bunch or another of electoral politicians and policies.

The non-Anglo-American world knows, as should we, that the major enemy of the worlds' peoples and nations is the U.S. ruling class whose barbaric white supremacist history is painted over with patriotic, paralyzing myths of 'american exceptionalism' -- north america and white people as god's chosen -- not the racist settler state it is, grown fat from genocide, slavery, terror and war into imperialist [global] capitalism whose 'manifest destiny' mission today is, and always been, global conquest.

The U.S. is a bipartisan dictatorship of monopoly finance capital whose crimes against humanity surpass the crimes of openly fascist dictatorships but are disguised in psychologically-persuasive language and liberal democratic trappings for the class and "race" privileged, open fascist terror for the poor and oppressed.

Relentless lies and crimes carried out in the name of the people, by the people, through U.S. history of white supremacist 'manifest destiny' have deformed millions of human beings who consider themselves superior into pathetic, cruel, mindless, hollow ciphers without concern or curiosity for anything beyond immediate gratification of their well-programmed desires. A meticulously groomed majority so seduced by white supremacy's privileges that the ruling class can count on their reliable indifference to its state's genocide against Black & brown oppressed peoples and nations here in the "homeland", or anywhere else in "their " world. A stupid, smug, self-satisfied mob easily distracted by a calculated violence and vulgarity, that's in thrall and indebted to all dehumanizing voices of 'authority' from any industry- -- military, religious, pop 'scientific', cultural, fashion, 'entertainment'. Americans' racist ignorant arrogance would be a sick joke were it not so deadly. People willingly convinced and politically contained by carefully constructed patriotism and electoral politics 'freeing' us from our humanity, from being truly alive, conscious human agents of change, passionate about the world and our responsibility for it --- 'liberated' into the robotic slavery of degraded and degrading 'lifestyles' fed by exploitation and racist oppression, 'liberated' into willing accomplices of capitalist state terrorism fueled by fascist fantasies, born of U.S. capitalism's insatiable greed and geo-strategic weakness in a world where millions are willing to die resisting it's strangulation and where resistance is defeating its fascist juggernaut.

Freedom is knowing and resisting the enemy, taking history into our hands, not capitulating and betraying humanity and ourselves, it means joining the real majority in the world to resist the U.S. world war of terror and tyranny against opposition and resistance to its savage global hegemony.

.........................

"Creative Chaos"
Felicity Arbuthnot
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=34036&s2=28
June 27, 2007
It is just sixteen months since an Iraqi friend said of the demolition of the golden-domed Al Askari Shrine in Samarra: "We can cry no more. There are no tears left." The Shrine was the resting place of the tenth and eleventh Imams, Ali al-Hadi and his son Hasan al-Askari. The twelfth Imam Muhammed al-Mahdi, is believed by Shias to have been born in Samarra and will return to save the world. A saviour was never more needed. The Shrine was destroyed after the US troops took control of the city.
Samarra, which, in the ninth century, was the Abbasid capital, was not alone a place of pilgrimage for the Shrine, but a legend in Arab history, revered for the artistic, literary and scientific splendours it brought the world, at the dawn of a millennium. Now, the slender, superb, hundred foot high minarets, which flanked the Shrine in their rich, gold and turquoise beauty have also been demolished. Like so much else in Mesopotamia's wealth of haunting historical wonders, which have survived invasions from time immemorial, they have been consigned to dust under the watch of Uncle Sam's crusaders.
From the country's founding to Saddam Hussein, with the exception of the Mongol destruction (1258 and 1401 A.D.) every ruler or regime, whatever its political hue, has strived not only to preserve the past, but also to leave something more superb than the previous one, for future generations to inherit and to gaze in awe, as believed incumbent by the Caliphs. It has taken America and Britain to destroy or defile the irreplaceable, even that in honour of the Gods themselves: mosques, churches, temples, shrines, monasteries, convents and even the resting places of the dead. A unique, unforgivable wickedness. Nearby the Shrine is the Malwiya (the spiral minaret) of the remains of the Great Mosque, built in A.D. 852 (although the Malwiya may have predated it) from bricks and clay, naturally golden from the glistening earth from which they came, the Mosque with its ten metre high walls, nearly three metres thick and supported by forty-four towers. US soldiers made a snipers' den at the top of the Malwiya, which resulted in it being seriously damaged. Sinners, the spiritual and those simply in wonder, have been tiptoeing in awe up the narrow, circular walkway of this gift to succeeding generations, for more than a thousand years - now, its mysticism too, is corrupted.

The destruction of the minarets, however, seems to bear an uncanny resemblance to events of that of the Shrine on 22nd February last year. The building had been sealed off and US and Iraqi troops were there from dawn. Residents assumed that dignitaries were to visit. Then the explosions felled the great gold topped Mosque, visible, glinting in golden splendour, under the sun, to travellers throughout history from thirty kilometres away, who, one might speculate, had whispered as they pointed, in reverance, as the drivers always did with me: "Samarra ..."

Reports and rumours differ regarding last week's desecration, but one fact seems consistent. The area around the Mosque had been sealed to cars and pedestrians since February 2006. It was guarded day and night, the four entrances also sealed and snipers were placed on rooftops around the site. Samarra itself has restricted entrance, with US soldiers and security personnel trained by them checking those going in or out. Yet somehow, sufficient explosive to destroy the two minarets entered the city - and those who did it spirited themselves into a sealed area and a sealed Mosque compound. That Interior Ministry forces had, it seems, taken over security for the Shrine in April, a Ministry spectacularly failing a reputation for shining integrity, is surely just another coincidence.

Further, AMSI noted on 13th June, the day of the attack: "It is also worthy to mention that the explosion last year had happened after a severe political crisis between blocs involved in the political process (under) the occupation. After the elections ... the establishment of the government was delayed at that time. This is quite similar to the political crisis faced by the government and parliament these days."

Donald Rumsfeld is quoted as saying that "creative chaos" was a valid strategy in Iraq. Stirring dissent, "divide and rule" has been an invaders' tactic since time immemorial - and none better at it than the US - and their British allies, from Belfast to Basra, where British operatives in Arab dress were caught with a car full of explosives (and a police station demolished by the British army to free them and no questions asked ever asked since.)... the army ID tags of two of the three kidnapped US soldiers, Spc. Alex R.Jiminez and Pvt. Byron Fouty, were allegedly found in a house near Samarra, four days before the minarets destruction. If this is true, it is not beyond belief that some US element or their militia might have thought to wreak revenge by furthering an inflammatory situation, setting more Iraqis against each other.

Last year a savvy Baghdadi friend said of Samarra's tragedy: "The Americans keep us in a constant state of chaos, they call it 'positive instability'.

Within twenty four hours of the second attack on Samarra's Shrine, thirteen Sunni mosques had been attacked from northern Mosul to southern Basra.

The cynic might speculate that the attacks (and they are ongoing) seemed co-ordinated in their instancy and thoroughness. Where were Britain's representatives of the "finest army in the world", as nine mosques, under their watch, in Basra and Basra Province, were fired or demolished? Between all the "surges", "crackdowns", "offences", "sweeps", "pacifications", rings of steel, raids, roundups, door smashing, trashing and stealing, there are still enough explosives and expertise to demolish the sanctities of the sacred? Sanctities for beliefs which had been revered and respected by all creeds, many with roots from the time of Mohammed and Christ. The start of destruction followed immediately, the invading US/UK crusaders' tanks. (And lest we forget, again a reminder that the British troops entered Basra with tanks and vehicles flying the St George flag: the crusaders' flag and Bush, of course declared his illegal Iraq onslaught a "crusade" - twice.) There is also the matter of the bombing over the border in Iran: "This bomb had a British accent", said a government spokesman. Who knows, but few would go in to shock if it proved correct.

In a seamless, almost instantaneous performance of singing from the same hymn sheet, Lt. General Martin Dempsey said the Samarra attack was: "clearly a signature attack of Al Qaeda" (where do they find these ludicrous expressions? It was Colin Powell and Dick Cheney who have signed bombs that fell on Iraq, not a trait attributed to Al Qaeda.) Major General Benjamin Moxon, repeated the statement almost word for word, as did US "Ambassador" Ryan Crocker, and General David Petreous. Never mind there had been no forensic - or any other kind of - investigation.

King Abdullah of Jordan called Samarra: "A heinous crime which offended all Muslims". Iraq's religious leaders were united in scepticism: Shaykh Al Khalisi told Shi'ia followers that the act was "a plan by the occupation to stir up sectarian strife". Saleh al-Haidiri, Head of the Shi'ite Endownment in Iraq said it was: "A criminal act (aimed) at creating sectarian strife." Sheikh Jawad al-Khaliss commented: "This is part of a vicious scheme to drag Iraqi people into sectarian strife", with the Association of Muslim scholars also blaming the occupation forces and their loyalists. Muqtada al Sadr, whose running between hare and hounds has become somewhat dizzying, nevertheless blamed the: "... cursed American, Israeli scenario that aims to spread turmoil (and) hatred ..." More than 3,000 Sadr loyalists staged a protest in Najaf, chanting, "No, no to America!", "No, no to Israel!" and "No, no to sedition!" reported the Jordan Times.

Already the unrest has had spokespeople in Washington consolidating their desire for staying in Iraq, like South Korea, for perhaps, fifty years. The reasoning: because those backward Iraqis are not trained and organised to run their country yet. In 1989 (the last year before the embargo) the year's UN Report called the country near first world, with explemporary medical, education, clean water and infrastructure....

It would be naive not also at least to speculate that much of the strife, destruction, torment within Iraq, came from the top in the Pentagon and State Department, a point proved by the latest revelations regarding Abu Ghraib. With call for Bush's impeachment and for Blair's trial at the International Criminal Court, at the Hague mounting, along with their appointed apparatchiks... there must be many hoping that the genocide committed with them at the helm... the US forces newest assault on people living in their own land is: "Operation Arrowhead Ripper".

Felicity Arbuthnot is a journalist and activist who has visited the Arab and Muslim world on numerous occasions. She has written and broadcast on Iraq, her coverage of which was nominated for several awards. She was also senior researcher for John Pilger's award-winning documentary "Paying the Price: Killing the Children of Iraq". http://www.johnpilger.com/page.asp?partID=

Pretext: "al Qaeda" is U.S. "terrorist" target, not Iraqi Resistance
By Chris Floyd
As Glenn Greenwald, among others, has pointed out, the new Bushist line is that everyone killed by American forces in Iraq is "al Qaeda" – a transparent falsehood belied by the Pentagon's own assessments but now mindlessly adopted by almost every corporate media venue, with the honorable exception (as always) of McClatchy Newspapers. Of course, the Invader-in-Chief and his multitude of bootlickers in traditional media and the blogosphere have always vastly inflated the numbers and importance of those elements in Iraq that are associated with al Qaeda in some way, however tenuous. Indeed, we know, again from the Pentagon itself, that the exaggeration of "al Qaeda's" influence in Iraq has been part of a deliberate, well-funded "psy-ops" scheme. (See "Hubub in Hibhib: The Timely Death of al-Zarqawi.") But now they have decided to dispense with the subtleties of psy-ops and simply repeat "al Qaeda" with every breath, in an effort to demonize all resistance (both in Iraq and at home, both violent and non-violent) ...
06/28/07 "ICH" ...This slander is being applied even to those Iraqis who have taken up arms against the very "al Qaeda" terrorists that the American military is purportedly protecting them from, Iraqis who are cooperating with the American-backed government and its American-trained military and security forces. The BBC reports about an horrific massacre of Iraqi civilians last week – an air attack with missiles and gunships that literally ripped to shreds the bodies of village guards who had just returned from a raid with Iraqi government forces on a suspected terrorist hideout. These men were then accused of being "al Qaeda gunmen" in Pentagon press releases trumpeting this magnificent feat of arms – accusations then duly (not to mention dully) parroted in the press.... http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/1798/1/

Iraq's Sectarian Bloodshed 'Made in the USA'
Iraq never had a history of sectarian conflicts. U.S. policy choices provided a perfect road map for starting one
by Erik Leaver and Raed Jarrar
Asia Times
http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/0810-Sectarian.html
As each day is greeted with news of Iraq's daily death toll, the media debates whether Iraq is embroiled in an all-out civil war....
Foreign politicians have a history of misguided analysis about the potential for civil war in Iraq. In 1920, British Prime Minister David Lloyd George warned of civil war if the British army withdrew from Iraq. The exact same thing is heard today in the United States...the same Iraqis George wanted to protect from each other [sic] instead united in a revolution against the British occupation forces. With rising opposition within the Shi'ite ranks against the occupation, the United States could see a similar revolt in the coming months.
Iraqi Shia and Sunnis have lived in harmony for centuries. Historically, the two sects lived in the same areas, intermarried, worked together and didn't fight over religious beliefs. During the decade of U.S.-imposed sanctions, Iraq's generally secular society became far more religious. This transformation even affected the secular Baathist regime, which gave Islam a bigger role in schools and other aspects of everyday life. Still, there were no social conflicts based on religious differences in the country. When the United States ousted Saddam Hussein in April 2003, crime spiked and full-scale looting erupted. But there were still no signs of sectarian clashes. That quickly changed, however, as the U.S. administration assumed control over Iraq, led by Paul Bremer. Bremer, attempting to put an Iraqi face on the occupation, appointed members to the Iraqi Governing Council. Instead of reflecting how Iraqis saw themselves, the council's makeup mirrored and reinforced the U.S. sectarian view of the population . . .[continued]

notes:

. . . anything other than the continuance of government under the national-unity government, with Iraq as a unified country, would be disastrous.--Ehsan Ahrari, "Iraq's downward spiral toward partition," Asia Times, August 11, 2006]

In Iraq, in contrast to the embedded lie that the killings are now almost entirely sectarian, 70 per cent of the 1,666 bombs exploded by the resistance in July were directed against the American occupiers and 20 per cent against the puppet police force. Civilian casualties amounted to 10 per cent. In other words, unlike the collective punishment meted out by the US, such as the killing of several thousand people in Fallujah, the resistance is fighting basically a military war and it is winning. That truth is suppressed, as it was in Vietnam.--John Pilger, "Return Of People Power," New Statesman, September 4, 2006

The Iraq Study Group, co-chaired by James Baker, the former US secretary of state, is preparing to report after next month's congressional elections amid signs that sectarian violence and attacks on coalition forces are spiralling out of control. --Sarah Baxter, "America ponders cutting Iraq in three," Sunday Times, October 8, 2006

A dirty little secret from 5,000 years of history: Ethnic cleansing works.--Ralph Peters, "Blood borders: How a better Middle East would look," Armed Forces Journal, August 2006

The de facto role of the US armed forces will be to keep the world safe for our economy and open to our cultural assault. To those ends, we will do a fair amount of killing.--Ralph Peters, " Constant Conflict" Parameters, US Army War College Quarterly, Summer 1997, pp. 4-14]

Enver Masud, "Basra: Were the 'British' Undercover Agents Carrying Explosives? Why?," The Wisdom Fund, September 28, 2005

The post-invasion stage in Iraq also is an interesting case study of fanning discontent among enemies, . . . Like their SOG predecessors in Vietnam, U.S. elite forces in Iraq turned to fostering infighting among their Iraqi adversaries on the tactical and operational level.--Thomas H. Henriksen, "THE WAR: Divide et Impera," Hoover Digest, 2006 - No. 1 - Winter Issue]

"Mosque Bombing: Who Benefits? Iran Blames U.S.," The Wisdom Fund, February 23, 2006

Unity between Shias and Sunnis has always been a barrier to the success of the occupation.--Dahr Jamail and Simon Assaf, "United Iraqi protests against US divide and rule policy," socialistworker.co.uk, March 4, 2006

"Puppet Government Takes Charge in Iraq," The Wisdom Fund, May 21, 2006

Al-Mash'hadani accused the American forces of standing behind terrorist attacks in Iraq--"Mashhadani on Americastan in Iraq," Al Hayat, August 8, 2006

SUPPORT ALL ANTI-IMPERIALIST RESISTANCE!
"This is a skilled and determined enemy. He's ruthless. He's got a thirst for blood like I've never seen anywhere in my life," said Army Maj. Gen. Joseph F. Fil Jr., 1st Cavalry Division commander in charge of military operations throughout the capital since late last year.
http://tinyurl.com/32sqno

Divide and Conquer: Proven Tactic of U.S. Military
by Stan Moore
Dissident Voice
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/Articles4/Moore_Divide-and-Conquer.htm
...It is instructive to take a look to the past to understand the present. It is useful to examine the colonization of the North American continent and the expulsion, even historic genocide, of the native inhabitants to see how the U.S. military has a proven history of conquering peoples by dividing them and turning them against their own people.

For instance, perhaps the single most freedom-loving human ever spoken of in recorded history of the North American continent was Crazy Horse, the warrior of the Oglala Lakota people. Crazy Horse saw the invasion of huge armies of white people into his native land. Crazy Horse loved his land and he loved his people. He was perfectly willing to sacrifice his own basic needs of food and shelter to provide for his people, sometimes going hungry for days so that others could eat food he had obtained by hunting. Crazy Horse surely knew that military victory against such huge numbers of heavily armed invader/colonizers was improbable. But he loved his freedom. He loved his Lakota way of life, and he refused to surrender his freedom, or to sell out his people. But, ultimately his people sold Crazy Horse out. The U.S. Army was able to recruit Indian Scouts, not only from the hated Crow nation to fight against the Lakota, but Lakotas were recruited as scouts into the U.S. Army. Crazy Horse and his small band could probably never have been tracked, much less captured by U.S. soldiers working alone. But with the aid of Indian Scouts, they were tracked and trailed and pursued until they were captured. In prison, at Camp Robinson, Nebraska, Crazy Horse was ultimately bayoneted and killed by U.S. soldiers. No, not by white soldiers, but by Lakotas enlisted in the U.S. Army. Crazy Horse lost his freedom and then his life under the U.S. military' policy of divide and conquer.

Geronimo was an Apache from the desert in Arizona. Like his fellow Apaches, he was an expert at what is now called "guerilla warfare." He fought all his life against Mexicans and American settlers until the U.S. Army came and divided his people and took his freedom. Like Crazy Horse, Geronimo could have evaded capture if only white soldiers had tried to pursue him. But his fellow Apaches took the handouts and the horses and the rifles of the U.S. Army and they tracked Geronimo down. But, unlike Crazy Horse, Geronimo ultimately became comfortable in his new lifestyle. He learned how to "capitalize" on his warrior fame, and would charge for his photograph and make money off his fame. Geronimo died an old man, part of the system that had divided his people and conquered his own freedom-loving spirit.

The people of Iraq were a prosperous people for a number of years due to the presence of oil under their homeland. If their leader, Saddam Hussein, had been willing to sign a contract with Bechtel corporation of the U.S. (for an oil pipeline between Iraq and Jordan; amazingly with cooperation of the Israelis and an Isreali "cut" in the profits), they would likely be prosperous still, and Saddam Hussein's lot in life would likely be very different than it is right now. We know that the U.S. prioritized support of the regime of Saddam Hussein during the Iran/Iraq war, even arming him and turning their heads from action against his known use of chemical weapons in warfare. If Saddam had been willing to do continued business with Donald Rumsfeld, George Schultz, and other high-level American officials connected to the petroleum industry, the Iraqi people would likely never have had to suffer through years of economic deprivations enforced by the U.S. military after America's client, Kuwait, provoked Saddam into an ill-considered retaliatory invasion. So it is that Iraq has become a poor country, with a high death rate of its children and now massive suffering from a pre-emptive war brought against it by America and a coalition partner or two. The tactics of divide and conquer used against the Lakota and the Apache are now used against the Sunni and the Shia. And these tactics work So, we see Shiites trading smiles for wheat wafers. We see Iraqis waving flags for the camera and speaking in broken English for their conquerors. We see the U.S. ferrying in Iraqi warriors to fight against their brethren.
We see freedom loving Iraqis who do not consent to colonization slain as they defend their freedom and their homes and homeland... puppet leaders of Iraq who do just like their Native American counterparts did -- sell out to the powerful and make out like bandits against their own people....
Stan Moore lives in San Geronimo, CA. He can be contacted at: hawkman11@hotmail.com Gamila Zahran's Arabian Sights gzahran@wanadoo.fr

CIA Terror Bombings, Bob Gates, and The Rise of Hezbollah
Michael Schwartz
While the atrocities reported in the "family jewels" are certainly atrocious in their own right, they are actually a tiny corner of a larger history that includes all manner of crimes against humanity, from mayhem against individuals to full fledged state terrorism.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17938.htm

MKULTRA: CIA mind-altering included children with Big Pharma & Nazi Help
Of all the heinous acts committed by the CIA in the name of national security, these experiments, done on the agency's behalf by prominent psychiatrists on innocent victims - including children as young as four - may be the darkest.... The release of the Family Jewels documents revealed the CIA handsomely funded these real-life Dr Strangeloves and engaged pharmaceutical companies to help its experiments. The agency appealed to Big Pharma to pass on any drugs that could not be marketed because of "unfavourable side effects" to be tested on mice and monkeys. Any drugs that passed muster would then be used, according to an internal memo, on volunteer US soldiers.

The Family Jewels files do not provide further detail into the numerous mind-control programs, such as MKULTRA, covertly propped up by the agency. In 1953, MKULTRA was given 6% of the total CIA budget without any oversight. Only the tip of a large iceberg had been previously released by the CIA under Freedom of Information Act provisions. The nature of the experiments, gathered from government documents and testimony in numerous lawsuits brought against the CIA, is shocking, from testing LSD on children to implanting electrodes in victims' brains to deliberately poisoning people with uranium.

"The CIA bought my services from my grandfather in 1952 starting at the tender age of four," wrote Carol Rutz of her experiences. "Over the next 12 years, I was tested, trained, and used in various ways. Electroshock, drugs, hypnosis, sensory deprivation, and other types of trauma were used to make me complain and split my personality (to create multiple personalities for specific tasks). Each alter or personality was created to respond to a post-hypnotic trigger, then perform an act and (I would) not remember it later." This Manchurian Candidate program was just one of the operational uses of the mind-control scenario by the CIA.

The US began these experiments after World War II when it made a grab for hundreds of Nazi scientists and doctors who had been researching [SIC] mind control in concentration camps, fearing they would fall into Soviet hands....that they were falling behind the communist bloc in the brainwashing race. The programs, though carefully hidden, continued into the 1970s when Helms ordered much of the documentation to be destroyed...
The attorney for Sirhan Sirhan, Lawrence Teeter, has said his client was programmed to assassinate Robert Kennedy in 1968.
Theodore Kaczynski, the Unabomber, volunteered to take part in CIA mind-control experiments when he was a student at Harvard University in the late 50s.
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/printpage/0,5942,21980496,00.html

Col. Moe Davis: Portrait Of A Military Propagandist
In 2004 the chief prosecutor for the Office of Military Commissions wrote a how-to guide for manipulating the media complete with a six-point plan, "Effective Engagement in the Public Opinion Arena: A Leadership Imperative in the Information Age" which he published in Air & Space Power, an official journal of the Air Force. In this telling little treatise, Moe concedes that the public has "questions about operations in Iraq, prisoner abuse allegations at military confinement facilities, etc. Moe maintains that these challenges require the Armed Services to seriously beef up their public relations campaign. As the Colonel so eloquently puts it "For better or worse, public opinion matters. Public opinion affects the political arena and can influence funding, oversight and direction to the Department of Defense ... military's historical approach to responding to controversy is inadequate in today's instantaneous information age. The military's rules of engagement in the competition for the public's opinion need to be reassessed."
Moe reminds military authorities to craft a message and "stay on the offensive" and notes approvingly that Air Force training now involves extensive media relations instruction including such courses as The War for Public Opinion: Propaganda, Public Affairs and the Military-Media Relationship, which might as well be called Misinformation 101.... Today, Moe was given one of the most prized bullhorns in American media, an op-ed in the New York Times, the "paper of record."... Moe refers to PR work as "engagement in the public opinion arena." In military terminology, "engagement" means combat or a hostile exchange and indeed, Moe's articles and interviews constitute a propaganda assault on the American people. The Colonel has become a central figure in a DoD propaganda campaign against a public that is growing increasingly aware of, and hostile to, the Bush administration's program of illegal indefinite detention, endless war and secrecy. Colonel Moe Davis: remember his name and remember that he is a propagandist by trade.

Effective Engagement in the Public Opinion Arena: A Leadership Imperative in the Information Age
Col Morris D. Davis
Document created: 5 November 04
Air & Space Power Journal - Chronicles Online Journal
http://www.airpower.au.af.mil/airchronicles/cc/davis1.html

"The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media"
former CIA Director William Colby in Bernstein's 10/77 Rolling stone article

"While Hollywood takes care of fiction, the enormous monopoly press, together with the outflow of slick, clever, expensive magazines, attends to what it chooses to call ‘news. Within separate countries, one or two news agencies control the news handouts, so that a deadly uniformity is achieved, regardless of the number of separate newspapers or magazines; while internationally, the financial preponderance of the United States is felt more and more through its foreign correspondents and offices abroad, as well as through its influence over inter-national capitalist journalism. Under this guise, a flood of anti-liberation propaganda emanates from the capital cities of the West, directed against China, Vietnam, Indonesia, Algeria, Ghana and all countries which hack out their own independent path to freedom. Prejudice is rife. For example, wherever there is armed struggle against the forces of reaction, the nationalists are referred to as rebels, terrorists, or frequently ‘communist terrorists'! "
 Osageyfo Kwame Nkrumah, "Neo-Colonialism, the Last Stage of Imperialism" 1965

The US Mass Media:Tool of Disinformation And Control
Larry Pinkney
By definition, the word "media" is the plural of the word medium which is, in relevant part, defined by The American Heritage Dictionary as, "An agency by which something is accomplished, conveyed, or transferred." For purposes of clarification, in this instance, reference to "the US mass media" is including not only corporately controlled newspaper, radio, and television so-called "news" outlets, wire services, and information sources, but also most of the schools, colleges, and universities throughout America, where those of our Black youth who are not dead or in penitentiaries are calculatedly and callously miseducated.

When closely considering the above definition of the word "medium," we must ponder precisely what it is that the mass media of white America exists to "accomplish," and how - what is to be accomplished- is actually "conveyed or transferred," as it pertains specifically to the economic, political, and cultural disposition of Black Americans past, present, and future. From its very inception, the institutions of that entity which became known as the United States of America, made it crystal clear that the lot of Black people on this continent was to be one of collective inferiority, destitution, and subservience. However, what is often missed is that this position of collective inferiority, destitution, and subservience of Black people was and continues to be rationalized, maintained, and perpetuated by a US mass media whose objective is to misinform, disinform, and miseducate Black people and other people of color. A people who do not know, collectively, who they are, their enormous past achievements, or their incalculable contributions to humanity as a whole are incapable of attaining or even aspiring to attain the heights of greatness reserved for all human beings and their rightful and equal place in the human family. Thus, the ongoing and despicable role of the US mass media, be it in the form of so-called "news" and information or the miseducation of Black and other people of color in schools, colleges, and universities in the 21st Century, throughout America....
Contrary to alleged conventional wisdom, it is not "the medium that is the message" or vice versa; it is the debilitating and vile intent of the medium that is the actual ongoing powerful and crippling message to Black people, sometimes in overt form and at other times, insidiously subtle. The US mass media of white America and its surrogates is to Black and other people of color, akin to a virus that horribly weakens and debilitates the body. It is reminiscent of how true history reminds us that deadly disease-infested blankets were distributed by certain whites on this continent to Indigenous so-called "Indian" people in the name of honor and helping them. Such is the reality of the US mass media, both past and present.
Black America knows, from continuous and deeply painful first-hand experience, that those politicians and "journalists" who, for example, feign surprise and ignorance at there having been no so-called "weapons of mass destruction" in Iraq are, in fact, part and parcel of what the US mass media and "educational" system have always been about: deceit and disinformation...
We must endeavor to be discerning. The US mass media is not, nor has it ever been, the friend of Black America. We must constantly educate ourselves and our youth to this reality, realizing the folly of allowing the US mass media to miseducate us. We must support and create those sources which serve our political, social, and economic interests. Nothing less will do as we remain determined to persevere and keep it real in our struggle alongside the rest of humanity.
BC Columnist Larry Pinkney is a veteran of the Black Panther Party, the former Minister of Interior of the Republic of New Africa, a former political prisoner and the only American to have successfully self-authored his civil/political rights case to the United Nations under the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.
http://www.blackcommentator.com/233/233_cover_keeping_it_real_mass_media...

Russian Probe Shuts U.S. NGO Media Foundation
By Peter Finn
Washington Post Foreign Service
Friday, June 29, 2007
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/28/AR200706...
MOSCOW -- The Educated Media Foundation a nonprofit organization in Russia funded by the U.S. government to train journalists and improve management at local television stations has been shuttered by a criminal investigation that critics charge is politically motivated.The effective closure of the foundation, whose computers have been seized and bank accounts frozen, is the starkest example yet of the Russian government's hostility to Western-funded nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. The authorities accuse them of trying to foment the kind of political discontent that brought on street revolutions in neighboring Ukraine and Georgia. Russia has tightened registration and reporting requirements for the entire nongovernmental sector, with special restrictions on foreign-funded groups. President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly warned that Russia will not tolerate interference in its internal affairs.

The NED, NGOs and the Imperial Uses of Philanthropy: Why They Hate Our Kind Hearts, Too
By JOAN ROELOFS
http://www.counterpunch.org/
In recent years, nations have challenged the activities and very existence of non-governmental organizations. Russia, Zimbabwe, and Eritrea have enacted new measures requiring registration; "Open Society Institute" affiliates have been shut down in Eastern Europe; and Venezuela has charged the Súmate NGO leaders with treason. In Iraq and Afghanistan, staff of Western charitable NGOs (CARE and Doctors Without Borders) have been assassinated.

What are these organizations, and who or what is behind them?

They are heirs of the missionaries, who did many good deeds, bringing sewing machines to Bulgaria, ideas of women's liberation to Chinese footbinders, and life-saving medicines to the less industrialized world. Yet the missionaries also served as scouts for corporations and colonizers, tying knots with the most ambitious local people, especially those adept at bilingualism.
Missionaries are still operating today, but the field has become more intensely populated and diverse. Today's NGOs are elephantine, serpentine, and Byzantine. They may be international organizations, their local affiliates, or seemingly spontaneous grassroots groups.

Most funding and direction come from the wealthy nations. Often the donors form a conglomerate creating mutual responsibility and considerable ambiguity. CIVICUS, a partnership to promote "civil society" worldwide, is funded by, among others, American Express Foundation, Bristol-Myers Squibb Foundation, Carnegie Corporation, Canadian International Development Agency, Ford Foundation, Harvard University, Oxfam, and United Nations Development Programme.

If the source is confusing, the message is usually clear: "democratization" strives for civil rights and elections, but it also must include an open door to foreign capital, labor contracts, resource extraction, and military training. These networks also define "civil society" to include rock concerts and street mobs, but not government-provided maternal health clinics, child care, or senior services.

Affluent nations' government agencies are important NGO funders. The most notorious is the US National Endowment for Democracy (NED; ostensibly a non°©governmental foundation), created by Congress in 1983 to do openly what had been CIA cold war covert activities. When these operations were revealed in 1967, there was shock, not so much because the US was covertly funding foreign political and labor groups, but because organizations such as the National Education Association, American Newspaper Guild, American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, and the National Student Association were secretly used as pass-throughs, and all but the top officers were unwitting. Actual and phony foundations also distributed CIA funds....
Why would these philanthropic efforts offend anyone? Why do they hate our kind hearts?
In the first place, these public-private philanthropies have worked together to fund and direct overthrow movements. We had a "Subversive Activities Control Board" here, but export was encouraged. The grantees' activities included destabilization, the creation of mobs preventing elected governments from ruling, chaos, and violence. Among those funded were the Civic Forum in Czechoslovakia, Solidarity in Poland, Union of Democratic Forces in Bulgaria, Otpor in Serbia, and, more recently, similar groups in the succession states of the USSR. Sometimes mobs (especially of young people) have been moved around from one country to another to give the impression of vast popular opposition. The NED, Rockefeller and Ford Foundations, and the Soros philanthropies have been particularly active in these operations. Human Rights Watch (formerly Helsinki Watch) has nurtured opposition groups. Reformers seeking social democracy or democratic socialism were excluded; such systems might oppress the "vulture capitalists." [...]

SURPRISE! another timely state terrorist manufactured threat
..." not beyond reasonable speculation to suspect "al-Qaeda"[NBC]...whips up 911 racist war hysteria...
US urges vigilance after London bombs defused, but sees no specific July 4 threat 12:39AM (updated)
Unexploded car bombs in London led to extra patrols in the United States on Friday, but Bush administration officials said they saw no special terrorist threat. http://www.iht.com/indexes/ap/apsectionindex.php?section=america

Brown Proves He's Continue Blair Tradition as US Lapdog
Brown outlines terror crackdown
A new terrorism order will give the Treasury the power to stop funds reaching anyone in the UK suspected of planning terror attacks...Brown "will take the lead in targeting terrorist finance and abuse of the global capital system". http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/politics/6035861.stm

The "Use of the Armed Forces" in America under a National Emergency
Unrestricted & Arbitrary Powers conferred to the President & Vice President
by Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070627...

In October 2006, Bush signed into law the Department of Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007[DDAA 07]. 
DDAA 07 includes specific provisions which allow the military to take control of  normal policy and law enforcement functions at the Federal and State levels.  Sec. 1042 of the DDAA 07 overturns the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, which prevents the military from intervening in the conduct of civilian government activities, including the conduct of Justice and Law Enforcement. Posse Comitatus has been central to the functioning of constitutional government. (It should be noted that other previous pieces of legislation have already invalidated the substance of Posse Comitatus).

What is significant in these specific provisions of DDAA 07 (Sec. 1042) is that  they dovetail the provisions of Bush's National Security Presidential and Homeland Directive (NSPD 51, HSPD 20) enacted on May 9, 2007. NSPD 51 would essentially scrap Constitutional government in the case of a so-called  "Catastrophic Emergency". . 
If an emergency situation were to be called by the President, NSPD 51 would instate martial law under the authority of the White House and the Department of Homeland Security. It would suspend constitutional government under the provisions of Continuity in Government (COG). It would establish extraordinary powers for the president and vice-president. 

The provisions of NSPD 51 are consistent with an existing body of legislation and regulations pertaining to alleged terrorist attacks on the Homeland and the declaration of martial law. Sec. 1042 of DDAA 07, however, goes much further in defining the role of the Military in the case of a "Catastrophic Emergency." Sec 1042 essentially defines the discretionary powers which would be conferred to the president and the vice president if  NSPD 51 were to be applied.
Sec. 1042 of the DDAA 07, which was apparently slipped in at the last minute at the request of the White House as an amendment of Sec. 333, pertains to the  "Use of the Armed Forces in Major Public Emergencies." Sec 1042 is extremely explicit; it virtually creates a Pinochet style environment for the mass arrest of political dissidents without trial, the storming of public rallies, etc.   It provides specific details regarding the powers conferred to the President and Vice President in the case of a "Catastrophic Emergency" as envisaged under NSPD 51: 

The president "may employ the armed forces ... to restore public order and enforce the laws of the United States" 

Unrestricted powers are granted to the White House. The President would have the authority to suspend  civilian law enforcement at the federal and state levels and call in the Military, which would be in charge of  suppressing "domestic violence" "insurrection"( e.g. public rallies), or "conspiracy", meaning anybody who might express dissent, indignation or opposition to the Bush Administration for having scrapped the Constitution.
The emphasis of Sec1042 is in relation to actions directed against "domestic enemies" rather than bona fide "defense" in relation to attacks by foreign forces, which is part of the Military's mandate.
Taken together, NSPD 51 and Sec 1042 of the DDAA 07 define the contours of a "democratic dictatorship" in America  under the authority of the White House. We are not dealing, however, with "Military Rule" or "Military Government" as normally understood, because the authority to govern under the provisions of NSPD 51 is vested in the President and the Vice President. What is at stake  is the unrestricted and arbitrary "Use" of the Military by the President /Vice President in the conduct of police and law enforcement functions, while bypassing the US Congress and the Judiciary.   

Full text of DDAA 07: Department of Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2007 is at
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070627...

Secret Trials For Terrorists, Says US Judge
David Nason, Chicago
A TOP-RANKING US judge has stunned a conference of Australian judges and barristers in Chicago by advocating secret trials for terrorists, more surveillance of Muslim populations across North America and an end to counter-terrorism efforts being "hog-tied" by the US constitution.
Judge Richard Posner, a supposedly liberal-leaning jurist regarded by many as a future US Supreme Court candidate, said traditional concepts of criminal justice were inadequate to deal with the terrorist threat and the US had "over-invested" in them.
His proposed "big brother" solutions flabbergasted delegates at the Australian Bar Association's biennial conference, where David Hicks's lawyer, Major Michael Mori, is to be awarded honorary life membership.
"We have to fight terrorism with our strengths, and our strengths evolve around technology, including the technology of surveillance," said Justice Posner, a prolific legal scholar who sits on the US Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit.
"Are there terrorist plots that are at a formative stage among the large US Muslim community of two to three million people? In the 600,000 Canadian Muslim population, are there people planning attacks on the US?
"What we have to do is discover the extent of the terrorist threat to the US. There is a danger, and it demands a rethinking of some of our conventional views on the limits of national security measures. "We should think of surveillance as preventative, not punitive. We should think of controls that have nothing to do with warrants or traditional criminal justice to prevent abuses." http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17934.htm

United States still has some 10,000 nuclear weapons-each one far more powerful than the bombs that destroyed Hiroshima and Nagasaki? And that several thousand are on alert able to be launched within a matter of minutes? If the Bush administration gets its way, the United States will replace its entire arsenal with new warheads over the next two decades. http://tinyurl.com/2zwbml

CREATING PUBLIC OPINION FOR WAR AGAINST IRAN
Congress Votes to Send Iran President Before U.N. Court
Today the House of Representatives passed H. Con.Res.21, a resolution that pressures the United Nations Security Council to charge Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad with violating the 1948 Convention on Genocide and the United Nations Charter because of his alleged calls for the destruction of Israel.
http://campaignsandelections.com/oh/releases/index.cfm?ID=1328

Acts of war against Iran to "destabilize" Iran
 U.S. Bill TO deny supply of gasoline to Iran
 Under the proposed legislation, any company that provides Iran with gasoline or helps it import gasoline after the end of the year could lose its access to U.S. customers. http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/world/20070628-1518-us-iran.html
 

 

US pressures European banks and energy firms away from Iran:
 The United States is piling pressure on European banks and energy firms to avoid doing business with Iran, sending a blunt message that reputations are at stake if they do so, officials and analysts said.
http://www.gasandoil.com/goc/news/nte72605.htm
 

 

 
U.S.: Iran, N.Korea missile threat rising:
 The top U.S. missile defense official warned Thursday that the ballistic threat from Iran and North Korea was rapidly growing and defended Washington's plans to base parts of its anti-missile shield program in Central Europe.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070628/ap_on_re_eu/eu_us_missile_defense

Obama would consider missile strikes on Iran:
U.S. Senate candidate Barack Obama suggested Friday that the United States one day might have to launch surgical missile strikes into Iran and Pakistan to keep extremists from getting control of nuclear bombs.
http://tinyurl.com/yawtm2

Digest note: Juan Cole is a liberal imperialist-zionist who defends Israel's right to exist with a "two state solution" but this report truthfully exposes u.s./israeli psywar propaganda:

Ahmadinejad: "I am not anti-Semitic"
Palestinians should Decide on Two-State Solution
By Juan Cole
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17925.htm
06/27/07 "ICH" -- -- Dennis Kucinich and Ron Paul continue to show themselves among the few in Congress with any integrity and backbone. They declined to go along with a resolution charging Iranian President Mahmud Ahmadinejad with incitement to genocide, given his alleged call for Israel to be 'wiped off the face of the map.' As most of my readers know, Ahmadinejad did not use that phrase in Persian. He quoted an old saying of Ayatollah Khomeini calling for 'this occupation regime over Jerusalem" to "vanish from the page of time.' Calling for a regime to vanish is not the same as calling for people to be killed. Ahmadinejad has not to my knowledge called for anyone to be killed. (Wampum has more; as does the American Street).
If Ahmadinejad is a genocidal maniac who just wants to kill Jews, then why are there 20,000 Jews in Iran with a member of parliament in Tehran? Couldn't he start at home if that was what he is really about?

I was talking to two otherwise well-informed Israeli historians a couple of weeks ago, and they expressed the conviction that Ahmadinejad had threatened to nuke Israel. I was taken aback. First of all, Iran doesn't have a nuke. Second, there is no proof that Iran even has a nuclear weapons program. Third, Ahmadinejad has denied wanting a bomb. Fourth, Ahmadinejad has never threatened any sort of direct Iranian military action against Israel. In other words, that is a pretty dramatic fear for educated persons to feel, on the basis of . . . nothing.

I renew my call to readers to write protest letters to newspapers and other media every time they hear it alleged that Ahmadinejad (or "Iran"!) has threatened to "wipe Israel off the map." There is no such idiom in Persian and it is not what he said, and the mistranslation gives entirely the wrong impression. Wars can start over bad translations.

It was apparently some Western wire service that mistranslated the phrase as 'wipe Israel off the map', which sounds rather more violent than calling for regime change. Since then, Iranian media working in English have themselves depended on that translation. One of the tricks of Right-Zionist propagandists is to substitute these English texts for Ahmadinejad's own Persian text. (Ethan Bronner at the New York Times tried to pull this, and more recently Michael Rubin at the American Enterprise Institute.) But good scholarship requires that you go to the original Persian text in search of the meaning of a phrase. Bronner and Rubin are guilty disregarding philological scholarship in favor of mere propagandizing.

These propaganda efforts against Iran and Ahmadinejad also depend on declining to enter into evidence anything else he has ever said-- like that it would be wrong to kill Jews! They also ignore that Ahmadinejad is not even the commander in chief of the Iranian armed forces.

Anyone who reads this column knows that I deeply disagree with Ahmadinejad's policies and am not interested in defending him on most things. I profoundly disagree with his characterization of Israel, which is a legitimate United Nations member state, and find his Holocaust denial monstrous. But this quite false charge that he is genocidal is being promoted by Right-Zionists in and out of Congress as a preparatory step to getting up a US war against Iran on false pretences. I don't want to see my country destroyed by being further embroiled in the Middle East for the wrong reasons. If the Israeli hardliners and their American amen corner want a war with Iran, let them fight it themselves and leave young 18 year old Americans alone.

So here are some things Ahmadinezhad has said that make clear his intentions, and which are translated by the United States government Open Source Center. He is hostile to Israel. He'd like to see regime change (apparently via a referendum on the shape of the government ruling over geographical Palestine, in which all "original" residents of any religion would get a vote). Calling for a referendum on the dissolution of a government is not calling for genocide. Ahmadinejad also says he has no objection to a Jewish state in and of itself, he just thinks it should be located in, say, German territory set apart for the purpose, rather than displacing Palestinians from their homes. He may be saying unrealistic things; he is not advocating killing Jews qua Jews, or genocide.
Note that Ahmadinejad below denies being an anti-Semite (why deny it if he supposedly glories in it?); points out that he supports Jewish representation in the Iranian parliament; and compares his call for an end to the Zionist regime ruling over Jerusalem to the Western call for the dissolution of the old Soviet Union...

Iran's President Ahmadinezhad Holds New York News Conference 21 Sep (excerpt)
News conference by Iran's President Mahmud Ahmadinezhad at UN headquarters in New York -- correspondents' questions in English simultaneously translated into Persian -- live
Islamic Republic of Iran News Network Television (IRINN)
Friday, September 22, 2006
"Regarding the issue of the invasion of Lebanon, you saw that everyone - of all religions, of all faiths - condemned it. Because the nations have awakened. The nations hate aggression. . . Some people think that if they level accusations at Ahmadinezhad - saying: He is a terrorist, he is a murderer, he is anti-Semitic - the issue would be resolved. No. I am not anti-Semitic. Like all other human beings, Jews are respected. And, by the way, there are Muslims and Christians and Jews among the Palestinian people. We say the people of Palestine should choose. We do not say that it should be the Palestinian Muslims. For they lived in peace and harmony in the past. But then Britain came over and, with colonialist goals, took control and then handed it over to the Zionists. And the problem started. Let the people choose and see what will happen."

Iran: Presidential Website Reports Ahmadinezhad's Remarks at Holocaust Conference
"Truth-Seeking and Honest Groups Should Be Formed to Investigate the Holocaust"
Presidency of the Islamic Republic of Iran WWW-Text
Thursday, December 28, 2006
The president stated that due to God's wish and the vigilance of nations the days of the Zionist regime are numbered and added: We want prosperity for all humans and even like to guide our enemies, but some European and American politicians' one-sided and bigoted support for the Zionist regime no longer has a function in the world. Dr Ahmadinezhad stated that, with each day that passes of the Zionist regime's life, the interests and reputation of its supporting powers become more endangered. He added: The sensible and fair solution is to remove this regime the same way it was set up and imposed on the region's countries through planning and imperialistic objectives. This will bring peace to the world, and the region's countries will also forgive the atrocities of the last 60 years. The president also stated that God did not create human beings for war, hatred, and enmity. He said the key for establishment of peace and harmony is justice; justice is achievable through monotheism and believing in God. He emphasized: An international effort must be made to establish peace and to remove the roots of insecurity and injustice, as the international balance is changing rapidly and the future evolutions will certainly be for peace, brotherhood, justice, and worshiping God.

Bush cites Israel as an example of progress for Iraq:
President Bush held up Israel as a model for defining success in Iraq today, saying the U.S. goal there is not to eliminate attacks but to enable a democracy that can function despite violence. http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/nation/4929061.html

VIDEOS: Peace & Security Loving Israelis at Work
Presented here are six videos that will not be screened on American or British televisions. Nor will they be shown in the Cinema Houses there. Six videos that document the horrors of the Israeli Occupation
http://desertpeace.blogspot.com/2007/06/peace-loving-israeli-occupation....

Israeli forces killed at least 13 Palestinians on Wednesday and wounded more than 40 others in ground fighting backed by tanks and air support during military operations across the Gaza Strip http://tinyurl.com/2bf2yb
Here's the BBC version: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6254230.stm
Here's what really happened: http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/06/palestinians-shot-dead-in-cold-bl...

Bolton: I'm 'very worried' for Israel:
Sanctions and diplomacy have failed and it may be too late for internal opposition to oust the Islamist regime, leaving only military intervention to stop Iran's drive to nuclear weapons, the US's former ambassador to the UN, John Bolton, told The Jerusalem Post on Tuesday. Bolton said flatly that "diplomacy and sanctions have failed... [So] we have to look at: 1, overthrowing the regime and getting in a new one that won't pursue nuclear weapons; 2, a last-resort use of force." However, he added a caution as to the viability of the first of those remaining options: While "the regime is more susceptible to overthrow from within than people think," he said, such a process "may take more time than we have." To his dismay, however, the Bush administration was still clinging to the empty notion that the sanctions route could work, "even though [the UN's sanction] Resolutions 1737 and 1747 were full of loopholes. The US is still seeking another sanctions resolution and Solana is still pursuing diplomacy," he said bitterly. Bolton lamented that the Bush administration today was "not the same" as a presumably more robust incarnation three years ago, because of what he said was now the State Department's overwhelming dominance of foreign policy. "The State Department has adopted the European view [on how to deal with Iran] and other voices have been sidelined," he said. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "is overwhelmingly predominant on foreign policy".
http://tinyurl.com/2yy2oc http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1182409649665&pagename=JPost%...

Morales' land reform targets vast holdings of Bolivian opposition leader
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2007/06/29/america/LA-GEN-Bolivia-Land-Re...
The Associated PressPublished: June 28, 2007
http://www.iht.com/cgi-bin/search.cgi
LA PAZ, Bolivia: The Bolivian government on Thursday began legal proceedings to seize the vast landholdings of a prominent opposition leader, saying the property was fraudulently obtained and should be given to a local Indian tribe. Vice Minister of Land Alejandro Almaraz on Thursday cited "abundant evidence" that Marinkovic amassed his family's empire at the expense of Santa Cruz's Guarayo Indians. "It would be unacceptable for the authorities to persecute certain people for their political position," Almaraz said. "But it would be equally condemnable for a political role to allow certain people to act with impunity. Almaraz said both local officials and Guarayo leaders were complicit in illegally selling their land to the Marinkovic family over the years.
Soybean oil magnate Branko Marinkovic, an outspoken critic of President Evo Morales, says the 64,250 acres (26,000 hectares) targeted by the government were obtained legally and are being used productively for ranching and agriculture — and that the fraud allegations are merely a political attack. Marinkovic, the son of Yugoslav immigrants, was elected this year as president of the Santa Cruz Civic Committee, an influential opposition-aligned group that opposes Morales' land reform and backs greater autonomy for Bolivia's eastern states.
Morales pushed through a sweeping land reform bill last November granting his government power to seize idle or ill-gotten land. He has pledged to redistribute a staggering 77,000 square miles (200,000 square kilometers) among the country's long-oppressed Indian majority over the next five years. The bill updated a 1996 initiative that had largely failed to sort out a centuries-old tangle of land titles in Bolivia's eastern lowlands, particularly in Santa Cruz state, where the Marinkovic family is among the largest land owners.

[TSA apparently has 'ok' lists for imperialist agents as well as 'suspected terrorist' lists for their opponents...]
Bolivia immigration director: US woman linked to embassy detained at airport with 500 bullets
By Dan Keane
ASSOCIATED PRESS
http://www.kcbs.com/topic/ap_news.php?story=AP/APTV/National/a/i/Bolivia...
June 28, 2007
LA PAZ, Bolivia (AP) An American woman with ties to the U.S. Embassy was detained at the La Paz airport upon her arrival from Miami on an American Airlines flight for attempting to enter Bolivia with 500 rounds of .45-caliber ammunition officials said Thursday. Donna Thi, 20, taken into custody by Bolivian immigration officials Wednesday night was released Thursday and will not face charges, officials said. Thi initially declared to customs that she was carrying various types of cheese. Upon her referral to secondary inspection, Thi acknowledged that her luggage also contained five boxes of 100 bullets each, Zegarra said.
``An American citizen related to the embassy was carrying bullets on an American airliner, mocking all the security mechanisms,'' Immigration Director Magaly Zegarra told Bolivian media Thursday, remarks broadcast by local radio stations. ``This is evidence, effectively, that someone could be orchestrating something against our country from outside.''
Zegarra said that the Thi was met at the airport by Zanbria Campbell, wife of a military liaison at the U.S. Embassy in La Paz, Col. James Campbell. Zegarra said. Campbell wanted the bullets for training and sport shooting, U.S. Ambassador to Bolivia Philip Goldberg said during a Thursday news conference at the presidential palace in La Paz.

Citing the tight security at U.S. airports, Zegarra said it was "incredible that she was able to pass through with luggage containing five boxes of bullets," ABI reported. It said the official had asked the airline for an explanation. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N28330618.htm

Anti-Mexican Radio Propaganda in the USA
Ernesto Cienfuegos
La Voz de Aztlan
"Radio gave the spoken word true mass effectiveness"
Josef Goebbels - Nuremberg, 1934

Los Angeles, Alta California - June 22, 2007 - (ACN) Josef Goebbels, the Minister of Propaganda for Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party, was intimately acquainted with the effectiveness of propaganda transmitted through radio to the masses. Goebbels' effective propaganda techniques did not die with him or the Nazi Party but are today being utilized in the USA against "people of color" and especially against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans.
USA anti-Mexican propaganda has existed since the Mexican - American War that ended in 1848 but today it has become particularly virulent because of increased Mexican immigration and the ongoing debate concerning immigration reform.... The primary objective of propaganda directed against Mexicans is to dehumanize and to instill fear of the group by the White majority population. One example of "dehumanization" is the "Operation Cuca Gotcha" at the New Jersey 101.5 WKXW-FM radio station. Mexican immigrants in this case where being compared to roaches that could be stepped on and killed. Mexican immigrants were, in this case, being dehumanized to the level of an objectionable insect.
Another case involved Disney owned KABC 790-AM in Los Angeles. In this case a Mexican news reporter on Spanish language Television was compared to a rodent or a "rata" as he was called over the airwaves by a KABC talk radio host. The host went beyond demonizing the Mexican news reporter. The KABC talk radio host drove in a KABC van to the building of the Spanish language Television station and took some "cheese for the rat" and a "funeral wreath" and placed it in front of the building. Later the KABC talk radio host bragged about his deed to all Los Angeles over the airwaves.
Fear against Mexicans is instilled by radio propaganda that constantly calls members of the group; illegal alien criminals, cop killers, child rapists, gang bangers and drug dealers. Any ordinary malfeasance committed by an undocumented Mexican immigrant is blown out of proportion over the radio airwaves. One well known example of this is the tragic drunk driving accident involving a Mexican immigrant in which two girls were killed. A well known national talk radio host used the tragedy in Virginia Beach, Virginia to launch a virulent hateful attack on all Mexican immigrants.
There is no doubt that this Goebbels like propaganda against Mexicans and Mexican-Americans by US talk radio can have grave and sometimes deadly consequences for members of the group. The Mexican community has experienced an alarming rise in hate crimes. Many of these hate crimes can be tied directly to anti-Mexican radio propaganda. One example of this occurred in the El Sereno community of Los Angeles where an elementary school that serves children of Mexican descent had to be evacuated when it first received an arson and then a bomb threat due to constant hate propaganda against the school by KABC 790-AM radio. The Disney owned radio station was not happy with the school's curriculum that promoted Mexican culture and language and began a vicious propaganda attack against the school and its principal. The principal, as direct consequence of the radio propaganda against him, received anonymous death threats.
Propaganda against Mexicans by talk radio is helping foment hatred that leads at times to murder by racists. This occurred in Fremont, California where a Mexican mother and her daughter where bludgeon to death by racists. In North San Diego County, 5 elderly Mexican agricultural workers were savagely beaten by a group of White youths. One day apart, in the same area, another Mexican agricultural worker was dragged to death along a dirt road. In Columbus, Ohio an apartment building housing Mexican immigrants was torched and an entire family perished. The list goes on and on and the number is rapidly increasing.
The propaganda against Mexicans by talk radio is not just negatively affecting undocumented immigrants. It has also affected US citizens of Mexican descent and Mexican-American elected officials. The former Attorney General of California Cruz Bustamante was so vilified by talk radio that it resulted in him receiving death threats. A favorite target of talk radio in Los Angeles is Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa. The principal talk radio stations like KABC 790-AM constantly refer to him as Mayor Antonio Vivalaraza. He has also received death threats. Talk radio show no respect for any Mexican-American elected official. During the past several days, KABC 790 AM has also gone after Los Angeles City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo and his wife. They are calling City Attorney Delgadillo "Degradillo" in a vendetta against him because of his action to assure that Ms. Paris Hilton return to jail after she was prematurely released.
There is a good possibility that the constant negative images being projected of Mexicans by talk radio may have played a part in the horrible death of Edith Rodriguez at a Los Angeles county hospital emergency room on May 9, 2007. Talk radio is constantly blaming Mexican immigrants for overcrowded schools and of abusing the public hospital emergency rooms. When the medical staff of King-Harbor Hospital refused to treat Edith Rodriguez as she laid on the floor vomiting blood, the staff may have thought that Edith Rodrigues was an "illegal alien" when in fact she was a US citizen, This situation happens often because of the xenophobia created by anti-Mexican propaganda on talk radio.
We saw in Nazi Germany the consequences of unabashed radio and other types of propaganda. In a twisted quirk of history, the very targets of Goebbels propaganda techniques are today practicing his art against others, for they are today the owners of talk radio and the bosses of the Rush Limbows, the Sean Hannitys, the Bill O'Reillys, the Bill Handles, the Doug McIntyres and many others. This may be the reason why Senator Trent Lott said "Talk radio is running America." http://www.aztlan.net/talk_radio_propaganda.htm Gamila Zahran's Arabian Sights gzahran@wanadoo.fr

THE STATE ...OF HIGHER EDUCATION.
FBI to restrict student freedoms
Shttp://pressesc.com/01182668252_espionage_indicators
| United States | News

US university students will not be able to work late at the campus, travel abroad, show interest in their colleagues' work, have friends outside the United States, engage in independent research, or make extra money without the prior consent of the authorities, according to a set of guidelines given to administrators by the FBI.

Federal agents are visiting some of the New England's top universities, including MIT, Boston College, and the University of Massachusetts, to warn university heads about the dangers of foreign spies and terrorists stealing sensitive academic research. FBI is offering to brief faculty, students and staff on what it calls "espionage indicators" aimed at identifying foreign agents.
Unexplained affluence, failing to report overseas travel, showing unusual interest in information outside the job scope, keeping unusual work hours, unreported contacts with foreign nationals, unreported contact with foreign government, military, or intelligence officials, attempting to gain new accesses without the need to know, and unexplained absences are all considered potential espionage indicators.

Faculty, staff and students are encouraged to monitor their colleagues for signs of suspicious behaviour and report any concerns to the FBI or the military. "What we're most concerned about are those things that are not classified being developed by MIT [Massachusetts Institute of Technology], Worcester Polytech [Worcester Polytechnic Institute] and other universities," Warren Bamford, special agent in charge of the FBI's Boston office, told the Boston Herald. "It's to make sure these institutions receive training...[on] what spies look for. There are hundreds of projects going on that could be useful to a foreign power."

Last year the FBI initiated the College and University Security Effort (CAUSE), in order to establish an "alliance" between the Federal agency and academic institutions.
According to the FBI, through CAUSE, Special Agents in charge meet with the heads of local colleges to discuss national security issues and to share information and ideas.

Mcmansions, SUVs, Mega-Churches and the Baghdad Embassy
Life Among Dim and Brutal Giants
By Phil Rockstroh
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17940.htm
Upon the nation's roadways and interstate highways, the overgrown clown cars of the apocalypse, SUVs, Humvees, and oversized pickup trucks also evince hugeness to compensate for the feelings of those folks inside the grotesque vehicles of being crushed down by alienation and isolation -- not only while on the road -- but by the realities of an existence within a hapless, oil-dependent empire which is itself powerless against the changing realities of the larger world.

In the ranks of the exploiter class, the fat salaries of CEOs separate them further from the general population of the consumer state (that they take every opportunity to bamboozle) as the American public itself grows fatter and fatter in body mass, vainly attempting to sate an inner emptiness borne of their perceived helplessness before the predation of corporate culture. Far from blameless, we continue to allow the elites to exploit us; therefore, we enable and sustain their titanic sense of entitlement. In turn, we accept their paltry bribes ...we Americans continue to believe our fables of righteous power: Big is good, goes our John Wayne jack-off fantasy.

Concurrently, in Baghdad, the U.S. embassy, which, when completed, will be the largest "diplomatic" compound on the planet is, in fact, an inadvertent monument to the mindless colossus the U.S.A. has become. The structure is as accurate as the art of architecture can be in its depiction of the spirit of a nation's people. As big and bloated as our national sense of exceptionalism, it stands in the so-called Green Zone of Baghdad, shielding those who will be bunkered down within it -- not only from the murderous madness unfolding outside its highly fortified walls -- but from reality itself. A massive emblem of the arrogance of power, the embassy is a testament to how the noxious vapors of cultural self-deception can be made manifest in reenforced concrete, armed watchtowers and razor wire.

In turn, our national landscape is stretched to the breaking point: Cluttered upon it, gigantic islands of garish light torment the night, scouring away the stars, estranging us from imagination, empathy, and eros, and leaving us only with the insatiable appetites of consumerism. Thus, around the clock, inside enormous, under-inspected, industrial slaughterhouses and meat processing plants, underpaid, benefit-bereft workers ply their gruesome, monstrously cruel trade, then the butchered wares are transported by way of brutal, double and triple-axle trailer, diesel trucks over stygian interstate highways to sepulchral supermarkets and charnel house restaurant chains. Insuring, we flesh-eating zombies are provided with all the water-bloated, steroid-ridden meat and industrially farmed, pesticide-laquered vegetables and starches -- The Cuisines Of The Living Dead -- we could ever crave ... uum, uum, it's the Thanatotic yumminess of empire's end.... Hyperbolic ravings, you say. America is not a culture in love with death.

Let's see. Drawing upon just one example: The corpses of well over half a million dead Iraqis testify otherwise. Moreover, the continuing Iraqi resistance to our occupation speaks volumes as well. Yet still, most of us cannot hear their elegy of outrage over the din created by the parade of killer clowns that we have mistaken for the pageantry of nationhood...
How does one slow this juggernaut of psychosis and curb these acts of murder/suicide being perpetrated on a global scale? Truth is, we might not be able to stop it, because this is what lies beneath our unlimited sense of entitlement and self-defeating arrogance: a death-wish that manifests itself as exceptionalism and may well destroy the nation by means of imperial overreach -- which is, of course, the time-established method by which empires dispose of themselves.

We are slaves who know next to nothing of freedom.
"One of the primary fictions that governs our lives is that we are in any meaningful sense free. Our way of life is predicated on freedom, and is freer than any other way of life that has ever existed, we tell ourselves endlessly, drearily, compulsively, as sleep-deprived we look out the window at the concrete walls of a subway tunnel, on a cattle car carrying us too slow yet too fast toward a job we do not love to make money to buy things we do not want, in a life carrying us too slow yet too fast toward an end—death—for which we are not prepared, having never really lived.

Sure, there are endless diversions available for those who have the money to afford them... We have the freedom to consume, and then consume, and then consume some more. We have the freedom to exploit and to be exploited, and then to exploit and to be exploited some more.

But we do not have the freedom to not live under an exploitative, hierarchical system that is killing the planet... systematically destroys non-exploitative, non-hierarchical, sustainable cultures. That’s what it does. It systematically destroys all alternatives...
Responsibility without freedom is slavery. As we see. Freedom without responsibility is immaturity. As we also see. Put them together and you’ve got an entire culture consisting of immature slaves." Derrick Jensen www.derrickjensen.org

DEATHS IN IRAQ HAVE REACHED 1 MILLION
Grim claim on fourth anniversary of conflict
Alan Jones, THE Daily Record
On the fourth anniversary of the invasion by Allied troops, an Australian scientist insisted the true death toll dwarfed previous estimates. Dr Gideon Polya said: "Using the most comprehensive and authoritative literature and UN demographic data yields an estimate of one million post-invasion excess deaths in Iraq." This figure is far higher than the biggest previous estimate of 655,000 last July...

Iraqi Village bitterly disputes story of deadly attack: US military said 'Al-Qaeda gunmen' killed
But villagers in largely-Shia al-Khalis say that those who died had nothing to do with al-Qaeda. They say they were local village guards trying to protect the township from exactly the kind of attack by insurgents the US military says it foiled.
They say that of 16 guards, 11 were killed and five others injured - two of them seriously - when US helicopters fired rockets at them and then strafed them with heavy machinegun fire. Minutes before the attack, they had been co-operating with an Iraqi police unit raiding a suspected insurgent hideout, the villagers said. They are incensed that the village guards should be described as "al-Qaeda gunmen".
Here is the version of the incident issued by the US-led Multinational Forces on 22 June:
"Coalition Forces attack helicopters engaged and killed 17 al-Qaeda gunmen southwest of Khalis, Friday."Iraqi police were conducting security operations in and around the village when Coalition attack helicopters from the 25th Combat Aviation Brigade and ground forces from 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, observed more than 15 armed men attempting to circumvent the IPs and infiltrate the village. "The attack helicopters, armed with missiles, engaged and killed 17 al-Qaeda gunmen and destroyed the vehicle they were using."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/6239896.stm

FLASHBACK: In Defense of 'Chemical Ali'
Jude Wanniski
..."Chemical Ali" supposedly gave the order to the Iraqi Air Force to drop chemical bombs on Halabja, but W. Patrick Lang, who was the senior analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency in that period and who concurs with Pelletiere on the facts in evidence, tells me the armies exchanged gas by mortars and no aircraft were used – as was reported by the New Yorker. Incidentally, there is still no evidence that any Iraqi Kurds died of gas ordered by "Chemical Ali," a nickname cooked up by the same propagandists at the Pentagon who made "Ali" the king of spades in its deck of cards..http://www.uruknet.de/?p=33963

digest note: article by ex-CIA/pro-imperialist 'forgets' U.S. supported both Iraq & Iran in the war it instigated in behalf of its geostrategic agenda
A War Crime or an Act of War?
By Stephen C. Pelletiere The New York Times, Jan. 31, 2003
MECHANICSBURG, Pa. - It was no surprise that President Bush, lacking smoking-gun evidence of Iraq's weapons programs, used his State of the Union address to re-emphasize the moral case for an invasion: "The dictator who is assembling the world's most dangerous weapons has already used them on whole villages, leaving thousands of his own citizens dead, blind or disfigured."

The accusation that Iraq has used chemical weapons against its citizens is a familiar part of the debate. The piece of hard evidence most frequently brought up concerns the gassing of Iraqi Kurds at the town of Halabja in March 1988, near the end of the eight-year Iran-Iraq war. President Bush himself has cited Iraq's "gassing its own people," specifically at Halabja, as a reason to topple Saddam Hussein....

I am in a position to know because, as the Central Intelligence Agency's senior political analyst on Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war, and as a professor at the Army War College from 1988 to 2000, I was privy to much of the classified material that flowed through Washington having to do with the Persian Gulf. In addition, I headed a 1991 Army investigation into how the Iraqis would fight a war against the United States; the classified version of the report went into great detail on the Halabja affair. [emphasis added]

This much about the gassing at Halabja we undoubtedly know: it came about in the course of a battle between Iraqis and Iranians. Iraq used chemical weapons to try to kill Iranians who had seized the town, which is in northern Iraq not far from the Iranian border. The Kurdish civilians who died had the misfortune to be caught up in that exchange. But they were not Iraq's main target.
And the story gets murkier: immediately after the battle the United States Defense Intelligence Agency investigated and produced a classified report, which it circulated within the intelligence community on a need-to-know basis. That study asserted that it was Iranian gas that killed the Kurds, not Iraqi gas....
I am not trying to rehabilitate the character of Saddam Hussein. He has much to answer for in the area of human rights abuses. But accusing him of gassing his own people at Halabja as an act of genocide is not correct, because as far as the information we have goes, all of the cases where gas was used involved battles. These were tragedies of war. There may be justifications for invading Iraq, but Halabja is not one of them.

In fact, those who really feel that the disaster at Halabja has bearing on today might want to consider a different question: Why was Iran so keen on taking the town? A closer look may shed light on America's impetus to invade Iraq.
We are constantly reminded that Iraq has perhaps the world's largest reserves of oil. But in a regional and perhaps even geopolitical sense, it may be more important that Iraq has the most extensive river system in the Middle East. In addition to the Tigris and Euphrates, there are the Greater Zab and Lesser Zab rivers in the north of the country. Iraq was covered with irrigation works by the sixth century A.D., and was a granary for the region.

Before the Persian Gulf war, Iraq had built an impressive system of dams and river control projects, the largest being the Darbandikhan dam in the Kurdish area. And it was this dam the Iranians were aiming to take control of when they seized Halabja. In the 1990's there was much discussion over the construction of a so-called Peace Pipeline that would bring the waters of the Tigris and Euphrates south to the parched Gulf states and, by extension, Israel. No progress has been made on this, largely because of Iraqi intransigence. With Iraq in American hands, of course, all that could change.
Thus America could alter the destiny of the Middle East in a way that probably could not be challenged for decades - not solely by controlling Iraq's oil, but by controlling its water. Even if America didn't occupy the country, once Mr. Hussein's Baath Party is driven from power, many lucrative opportunities would open up for American companies.
All that is needed to get us into war is one clear reason for acting, one that would be generally persuasive. But efforts to link the Iraqis directly to Osama bin Laden have proved inconclusive. Assertions that Iraq threatens its neighbors have also failed to create much resolve; in its present debilitated condition - thanks to United Nations sanctions - Iraq's conventional forces threaten no one.
Perhaps the strongest argument left for taking us to war quickly is that Saddam Hussein has committed human rights atrocities against his people. And the most dramatic case are the accusations about Halabja.

Before we go to war over Halabja, the administration owes the American people the full facts. And if it has other examples of Saddam Hussein gassing Kurds, it must show that they were not pro-Iranian Kurdish guerrillas who died fighting alongside Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Until Washington gives us proof of Saddam Hussein's supposed atrocities, why are we picking on Iraq on human rights grounds, particularly when there are so many other repressive regimes Washington supports?
Stephen C. Pelletiere is author of "Iraq and the International Oil System: Why America Went to War in the Persian Gulf."

A FORGOTTEN "DAY OF INFAMY"
Malcom Lagauche
June 26, 1993. On that date, the U.S. military, under the command of Bill Clinton, ordered 23 Tomahawk guided missiles to demolish the headquarters of the Mukhabarat, the Iraqi intelligence services, in central Baghdad. Twenty of the missiles hit the agency complex, while "only" three missed their targets. A jubilant Clinton took to the airwaves and proclaimed victory. He was happy that only three missed their targets. One could think he was addressing the public about the score of a sporting event. One of the three that missed destroyed the home of Layla al-Attar, killing her and her husband, and blinding her daughter. Layla al-Attar was the director of the Iraqi National Art Museum and a leading Arab artist ... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=33985

Blaming the Victims: Covering Up Terrorism in Iraq
by Ghali Hassan
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=HAS20070...
A recent cover story in Time magazine (March, 2007, Europe and Asia) by Bobby Ghosh, "Why They Hate Each Other", aimed at removing the Occupation as the generator of violence against the Iraqi people, and portrays the violence as "Iraqis killing Iraqis". This media distortion obfuscates the U.S. monopoly on terrorism and allows the U.S. to use Iraq as a laboratory for terror at the expense of the Iraqi people.

Nowhere in his story does Ghosh tell the readers that the militias and the criminals were the creation of the Occupation and that the violence is the only pretext left to justify the ongoing Occupation. Why Iraqis didn’t "hate each other" before the illegal invasion of their country is totally ignored by Western media and remains a mystery to most Westerners. It is important to remember that Time was the leading propaganda organ which promoted the illegal aggression against Iraq, and continues to play a vicious role spreading Islamaphobia around the world.

To get a clearer picture of what has been done to Iraq and to Iraqi society, it is vital to connect the nearly two- decades of Anglo-American violence against the Iraqi people. Violence has been the primary tool of U.S. foreign policy and its dealing with smaller defenceless nations. Indeed, history has shown that all nations who qualified for U.S. violence were defenceless nations inhabited by coloured, or nonwhite human beings.

From 1990 to 2003, Iraq was under a 13-years genocidal sanctions regime enforced by the U.S. and Britain. The sanctions were the new weapons of mass killing the West used against innocent civilians. The sanctions were in fact a silent genocide that was deliberately used to target the most vulnerable of Iraqi society. More than 1.6 million Iraqis have died; a third of the victims were infants. In addition, the sanctions were accompanied by weekly acts of terrorism by U.S. and British forces disguised as air raids to "enforce the no-fly zones". The pretext for this long and silent genocide was (the non-existent of) Weapons of Mass Destructions (WMDs). As the perpetrators failed to break the will of the Iraqi people to survive, they initiated a war of aggression using the same concocted pretext as justification for war.

According to Robert H. Jackson, the Chief Prosecutor at the Nuremberg Trial,
"Any resort to war—any kind of war—is a resort to means that are inherently criminal. War inevitably is a course of killings, assaults, deprivations of liberty, and destruction of property. An honestly defensive war is, of course, legal and saves those lawfully conducting it from criminality. But inherently criminal acts cannot be defended by showing that those who committed them were engaged in a war, when war itself is illegal". (Nuremberg Trial Proceedings, 2nd Day, 21 November, 1945, pp. 145-146).

Before the U.S-Britain illegal aggression, Iraqis were living in relative safety. Iraq posed no threat to any other nation. The primary objectives of the war were the imperialist domination of the region by the U.S. and support for Israel’s terror and Zionist policy in Palestine.

A short history is in order. At the outset of the Occupation, Paul Bremer, the U.S. Proconsul during the early phase of the Occupation, issued an order dissolving the Iraqi State and disbanding the Iraqi Army and Police in order to create lawlessness and chaos. Bremer then hand-picked expatriate collaborators – most of them involved in crimes and acts of terrorism against the State of Iraq – and beguiled others to form the ‘Iraqi Governing Council’ (IGC). The IGC was based on ethnic and religious affiliations, and most of its members had lived outside Iraq for decades. Bremer’s aim was to divide Iraqis according to religion and ethnicity, which made the Iraqi people shiver in their sleep. The IGC continues to function today under the name of the "Iraqi Government" without any real power, reminiscent of the Nazis-imposed Vichy regime in France.

Furthermore, the U.S.-drafted Iraqi "Constitution" is designed specifically to divide the country on ethnic-religious lines. The so-called "federation" is euphemism for the geographical divisions of Iraq. The "Constitution" has relegated women’s rights to the Stone Age and denies them equality. Before the Occupation, Iraq had one of the most progressive Constitutions in the Muslim World.

In addition, the U.S. launched a campaign of terror and assassinations – as the U.S. did in every country it invaded or which backed its military junta. It all started with the "Debaathification"; a euphemism for a murderous campaign orchestrated by the occupying forces. U.S. Special Forces in collaboration with the Israeli Mossad agents trained the pro-invasion militias (the Kurdish Peshmerga, the SCIRI Badr Brigades and other U.S.-trained militias) and began a reign of terror targeting anyone with anti-Occupation tendency. Hence, the U.S. Occupation – enforced by more than 200,000 U.S. troops and other foreign mercenaries – is the roots of the violence and destruction in Iraq today.

The aim is to terrorise the population and force them into ethnic or sectarian enclaves, suppress the anti-Occupation voices and deprive the Iraqi Resistance of protection (by the population) and resources. The campaign is based in part on the U.S. previous terror campaigns in El Salvador in the 1980s and in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and on Israel’s targeted assassinations of Palestinian unarmed men, women and children. Thousands of innocent Iraqi professionals were murdered in cold blood, including scientists, prominent politicians, Iraqi intellectuals, military officers and doctors. Even religious leaders and women opposing the Occupation are not immune from U.S. terror. Remember, all of this is known to Western mainstream media, journalists, pundits and NGOs; however, they continue to propagate the myths of "sectarian violence" and "civil war". (See, Notes).

As resistance against the Occupation continues to grow, the U.S. resorts to refocusing the violence on Iraqis in order to deflect responsibility and justify the ongoing Occupation. The U.S. and Britain – supported by a racist and violent media – are instigating insurrection (Futna) amongst Iraqis pushing one community against the other. Expatriate collaborators and U.S. agents are infiltrating the Resistance groups and anti-Occupation forces in order to provoke intra-communal strife using the civilian population as fodder for terrorism. At the same time they continue a reign of terror against the population. The goal is to use the violence as a pretext to continue the Occupation and at the same time mislead the public that there is no Resistance against the Occupation. Of course, nothing could be further from the truth. There is a massive Iraqi national Resistance movement.

Since the invasion, the aggressors have been responsible for the death of approximately a million innocent Iraqi civilians – whose names will never be published by Time magazine – and the destruction of the Iraqi society and nation. Unlike the American soldiers killed by the Resistance, the names of Iraqi victims will never be published. In addition, tens of thousands of Iraqis are enduring torture, sexual abuses; rape and humiliation at the hands of U.S.-British forces in hundreds of U.S.-British run prisons throughout Iraq. The Iraqi people must be asking the question: "why they hate us" so much.
The case of the three Iraqi women (Wissam Talib, 31, Zainab Fadhli, 25, and Liqa Omar Mohammed, 26) awaiting imminent execution in a Baghdad’s prison after a fraud trial – condemned even by Amnesty international as unfair – is the most shameful and cowardly act. The UN and the European Parliament should be ashamed for remaining silent.

Before the invasion and long after the Occupation, there were no bombs exploding in Iraq killing innocent civilians on religious pilgrimages. There were no "suicide bombers". Resistance attacks were against U.S. force and their Iraqi collaborators. It all started during the Occupation when the Iraqi people refused to surrender to the Occupation and the U.S. began the search for a pretext to continue the Occupation.

Credible sources reveal that the U.S. and British forces are behind these attacks. A case in point was that in September 2005, Iraqi Police in Basra arrested two British soldiers (the SAS) disguised as Arab "terrorists" planting bombs in civilian centres. Furthermore, most car bomb attacks on civilians were detonated by remote control, but propagated by the occupying forces and Western media as "suicide car bombs". The aim is to demonize Muslims and present them as as killers who having no concern for human life.

Aided by a new breed of native informers, such as the Iranian Vali Reza Nasr (employed by the U.S. Defence department) which has become a household name in the West to confirm it to Westerners that the violence in Iraq is between "two factions of Muslims" and the U.S. is on benevolent "mission" with "good intentions", Westerners have reacted to the violence in Iraq by labelling Muslims as "violent". However, Westerners ignore that Iraqis have no history of killing other Iraqis because of ethnic or religious affiliations.

Despite all this, and in addition to the daily suffering inflicted upon them by US forces, the Iraqi people remain firmly opposed to the Occupation. An overwhelming majority of Iraqis want the U.S. to end the Occupation of their country to end the violence.

Iraqis do not identify themselves according to ethnic and religious backgrounds. A fact recently acknowledged by George Bush himself when he admitted that he was not aware of Iraq’s ethnic-religious mix. This is the West’s way of discriminating and persecuting minorities. Religious sect was never an issue in Iraq before the invasion. There is no such thing as a "Shi’ite majority" and a "Sunni minority". Iraqi censuses never included religion and ethnicity.

Few months after the invasion "the U.S. army issued a list of 55 wanted top Iraqi officials, starting with President Saddam Hussein; half of those senior officials were Shia …The Committee of Debaathification issued a list of 100,000 senior Iraqi Ba'athists who would not be allowed to enjoy governmental posts, 66,000 of them were Shia - so how is the Ba'ath party a Sunni party?", a prominent Iraqi politician told the Arab media on December 19, 2006. I spent many long years in Iraq, and at no time I belonged to some kind of religious sect.

Thanks to a campaign of distortion generated by the media, the U.S. is succeeding brilliantly in convincing the world that the violence in Iraq is "sectarian" and that the U.S. is simply acting as a "saviour" protecting the Iraqi people. Hence, the U.S. will end the Occupation when the puppet government is able to provide security. It follows that the U.S. will decide on security and withdrawal when the U.S. sees fit. The longer the violence continues, the Occupation will continue.

In fact according to the Pentagon own assessment (Pentagon's latest quarterly report on security in Iraq), the violence has increased dramatically "forcing as many as 9000 civilians to flee the country each month". The report reveals that; "Although most attacks continue to be directed against coalition forces, with Iraqi civilians bearing the brunt of the violence". It adds; "Weekly attacks in Iraq rose to more than 1000 during the period of late 2006 and average daily casualties increased to more than 140".

On 12 March 2007 Vice President Dick Cheney, told supporters gathered at the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC's annual policy conference (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee Policy Conference) that withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq would endanger Israel, confirming that one of the motives of the illegal aggression against Iraq was to support Israel in the Middle East.

Furthermore, the U.S. is also succeeding in using the violence and Iraq’s current position to pass a new "Hydrocarbons Law" (drafted by the U.S. and U.S. Oil Corporations, in collaboration with the IMF) at the expense of the Iraqi people, who were kept uninformed about the theft of their resources. It gives large oil companies (mostly U.S. Oil Corporations) control over Iraqi oil and relegates Iraq to the old colonial dictatorship. The "Law" not only deprives Iraqis of their resources, it infringes on Iraq’s sovereignty. Hence, the violence is deliberate and it is serving U.S. interest well.

Finally, The Anglo-American public (including Australia) have a moral responsibility to hold their leaders directly responsible for the mass murder of innocent Iraqi civilians. Failure to do so, is tantamount to complicity.

It should be borne in mind that the U.S. is using Iran’s non-existent weapon program and the conflict in Darfur as a diversion to manipulate and keep the public in a constant state of fear.

The Time magazine’s cover story demonizes Islam, it is based on distorted images of Muslims. The entire Time story is a distortion of reality, which serves to cover up the atrocities committed in Iraq, while casually blaming the victims for the mass killings of civilians instigated by the Occupation forces.

Ghali Hassan is an independent writer living in Australia.
Notes:
1. Max Fuller, Crying Wolf: Media Disinformation and Death Squads in Occupied Iraq; Also, Silence of the Lambs? Proof of US orchestration of Death Squads Killings in Iraq.
2. Ghali Hassan, Occupation and Sectarianism.
3. Peter Mass, The Way of the Commandos.

this sneaky 'admission of guilt' is a cover-up...
U.S., NATO occupation forces have killed more Afghan civilians than "insurgents"
http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2007-06-24-karzai_N.htm

Antonella Deledda, the U.N. anti-drug representative in Central Asia, told UPI the production of opium in Afghanistan might reach 4000 tons in 2003, ...
www.narconews.com/~myco/Mycoherbicide.info/ World-Regions/Uzbekistan/washington_times_2003.htm

U.S: Opium Connection Afghanistan
Summary of this page: http://www.cam.net.uk/home/aaa315/peace/opium.htm
The Bush Administration gave the Taliban $43 million in May of this year for their destruction of Afghan opium crops in February. Drugs and terrorism go hand in hand. Afghanistan had been the world's largest producer of opium/heroin, claiming close to 70% of the world's total production. The amount of drug cash flowing into Wall Street and U.S. banks was estimated to be around $250-$300 billion a year. The history of the drug trade in Central Asia is intimately related to the CIA's covert operations. The U.S., directly or indirectly, helped to fund the WTC attacks. George Bush, Sr. was in charge of all U.S. intelligence and narcotics operations from 1981 through 1989. It was Bush (the elder) who directly nourished and nurtured bin Laden's evolution.

Afghanistan, Opium and the Taliban
JALALABAD, Afghanistan (February 15, 2001U.N. drug control officers said the Taliban religious militia has nearly wiped out opium production in Afghanistan -- once the world's largest producer
opioids.com/afghanistan/index.html

Record opium crop in southern Afghanistan: Region set to become world's biggest supplier
A dramatic 49% increase last year to a record opium poppy harvest in the country led to a new record in the world production of opium, the UN says. Afghanistan accounts for 92% of global illict opium production. The total export value of the country's opium harvest is estimated by the UN to amount to more than $3bn (£1.5bn), almost half the size of the country's entire gross domestic product. More than 12% of Afghanistan's population of 23 million is involved in opium poppy cultivation. http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2112348,00.html

Why did production climb until the Taliban took over, then decline sharply, only to rise dramatically again after the US army invaded Afghanistan and routed them? They invaded... to secure the current and the future pipelines for corporate America, encircling Iran in the process and to secure the opium production for corporate America.... Opium money now filtrates freely into Western financial centers again and is whitewashed there....
http://www.thepeoplesvoice.org/cgi-bin/blogs/news.php

Translation of a Palestinian Torture Video
The US financed the Palestinian Presidential Forces under control of Mahmoud Abbas with eighty million dollars. Not only that, but the war criminal of US General Keith Dayton also organizes the training of these Palestinian troops. And beyond that, the European Union is financing the PA and paying part of the salaries of these troops. The images in the following video, which was released to the Internet some time ago and whose translation I am presenting to the world, will show you the well-trained Fatah-PA troops. The way in which they torture their Palestinian prisoners shows the great achievements of the training given to these PA thugs by the USA. The Palestinian Authority forces seen in the video torturing the prisoners are from the death squads controlled by Mohammad Dahlan. The victims seen in the video are Palestinians, one of the prisoners wears a t-shirt with the legend of the 'Executive Forces", a Hamas unit under control of the Interior Ministry. The video is a direct consequence of the USA and EU subsidized with tax money from these countries... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34023

On Sunday 24, it became known that Keith Dayton and Jacob Wallace, the US Consul General in Jerusalem, are dictating the "security policy" for Palestine. Several meeting were held between the PA president Abass, the American envoys, and Palestinian General Abdel Razeq Al-Yehyah. The publication of the meeting with the Americans in the Palestinian media generated a huge wave of hate toward the US as well as huge anger against the PA. "We hate the US as they are the strongest alley of Israeli occupation, the Americans will never bring us the justice and peace, they just want to create a CIA puppet body in our land", is what the Palestinian public says...: http://www.uruknet.de/?p=34025

Palestinians at a Cross-Road
By Dr. Elias Akleh
Wednesday 13th of June 2007 marks a huge division among Palestinians. On that day open armed confrontation took place between Qassam Brigade, the military arm of Hamas, and what is locally known as the death squad mutineers, an American/Israeli backed militia within Fatah Presidential Security Guards under the leadership of national security chief Mohammad Dahlan. Many believe that what happened in Gaza Strip was the result of a failure in the American/Israeli policy of supporting Fatah mutineers (Dahlan’ death squads) to oppose and to topple Hamas government.

Contrary to this belief, what happened in Gaza was exactly what Bush’s administration and Israeli government planned for. They set an inescapable trap for Hamas, who was left without any other alternatives but to act in order to put an end to Dahlan’s death squads and to enforce security to protect Palestinian citizens. US, Israel, and some Arab leaders are distorting Hamas legitimate action in order to destroy the Hamas resistance phenomenon and to prevent it from spreading to the neighboring Arab countries.

To understand the dynamics of Fatah/Hamas conflict we need to go back in history ...
The decision came to starve Palestinians in order to cripple, discredit and to topple Hamas government. Before the establishment of the new government the old Fatah Parliament gave President Abbas more constitutional power. Abbas also hastened to double the number of his Presidential Security Forces. The Bush administration struck financial, economical, and political sanctions against Hamas government, and forced EU, the Quartet, and Arab countries to join in otherwise face financial isolation. The administration, under the supervision of General Keith Dayton, formulated a plan to finance Abbas, train his Security forces in Jericho, in Jordan, and in Egypt, and send in death squads, under the leadership of Security Chief Muhammad Dahlan, to spread terror, assassinations, and “creative chaos” to force Hamas to react. This reaction is expected to incite civil war as Dayton has opined in his Congress session late last May. This plan was revealed by Public Affairs and Department Spokesman Sean McCormack on 22nd of last December when he declared Washington’s readiness to provide PA with large shipment of weapons to topple Hamas government. The author of the plan was Bush’s Deputy National Security Advisor Elliot Abrams, who on 7th of last January called for a “hard coup” to overthrow Hamas.

Dahlan’s death squads started terrorizing people in Gaza. They attacked Hamas government buildings, torched Hamas charitable institutions and social services centers, attacked mosque goers, burned educational and cultural centers, assassinated Hamas resistance members, and fired automatic weapons randomly in the streets to terrorize people. Many times they engaged members of Qassam Brigade. They also had kidnapped foreigners and media reporters then let Dahlan release them as a show of his own influence. Arab mediations interfered many times to solve what was termed power struggle between Hamas and Fatah. Representatives of both factions met with Arab mediators in Egypt, Syria, and Saudi Arabia to come up with agreements that usually did not last except for few days, after which the death squads would start their terror again.

The death squads started targeting Hamas officials. PA Minister of prisoner’s affairs, Wasfi Quebha, escaped assassination attempt when his car was strafed with bullets. On 13th of last December Judge Bassam Al Farra was assassinated in Gaza. On the 14th Palestinian Prime Minister, Isma’el Haniyeh, himself was the target of a failed assassination attempt while entering Gaza from his Gulf trip. On the 17th of the same month there was another failed assassination attempt against Foreign Minister Mahmoud al-Zahar. Hamas leaders sent letters to President Abbas naming members of the death squads, who took camp in Presidential compound in Gaza and used it as prison and torture centers, and asking him to use his influence to put an end to Dahlan’s death squads. Yet Abbas did not give them any attention. In Mecca meeting Hamas offered to share power with Fatah in a form of a Unity Government to address security issues in Gaza. This Unity Government did not live long; Hani Qawasmi, the newly assigned Interior Minister charged with security reforms, turned in his resignation due to the many hurdles he met from Presidential Guards.

The beginning of month of June ushers what seems to be a preparation for a coup against Hamas government into Gaza. On the 2nd of June Hamas Interior Ministry in a press conference expressed its concern about armored military vehicles secretly crossing the borders and stationing in Presidential compound in Gaza. It was revealed that on Friday 6/1 ten large arms shipments were transported from Jericho to Gaza under the protection of the Israeli army. On Thursday 6/7 eye witnesses reported that several hundreds of members of Fatah’s Badr Brigade had crossed Rafah crossing into Gaza to join the 450 others, who preceded them in May 16th.
A wave of assassinations of Hamas cadre followed, Muslim Imams and their mosques were targeted, some Hamas ministers were also targeted, families of Hamas martyrs were attacked, 12 of their houses were burned and demolished Israeli style and their businesses were looted and torched, and finally the house of Prime Minister Isma’el Haniyeh was targeted with missiles. The death squads, emboldened with enforcements, attacked civilian homes and businesses openly and uncovered without their usual masks. They were led by Samih al-Madhoun, Dahlan’s thug, who was executed later for his many crimes against civilians.

The latest terror wave was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Hamas’ patience ran out and they could not take it any more. To protect themselves and Gaza citizens Hamas was forced to take the last resort of acting pre-emptively to get rid of Dahlan’s death squads and Fatah’s mutineers to avert a possible overthrow of the elected government. To avoid any misconceptions Hamas declared that since President Abbas has not taken any steps to improve security in Gaza it had taken these security measures against the death squads to secure the safety of the people who elected them to do so, and that their action was not directed against Fatah per se. Hamas officials demanded to take Dahlan to court for his crimes citing documented evidence for his treason found in the Presidential compound. Abbas rejected these claims. Circumventing the Palestinian constitution and bypassing the Palestinian Parliamentary Council Abbas dissolved Hamas government, declared emergency state, and appointed emergency government headed by Salam Fayyad. Abbas claimed that Hamas wants to establish an Islamic Taliban-like “Hamas-stan” in Gaza. He accused Hamas of revolting against the Palestinian legitimacy forgetting that this legitimacy was given to Hamas through election. He refused to negotiate with Hamas to solve the conflict while begging for negotiations with Ehud Olmert the real enemy of Palestinians. Olmert rewarded Abbas by accepting the emergency government as a real partner for peace negotiation, and by releasing Palestinian tax money to “improve” the lives of West Bank Palestinians.

Jordan and Egypt recognized the legitimacy of Fayyad’s government. Jordan offered to send Badr Brigade to Ramallah to help Dahlan secure the West Bank. Dahlan had already regrouped his Security Forces in Ramallah and sent them to attack and seize all Hamas institutions throughout the West Bank. They raided homes kidnapping and imprisoning Hamas leaders and supporters. They torched 180 Hamas social services, cultural, religious, and educational centers.
The Bush administration supported Abbas unconstitutional decrees, accepted his emergency government as legitimate, decided to back him financially, and to provide his Security Guards with more weapons to fight Hamas. The administration also had sent Jacob Walles (Jake) to the West Bank as a High Commissioner to support Fayyad’s government. The EU had followed the Bush administration in recognizing Fayyad’s government. It promised to end its financial sanctions, and to pour more financial donations to the newly yet unconstitutional government. Once more it seems that the American administration has successfully toppled another democratically elected government. Palestinians in Gaza seem to face another Nekba (catastrophe). This time it is not only the international community that conspired against them, but also their own leaders and brothers. eakleh@ca.rr.com

collaborators have no shame...
Mahmoud Abbas has asked Israel for permission to bring Palestinian forces based in Jordan to the West Bank to try to shore up his control after Hamas's Gaza takeover, Israeli officials said on Tuesday. http://tinyurl.com/2ron7n

Marines to train at new Israeli combat center
Built by the Army Corps of Engineers and funded largely from U.S. military aid, the 7.4-square-mile generic city - balad, in Arabic, means village - consists of 1,100 basic modules that can be reconfigured by mission planners to represent specific towns. Here, at Israel’s new National Urban Training Center, the Israeli Defense Force’s Ground Forces Command is preparing forces to fight in four theaters: Gaza, Lebanon, the West Bank and Syria.
Syria is developing specialized infantry battalions trained in the type of guerrilla warfare waged so successfully by Hezbollah in last summer’s war, a military intelligence source said. And with the “reasonable likelihood” of another war on Israel’s northern front — perhaps by summer’s end, according to some intelligence estimates here...
http://tinyurl.com/2jvsce http://www.marinecorpstimes.com/news/2007/06/marine_israel_combattrainin...

Hamas denies assassination attempt on Palestinian president:
Officials in Izz al-Din al-Qassam said Abbas was never a target, that "all of his accusations are false." http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3416034,00.html

Israeli authorities to provide up to $1Billion to President Abbas to continue domestic fight against Hamas
The Israeli authorities have announced that Israel intends to transfer between 400 million and one billion US Dollars to the Palestinian Authority within the next few weeks. Israeli Channel Two reported late on Friday evening that Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert "has the intention to start final status negotiations in the coming months, on the condition that [President] Abbas must fight Hamas." Israeli political analysts claimed that "there are many steps under preparation, agreed upon by [US President] Bush and [Israeli Prime Minister] Olmert, including a joint plan against the Hamas movement on the political, economic and security levels http://www.maannews.net/en/index.php?opr=ShowDetails&ID=23224

Bush pledges to increase US funding to Israel:
In a White House statement issued following Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's visit to Washington, President George W. Bush pledged to increase US military aid to Israel over the course of the next decade. http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3415479,00.html

Blank-Check Aid To Israel Costs U.S. Tax Payers $10 Billion Per Year:
Congress skillfully gives Israel $10 billion a year to expand its brutal occupation of Palestinian lands in a manner that hides the amount from taxpayers.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article3256.htm

Israel: High Court permits torture of Palestinians:
The Israeli High Court issued a ruling that allows the Shabak, which is the Internal General Security Service of Israel, to torture with impunity.
http://tinyurl.com/33w47p

Jewish colonizers uproot Palestinian trees, replant them in illegal Israeli colony
Destroying and stealing Palestinians lands, crops and trees is nothing new to Israel occupation and the Jewish colonizers in the Occupied Palestinian Territories... settlers uprooted 300 Palestinian olive trees and replanted them in their outpost (Palestinian stolen land) ... reminded me of the following video clip, which is AGAIN, not of the type that you might ever see on your 'late news show’. Sabbah's blog

The Quartet - the U.S., EU, U.N and Russia - is expected to name outgoing British Prime Minister Tony Blair as a senior peace envoy to the Mideast, U.S. officials said, speaking on condition of anonymity pending a formal announcement.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/06/26/world/main2980448.shtml

how many more secret 'experimental' prisons in U.S. gulag's 'homeland'?
Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir at Terre Haute Prison’s New Communications Management Unit
By Katherine Hughes
The Federal Correctional Institution at Terre Haute, Indiana (www.rawstory.com).

AT PRECISELY 7 a.m. on Monday, Dec. 11, 2006, 17 federal prisoners across the country were taken out of their cells, held in isolation for two days, then bused to the Federal Correctional Institution (FCI) in Terre Haute, Indiana. Here the government quietly began implementing the first stages of a secret new program, the Communications Management Unit (CMU). A completely self-contained unit housing almost exclusively Arab and/or Muslim inmates, it eventually will hold approximately 85 prisoners.
Special new rules set out in a “CMU Institutional Supplement” dated Nov. 30, 2006 include severe restrictions on prisoner communication. Contact with family and friends is limited; outgoing and incoming mail is monitored and copied, with a one- to two- week delivery delay; and no contact visits are allowed. Instead of 300 minutes of phone time a month, prisoners may receive only one 15-minute call a week, which the warden has the power to reduce to just three minutes a month. Unlike the usual weekly or biweekly all-day contact visits, visits in the CMU are for two hours, just twice a month, and are restricted to non-contact only. Calls and visits must be conducted in English unless prior arrangement is made.
According to Jennifer Van Bergen, the journalist who broke the CMU story, there are only three government offices—all within the Justice Department—that have authority to issue changes to federal prison operations: the Office of the Director of the Prisons Bureau, the Office of Legal Counsel, and the Office of the U.S. Attorney General. Van Bergen was unable to get confirmation of where the authorization originated. The Bureau of Prisons Web site () does not list CMU among its facility abbreviations, and a search of the site for “CMU” or “Communications Management Unit” yields no result.

In a Dec. 18, 2006 letter, however, CMU inmate Dr. Rafil A. Dhafir wrote:
“No one seems to know about this top-secret operation until now. It is still not fully understood. The order came from the Attorney General himself. The staff here is struggling to make sense of the whole situation. There are 16 of us, all Muslims but two, with one non-Arab Muslim. We are housed in what we are told was the holding area for those on death row!!!!! We are told this is an experiment, so the whole concept is evolving on a daily basis.” [...] http://wrmea.com/archives/May-June_2007/0705012.html

Betrayed by our media
Tariq A. Al-Maeena
When a South Korean student began his killing spree on the grounds of Virginia Tech back in April of this year, slaughtering 32 people during his murderous frenzy, the incident generated extensive coverage worldwide and scorched the headlines of most of the press in the region.
In the days that followed, this incident led to many an editorial regionally expressing their total shock and questioning the state of mind of Cho, the Korean student behind the carnage. And letters to the editors of the local papers poured in with sympathy and compassion for the families of the fallen.

But yet an incident this month, a killing with no less intent hardly drew a byline in the back pages of our newspapers. And there weren’t any distressed editorials condemning yet another round of carnage against the innocent. And very few if any letters to the editors were dispatched, expressing sympathy and comfort. 7 children aged between 4 and 12 years of age that were brutally killed by bombs released by a US led air strike against a compound in the remote region in eastern Afghanistan just a few days ago. US authorities admitted that it was a targeted strike, and that it was a ‘mistake’. Following the deaths of over 350 innocent civilians in the past few months by the occupational forces, this was just another round of ‘mistakes’....
Dr. Ajub Gul, a physician at the main hospital in the provincial capital Tirin Kot, added that following the bombing of this civilian enclave, more than two dozen patients were brought in with serious wounds. “There are many more wounded, but they can’t come because of the continuous shelling,” he said. “The aircrafts are targeting the civilians inside and outside of their houses. There are many villagers under the rubble.”

Violence has swelled, claiming about 2,400 civilian lives during 2007, according to an Associated Press tally of figures from Western military and Afghan officials. Those numbers dead at Virginia Tech pale in comparison! Arab media can often be mistaken as an arm of the Pentagon press, with glib reports swiftly describing Iraqi resistance to the illegal occupation of foreign troops as ‘insurgency’, and decrying the loss of American lives, while paying scant attention to the growing number of civilian lives being taken by the presence of these forces. Over 650,000 lives have been lost in Iraq under deceptive pretenses since the occupation, and yet our media fails to highlight this tragic point. Instead, those fighting against this brutality are more often than not termed as 'militants'...columns by some of our so-called regional commentators or ‘experts’ smacks of a patronizing attitude towards the mess in the region, seeking to deflect attention from US or Israeli brutality in Iraq or Palestine and hanging the cloak of regional ills onto ‘terrorists’ or ‘Al-Qaeda’. Notice how every ill has it’s roots in ‘Al-Qaeda’ today!
Daniel Perle and Wolfowitz couldn’t have stated it any better... To them, everything Israel and the US are doing militarily is for the better of the region...Where has the rest of our Arab press disappeared to if not having crawled under some obscure rock? Are they simply content to reprint wire releases from international press agencies and continue on with blinders in the face of the aggressive foreign policies being dictated upon them by the current US administration? Policies that murder and butcher the innocent, and then are grotesquely brushed aside as ‘mistakes’?
The writer is a Saudi socio/political commentator. He resides in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia and can be reached at talmaeena@yahoo.com

imperialism-zionism share common fascist ideology and history
Zyklon B on the US Border
Alexander Cockburn
Zyklon B came to El Paso in the 1920s. In 1929, for example, a U.S. Public Health Service officer, J.R. Hurley, ordered $25 worth of the material--hydrocyanic acid in pellet form--as a fumigating agent for use at the El Paso delousing station, where Mexicans crossed the border from Juárez. Zyklon, developed by DEGESCH (the German Vermin-combating Corporation) was made in varying strengths, with Zyklon C, D and E representing gradations in potency and price. As Raul Hilberg describes it in The Destruction of the European Jews, " strength E was required for the eradication of specially resistant vermin, such as cockroaches, or for gassings in wooden barracks. The 'normal' preparation, D, was used to exterminate lice, mice, or rats in large, well-built structures containing furniture. Human organisms in gas chambers were killed with Zyklon B." In 1929, DEGESCH divided the world market with an American corporation, Cyanamid, so Hurley presumably got his Zyklon B from the latter. http://www.counterpunch.org/

As David Dorado Romo describes it in his marvelous Ringside Seat to a Revolution: An underground history of El Paso and Juárez : 1893-1923 (available from Cinco Puntos Press, El Paso), Zyklon B had become available in the U.S.A. in the early 1920s when fears of alien infection had been inflamed by the alarums of the eugenicists, most of them from the "progressive" end of the political spectrum. In 1917, the U.S. Congress passed and Wilson--an ardent eugenicist--signed the Immigration Law. The United States Public Health Service simultaneously published its Manual for the Physical Inspection of Aliens.

The Manual had its list of excludables from the U.S. of A., , a ripe representation of the obsessions of the eugenicists: "imbeciles, idiots, feeble-minded person, persons of constitutional psychopathic inferiority (homosexuals), vagrants, physical defectives, chronic alcoholics, polygamists, anarchists, persons afflicted with loathsome or dangerous contagious diseases, prostitutes, contracts laborers, all aliens over 16 who cannot read." In that same year U.S. Public Health Service Agents "bathed and deloused" 127,123 Mexicans at the Santa Fe International Bridge between Juárez and El Paso.[...]

911/'STATE OF EMERGENCY' PRECURSOR: ANOTHER UNABASHEDLY UNFOUNDED SCARE
German Officials Report Increased Threat of Terrorist Attacks
Military involvement in Afghanistan, where Germany has 3,000 troops battling the Taliban, has led to a danger level comparable to that in U.S. before just before 9/11, officials warned.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/world/europe/23germany.html?th&emc=th

FACIST AMERICAN DREAM
Migrant's Choice: To Live and Die in Arizona or Iraq? …
Juana Carrasco Martín Juventud Rebelde, Cuba - Translated By Carly Gatzert, WatchingAmerica.com
The number is sure to rise with the summer heat, which is even more suffocating in the desert. A monthly average of 16 illegal immigrants died between January and June 2007 [96] in the Arizona desert, more than the number who died over the same period last year, when the death toll totaled 86. The data comes from the Border Patrol of the United States, who in their effort to contain the migratory flow - a clearly impossible task - succeed in forcing those determined to pursue their "Gilded Dream" to look for passage in the most remote and dangerous places.
The Arizona desert is one such death corridor for the undocumented people of South America. And in that inhospitable land, 220 people died between October 1, 2005 and September 30, 2006. Following current trends, this statistic will rise despite the efforts of organizations like "No More Deaths " who are equipped with medical professionals and keep an eye on the border to help those who have been displaced of their own accord....
the United Status has become involved "humanitarian" work on behalf of undocumented people, and is extending its hand with the purpose of granting them "legal" immigrant status and even "citizenship."
The Department of Defense [war] has expressed its hope that that the legislation now under debate will allow for undocumented foreigners to enlist in the military. The intent is for the U.S. Armed Forces to reach its recruitment quota. To do so, they must work under a provision of the law known by its acronym, DREAM. Although DREAM is the literal meaning of the acronym, it may transform into one's worst of nightmare...DREAM stands for Development, Relief and Education for Alien Minors, and it paves the way for the sons and daughters of undocumented people or illegal residents to enlist in the military and become citizens: If you arrive at the border as a minor with your parents and spend a certain number of years in the U.S. school system, you could be eligible for recruitment and subsequently qualify for U.S. citizenship after completion of service.. around 35,000 non-citizens are wearing the uniform. The door is open: every year, 8,000 permanent resident foreigners nibble this shark bait, thereby becoming cannon fodder. To live or die in Arizona or Iraq …http://www.juventudrebelde.cu/opinion/2007-06-16/puedes-morir-en-arizona-o-iraq/

New Scrutiny as Immigrants Die in Custody
By NINA BERNSTEIN
Getting details about immigrants who have died in
administrative custody is a difficult undertaking.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/us/26detain.html?th&emc=th

28-Mile Virtual Fence Is Rising Along the Border
The Homeland Security Department is planning nine nearly 100-foot-tall towers with cameras and other equipment scanning 28 miles of the Arizona border with Mexico. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/us/26fence.html?th&emc=th

"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly...it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."
Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Propaganda Minister

INCREASINGLY DESPERATE U.S. PROPAGANDA/"NEWS" NOW IDENTIFIES ALL RESISTANCE AS "AL-QAEDA"
A suicide bomber assassinated several Sunni Arab sheiks cooperating with Americans to fight Al Qaeda.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/world/middleeast/26iraq.html?th&emc=th

the enemy is U.S. imperialism desperately trying to crush the heroic Iraqi national resistance, not a phantom 'al-Qaeda'
For G.I.'s in Iraq, a Harrowing Day Facing a Trap
By MICHAEL R. GORDON
BAQUBA, Iraq, June 25 — The enemy was a phantom ... the platoon’s push began shortly after 4 a.m. on Saturday, as American forces continued their effort to wrest the western section of this city north of Baghdad from Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/26/world/middleeast/26diyala.html?th&emc=...

what would U.S. do without "al-qaeda"?
Al-Qaida leader urges support for Hamas
By MAGGIE MICHAEL
CAIRO, Egypt -- Al-Qaida's deputy leader called on Muslims worldwide to back Hamas with weapons, money and attacks on U.S. and Israeli interests, urging the Palestinian militant group on Monday to unite with al-Qaida after its takeover of Gaza. The Internet audio message from Ayman al-Zawahri, who is Osama bin Laden's top deputy, marked a major shift by al-Qaida, which in the past criticized Hamas for joining a government with the U.S.-supported Fatah faction.The audiotape appeared aimed at exploiting Hamas' gains and could fuel fears among Arab countries that Hamas-run Gaza will become a breeding ground for armed extremists. But Hamas appeared unconfortable Monday with al-Zawahri's approach. The Palestinian group has been cool in the past to attempts to link it with al-Qaida, saying its conflict is with Israel and that it has no plans to attack targets abroad. Also, Hamas does not want to alienate powerful Arab countries, such as Egypt.
Hamas spokesman Sami Abu Zuhri, a hardliner, distanced his group from the al-Qaida deputy's comments..."Hamas has its own program, regardless of the comments of this group or that group," he said Monday. "In Hamas, we want to have good relations with all Arab and Muslim powers, regardless of how close or far away we are in our own programs."
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/printer2/index.asp?ploc=b&refer=http://sea...

Zawahri Resurrected Again...
The 25-minute tape, al-Zawahri's seventh released this year, was posted on the same day Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak was hosting a summit in the Red Sea resort town of Sharm el-Sheik as a show of support for Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas of Fatah. Along with Mubarak and Abbas, Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Jordan's King Abdullah II are also attending the meeting. Egypt in particular fears a Hamas-ruled Gaza could fuel extremism that could spill over the border onto its own territory. In Monday's tape, al-Zawahri called on Bedouins in Egypt's Sinai Peninsula to help Hamas against the "repressive Egyptian regime."

in case you missed this important article:
 Bush Directive for a "Catastrophic Emergency" in America:
Building a Justification for Waging War on Iran?
By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
The US media consensus is that "the United States faces its greatest threat of a terrorist assault since the September 11 attacks" (USA Today, 12 February 2006) The American Homeland is threatened by " Islamic terrorists", allegedly supported by Tehran and Damascus.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17917.htm

Top Targets Fled Before U.S. Push, Commander Says
By JOHN F. BURNS
The second-ranking American commander in Iraq said that Qaeda leaders had been alerted to an offensive in Baquba. "I think they were tipped off by us talking about the surge, the fact that we have a problem in Diyala Province." LT. GEN. RAYMOND T. ODIERNO,
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/world/middleeast/23iraq.html?th&emc=th

Iraq Deaths Don't Mean Failure, Pace Says
Josh White, Washington Post Staff Writer
The recent rise in U.S. troop deaths in Iraq is the "wrong metric" to use in assessing the effectiveness of the new security strategy for Baghdad, Marine Gen. Peter Pace, the outgoing chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said yesterday in a news conference with Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. Despite military reports to Congress that use numbers of attacks and overall levels of violence (note: only resistance to U.S. genocidal terror is called 'violence') as an important gauge of Iraq's security status, Gates and Pace told reporters at the Pentagon yesterday that violence is not a useful measure of progress. http://www.uruknet.de/?p=33941

Baquba: ' A kill sack'
Felicity Arbuthnot
Operation 'Arrowhead Ripper' is underway. A new America killing field is opening up. The victims are the residents of Baquba, captol of Iraq's Diyala governorate. As the killers move in, they are targetting, as ever, 'Al-Qaeda.' If the pet cat or dog was run over, anywhere on the globe, it begins to feel likely a US spokesperson would blame Al Qaeda. ' We are enveloping the enemy into a kill sack,' said Command Sergeant Major Jeff Huggins from the 5th Battalion, 20th Infantry Regiment, 3rd Stryker Brigade, according to Reuters (23rd June.) A 'kill sack'? Good luck America, when these sickos return home. Shutter the windows, barr the doors - and above all, lock up your daughters. Remember little Abeer al-Janabi, multiply raped in nearby in Mahmoudiya, her family shot and she and all burned to cover the evidence? Remember Abu Ghraib? And where else? Think rape, rape, rape, sodomy, sodomy, sodomy - think the furthest other reaches of the most bestial inhumanity to man, women and yes, children. Think of America's finest selling the pictures of the dead, dying, defiled on the internet, in exchange for porn. Think also of chains of command. http://www.uruknet.de/?p=33965

the genocidal imperialist state terrorism called liberation
Curfew-Bound Fallujah On The Boil Again
Inter Press Service By Ali al-Fadhily*
** Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches **
** Visit the Dahr Jamail website http://dahrjamailiraq.com
FALLUJAH, Jun 27 (IPS) - Strict curfew and tight security measures have brought difficult living conditions and heightened tempers to residents of this besieged city. The siege in this city located 60km west of Baghdad has entered its second month. There is little sign of any international attention to the plight of the city. Fallujah, which is largely sympathetic to the Iraqi resistance, was assaulted twice by the U.S. military in 2004. The second attack in November destroyed roughly three-quarters of the city of 350,000 residents. Now, Fallujah faces assault of another kind by way of a strict curfew where people are closed in from all sides. Many people who had earlier supported the Iraqi police that works with the U.S. military, now oppose it.
"We gave full support to the police force despite opposition from others to forming this force," a community leader in the city who asked to be referred to as Ahmed told IPS. "Others told us this force would only serve the occupation forces, but we accused them of being against stability and order. Unfortunately, they appeared to be absolutely right."...

On May 21 U.S. and Iraqi forces imposed a security crackdown on the city following continuing attacks. Local non-governmental organisations such as the Iraqi Aid Association (IAA) have told reporters that the U.S. military is not allowing them access to the city.
"We have supplies but it is impossible to reach the families. They are afraid to leave their homes to look for food, and children are getting sick with diarrhoea caused by the dirty water they are drinking," IAA spokesman Fatah Ahmed told reporters. "We have information that pregnant women are delivering their babies at home as the curfew is preventing them from reaching hospital." Medical services are inaccessible to most because the hospital is located on the other side of the Euphrates River from the rest of the city. Extra security checkpoints have severely hampered movement within the city, and most businesses have closed. A year ago the local police cut mobile phone services.

The curfew is also restricting residents' ability to go out and find much needed supplies in the markets. Residents told IPS that there is on average only two hours electricity in 24 hours. Residents say they are up against killing prices. "Now they are killing us with a new weapon," a young man with a mask covering his face told IPS. "A jar of gas costs 20 dollars and a kilo of tomatoes costs 1.50 dollar, and people cannot go to work. "U.S. snipers on rooftops are enjoying themselves watching us walk around to find a bite of food for our families," 55-year-old Hajji Mahmood told IPS. "They laugh at us and call us names. They should know Fallujah is still the same city that kicked them away three years ago.".

Life seems completely paralysed with little sign of movement under a blazing sun, with temperatures up to 45 degrees. "We are sweating to death because some of us went to those damned elections," said a 40-year-old lawyer, speaking with IPS on condition of anonymity, referring to the Jan. 30, 2005 elections. "The wise men told us not to, but we believed those crooks of the Islamic Party who promised to make things better," he said. Many people in the city accuse the Islamic Party supportive of the U.S. of leading the 'security plan' in al-Anbar province where Fallujah is located.

A local political analyst offered his views to IPS via the Internet, on condition of anonymity. "I find it rather strange that to control a city under the flag of providing citizens with peace and prosperity, you deprive them of all signs of life," he said. "Arab, Muslim and all international community leaders should be ashamed of themselves for not even talking about this crime. "Nonetheless, U.S. leaders are just buying more time towards more failure that they hope will magically turn into success. I am hopeless of any peace in Iraq as long as the democrats sold their fight cheap to the Bush administration."...
*Ali, our correspondent in Baghdad, works in close collaboration with Dahr Jamail, our U.S.-based specialist writer on Iraq who travels extensively in the region

The Bases Are Loaded - A Film by Alternate Focus

Will the U.S. ever leave Iraq? military bases in Iraq are being consolidated from over a hundred to a handful of "megabases" with lavish amenities. Much of what is taking place is obscured by denials and quibbles over the definition of "permanent." The Bases Are Loaded covers a wide range of topics. Gary Hart, James Goldsborough, Nadia Keilani, Raed Jarrar, Bruce Finley Kam Zarrabi and Mark Rudd all add their observations about the extent and purpose of the bases in Iraq.
See The Bases are Loaded on the dahr.org - flash format
Mirrors: http://alternate-focus.blip.tv/file/274043/ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQHeo-CMQyc

"The CIA owns everyone of any significance in the major media."
--former CIA Director William Colby

Hussein's Cousin Sentenced to Die for Kurd Attacks
By JOHN F. BURNS
A judge pronounced five death sentences on the man Iraqis
know as Chemical Ali for his role in gas attacks on Kurdish
villagers in the late 1980s, but public interest in the
trials has flagged.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/25/world/middleeast/25verdict.html?th&emc...

FLASHBACK: In Defense of 'Chemical Ali'
Jude Wanniski
..."Chemical Ali" supposedly gave the order to the Iraqi Air Force to drop chemical bombs on Halabja, but W. Patrick Lang, who was the senior analyst for the Defense Intelligence Agency in that period and who concurs with Pelletiere on the facts in evidence, tells me the armies exchanged gas by mortars and no aircraft were used – as was reported by the New Yorker. Incidentally, there is still no evidence that any Iraqi Kurds died of gas ordered by "Chemical Ali," a nickname cooked up by the same propagandists at the Pentagon who made "Ali" the king of spades in its deck of cards.... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=33963

CHRISTIAN -ZIONIST FASCISTS: VILE HYPOCRITES
Beware the Dominionist "love bomb"
By Kerry Tomasi
During a recent address to the Good Shepherd Baptists in Terre Haute Indiana, Col. J. Tyler Ryberg had this to say about our "war on terror", and its
current focal point, Iraq: " . . . it's an act of love to kill evil people who seek to kill Americans, it's an act of love for our nation". And with regards to those "Islamic jihadists" in Iraq seeking to kill us: "Peace is not an option."
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2106.shtml

imperialist-zionist disinformation
MEMRI Loss
MEMRI, Middle East Media Research Institute, specializes in disinformation by distorting translations of film and print media stories originating in Arabic, Iranian and Turkish media. In essence, what MEMRI does is change the context of news stories by way of mistranslation and excision. Call it MEMRI loss, the deliberate mangling of media. MEMRI did this to Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad by turning a speech he delivered in 2005 into a racist and genocidal screed. MEMRI accomplished this through mistranslation. Not a day passes now we do not witness corporate media claims Ahmadinejad wants to wipe Israel off the map. In fact, Ahmadinejad said the “regime that is occupying Qods [Jerusalem] must be eliminated from the pages of history.” He did not say Israel must be wiped off the map. But this engineered lie is repeated constantly by the corporate media and to such a degree it is now accepted as fact. [...] http://kurtnimmo.com/

Lowering Flag for War's Dead Brings New Rift
Orders to lower the American flag, and decisions not to, are part of a conflict over how to commemorate tragedy when there is so much of it.
Opponents of lowering the flag see it as a subtle antiwar gesture that may run counter to federal guidelines, which reserve the action for “officials,” not soldiers.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/23/us/23flag.html?th&emc=th

Chavez rallies troops to 'prepare for war with US'
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has urged soldiers to prepare for a guerrilla-style war against the United States. He said the US government is using psychological and economic warfare as part of an unconventional campaign aimed at derailing his government.
“We must continue developing the resistance war, that’s the anti-imperialist weapon. We must think and prepare for the resistance war everyday,” said Chavez, who has repeatedly warned that American soldiers could invade Venezuela to seize control of the South American nation’s immense oil reserves. “We are strengthening Venezuela’s military power precisely to avoid imperial aggressions and assure peace, not to attack anybody,” he said yesterday. “It’s not just armed warfare,” said Chavez, a former army officer who is leading what he calls the “Bolivarian Revolution”, a socialist movement named after 19th-century independence hero Simon Bolivar. “I’m also referring to psychological warfare, media warfare, political warfare, economic warfare.” http://tinyurl.com/3bv4oy

Venezuela's state oil company said Exxon Mobil Corp. and ConocoPhillips had refused to sign deals Tuesday that would allow them keep pumping oil under tougher terms in the South American country.
http://tinyurl.com/3d4w5h

North Africa Reluctant to Host U.S. Command
Algeria and Libya Reject Pentagon's AFRICOM Proposal; Morocco Signals Its Lack of Enthusiasm
By Craig Whitlock
Washington Post Foreign Service
RABAT, Morocco -- A U.S. delegation seeking a home for a new military command in Africa got a chilly reception during a tour of the northern half of the continent this month, running into opposition even in countries that enjoy friendly relations with the Pentagon. Algeria and Libya separately ruled out hosting the Defense Department's planned Africa Command, known as AFRICOM, and said they were firmly against any of their neighbors doing so either. U.S. diplomats said they were disappointed by the depth of opposition, given that the Bush administration has bolstered ties with both countries on security matters in recent years. Morocco, which has been mentioned as a possible site for the new command and is one of the strongest U.S. allies in the region, didn't roll out the welcome mat, either. After the U.S. delegation visited Rabat, the capital, on June 11, the Moroccan foreign ministry strongly denied a claim by an opposition political party that the kingdom had already offered to host AFRICOM. A ministry statement called the claim "baseless information." Rachid Tlemcani, a professor of political science at the University of Algiers, said the stern response from North African governments was a reflection of public opposition to U.S. policies in the predominantly Muslim region. "People on the street assume their governments have already had too many dealings with the U.S. in the war on terror at the expense of the rule of law," said Tlemcani, who is also a scholar with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. "The regimes realize the whole idea is very unpopular." The Bush administration announced in February that it intends to create a separate military command for Africa this year. Responsibility for U.S. military operations on the continent is now divided primarily between the Central Command, based in Florida, and the European Command, based in Stuttgart, Germany.

... enter the always-there-when-needed "al-qaeda"!

Bush administration officials have also touted the new command as a key part of their strategy for countering terrorism threats on the continent. Al-Qaeda-affiliated groups have experienced a resurgence in North and East Africa in recent years. A group calling itself al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb asserted responsibility for simultaneous suicide attacks in Algiers in April that killed 33 people. Suicide bombers have also struck Casablanca, Morocco, on three occasions since March, including an attack on the U.S. Consulate.

Defense officials acknowledge that one reason they are paying more attention to Africa is because the continent provides an increasingly large share of the U.S. supply of imported oil and natural gas.

Since 2003, the Pentagon has developed a regional counterterrorism partnership with several impoverished countries in North Africa, including Mali, Niger, Senegal and Chad. Defense officials say parts of the vast Sahara and neighboring regions serve as training and recruiting grounds for extremist groups, in part because local forces are unable to patrol their own territory. Rear Adm. William H. McRaven, commander of U.S. Special Forces in Europe and most of Africa, said the counterterrorism training programs are designed to avoid a large U.S. military presence and usually involve units of only 10 to 15 people, who spend a few months in Africa at a time. "Some nations remain somewhat concerned about too overt of a U.S. presence in the area," McRaven said in an interview in April. "But the nature of the special operations forces is that we can come in with a very small footprint. We can do that without a lot of visibility." The North African counterterrorism partnership is headed by the State Department and also includes economic and humanitarian aid programs delivered by civil affairs units. But Tlemcani, the Algerian political scientist, said the U.S. government needed to do much more on those fronts before taking a more prominent military role in Africa. "The best way to build a strategic relationship is with socioeconomic programs, which haven't been funded very well," he said by telephone from Beirut.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/23/AR200706...

Beyond Iraq: The First Lady, Back in Africa
By Michael A. Fletcher
If three words could sum up President Bush's foreign policy legacy, they would be: Iraq, Iraq, Iraq. But if first lady Laura Bush has her way, historians also will remember the president's determination to fight deadly diseases in Africa and other parts of the developing world.
Laura Bush will be highlighting those programs as she leaves today on her third visit to Africa. The five-day trip will take her to Senegal, Mozambique, Zambia and Mali.
The sojourn also should show U.S. taxpayers the president's support of pressing humanitarian causes, she added. "We want the American people to know, because it's their taxpayer money that's doing it."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/24/AR200706...

in case you missed it...

WEALTH OF WEST BUILT ON AFRICA'S EXPLOITATION
Richard Drayton
http://www.blackcommentator.com/149/149_africa_exploitation.html

Soft and Undercover Coups d'État
The Albert Einstein Institution: non-violence according to the CIA
by Thierry Meyssan*
VoltaireNet, 4 January 2005
http://www.voltairenet.org/article30032.html

Africa: Resist the American Juggernaut
by Firoz Osman 
July 03, 2003: (ZNet)  
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4008.htm
As President George Bush embarks on his African journey, civil society
ratchets up its opposition to resist the American juggernaut. Flushed with
the illusion of total military victory it is ominous that Africa has emerged
on the American leaders radar screen.[...]

IMPERIALIST DOMINATION AS "HUMANITARIAN AID"
...In short, money is simply printed by privately owned ³national² banks like
the Bank of England or the U.S. Federal Reserve, then lent to the government
of the day to be repaid plus interest with money collected from taxes. Thus
money is not created by governments themselves but by privately owned
³national banks², the governments being no more than the bank¹s debt
collectors.
As Stewart tells us, the World Bank and the Internatinal Monetary Fund
work on exactly the same principle: money is ³created²‹or more precisely,
credit ‹is conjured out of nothing at all. This credit is then extended to
impoverished nations who repay it, not with cash, but with their natural
resources be they mineral reserves or the fruits of human labour. Either way
the debt, created out of nothing at all, is settled with some sort of real,
hard currency.

How crucial is African oil for the United States?
< http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/em/fr/-/2/hi/business/3054948.stm >

"Blacks & Bush's New World Order", warned that Africa was high on PNAC's list, with the "oil policy initative group"s "force projection".
http://truthout.org/docs_03/022803A.shtml

US To Setup Military Base In Ghana U.S. "war on terrorism" targets Africa to dominate vital "arc of instability"
GhanaWeb news: http://www.ghanaweb.com/GhanaHomePage/NewsArchive/artikel.php?ID=37603

A FEW MORE TIPS OF U.S. STATE TERRORIST ICEBERG
CIA's torture teachers:
Psychologists helped the CIA exploit a secret military program to develop brutal interrogation tactics... There is growing evidence of high-level coordination between the Central Intelligence Agency and the U.S. military in developing abusive interrogation techniques used on terrorist suspects. After the Sept. 11 attacks, both turned to a small cadre of psychologists linked to the military's secretive Survival, Evasion, Resistance and Escape program to "reverse-engineer" techniques originally designed to train U.S. soldiers to resist torture if captured, by exposing them to brutal treatment. The military's use of SERE training for interrogations in the war on terror was revealed in detail in a recently declassified report. But the CIA's use of such tactics -- working in close coordination with the military -- until now has remained largely unknown.
http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2007/06/21/cia_sere/index_np.html

CIA to release 1970s documents on [a few 'justified'] agency’s crimes
The US Central Intelligence Agency is preparing to release a set of documents compiled more than 30 years ago detailing the agency’s involvement over the previous quarter century in crimes both at home and abroad. “Much of it has been in the press before, and most of it is unflattering, but it is CIA’s history,” said Hayden. “The documents provide a glimpse of a very different time and a very different agency.” On the contrary, the issues raised in the report—assassinations, domestic spying, kidnappings and torture—are all too familiar to anyone following the activities the CIA and other US security agencies have carried out in the name of the “global war on terrorism.”
... There is ample evidence that the agency has seldom been involved in as much criminal activity as it is today, while the limited restraints placed upon the national security establishment following the revelations of the mid-1970s have been largely swept aside since 2001, with the enactment of the USA Patriot Act and the assumption of ever-more-sweeping powers, including massive domestic surveillance, by the Bush White House. In his remarks at the conference in Washington, Hayden acknowledged that the press of increased operations had slowed down some of the agency’s declassification work. “The ops tempo we have maintained since 9/11—and must continue to maintain—is unmatched in our agency’s history,” he said. “The good news here is that we’re producing great stuff for future historians.” What will this “great stuff” include? Among the current “ops” that have been at least partially exposed is the CIA’s involvement in the illegal abduction of alleged suspects, and their rendition to secret prisons in many parts of the world where they have been subjected to torture and in some cases murdered. CIA agents have been indicted and brought to trial in Italy for one such “extraordinary rendition.” In addition, CIA death squads and assassination teams have been deployed in Iraq, Afghanistan, Somalia and elsewhere. It is unlikely, to say the least, the agency is preparing the release of documents detailing these criminal activities. As Hayden told his audience of historians, “Of course, we cannot tell the American people everything we do to protect them without damaging our ability to protect them.”
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/cia-j23.shtml

from the mouthpiece for all the imperialist - zionist "news" fit to print...
Comparing Today's Tactics With Those Used in the Past
WA. NEWS ANALYSIS By SCOTT SHANE
A comparison is flawed but irresistible: Do the actions of the intelligence agencies in the era of Al Qaeda eclipse those of the Vietnam War period?
At both times, Americans faced a hostile global ideology — communism then, violent Islamic jihadism today — and feared cells hidden in their midst. In the face of such a threat, it may be no surprise that secret agencies, wielding powerful technology and with the formidable backing of a president, sometimes come into conflict with democratic ideals.
On Tuesday, the C.I.A. director, Gen. Michael V. Hayden, tried to pre-empt such comparisons in a message to agency employees that was part cheerleading and part explanation of why the agency had finally released the documents, first requested in 1992 under the Freedom of Information Act by the National Security Archive at George Washington University. http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/washington/27assess.html?th&emc=th

"FAMILY JEWELS" COLLECTION NOW SEARCHABLE BY KEY WORD
National Security Archive Update, June 27, 2007, 3:45 p.m.For more information contact:
Thomas Blanton - 202/994-700 As an aid to researchers, the full 703-page "family jewels" collection, released yesterday by the Central Intelligence Agency, is now available as a searchable PDF document on the Archive's Web site.
Please follow the link below to read the document: http://www.nsarchive.org

The CIA's Family Jewels
Agency Violated Charter for 25 Years,
Wiretapped Journalists and Dissidents
CIA Announces Declassification of 1970s "Skeletons" File,
Archive Posts Justice Department Summary from 1975,
With White House Memcons on Damage Control
National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 222

Read the Documents
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/index.htm
Note: The following documents are in PDF format.
You will need to download and install the free Adobe Acrobat Reader to view.
Document 1: Summary of the Family Jewels
6 Page Summary http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/family_jewels_wilderotter....
Memorandum for the File, "CIA Matters," by James A. Wilderotter, Associate Deputy Attorney General, 3 January 1975
Source: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
On New Years' eve, 1974, DCI Colby met with Justice Department officials, including Deputy Attorney General Laurence H. Silberman, to give them a full briefing of the "skeletons."

Document 2: Colby Briefs President Ford on the Family Jewels
Memorandum of Conversation, 3 January 1975
Source: Gerald R. Ford President Library
Ten days after the appearance of Hersh's New York Times story, DCI William Colby tells President Ford how his predecessor James Schlesinger (then serving as Secretary of Defense) ordered CIA staffers to compile the "skeletons" in the Agency's closet, such as surveillance of student radicals, illegal wiretaps, assassination plots, and the three year confinement of a Soviet defector, Yuri
Nosenko.

Document 3: Kissinger's Reaction
Memorandum of Conversation between President Ford and Secretary of State/National Security Adviser Henry Kissinger, 4 January 1975
Source: Gerald R. Ford President Library
An apoplectic Kissinger argues that the unspilling of CIA secrets is "worse than the days of McCarthyism" when the Wisconsin Senator went after the State Department. Kissinger had met with former DCI Richard Helms who told him that "these stories are just the tip of the iceberg," citing as one example Robert F. Kennedy's role in assassination planning. Ford wondered whether to fire Colby, but Kissinger advised him to wait until after the investigations were complete when he could "put in someone of towering integrity." The "Blue Ribbon" announcement refers to the creation of a commission chaired by then-vice president Nelson A. Rockefeller.

Document 4: Investigations Continue
Memorandum of Conversation between Kissinger, Schlesinger, Colby et al., "Investigations of Allegations of CIA Domestic Activities," 20 February1975 Source: Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library
Cabinet and sub-cabinet level officials led by Kissinger discuss ways and means to protect information sought by ongoing Senate (Church Committee) and House (Pike Committee) investigations of intelligence community abuses during the first decades of the Cold War. Worried about the foreign governments that have cooperated with U.S. intelligence agencies, Kissinger wants to "demonstrate to foreign countries that we aren't too dangerous to cooperate with because of leaks."

New study from Pilots for 9/11 Truth: No Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon
Scholars for 9/11 Truth
June 22, 2007
http://news.yahoo.com/s/prweb/20070621/bs_prweb/prweb534642_1
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=33944&s2=23
Pilots for 9/11 Truth obtained black box data from the government under the Freedom of Information Act for AA Flight 77, which The 9/11 Report claims hit the Pentagon. Analysis of the data contradicts the official account in direction, approach, and altitude. The plane was too high to hit lamp posts and would have flown over the Pentagon, not impacted with its ground floor. This result confirms and strengthens the previous findings of Scholars for 9/11 Truth that no Boeing 757 hit the buillding.
Madison, WI (PRWEB) June 21, 2007 - A study of the black box data provided by the government to Pilots for 9/11 Truth has confirmed the previous findings of Scholars for 9/11 Truth that no Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon on 9/11. "We have had four lines of proof that no Boeing 757 hit the building," said James Fetzer, founder of Scholars for 9/11 Truth. "This new study by Pilots drives another nail into a coffin of lies told the American people by The 9/11 Commission":
The new society, an international organization of pilots and aviation professionals, petitioned the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) under the Freedom of Information Act and obtained its 2002 report on American Airlines Flight 77, a Boeing 757 that, according to the official account, hit the ground floor of the Pentagon after it skimmed over the lawn at 500 mph plus, taking out a series of lamp posts in the process. The pilots not only obtained the flight data but created a computer animation to demonstrate what it told them.
According to the report issued by Pilots for 9/11 Truth (http://pilotsfor911truth.org/), there are major differences between the official account and the flight data:[...]

Interviews with Leuren Moret and Alfred Webre on International 9/11 Citizen’s War Crimes Tribunal
Cathy Garger, Axis of Logic
Sunday, June 24, 2007 in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada, at the Vancouver 9/11 Truth Conference independent scientist and world-renowned Uranium Weapons radiation expert, Leuren Moret, and International Lawyer Alfred Webre, J.D., M.Ed., will be calling publicly for the establishment of an International Citizen’s 9/11 War Crimes Tribunal. 300 Million Americans will not be around to watch - and celebrate - this historical announcement, as it will be in Canada.
http://www.uruknet.de/?p=33970

Israeli Futurologist Warns of Nanotech Armed Cave Dwelling Muslim Terrorists
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=905
In Bushzarro world, and its concurrent manifestation in the world of Zionism, up is down, black is white, and cave-dwelling terrorists have their paws on nanotechnology and biochip brain implants. According to Dr Yair Sharan, director of Tel Aviv University’s Interdisciplinary Centre for Technology Analysis and Forecasting, terrorists—not the NWO type, mind you, but the Muslim sort—will in 20 short years utilize “suicide bombers remote-controlled by brain-chip implants” and unleash “nano-technology cluster bombs, or biological compounds for which there is no antidote.”

Such horrors will not be devised in Iran or “al-Qaeda” controlled areas of Iraq or hopelessly backward Afghanistan but right here in the good old USA. Of course, our spooks and military men would never use such things on innocents, never mind the CIA will supposedly come clean, according to Michael Hayden, and detail how the spook and world mayhem organization conducted “a series of ‘unwitting’ tests on US civilians, including the use of drugs,” the Los Angeles Times reports.

It is well-known the CIA used swine and dengue fever viruses against Cuba, and the Pentagon conducted radiation experiments on U.S. soldiers and even Eskimos, unwitting patients at university hospitals were injected with plutonium and uranium, mycoplasma was used in research on private citizens by the University of Maryland, and there are countless less documented cases of anthrax, tularemia, yellow and Q fever, botulinum toxin, wheat rust, rice blast, etc., ad nauseam, used against people and plants in Asia, South and Central America, and the Caribbean.

Dr Yair Sharan makes no mention of the terrorists who sprayed Agent Orange—and Agent White, Agent Blue, Agent Purple, Agent Pink and Agent Green—over Southeast Asia, resulting in countless cases of peripheral neuropathy, spina bifida, Type 2 diabetes, acute myelogenous leukemia, renal cancer, testicular cancer, spontaneous abortion, birth defects, neonatal or infant death and stillbirths, low birth weight, childhood cancers, abnormal sperm parameters, cognitive neuropsychiatric disorders, ataxia, peripheral nervous system disorders, circulatory disorders, respiratory disorders, skin cancers, urinary and bladder cancer, on and on.

No mention, as well, of the terrorists who dispensed tons and tons of depleted uranium in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Serbia, a process, according to Leuren Moret, that “will slowly annihilate all species on earth including the human species…. Depleted uranium aerosols will permanently contaminate vast regions and slowly destroy the genetic future of populations living in those regions, where there are resources which the US must control, in order to establish and maintain American primacy.” As we now know, depleted uranium particles are responsible for chronic myeloid leukemia, lymphoma, melanoma, pancreas carcinoma, Gulf war-syndrome, fibromyalgia, auto-immune deficiencies, lung-, liver-, kidney failure, on and on.

Before frightening the little ones with Brothers Grimm stories about future terrorists unleashing nanotech cluster bombs, Dr Yair Sharan may want to take a look at his own government, responsible for “a new type of explosive” used in the Gaza Strip last year. “These explosives contain toxics and radioactive materials which burn and tear the victim’s body from the inside and leave long term deformations,” the Electronic Intifada reported.
“Allegations that Israeli forces have used chemical and biological weapons date back to the War of 1948,” notes Vermonters for a Just Peace in Palestine/Israel. “In March 2003, the highly-respected BBC television network presented Israel’s Secret Weapon, an investigation of Israel’s development of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons. The BBC reported: ‘The Israeli army has used new unidentified weapons. In February 2001 a new gas was used in Gaza. A hundred and eighty patients were admitted to hospitals with severe convulsions….Israel is outside chemical and biological weapons treaties and still refuses to say what the new gas was.’”

And then there was Israel’s attack against Lebanon last summer. “Blackened bodies have been showing up at hospitals in southern Lebanon two weeks into the war between Israel and Hizbollah guerrillas,” the Sydney Morning Herald reported. “Bachir Cham, a Belgian-Lebanese doctor at the Southern Medical Centre in Sidon…. said the bodies of some victims were ‘black as shoes, so they are definitely using chemical weapons. They are all black but their hair and skin is intact so they are not really burnt.’”...

LOCKERBIE: 'It is time to put right the wrongs'
EVIDENCE against the Lockerbie bomber was fabricated and manipulated on both sides of the Atlantic, according to leaked defence documents which appear to undermine the conviction of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed al-Megrahi.
Investigators for Megrahi claim to have compelling new evidence of widespread tampering with evidence, missing or overlooked statements, and a concerted attempt to lead investigators away from the original Iranian-backed suspects and towards Libya.... The defence team believes it was necessary in 1990 for the prosecution to alter evidence, for political reasons. The Gulf War meant it was essential to keep Iran onside and Libya became a suitable scapegoat....Hundreds of new documents and photographs examined by Scotland on Sunday appear to show many aspects of the Lockerbie prosecution were at best incompetent and at worst amounted to an attempt to pervert the course of justice.... While the main perpetrators appear to have been CIA officers, according to the defence papers, there is also damning evidence suggesting police officers and other investigators took part in preparing false evidence. http://scotlandonsunday.scotsman.com/index.cfm?id=986842007

Lockerbie Pan Am Flight 103: Inconvenient Truths
At least four US intelligence officers, including the CIA’s deputy station chief in Beirut, were on the Flight 103 passenger list. In the days following the bombing, CIA agents scoured the Scottish countryside, some reportedly dressed in Pan Am overalls. Mary Boylan, then a constable with Lothian and Borders police, has said that senior police officers told her not to make an official record of the CIA badge she recovered from the wreckage, asking her instead to hand it over to a senior colleague. Her testimony, too, is now in the hands of the SCCRC. Jim Wilson, a farmer from the village of Tundergarth, reported shortly after the bombing that he had found in his field a suitcase packed with a powdery substance that looked ‘like drugs’. He last saw the suitcase when he handed it over to the police, he said; he was never asked about it again.
In December 1998, Susan Lindauer, a US congressional aide, submitted a sworn deposition to the court in which she claimed that Richard Fuisz, a CIA agent, had given her a guarantee that he knew who was behind the Lockerbie bombing. Lindauer’s affidavit describes a conversation in Fuisz’s ‘business office’ in Chantilly, Virginia, in which he said he knew for sure the perpetrators were based in Syria. ‘Dr Fuisz has told me that he can identify who orchestrated and executed the bombing. Dr Fuisz has said that he can confirm absolutely that no Libyan national was involved in planning or executing the bombing of Pan Am 103, either in any technical or advisory capacity whatsoever.’ ‘If the government would let me, I could identify the men behind this attack,’ Lindauer says Fuisz told her. Lindauer has since been accused by the US government of being an Iraqi agent; her case is pending. But her earlier deposition has been submitted to the SCCRC. It can’t count for much, however, since Fuisz himself is not able to comment. In October 1994, a month after Lindauer spoke to him, Fuisz was gagged by a Washington court. The US government ruled that under state secrecy laws he faced ten years in prison if he spoke about the Lockerbie bombing. UN observers have since criticised this apparent restraint of a key witness.
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6114

US-NATO 'Missile Shield' Programme: Index Timeline
Sarah Meyer, Index Research
http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2007/06/us-nato-missile-shield-program...
The United States has blamed Russia for aggression after Putin's comments on the US Missile Shield programme. Mainstream Media have obediently followed the U.S. government line without investigating the background to Russia’s complaint. I am thus publishing a Missile Shield source review from February – early June 2007 in the hopes that a more balanced reportage will follow. One can see that the U.S. has been vigorously campaigning on behalf of NATO. It was thus astonishing to read, for example, a Guardian story saying that Mr Putin launched an "extraordinary broadside at the west over missile defence response." Not so "extraordinary" if one is aware of the background...

Open letter to the anti-war movement
By Hana Al-Bayaty
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070318...

The national popular resistance in Iraq, defending the whole of humanity against a culture of force, deserves our recognition and support...

US ..imperialists are trying to destroy this civilisation, refusing to be subject to international law and replacing it with the law of the jungle. How can the world — Americans included — be identified with such a savage enterprise as the war on and occupation of Iraq?

Arabs are not strangers to neo-imperial attempts to prevent their development. They recall the systematic demonisation of their popular movements: the attempted toppling of the democratically elected Syrian government in 1956 for being “communist”, the characterisation of Nasser as a “fascist” when he nationalised the Suez Canal, the criminalisation of the Iraqi Baath Party, referred to as “Nazis”, when it refused to surrender control over Iraq’s resources. Even the Palestinian and Lebanese people who heroically struggle against occupation are considered “terrorists”. We know well what are colonial policies in general and in this region in particular. The US always pretends to defend the rights of a minority — whether its demands are justified or not — in order to control the majority. In Iraq, since 1991, the US appealed to Kurds and Shias to rebel, trying to insinuate that those who govern them are Sunnis. Anyone with intellectual honesty knows that the Baath Party was neither sectarian in its thinking nor in its membership.

US-Israeli plans, based on creating divisions among Arabs in one country, or between countries, have failed. In Iraq, the policy of charming some groups of the Iraqi Resistance or their supporters in order to divide them and isolate the resistance has failed ....

The struggle of Iraq is a struggle for civilisation, for culture, for justice, and for not reducing human life to mere production and consumption or the conquest of others. Indeed, the present uprising of Iraqis is not only a part of the wider struggle against savage globalisation and “free” capital, it is its forefront battle. It is because the Iraqis refuse to surrender their sovereignty to multinational corporations that Iraq is being destroyed so viciously....

The US did not and cannot achieve its goals, even if it exterminates whole sections of Iraqi society. To succeed in stopping this insanity, the anti-war movement must revise all its terminology and refuse the terms dictated by the occupation. ...

Number of Americans who believe Saddam-9/11 tie rises to 41 percent:
A new Newsweek poll out this weekend exposed "gaps" in America's knowledge of history and current events.
A new Newsweek poll out this weekend exposed "gaps" in America's knowledge of history and current events. Perhaps most alarmingly, 41% of Americans answered 'Yes' to the question "Do you think Saddam Hussein’s regime in Iraq was directly involved in planning, financing, or carrying out the terrorist attacks of September 11th, 2001?" That total is actually up 5 points since September 2004. Further, a majority of people couldn't identify Saudia Arabia as the country of origin of most of the 9/11 hijackers, even given the question in multiple choice format. 20% answered Iraq, while 14% believed the hijackers came from Iran...
http://tinyurl.com/2qzx8k

The Empire of Clowns Continues on Its Murderous, Genocidal Path
By Arthur Silber
At this moment in the monstrously bloody course of American Empire, I suppose I might take the sardonically grateful point of view. At least we now have some direct experience of how easy it was for nauseatingly corrupt Roman leaders to impose their will upon the ignorant hordes, and literally to get away with murder. Hell, who needed to "get away" with murder? Bloody, painful, lingering, ungraspably sadistic murder was one of the major entertainments.
And so it is with us, for the majority of Americans are now both stupid and cruel. Comfort yourselves with fantasies about "good Americans" who "mean well" if you wish; the facts provide you scant support. The criminal slaughter in Iraq goes on from day to day...look, Paris Hilton is being dragged off to jail! Again! It becomes clearer with every day that passes that metastasizing mayhem in the Middle East is not an unfortunate byproduct of a plan gone awry: it was the goal from the start. It provides the perfect excuse for a significant American military presence for decades to come — which was also the plan from the beginning.

06/25/07 "ICH" -- --A number of Americans may be decent people individually; in the aggregate, they are entirely ignorant of history, both their own and everyone else's. The elites who rule us are no better. The governing class insists that, from its inception, the United States was granted a special dispensation from God, or Nature, or some mysterious, never to be understood combination of galactic forces: we have been endowed with the "Truth" and the One True Way. It is our mission to share this Truth with the rest of the world. When some of the "lesser peoples" unaccountably resist recognizing the Truth which belongs to us and to us alone...well, that's why God gave us the greatest military the world has ever seen. If resistance by these "others" proves especially nettlesome...well, that's why nukes were invented. Why would God, or Nature, or the galactic forces provide such bounty to the United States if we were not meant to use it — or at least threaten to use it? After all, serious leaders know that all options must be kept on the table. Our table is the whole damned planet, baby! The fact that we are willing to obliterate it in its entirety and turn all of life into dust only proves the strength of our dedication to What Is Right. (We've already done this on a horrifying scale, you know, and then lied about every aspect of it. We had our reasons, and you are not to question them.)
If we knew anything about history, we would know that all such claims have been made many times before. Every notable civilization of the past was convinced it was the recipient of special favor; each fervently believed it was unique in this respect. We are not even unique in our claim to being unique[...] http://www.ichblog.eu/content/view/1772/1/

A SICK OXYMORON: FOR-PROFIT CAPITALIST "HEALTH CARE"
Drug Firms' Education Role
Drug companies have become the biggest sponsors of continuing medical education courses even at the nation's top medical schools... nearly two-thirds of the cost of continuing education courses sponsored by medical schools, popular for their prestige, are paid for by drug and medical device companies and other commercial interests. "Most of what doctors know about drugs comes from the industry, and that's not healthy," said Jerry Avorn, a Harvard Medical School professor and critic of the sponsorships. "Academic organizations lend their names to courses that are nothing more than infomercials."
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/06/26/AR200706...

Probe Finds NIH Official Violated Government Regulations
David Schwartz, a physician and researcher recruited from Duke University to great fanfare in 2005 as chief of the National Institutes of Health disregarded conflict-of-interest guidelines by making decisions affecting the university where he was a faculty member, broke government spending rules, and raised concerns with his growing involvement as an expert witness in legal cases, according to sources within NIH and Congress and hundreds of pages of confidential documents.... ethics officials in NIH and in the Health and Human Services secretary's office have grown increasingly frustrated with Schwartz's repeated insensitivity to conflict-of-interest rules.... officials learned that Schwartz had not fully divested all his biotechnology and drug company stocks as required, Schwartz wrote to the NIH ethics office that the divestiture "seems totally unreasonable. . . . I'm simply not willing to limit my investments in this way." Also raising alarms were Schwartz's growing commitments to give expert testimony in multimillion-dollar asbestos injury cases -- of concern because he might be perceived as profiting personally from his status as head of the nation's premier environmental toxicology program. Schwartz brought more than a dozen Duke researchers to his federal lab, despite a requirement that he recuse himself from matters involving Duke. He also overspent his lab budget by millions of dollars [...]

helping people adjust to state terrorist exploitation and war
Psychiatrists Top List in Drug Maker Gifts
Psychiatrists earn more money from drug makers than doctors in any other specialty.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/06/27/health/psychology/27doctors.html?th&em...

The Mind in Chains
Why They Want to Fire Ward Churchill
By Eva Liddell
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17920.htm06/26/07

"ICH" -- --- The latest efforts by folks in support of two well known university professors to either receive tenure or retain it is a little foreign to me but I'm workin' with it. I'm from the generation that shut down universities during college strikes in the 1960's. I can't recall anybody chanting during demonstrations for professor so and so to get tenure. We were urging professors to drop out like everybody else and join in resisting a ludicrous war. Times change. But we're still in a war.

What struck me about Ward Churchill's essay that caused the stir leading to his current troubles, "The Roosting of Chickens" and the thing about little Eichmanns was that it was not that radical a piece of writing. (Something I bet he admits). It was catchy though. Telling Americans they're like Nazis is like saying frog. They'll jump. When he wrote his essay I thought the analogy was already a little thread-bare. Using Germany or the "good German" as stereotypes of evil whether ultimate or banal strikes me as a little too easy. We've got plenty to work with by comparing ourselves to ourselves.

From the first grade on and up through the university system citizens are systemically taught not to judge for themselves. We are taught we have freedom of speech but we are trained not to think. We think we have academic freedom because we are trained to believe we are free. The ultimate goal of our educational system, the dogmatic smothering of minds is overseen by the Department of Education, state boards of regents and the university education departments. Universities are one of the most policed sectors of the State. Should a university professor happen to defy the knowledge factory he has defied the State which aggrandizes itself through the university system. That's why so few do. It's why we have people like Doris Kearns Goodwin, one of our foremost court historians to show us how the game is played.

Get sued for a million dollars for plagiarism and your academic cronies will protect you if you quickly produce a worshipful book about one of our most revered presidents, Abraham Lincoln. When countries all over the world were ending slavery by peaceable means Lincoln needed to kill seven hundred thousand Americans to do it. One of the most important myths coming out of the university system is sustaining the Lincoln Mythos which underpins our Democracy Mythos. Very few people educated in the U.S. school system think Lincoln was anything except a hero, our Great Emancipator. We don't stop to examine that the slaves he emancipated were in states that already had seceded from the Union so "emancipating" them didn't do them much good. Let alone that up until Lincoln's presidency States had the right to secede from the Union until he took that freedom away making the states themselves enslaved to a centralized government. If we think about Lincoln other than how we are taught professors alert us that we are "state rights' wackos" or something.

Another myth straight out of our schools is the notion that slavery existed for "ninety years" replaced by Jim Crow as if slavery wasn't really slavery until the Constitution was ratified. Who then were those people in chains two hundred and fifty years before the Civil War? We are taught that our "founding fathers" ran America with an institutionalized system of slavery until a turn in consciousness made people realize that slavery was bad. That's odd. Millions of people knew in the 1600's that slavery was bad, namely the slaves. I guess it only counts if white people figure it out.

It is interesting that Ward Churchill's essay dealt with the fact that if we have a bad foreign policy like the one after 1945 we might get it thrown back in our faces sooner or later. But our foreign policies had been resisted long before 9/11. Native Americans fought a courageous war against the whites for four hundred years. When they formally surrendered, they were thrown into concentration camps euphemistically called "reservations" where they've been ever since. See what I mean about comparing ourselves to ourselves? What do we need the Germans for? We need Germany as the ultimate evil because if Germany is the ultimate evil the U.S. is less evil. That could be one of the reasons that the university system supported Steven Spielberg's project to bring in thousands of computers as instructional tools teaching the German Holocaust to students of color. Black and Hispanic kids are taught that if they think they had it bad look at the Jews they had it worse. Two hundred and fifty years of chattel slavery undermined. The American Mythos preserved....

I admire Norman Finkelstein and Ward Churchill for writing what they did. They pissed off the wrong people. The universities are reacting as if their corns have been stepped on. Yet the essential myths that comprise the American dream remain undisrupted.
Eva Liddell lives in the Pacific Norfthwest.

another imperialist war based on lies...
June 27, 1950 President Truman ordered the Air Force and Navy into the Korean War following a call from the [U.S. ORGAN of DOMINATION]
UN Security Council for member nations to help South Korea repel an invasion from the North.
http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20070627.html

a great day...
June 25, 1876, Lt. Col. George A. Custer and his 7th Cavalry were wiped out by Sioux and Cheyenne Indians in the Battle of Little Big Horn in Montana.http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/20070625.html

Digest note: beside creating the pretext for next U.S. military aggression toward its goal of global domination [see *docs. at bottom of page], a state of emergency/martial law is being prepared for all eventualities to suppress resistance --the only means of stopping the fascist juggernaut--should it ever finally arise here in the "homeland" and worldwide:

Bush Directive for a "Catastrophic Emergency" in America: Building a Justification for Waging War on Iran?
By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, June 24, 2007
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=6134

"Another [9/11 type terrorist] attack could create both a justification and an opportunity that is lacking today to retaliate against some known targets" (Statement by Pentagon official, leaked to the Washington Post, 23 April 2006)

The US media consensus is that "the United States faces its greatest threat of a terrorist assault since the September 11 attacks" (USA Today, 12 February 2006) The American Homeland is threatened by " Islamic terrorists", allegedly supported by Tehran and Damascus. America is under attack" by an illusive "outside enemy".
Concepts are turned upside down. War becomes Peace. "Offense" becomes a legitimate means of "self-defense". In the words of President Bush:
"Against this kind of enemy, there is only one effective response: We must go on the offense, stay on the offense, and take the fight to them." (President George W. Bush, CENTCOM Coalition Conference, May 1, 2007)

The intent is to seek a pretext to wage a preemptive war. A "terrorist attack on America" could be used to justify, in the eyes of an increasingly credulous public opinion, on "humanitarian grounds", the launching of a major theater war directed against Iran and Syria.
Allegedly supported by Iran, the terrorists are said to possess nuclear capabilities. They are supposedly planning to explode "radiological dispersion devices" (RDD) or "dirty bombs" in densely populated urban areas in the US. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell had already forewarned in 2003 that, "It would be easy for terrorists to cook up radioactive ‘dirty’ bombs to explode inside the U.S. … How likely it is, I can't say..." (10 February 2003).

The sheer absurdity that Al Qaeda might have advanced capabilities to wage a nuclear attack on America is, nonetheless, pervasive in US media reports. Moreover, numerous drills and exercises, simulating a terrorist attack using nuclear devices, have been conducted in recent years, creating the illusion that "the threat is real": "What we do know is that our enemies want to inflict massive casualties and that terrorists have the expertise to invent a wide range of attacks, including those involving the use of chemical, biological, radiological and even nuclear weapons. ... [E]xploding a small nuclear weapon in a major city could do incalculable harm to hundreds of thousands of people, as well as to businesses and the economy,...(US Congress, House Financial Services Committee, June 21, 2007).

History:
Consistently since 911, the Bush administration has reminded Americans of the danger of a "Second 9/11":

"The near-term attacks ... will either rival or exceed the 9/11 attacks... And it's pretty clear that the nation's capital and New York city would be on any list..." (Former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge, December 2003)

"... Credible reporting indicates that Al Qaeda is moving forward with its plans to carry out a large-scale attack in the United States in an effort to disrupt our democratic process... (Former DHS Secretary Tom Ridge, 8 July 2004)
"The enemy that struck on 9/11 is weakened and fractured yet it is still lethal and planning to hit us again." (Vice President Dick Cheney, 7 January 2006)

"We are still a nation at risk. Part of our strategy, of course, is to stay on the offense against terrorists who would do us harm. In other words, it is important to defeat them overseas so we never have to face them here. Nevertheless, we recognize that we've got to be fully prepared here at the homeland." (President George W. Bush February 8, 2006)

"Our main enemy is al Qaeda and its affiliates. Their allies choose their victims indiscriminately. They murder the innocent to advance a focused and clear ideology. They seek to establish a radical Islamic caliphate, so they can impose a brutal new order on unwilling people, much as Nazis and communists sought to do in the last century. This enemy will accept no compromise with the civilized world.... (President George W. Bush, CENTCOM Coalition Conference, May 1, 2007)

We're fighting a war on terror because the enemy attacked us first, and hit us hard. ... Al Qaeda's leadership has said they have the right to "kill four million Americans,... For nearly six years now, the United States has been able to defeat their attempts to attack us here at home. Nobody can guarantee that we won't be hit again. ... (Vice President Dick Cheney, United States Military Academy Commencement, West Point, New York, May 26, 2007)

In the immediate wake of the invasion of Iraq (April 2003), various national security procedures were put in place which focused on the eventuality of a "Second 911". These initiatives in the area of Homeland Security outlined the precise circumstances under which martial law could be declared in the case of a second major terrorist attack on America.

Under martial law, the military would take over several functions of civilian government including justice and law enforcement.
A terrorist attack on American soil of the size and nature of September 11, would lead ---according to former CENTCOM Commander, General Tommy Franks-- to the downfall of democracy in America. In an interview in December 2003, which was barely mentioned in the US media, General Franks outlined a scenario, which would result in the suspension of the Constitution and the installation of military rule in America:
"[A] terrorist, massive, casualty-producing event [will occur] somewhere in the Western world - it may be in the United States of America - that causes our population to question our own Constitution and to begin to militarize our country in order to avoid a repeat of another mass, casualty-producing event." (General Tommy Franks Interview, Cigar Aficionado, December 2003)

Franks was obliquely alluding to a "Second 9/11" terrorist attack, which could be used to galvanize US public opinion in support of a military government and police state. The "terrorist massive casualty-producing event" was presented by General Franks as a crucial political turning point. The resulting crisis and social turmoil is intended to facilitate a major shift in US political, social and institutional structures, leading to the suspension of constitutional government.

US Northern Command
The Administration's "Catastrophic Emergency" procedures are intimately related to military planning at the level of the Pentagon. In this regard, the formation of US Northern Command (NORTHCOM) in April 2002 (based at Peterson Air Force Base, Colorado) constitutes an important landmark in the evolving relationship between the Military and Homeland Security.
US Northern Command was created as a new command structure with the explicit mandate to defend the Homeland against foreign terrorists.
This mandate is defined in the Pentagon's "Joint Doctrine for Homeland Security (JP-26)". Even in the case where the "outside enemy" is fabricated (and this is known at the highest levels of the military-intelligence apparatus), a military coup d'Etat characterized by detailed command military/ security provisions, would become operational almost immediately.
NORTHCOM's "Command Mission" encompasses a number of "non-military functions" including "crisis management" and "domestic civil support". Under Northcom jurisdiction, the latter imply a process of "military support to federal, state and local authorities in the event of a terror attack."
NORTHCOM has a mandate to "defend the homeland" against an illusive "outside enemy" (Al Qaeda), which is said to be threatening the security of America. According to Frank Morales, "the scenario of a military take-over of America is unfolding." And Northern Command is the core military entity in this takeover and militarization of civilian institutions.

Dick Cheney's "Contingency Plan"
Following the creation of NORTHCOM in 2002, "Defense of the Homeland" functions -including domestic counter-terrorism and national emergency procedures-- have become increasingly integrated into the broader process of military planning by the Pentagon . This integration should be understood as part of the Pentagon's preemptive war doctrine, where a presumed or planned attack on the Homeland by "Islamic terrorists" becomes a justification for waging an "offensive" (defined as defensive) war in the Middle East.

The September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks were used to wage war on Afghanistan, using the pretext (without a shred of evidence) that the Afghan Taliban government was a "State sponsor" of the 9/11 attacks.

In August 2005, Vice President Dick Cheney is reported to have instructed USSTRATCOM, based at the Offutt Air Force Base in Nebraska, to draw up a "Contingency Plan", "to be employed in response to another 9/11-type terrorist attack on the United States". (Philip Giraldi, Attack on Iran: Pre-emptive Nuclear War, The American Conservative, 2 August 2005)

Dick Cheney's "Contingency Plan" was predicated on the preemptive war doctrine. Implied in the "Contingency Plan" was the presumption that Iran would be behind the attacks. The Vice president's instructions were given to USSTRATCOM, which is in charge of the central planning and coordination of major overseas theater wars, rather than to NORTHCOM, whose mandate consists in defending the North American Homeland against terrorist attacks. . Cheney's "Contingency Plan" under USSTRATCOM jurisdiction, would draw on the possibility of a "Second 9/11" attack to prepare for a major military operation directed against Iran, while pressure would also be exerted in the corridors of the United Nations on Tehran, in relation to its (non-existent) nuclear weapons program. What is diabolical in this 2005 decision by the US Vice President is that the justification to wage war on Iran rests on Iran's alleged involvement in a hypothetical terrorist attack on America, which has not yet occurred. The plan to attack Iran is based on the principle of self defense. It "includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons." (Philip Giraldi, Attack on Iran: Pre-emptive Nuclear War, The American Conservative, 2 August 2005) "Several senior Air Force officers involved in the planning are reportedly appalled at the implications of what they are doing—that Iran is being set up for an unprovoked nuclear attack—but no one is prepared to damage his career by posing any objections. (Ibid)

The Pentagon's "Second 9/11"
In early 2006, (former) Secretary Don Rumsfeld approved a far-reaching military campaign plan to fight terrorism around the World, with a view to retaliating in the case of a second major terrorist attack on America. This Pentagon plan was, in essence, an extension of the Second 911 "Contingency Plan" agenda announced by Dick Cheney in 2005.

The Pentagon's anti-terrorist plan was outlined in three secret documents, of which excerpts were leaked to the Washington Post. These three documents consist of an overall "campaign plan" plus two "subordinate plans". The second "subordinate plan" explicitly focuses on the possibility of "Second 9/11" and how a second major attack on American soil might provide "an opportunity" to extend the US led war in the Middle East into new frontiers:
"[It] sets out how the military can both disrupt and respond to another major terrorist strike on the United States. It includes lengthy annexes that offer a menu of options for the military to retaliate quickly against specific terrorist groups, individuals or state sponsors depending on who is believed to be behind an attack. Another attack could create both a justification and an opportunity that is lacking today to retaliate against some known targets, according to current and former defense officials familiar with the plan. (Washington Post, 23 April 2006, emphasis added)
The presumption of this military document, is that a Second 911 attack "which is lacking today" would usefully create both a "justification and an opportunity" to wage war on "some known targets [Iran and Syria]".

National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive, NSPD-51/ HSPD 20
In May 2007, a major presidential National Security Directive is issued, (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20)
NSPD 51 / HSPD 20 is a combined National Security Directive emanating from the White House and Homeland Security. It is tailor-made to fit the premises of both the Pentagon's 2006 "Anti-terrorist Plan" as well Vice President Cheney's 2005 "Contingency Plan". The directive establishes procedures for "Continuity of Government" (COG) in the case of a "Catastrophic Emergency". The latter is defined in NSPD 51/HSPD 20 (henceforth referred to as NSPD 51), as "any incident, regardless of location, that results in extraordinary levels of mass casualties, damage, or disruption severely affecting the U.S. population, infrastructure, environment, economy, or government functions." "Continuity of Government," or "COG," is defined in NSPD 51 as "a coordinated effort within the Federal Government's executive branch to ensure that National Essential Functions continue to be performed during a Catastrophic Emergency."

NSPD 51 has barely been reported by the mainstream media. There was no press briefing by the White House or by DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff, which would be the normal practice, given the significance and implications of NSPD 51. The text of NSPD /51 HSPD 20, announced by the White House is not even mentioned on the DHS's website.

This Combined Directive NSPD /51 HSPD 20 grants unprecedented powers to the Presidency and the Department of Homeland Security, overriding the foundations of Constitutional government. NSPD 51 allows the sitting president to declare a “national emergency” without Congressional approval The adoption of NSPD 51 would lead to the de facto closing down of the Legislature and the militarization of justice and law enforcement: The President shall lead the activities of the Federal Government for ensuring constitutional government. In order to advise and assist the President in that function, the Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter terrorism (APHS/CT) is hereby designated as the National Continuity Coordinator. The National Continuity Coordinator, in coordination with the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), without exercising directive authority, shall coordinate the development and implementation of continuity policy for executive departments and agencies. The Continuity Policy Coordination Committee (CPCC), chaired by a Senior Director from the Homeland Security Council staff, designated by the National Continuity Coordinator, shall be the main day-to-day forum for such policy coordination. (National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive NSPD 51/HSPD 20, emphasis added) NSPD 51 grants extraordinary Police State powers to the White House and Homeland Security (DHS), in the event of a "Catastrophic Emergency". The Assistant to the President for Homeland Security and Counter terrorism (APHS/CT), who is slated to play a key role in the eventuality of Martial law, is a key White House adviser, Frances Fragos Townsend.

Foreign Policy Implications of NSPD 51
While NSPD 51 has the appearances of a domestic national security decision, it is, nonetheless, an integral part of US foreign policy. It belongs to a longstanding military national security agenda. Were NSPD 51 to be invoked, Vice President Dick Cheney, who constitutes the real power behind the Executive, would essentially assume de facto dictatorial powers, circumventing both the US Congress and the Judiciary, while continuing to use President George W. Bush as a proxy figurehead. NSPD 51, while bypassing the Constitution, nonetheless, envisages very precise procedures which guarantee the powers of the Vice President:
"This directive shall be implemented in a manner that is consistent with, and facilitates effective implementation of, provisions of the Constitution concerning succession to the Presidency or the exercise of its powers, and the Presidential Succession Act of 1947 (3 U.S.C. 19), with consultation of the Vice President and, as appropriate, others involved. Heads of executive departments and agencies shall ensure that appropriate support is available to the Vice President and others involved as necessary to be prepared at all times to implement those provisions." (NSPD 51, op cit.)

In the case of a "Catastrophic Emergency", NSPD 51 could potentially be used to justify the implementation of retaliatory military action against Iran in accordance with Dick Cheney's 2005 "Contingency Plan". If the "Catastrophic Emergency" were to be triggered by a terrorist attack, NSPD-51 could be invoked as "the justification and ... opportunity ... to retaliate against some known targets" as outlined by the Pentagon in its 2006 anti-terrorist plan.

The broader question is whether the occurrence of this "Catastrophic Emergency " is actually being planned by the Pentagon, with a view to justifying an attack on Iran.

The Role of the US Military in the Case of a "Catastrophic Emergency"
NSPD 51 would instate martial law under the authority of the White House and the DHS. It would suspend constitutional government under the provisions of Continuity in Government (COG). The provisions of NSPD 51 are consistent with an existing body of legislation and regulations pertaining to alleged terrorist attacks on the Homeland and the declaration of martial law.

Since 2003, following the invasion of Iraq, Homeland Security (DHS) has contemplated time and again the possibility of a so-called code red alert "scenario" --using a potential or possible Al Qaeda terrorist attack on America soil as a pretext for implementing martial law. (For further details, see Michel Chossudovsky, America's "War on Terrorism", Global Research, 2005) Since 2003, the DHS has conducted several "anti-terrorist exercises" under the TOPOFF (top officials) program. The latter consisted in organizing anti-terror preparedness in a military style exercise with the participation of federal, State and local level governments. Various attack "scenarios" by foreign terrorists using weapons of mass destruction had been envisaged.
Code Red Alert was initially established under the provisions of Homeland Security Presidential Directive-3 (March 2002). Under the existing legislation, a code red alert would trigger conditions for the "temporary" suspension of the normal functions of civilian government. Several functions of civilian administration would be closed down, others could be transferred to the jurisdiction of the military. More generally, the procedure would disrupt government offices, businesses, schools, public services, transportation, etc. According to (former) Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge (22 Dec. 2003): "If we go to [code] Red ... it basically shuts down the country."

In which case, a national emergency is declared, Northern Command deploys its forces on air, land and sea. Several functions of civilian government are transferred to NORTHCOM headquarters, which already has the structures which enable it to oversee and supervise civilian institutions.
Code red alert would suspend civil liberties, including public gathering and/ or citizens' protests against the Administration's decision to declare martial law.
The emergency authorities would also have the authority to exert tight censorship over the media and would no doubt paralyze the alternative news media on the internet.
In turn, code red alert would trigger the "civilian" Homeland Emergency response system, including the DHS' Ready.Gov instructions, the Big Brother Citizen Corps, not to mention the USAonWatch and Neighborhood Watch Program which have a mandate to "identify and report suspicious activity in neighborhoods" across America.

The Militarization of Civilian Institutions
NSPD 51 is, in principle, a civilian directive emanating from the Presidency and the DHS.
What would be the involvement of the Military in a martial law situation, following the activation of NSPD 51?
In theory, the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 adopted in the wake of the US civil war, prevents the military from intervening in civilian police and judicial functions. This law has been central to the functioning of constitutional government. Although the Posse Comitatus Act is still on the books, in practice the legislation is no longer effective in preventing the militarization of civilian institutions. (See Frank Morales, Global Research, September 2003)

Legislation inherited from the Clinton administration, not to mention the post 9/11 Patriot Acts I and II, "blurs the line between military and civilian roles", it allows the military to intervene in judicial and law enforcement activities even in the absence of an emergency situation.
In 1996, legislation was passed which allowed the military to intervene in the case of a national emergency (e.g.. a terrorist attack). In 1999, Clinton's Defense Authorization Act (DAA) extended those powers (under the 1996 legislation) by creating an "exception" to the Posse Comitatus Act, which would allow the military to be involved in civilian affairs "regardless of whether there is an emergency". (See ACLU)
Under this 1999 provision, "the mere threat of an act of terrorism would justify calling in military units. That represents a loophole large enough to drive a battalion of army tanks through." (Ibid)

In other words, the Clinton era legislation had already laid the legal and ideological foundations of the "global war on terrorism". (emphasis added)

While NSPD 51 is a significant and timely landmark, it is broadly consistent with the pre-existing legislation, with one important exception. NSPD 51 confirms that "Continuity in Government" (COG), while suspending the Constitution, would be carried out under the control of the Presidency.
This distinction is important, in view of mounting opposition within the Armed Forces to the possible use of a "false flag" terrorist attack as a justification for the launching of a broader Middle East war, in which nuclear weapons could be used against Iran. NSPD 51 largely confirms the "legitimacy" of preexisting procedures and legislation, while also stipulating a central and critical role for the presidency in the case of a "Catastrophic Emergency". In fact, NSPD 51 thwarts the possibility of discretionary actions taken unilaterally by the Military in the case of a national emergency. Broadly speaking, NSPD 51 reinforces the control exerted by the White House, its civilian apparatus as well as its corporate lobby groups. While COG would result in the militarization of civilian institutions, this process would be under the control of civilian policy-makers, acting on behalf of their corporate sponsors. This civilian policy apparatus, made up of senior NeoCon advisers, with links to the Washington think tanks, Wall Street and the oil giants, is slated to play a key role in the case of martial law.
Whereas the militarization of justice and law enforcement would proceed, the Military would, nonetheless, remain subordinate to a "civilian dictatorship".

War Games and the Militarization of National Emergency Preparedness
Another relevant dimension of the militarization of civilian institutions pertains to interagency collaboration between the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Pentagon in the conduct of military style "catastrophic emergency response" exercises .
This "interagency collaboration" was endorsed in 2006 by the US Congress. FEMA (under the jurisdiction of the Department Homeland Security) was given exceptional powers. A significant budget was also provided to finance an ongoing partnership between FEMA and the US Military.
Northern Command was responsible for establishing links with civilian agencies involved in emergency preparedness (operating under the Defense Support of Civil Authorities (DSCA)).

What has unfolded is an integrated military/civilian outlook on emergency preparedness. A number of civilian agencies now actively participate in the conduct of Pentagon war games. In 2006, FEMA's "catastrophic disaster response" exercise was integrated into the conduct of US Northern Command's "Operation Vigilant Shield 07": "[In a] joint exercise activity, FEMA and USNORTHCOM exercised catastrophic disaster response during Vigilant Shield 07, an exercise focusing on a nuclear weapons accident and a terrorist event. (David Paulison, Administrator of the Federal Emergency Management, Agency (FEMA), statement to the Committee on House Transportation and Infrastructure Subcommittee on Economic Development, Public Buildings and Emergency Management, US Congress, 19 May 2007). Vigilant Shield 07 was a far-reaching "New Cold War" type war games exercise, directed against directed against (Irmingham) Iran and its Cold war era enemies: Ruebek (Russia), Churya (China), and Nemazee (North Korea). (for further details, see Michel Chossudovsky, Theater Iran Near Term, Global Research, February 21, 2007)

In April-May 2007, FEMA together with a number of civilian agencies including the FBI, local and State and private organizations participated in the Pentagon's Ardent Sentry-Northern Edge 07 war games (AS-NE 07), under the helm of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. U.S.
Part of the AS NE 07 war games were directed against Russia. They were held in the vicinity of the Bearing Straits on the immediate borders with Russia's Fareast, These associated exercises in Alaska entitled Alaska Shield also included the participation of Canadian forces. (For further details, see NorthCom.mil Fact Sheet)

Continued Emergency Preparedness
In the months prior as well as following the release of NSPD-51 by the White House on 9 May 2007, emergency exercises have been held, with the support of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) in several US cities. [*Digest note: see below New Orleans-Katrina]. How to respond in the case of a "Catastrophic Event". Brainstorming sessions involving officials from local, state and federal agencies have met to examine what to do in the case of "Catastrophic Event" or terrorist attack. On June 2nd, the US was "dominated by screaming headlines and sensationalist broadcast coverage of an alleged plot in New York to blow up John F. Kennedy International Airport" (See Bill van Auken, June 7, 2007). In the meantime, the US public has become increasingly skeptical of repeated fake terror alerts: There is every reason to believe that the succession of “terror” cases, each one weaker than the last and virtually all of them driven by “informants” who seem to play more the role of agents provocateur, are aimed at achieving precisely this effect. They serve as a means of intimidating public opinion with fear, justifying attacks on democratic rights and diverting attention from the ongoing debacle in Iraq. The problem faced by the government is that the public is growing increasingly skeptical about these cases, with a sizeable portion of the population having concluded that they are trumped up for political purposes. (Ibid)

New Military Appointments; The Firing of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
Several key military appointments were made in recent months. Of significance, Admiral. William J. Fallon, was appointed Commander of U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) in March by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
Meanwhile, another major military appointment was implemented, which has a direct bearing on war preparations in relation to Iran. Admiral Timothy J. Keating Commander of US NORTHCOM was appointed on March 26, to head US Pacific Command, which includes both the 5th and the 7th fleets. The 7th Fleet Pacific Command is the largest U.S. combatant command. Keating, who takes over from Admiral Fallon is also an unbending supporter of the "war on terrorism". Pacific Command would be playing a key role in the context of a military operation directed against Iran.(http://www.pacom.mil/about/pacom.shtml)

Of significance, Admiral Keating was also involved in the 2003 attack on Iraq as commander of US Naval Forces Central Command and the Fifth Fleet.

Admiral Fallon is fully compliant with the Bush administration's war plans in relation to Iran. He replaces Gen. John P. Abizaid, who was pushed into retirement, following apparent disagreements with Rumsfeld's successor, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates. While Abizaid recognized both the failures and the weaknesses of the US military in Iraq, Admiral Fallon is closely aligned with Vice President Dick Cheney. He is also firmly committed to the "Global War on Terrorism" (GWOT). CENTCOM would coordinate an attack on Iran from the Middle East war theater.

Moreover, the appointment of an Admiral is indicative of a shift in emphasis of CENTCOM's functions in the war theater. The "near term" emphasis is Iran rather than Iraq, requiring the coordination of naval and air force operations in the Persian Gulf.
The instatement of NSPD 51 in May 2007 was followed barely a few weeks later by the announcement of the "non-renewal of the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff (CJCS) General Peter Pace, who in recent months, has indicated his disagreement with the Administration regarding the Iran threat. .
General Pace stated (February 2007) that he saw no firm evidence of Tehran supplying weapons to Shiite militias inside Iraq, which was being heralded by the Bush administration as a justification for waging war on Iran: "[M]aybe that's why he's the outgoing chairman. Maybe that's why they're not renewing him. Because ...He has seen no evidence that Iran is fomenting unrest in Iraq that's causing Americans lives... " (Fox News' Alan Colmes, ox News, June, 13, 2007),
General Peter Pace ends his term as Chairman of the JCS in September 2007. Defense Secretary Gates has already announced that Admiral Michael Mullen, who is U.S. Chief of Naval Operations, has been nominated to replace General Peter Pace as Chairman of the Joint chiefs of Staff
Admiral Mullen's discourse is in marked contrast to that of General Peter Pace. Mullen, who was in charge of coordinating naval war games off the Iranian coastline, has expressed an unbending commitment to "waging" and "winning asymmetric wars", while also "protecting the United States":
"we must ensure we have the Battle Force, the people, and the combat readiness we need to win our nation's wars...Our Navy is fighting the Global War on Terror while at the same time providing a Strategic Reserve worldwide for the President and our Unified and Combatant Commanders.... Simply reacting to change is no longer an acceptable course of action if our Navy is to successfully wage asymmetric warfare and simultaneously deter regional and transnational threats" (Statement, Senate Armed Services Committee, 7 May 2007)

Admiral Mullen's stance is in line with that of the Bush Administration's key Neo-conservative ideologues. With regard to Iran, echoing almost verbatim the stance of the White House, Admiral Mullen considers that it is "unacceptable that Iran is providing U.S. enemies in Iraq and Afghanistan with capabilities that are hurting and killing U.S. troops." (Inside the Pentagon, June 21, 2007). But on the issue of Iran, the Democrats are on board. There is a bipartisan consensus, expressed by Senator Jo Lieberman: "I want to make clear I'm not talking about a massive ground invasion of Iran,... [but a] strike over the border into Iran, where we have good evidence that they have a base at which they are training these people coming back into Iraq to kill our soldiers" (AP, June 11, 2007)

US Nuclear Weapons in the Middle East War Theater
The use of conventional and nuclear weapons are now part of the same integrated command structure.
The Bush administration has confirmed that it contemplates the possible use tactical bunker buster nuclear bombs to "take out" Iran's non-existent nuclear weapons' facilities. An operational plan to wage aerial attacks on Iran has been in "a state of readiness" since June 2005. Essential military hardware to wage this operation has been deployed. (For further details see Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Jan 2006 ).

Vice President Dick Cheney' "Contingency Plan" "includes a large-scale air assault on Iran employing both conventional and tactical nuclear weapons." (Philip Giraldi, Attack on Iran: Pre-emptive Nuclear War , The American Conservative, 2 August 2005). USSTRATCOM would have the responsibility for overseeing and coordinating this military deployment as well as launching the military operation. (For details, Michel Chossudovsky, Nuclear War against Iran, Jan 2006 ).

The Bush administration has the full support of its NATO allies and Israel.
US made B61 tactical nuclear weapons have also been deployed in five European non-nuclear states, members of NATO, including Belgium, the Netherlands, Italy, Germany and Turkey. The B61 tactical nuclear warheads under the jurisdiction of these five non-nuclear states, plus Britain are pointed at Iran. While Iran, which possesses a bona fide nuclear energy program, is the object of potential military retaliation, these five European non-nuclear countries (not to mention Israel), are not considered by the "international community" as a threat to global security, in a clear expression of double standards...

Concluding Remarks
9/11 and the threat of a second major attack on America are ostensibly part of the building block of the US National Security doctrine. While, the threat of an impending 9/11 type attack by "Islamic terrorists" is a fabrication, extensive media propaganda, supported by covert intelligence operations, has ensured that the "Global War on Terrorism" or GWOT is widely accepted both by the supporters and opponents of the Bush administration. Visibly based on an outright lie, GWOT has nonetheless gained in legitimacy among America's European partners and allies, which have adopted their own ("copy and paste") anti-terrorist emergency procedures.

Despite mountains of evidence, the 9/11 attacks continue to be upheld by the US and its NATO allies as a bona fide act of war by a foreign power. Since 911, the GWOT is supported by the governments of more than 90 countries. (President George W. Bush, CENTCOM Coalition Conference, May 1, 2007)

Ironically, the Global War on Terrorism is also endorsed by several prominent and authoritative "progressive" intellectuals, who condemn US foreign policy and the Middle East war, while upholding the legitimacy of America's campaign against "Islamic terrorism." An important segment of the US antiwar movement [SIC] has a similar stance. While calling for the withdrawal of US troops from Iraq, it denies the existence of a national resistance movement to the US led occupation: "We are against the US led war in Iraq, but we support the war on terrorism." Not surprisingly, Bush's "Catastrophic Emergency" Directive (NSPD 51) does not seem to have raised much concern within the US Antiwar movement.

Since 9/11, numerous lead stories and Op Eds outlining the nature of the "Global War on Terrorism" have been fed profusely into the news chain. A worldwide Al Qaeda legend has emerged.

Repeated ad nauseam on a daily basis, the GWOT has also become part of a shaky bipartisan political consensus. Despite the blatant contradictions and the political lies, in particular in relation to 9/11 and the possibility of a second terrorist attack, the GWOT is nonetheless accepted by an increasingly skeptical US public opinion. Behind this diabolical "catastrophic emergency" scenario, which ultimately hinges on the powers of media disinformation and deceit, is a profit driven war.

The spiraling multibillion dollar "defense" budget, which according to independent estimates has reached the trillion dollar mark, is barely acknowledged, nor is the privatization of war itself. The US military industrial complex which produces the numerous "humanitarian weapons" including the mini-nukes and bunker buster bombs used to go after the terrorists, would be the direct beneficiary of a war on Iran, together Wall Street and the Anglo-American oil giants, which vie to appropriate and privatize the region's extensive oil and gas reserves.

This war is not led by the military but by the civilian corporate [e.g. capitalist] interests which lie behind the Bush administration. The military takes orders from civilians acting on behalf of those dominant economic interests.... the worldwide demonization of Islam is part of this profit driven war. Three quarters of the World's oil reserves lie in Muslim lands. (World Oil 2004, see also Michel Chossudovsky, The Demonization of Muslims and the Battle for Oil, Global Research, January 2007 ). Vilification of the enemies of America, portrayed as fanatic Islamic terrorists, is part of the Battle for Oil. If the oil were in countries occupied predominantly by Buddhists or Hindus, one would expect that Bush's entire National Security agenda, including the recent "Catastrophic Emergency" Directive NSP 51 would be directed against Buddhists and Hindus.

The threat of a Second Al Qaeda "Attack on America" is being used profusely by the Bush administration to galvanize public opinion in support of a global military agenda . Known and documented, the "Islamic terror network" is a creation of the US intelligence apparatus. The "war on terrorism" is bogus. The 911 narrative as conveyed by the 911 Commission report is fabricated.

How to reverse the tide
The Bush administration is involved in acts of cover-up and complicity at the highest levels of government. Revealing the lies behind 911 would serve to undermine the legitimacy of the "global war on terrorism" which constitutes the main justification for waging war in the Middle East. Without 911, the war criminals in high office do not have a leg to stand on. Their entire National Security construct collapses like a deck of cards.

...........

* digest note: the IRAQ 'CIVIL WAR' was MADE-IN-USA : "Under this plan Iraq would cease to exist"
Plans to foment an 'IRAQI civil war' were formulated in early 90's as a US 'exit strategy' to redirect and destroy the unbeatable, expanding growing Iraqi nationalist resistance. The US must destroy Arab anti-imperialist/zionist struggles for liberation and sovereignty. 80% of the world's oil is in Arab countries: Iraq is the lynchpin to the U.S.-israeli plan for a "new middle east" so it can only be understood in the context it is central to, the broader U.S. global geostrategic agenda. Control of the ME politically & economically, as Brzezinski & others analyzed, is necessary to leverage control over friends as well as enemies-- to expand and secure the fascist and futile U.S. fantasy of "full-spectrum dominance" over a 'new world order':

GEOSTRATEGIC AGENDA FOR U.S. HEGEMONY & ISRAEL'S ROLE

Excerpts From Pentagon's Plan: 'Prevent the Re-Emergence of a New Rival'
http://www.princeton.edu/~ppn/docfiles/pentagon_1992.html
NYT March 8, 1992
Following are excerpts from the Pentagon's Feb. 18 draft of the Defense Planning Guidance for the Fiscal Years 1994-1999: This Defense Planning guidance addresses the fundamentally new situation which has been created by the collapse of the Soviet Union, the disintegration of the internal as well as the external empire, and the discrediting of Communism as an ideology with global pretensions and influence. The new international environment has also been shaped by the victory of the United States and its coalition allies over Iraqi aggression -- the first post-cold-war conflict and a defining event in U.S. global leadership. In addition to these two victories, there has been a less visible one, the integration of Germany and Japan into a U.S.-led system of collective security and the creation of a democratic "zone of peace."

1996 A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm
http://www.israeleconomy.org/strat1.htm
Following is the policy blueprint prepared by The U.S. Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies’ "Study Group on a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000." The main substantive ideas in this paper emerge from a discussion in which prominent opinion makers, including Richard Perle, James Colbert, Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Douglas Feith, Robert Loewenberg, David Wurmser, and Meyrav Wurmser participated.

1997: THE GRAND CHESSBOARD: American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives
Zbigniew Brzezinski
www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/zbig.html

1997 A geostrategy for Eurasia, by Zbigniew Brzezinski
Foreign Affairs,76:5, September/October 1997 Council on Foreign Relations Inc.
http://www.comw.org/pda/fulltext/9709brzezinski.html

1997 US Army War College: "WE HAVE ENTERED AN AGE OF CONSTANT CONFLICT'
http://carlisle-www.army.mil/usawc/Parameters/97summer/peters.htm

2000 Strategy, Forces and Resources For a New Century: A Report of The Project for the New American Century
The Project for the New American Century (PNAC) is a neo-conservative think tank with strong ties to the American Enterprise Institute. PNAC's web site says it was "established in the spring of 1997" as "a non-profit, educational organization whose goal is to promote American global leadership."
PNAC's policy document, "Rebuilding America's Defences" advocates total U.S. global primacy...

2000 “Rebuilding America’s Defenses: Strategy, Forces and Resources for a New Century”
http://www.newamericancentury.org/RebuildingAmericasDefenses.pdf, basically transformed into the NSS of USA ...

2002 United States Government, National Security Strategy of the United States /NSS of USA
.

IRAQ

1] U.S. Considers Dividing Iraq Into Three Separate States After Saddam Is Gone
FORECASTS & TRENDS, Oct 1, 2002 http://www.profutures.comarticle.php/91/%20

Stratfor.com http://www.stratfor.com/ reports that one of the leading long-term strategies being considered by US war planners is to divide Iraq into three separate regions. Under this plan Iraq would cease to exist. [empasis added]

Stratfor says that such a plan reportedly was discussed at an unusual meeting between Crown Prince Hassan of Jordan and pro-US Iraqi Sunni opposition members in London in July. Further, they say that in September, the Israeli newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, stated that the US goal in Iraq was to create a United Hashemite Kingdom that would encompass Jordan and Iraq's Sunni areas. Also, Israeli terrorism expert Ehud Sprinzak recently echoed this sentiment on Russian television on September 24.
So whose idea is this? According to Stratfor, Sprinzak stated that the authors of the "Hashemite" plan are Vice President Dick Cheney and Deputy Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, both considered the most hawkish of Bush administration officials.[...]

2] 2004 Rand study “U.S. Strategy in the Muslim World After 9/11”
By Abdus Sattar Ghazali, exec. editor American Muslim Perspective
http://www.amperspective.com/html/neo_orientalists.html
Rand study titled “U.S. Strategy in the Muslim WorldAfter 9/11” suggests exploiting Sunni, Shiite and Arab, non-Arab divides to promote the US policy objectives [...]

3] U.S.IRAQ EXIT STRATEGY: CIVIL WAR
By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/GF10Ak03.html
The plan [to break up Iraq] allegedly conceived by David Philip, a former White House adviser working for the American Foreign Policy Council (AFPC)[...]

4] Dismembering the body politic in Iraq By Ahmed Janabi
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/7DFA2889-95A5-4B0A-A767-14E1A93C2...
Thursday 22 June 2006, 8:31 Makka Time, 5:31 GMT Iraqi nationalists fear the break-up of their country [...]

5] Iraq's Partition
The U.S. will... work to dissolve the Iraqi nation and state into three independent statelets under a powerless sham national government and, of course, total U.S. control (...) As Col. Lang emphasizes, the seeds for partioning were laid when Cheney and the neocon figures around him ordered the Iraqi army to be disbanded and the de-Baathification of the Iraqi government, its total annulment. The idea of partitioning Iraq may even have been the very reason for the war. The New Middle East expression goes back to the [see above] 1996 "Clean Break" document (pdf) prepared by U.S. as a strategy for Israel's Netanyahu government. The first modern partition Iraq argument was made by Zionist strategist Oded Yinon in 1982. In A Strategy for Israel in the Nineteen Eighties he recommends: In Iraq, a division into provinces along ethnic/religious lines as in Syria during Ottoman times is possible. So, three (or more) states will exist around the three major cities: Basra, Baghdad and Mosul, and Shi'ite areas in the south will separate from the Sunni and Kurdish north. The now imminent, new policy of partitioning Iraq is indeed only the announcement of the result of a process that has been the plan and the policy all along. This is a real "Mission Accomplished" moment...
http://www.uruknet.org.uk/?s1=1&p=27322&s2=09>

6] "Civil war likely in Iraq, not necessarily negative"
Tony Jones Interview with Daniel Pipes
Australian Broadcasting Corporation, 02/03/06
http://www.abc.net.au/lateline/content/2006/s1582736.htm
http://www.pwgd.com/blog/lb/1197-civil-war-in-iraq-not-bad-for-us-with-a...

TONY JONES: Tell me what sort of trends you’re talking about? Because I’m still struggling to understand how it would be anything but a strategic disaster.
DR DANIEL PIPES: ...should there be a civil war in Iraq, there are various trends which will be disrupted, trends which I think are negative... in the first place, there would be fewer attacks on our forces in Iraq as they fight each other. More broadly outside Iraq. There would be fewer attacks on us as the Shi’ites and the Sunnis attack each other. The imperative that the US Government, in particular, has been following would be shunted aside - an imperative which I think has led to negative results, because the victors in democracy, whether it be Afghanistan, Iraq, Lebanon, the Palestinian Authority, Saudi Arabia and Egypt, have in all these cases been our most extreme enemies - the Islamists. And I think as developments in Iraq slow down the democracy process, so it will elsewhere and we will be the better for it. …

8] Iraq's Sectarian Bloodshed 'Made in the USA'
Iraq never had a history of sectarian conflicts. U.S. policy choices provided a perfect road map for starting one
by Erik Leaver and Raed Jarrar, Asia Times http://www.twf.org/News/Y2006/0810-Sectarian.html

9] The Minister of Civil War: Paul Bremer, and the rise of the Iraqi death squads
Bayan Jabr,
Harper’s Magazine, August 2006. By Ken Silverstein.
http://www.harpers.org/the-minister-of-civil-war-399309.html
The rise of the death squads corresponds almost precisely to the April 2005 appointment of Bayan Jabr as interior minister in Iraq’s transitional government. The Interior Ministry, which is something like a combined FBI and Department of Homeland Security, controls billions of dollars and more than 100,000 men in police and paramilitary units. Jabr was a former high-ranking member of the Iranian-backed Badr Brigade, the military arm of the fundamentalist Shiite Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI) that is now the dominant political force in the country. After taking over the Interior Ministry, he quickly purged it of Sunnis, and members of the Badr Brigade were widely incorporated into the ministry’s police and paramilitary units….

Mahdi Army ‘Not to Resist’ U.S. Troops
By Nidhal al-Laithihttp: http//www.azzaman.com/english/index.asp?fname=news\2007-01-15\kurd.htm
The Mahdi Army, the Shiite militia group blamed for much of the sectarian violence in Iraq, has taken several measures to alleviate the impact of a possible attack by U.S. troops. The United States is sending thousands of more troops to Baghdad as part of a new strategy to pacify the restive city.
Moqtada al-Sadr, often described as a ‘radical anti-American cleric,’ is at the center of Iraq’s growing sectarian divide. He has reportedly ordered the commanders of the Mahdi Army,which he controls, to hold their fire when the Americans begin
operating in Sadr City and other Shiite areas....

11] The War Becomes More Unholy
Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/iraq/000528.php
...Occupation forces claim that mosque raids are being conducted because holy places are being used by resistance fighters.
A leaflet distributed in Fallujah by US forces late November said mosques were being used by “insurgents” to conduct attacks against
“Multinational Forces,” and that this would lead to “taking proper procedures against those mosques.” The statement referred to daily
sniper attacks against occupation forces in Fallujah in which many US soldiers have been killed. Local people refute these claims by coalition forces.

“Fighters never used mosques for attacking Americans because they realize the consequences and reactions from the military,”
a member of the local municipality council of Fallujah told IPS. “Nonetheless, US soldiers always targeted our mosques and
their minarets.”… the occupation forces have been supportive of clerics who took part in the political structure that the US coalition created
in Iraq. These include Shi’ite clerics and political leaders... most Sunnis do not follow any leader for religious reasons. Yet after we found
Americans targeting our religious symbols, we had to stand together around the man who did not sell us to the occupation.” [...]
“The world must be aware that this US administration is pushing the situation to the black hole of a new religious conflict by giving the
green light to their soldiers to attack mosques and arrest clerics whenever they feel like it,” Kassim Jabbar, an Iraqi political analyst
from Baghdad University told IPS….(Inter Press Service)

12] The Pentagon is Fomenting the Civil War in Iraq
The Pentagon’s “Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group (P2OG)” is behind many of the terrorist attacks in Iraq. The car bombings,
assassinations, sabotage, kidnappings and attacks on mosques are designed to cause violence and discord between Sunnis and Shiites.
P2OG in collusion with Israeli IDF and MOSSAD operatives are responsible for a series of secret covert operations whose purpose is to create an
all out civil war in Iraq. The ultimate purpose is to dismember the country, achieve complete control and make it easier for the USA and
Zionist Israel to profit from Iraq’s vast oil resources.

As part of the Pentagon’s well funded programme, the CIA and Israeli MOSSAD have been training and arming the Kurds for terror raids inside
Iraq. The Israeli operatives are also helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations, including the use of
assassination squads against guerrilla leaders, prominent Iraqi academics, scientists, politicians and religious leaders. .

Their first major operation was the bombing on February 22, 2006 of the Shiite Askariya shrine in Samarra, also known as the Golden Mosque.
The mosque was a very well thought out target that holds the tombs of two revered 9th-century imams of the Shiite branch of Islam. The attack
on the Golden Mosque began at 7 a.m., when a dozen men dressed in paramilitary uniforms entered the shrine and handcuffed four guards who
were sleeping in a back room. The attackers then placed a bomb in the dome and detonated it, collapsing most of the dome and heavily damaging
an adjoining wall.

The covert operation against the Golden Mosque was designed to provoke Shiite groups into committing violent acts and retaliations against the
Sunnis. Sunni political leaders said retaliatory attacks hit more than 20 Sunni mosques across Iraq with bombs, gunfire or arson. Authorities
reported at least 18 people killed in the aftermath, including two Sunni clerics. In one incident, in Basra in southern Iraq, police said gunmen
in police uniforms broke into a jail, seized 12 Sunni men and later killed them. These attacks against the Sunnis were also carried out by operatives
under the Pentagon’s “Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group”.

The Pentagon blamed the bombing of the Golden Mosque on al-Qaeda but cleric Abdul Zara Saidy had another explanation He said the mosque
attack was the work of “occupiers,” Americans, “and Zionists”.

Related La Voz de Aztlan report:
NORTHWOODS PROJECT: Exposing the Pentagon’s Schemes
http://www.aztlan.net/northwoods.htm

13] THE NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE ESTIMATE (NIE) ON THE CENTRAL ELEMENT OF THE BIDEN-GELB PLAN
The National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) on Iraq - a consensus report of all U.S. intelligence agencies - makes clear the need for a political settlement based on federalism, as called for in the Biden-Gelb plan.
Biden supports three-part Iraq split
By CRIS BARRISH, The News Journal
Posted Sunday, March 4, 2007
http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20070304/NEWS/7...

...........

* Racist Genocide in New Orleans Continues: "Like 911 But Add Water"
by liz burbank
A renaissance of Black resistance and leadership, historically the leading edge of revolution is what the postmodern slavemasters fear most in the racist "homeland".
Katrina was no accident, no surprise, no act of 'mother nature', the 'gods' , nor bureaucratic incompetence. The human and environmental and impact on New Orleans of a hurricane of this magnitude had been scientifically calculated. Rescue and recovery were deliberately withheld as working class Black people were drowned, militarily imprisoned, forcibly dispersed and murdered by the armed state. This intensification of america's historical genocide, a crime of U.S. imperialist state terrorism, is a premeditated physical and psychological attack to destroy its strength, pride, cultural cohesion and resistance of the Black nation to capitalist white supremacy's fascist global juggernaut.
Central to the U.S. strategy for global domination, Katrina and the brutal aftermath was engineered to serve this fascist agenda in two interrelated ways: uprooting, dispersing and weakening the Black Nation, while simultaneously inflaming racist support for the consolidation of a fascist mode of state capitalism under the guise of "rescue, relief and recovery” from a "major casualty-producing event" the state declared a “natural disaster.” [...]
full article at http://lizburbankdigest.blogspot.com/2006/03/racist-genocide-in-new-orle... also in archives http://www.burbankdigest.com/

Dear readers, thanks for your concern and patience. Incoming & outgoing mail is back to normal finally thanks to MAC & my local indie ISP.

U.S.-ISRAELI CAREFULLY LAID "CIVIL WAR" ATTEMPTS INTENSIFY FOR A PALESTINIAN "FINAL SOLUTION"
Isma'il Haniyah: 'We are the legitimate government'
Interview with Palestinian [National] Authority Prime Minister Isma'il Haniyah by Patrick de Saint-Paul in Gaza.
http://tinyurl.com/2y8d7b

Bush, Olmert praise Abbas as 'president of all the Palestinians'
U.S. President George W. Bush and Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert both threw their support behind Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas on Tuesday, with Bush praising Abbas as "a voice for moderation" and calling him the true "president of all the Palestinians."
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2007/06/19/olmert-bush.html?ref=rss

from reactionary World Net Daily report:
Hamas lists seized U.S. weapons
Claims over $400 million in munitions, equipment taken from compounds
By Aaron Klein
FROM WND'S JERUSALEM BUREAU
© 2007 WorldNetDaily.com
http://worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=56262

Hamas and Popular Resistance Committees leaders told WND upon taking over Gaza City's Fatah compounds, particularly the Preventative Security Services building and intelligence compound, they seized the purported CIA files and that prior to Hamas' advances, Fatah officials attempted to destroy the CIA files but only succeeded in eliminating some.

U.S. security coordinators the past few years maintained a presence at Fatah's Gaza headquarters.

Hamas' Al Aqsa Television last week broadcast footage of Hamas gunmen brandishing American assault rifles, rocket-propelled grenades, rocket launchers and ammunition the U.S. reportedly provided to Fatah over the past few months.
Members of Hamas' so-called "military wing" today sent WND a preliminary list of U.S. weaponry and equipment they claimed they obtained during last week's coup. The Hamas members clarified it was possible a small quantity of munitions on the list were provided to Fatah by other countries besides the U.S., but they claimed the vast majority of weapons and equipment they detailed were transferred by Washington.

The list of claimed seized U.S. material included:
"Dozens" of mounted machine guns
Approximately 7,400 American M-16 assault rifles
About 800,000 rounds of bullets.
Eighteen armored personnel carriers
Seven armored military jeeps
"Tens" of armored civilian cars, including pickup trucks and magnums.
Eight massive trucks equipped with water cannons for dispersing protests
Fourteen military-sized bulldozers
Hamas sources said the terror group was still sifting through the weapons and equipment it obtained. They said the list they provided didn't include what they said were large quantities of U.S.-provided rocket propelled grenades, grenade launchers, explosives, and military equipment, such as boots and tents.
Abu Abdullah, a senior member of Hamas' so-called military wing, told WND Hamas estimates they obtained at least $400 million worth of American weapons and equipment. That number couldn't immediately be verified. The average cost of an M-16 in Gaza yesterday was $16,911, and the average cost of a bullet there was $12.07, meaning the cost in Gaza of U.S. assault rifles and bullets Hamas claims to have obtained amount to over $137 million. Abu Abdullah said Hamas officials and "military" leaders were surprised Fatah didn't evacuate some of the heavy machinery it left behind, including the bulldozers and armored personnel carriers. "I am surprised Fatah weren't directed by their Zionist and American handlers to evacuate the heavy equipment. It could have been brought out through the Egyptian border," Abu Abdullah said.

U.S. pledges more aid to Abbas
The Hamas list of purportedly seized American weapons comes as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice announced this week the U.S. will resume "full assistance to the Palestinian government," lifting an economic and political embargo against the Palestinian government enacted after Hamas came to power in March 2006.
Rice said she will ask Congress to rework a previous $86 million aid package to Abbas that was lowered following concerns by some lawmakers some of the money would end up financing terrorism. Congress in April only approved about $59 million of the aid package and stipulated the money cannot be used to purchase weapons. Rice intends to request Congress now grant the full $86 million.
Rice also said the U.S. would contribute an additional $40 million to the United Nations to help Palestinians, particularly in the Gaza Strip, which is now controlled by Hamas.
According to Palestinian and Israeli diplomatic sources, the bulk of the $86 million is slated to be used to fund Force 17, which serve as de facto police units in the West Bank and previously patrolled the Hamas-seized Gaza Strip. Many members of Force 17 are also openly members of the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades terror group, which took responsibility together with Islamic Jihad for every suicide bombing in Israel the last two years

"Like the American weapons in Gaza we told you will come to Hamas, also the weapons and aid the Americans are giving to Abu Mazen (Abbas) as part of their conspiracy against us in the West Bank will finds its way to the Palestinian resistance and Hamas," said Abu Abdullah.
Hamas' Abu Abdullah said, "Now our job is to study these files, which are already showing that they are crucial for our fight against the Zionists and anyone who collaborates with them, including the Americans."...
Abdullah said the CIA documents they browsed so far contain "information about the collaboration between Fatah and the Israeli and American security organizations; CIA methods on how to prevent attacks, chase and follow after cells of Hamas and the Committees; plans about Fatah assassinations of members of Hamas and other organizations; and American studies on the security situation in Gaza."
Abdullah claimed the documents also detailed CIA networks in other Arab countries and "how to help beat Islamic allies of Hamas in other Arab countries, including Egypt and Jordan."
"We will use these documents and make portions public to prove the collaboration between America and traitor Arab countries," Abdullah said.

THE ANGRY ARAB
http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2007/06/well-conspiracy-is-unfolding-befor...
...Fath under Arafat was always more willing to fight other Palestinians than to fight Israel. Fath under Arafat fought other Palestinian organizations prior to Black September in Jordan, and then did the same in Lebanon. But what is new today is that the entire Palestinian leadership of the Fath movement was eliminated (assassinated by Israel and its allies), and a new leadership was installed by the US and Israel (with the support of client Arab regimes). We have never had in the history of Palestinian struggle a more open collaborationist regime in Palestine.... And it is openly aligned with Israel and the US: this is unprecedented. I mean, even under the Village Leagues and the notorious Muhammad `Ali Al-Ja`bari: there were those silly denials of collaboration, and the Palestinians made sure that those attempts don't go very far. Not anymore. And you see press reports to Salam Fayyad as "independent". Independent? Who brought this World Bank official to Palestine? Who forced him on Yasir Arafat? The Palestinian people? His own popularity or popular base? He is as much an independent as much as Mr. Bush is a "uniter not a divider." And the characters in this saga are just almost fictional. Yesterday, the official statement or Ottoman Faraman (it was really drafted and read as a faraman) by Mahmoud Abbas was read by none other than Tayyib `Abdur-Rahim. Are you kidding me? He was dressed in a fancy suit, but this is `Abdur-Rahim. We knew him from his days in Lebanon. He was known as Abu At-Tayyib: he was in charge of Force 17. Force 17 was responsible under Arafat of dirty tricks and dirty fighting and dirty murders. That was its mission. And to have this same man yesterday speak on "constitutional matters" was laughable. But less laughable than Condoleezza Rice offering opinions on the proper constitutional procedures in Palestine. Don't get me wrong: I have never been a fan of Hamas: not of its ideology and not of its practices...
The Saudi media--without a sense of irony--are now resorting to equating Hamas with Taliban and Al-Qa`idah: as if what works in New York City can really work in the Arab world. They think that they can really convince Arab public opinion that they (House of Saud and its allies) represent a secular alternative? And please, don't give me that line that Fath is "a secular organization." We know Fath well, and know that Arafat was guilty of arming and financing fanatical religious groups since his days in Lebanon: just like what Arab regimes and Israel (and US) have done. Khalid Mish`al today responded to that allegation in his press conference by denying that Hamas plans to impose a religious order....both Hamas and Hizbullah tried to do that in years past before they realized that they can't continue to grow if they did not change. Neither the Lebanese nor the Palestinians would put up with a religious order. Both are sinful people, thankfully.

U.S. Mideast Envoy On Palestinian Civil War: "I Like This Violence"
...here's David Welch, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern Affairs and US Envoy to the Middle East, speaking in private several weeks before Rice. This appears on p.21 of the leaked report (pdf) by Alvaro de Soto, former UN coordinator for the Middle East:
"...the US clearly pushed for a confrontation between Fateh and Hamas -- so much so that, a week before Mecca, the US envoy declared twice in an envoys meeting in Washington how much "I like this violence"... because "it means that other Palestinians are resisting Hamas".

Who is Mohammad Dahlan?
Arjan El Fassed, The Electronic Intifada
Some have called Mohammad Dahlan the Palestinian Ahmad Chalabi, because he reportedly negotiated with the US and Israel about taking control of Gaza after the August 2005 disengagement plan. In April 2002 testifying before the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, Defense Minister Benjamin Ben-Eliezer said he had offered control of the Gaza Strip to Dahlan. In exchange, Dahlan, who had control of the most significant military force on the Gaza Strip, would be obligated to ensure complete quiet along the border. He is believed to have drawn up an early agreement at a January 1994 meeting in Rome with senior Israeli military and Shin Bet officials to contain Hamas, and was actively involved in subsequent negotiations with the Israelis... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=33857

WHO OVERTHREW WHO
JERUSALEM, June 17 (Reuters) - The U.S. government began to lay the ground for President Mahmoud Abbas to dismiss the Hamas-led Palestinian government at least a year before the Islamist group's violent takeover of the Gaza Strip last week.
Western, Israeli and Palestinian official sources said over the weekend that, far from being an ad hoc response to Hamas's offensive, Abbas's declaration of a state of emergency and his replacement of a Hamas prime minister with Western favourite Salam Fayyad marked the culmination of months of backroom deliberations, planning and U.S. prodding.... Western officials said Abbas was able to move swiftly this week to form a new government because much of the advance work had already been done. In one closed-door briefing with U.S. lawmakers earlier this year, a senior U.S. official said Abbas could rule by decree for 6-12 months before elections are held. On Sunday, faced with a constitutional article demanding any new government be approved by parliament, where Hamas has a majority, Abbas simply issued a decree scrapping that provision.
Despite Fatah's Gaza setback, some U.S. and Israeli officials see opportunities in Hamas's victory. Abbas's unity government blurred the line between Hamas and Fatah. Now, one European diplomat said, things may be more "black and white".
"It does clarify things" and may help Israel and the United States create a broader front against Hamas and its major backer, Iran, said a former Bush administration official. Hamas, they note, has been left isolated in a sealed-off, densely populated scrap of coast. Renewing the flow of funds to Abbas in the much bigger West Bank, where stability is more critical to Israel, could help drive a wedge between the Hamas leadership and Gaza's increasingly impoverished population. Some Western and Palestinian officials argue Washington fanned the flames as soon as Hamas and Fatah formed a short-lived "unity" government in March. U.S. officials pushed Abbas into giving Hamas's nemesis, Mohammad Dahlan, control over security and then pushed him to deploy Fatah forces in Gaza. http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L17443574.htm

Not for sale:
Palestinians won’t accept a Vichy government
By Khalid Amayreh
Occupied Jerusalem, 17 June 2007 -- -The vast bulk of Palestinians, at home and in the Diaspora, will not accept a quisling government in Ramallah that might be at Israel’s beck and call. This is precisely what the Bush administration and Israel expect the new government, headed by Salam Fayyad, to be.
The Palestinian masses know very well what the US symbolize for them, their children and their enduring cause. It symbolizes oppression in its ugliest forms. It symbolizes mass murder, land theft, dispossession, deprivation and ultimate mendacity and hypocrisy. America is the enabler, sustainer and justifier of 40 years of Israeli Nazism whose ultimate goal is the obliteration of Palestinians as a nation, by arrogating their homeland for them and making their future as precarious as possible. In short, America to the Palestinians is very much like what Nazi Germany was to the Jews. Hence, any government agreeing to throw itself into the American lap will lose its legitimacy if not its very existence http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article17900.htm

PA, R.I.P.
Tony Sayegh, Palestinian Pundit
Hamas resisted the dissolution of the PA and kept pursuing the mirage of "national unity" with the people it knew of being collaborators with Israel and stooges who get their instructions from the CIA. Now Hamas has the records of that collaboration in the documents seized in Gaza from the headquarters of the PA intelligence services. Two key elements, which I repeatedly urged, are the dissolution of the PA and the pursuit of resistance in an underground, clandestine manner. Critics used to argue that these suggestions were impractical, that if Hamas was not part of the PA and part of the political process, then the other side would sellout the cause and conclude an agreement with Israel at the expense of the national constants. Well, here we are. The other side has finally removed the mask and has declared its own, collaborationist Vichy "government." The question was and still is what to do with this quisling entity? My answer has always been to deal with it and with its instruments (security, etc) in the same way people under occupation have always dealt with quislings. Iraq under occupation illustrates the point. The other point, which is now forced on Hamas, is to go underground. This is becoming evident in the West Bank, where Hamas and anything even remotely related to it, such as schools, charities or even journalists and university professors are being hunted down. For all practical purposes Hamas and anyone even suspected of having sympathy (let alone support) for it are being persecuted. It is a witch hunt, pure and simple. In the West Bank, Hamas will have to fight this proxy of the occupation and fight for its very existence as a movement... in an intelligent, organized and clandestine way. In this regard it could potentially become more effective in the West Bank against the occupation and its surrogates. Again Iraq is the model. Gaza is different and unpredictable. In the short term Hamas, being the only power, will by definition be above ground to ensure order and meet the needs of the population. But this situation will not last very long. The IOF is likely to invade in a big way and will try to reinstall the Palestinian quislings.... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=33812

How Israelis Torture Captives
The twilight zone / 'Now you are paralyzed, as we promised'
Gideon Levy, Haaretz
June 18, 2007
We have to make you do a little sports," the Shin Bet interrogator said, launching four successive days of questioning accompanied by brutal physical torture. The result: Luwaii Ashqar can no longer stand on his feet. He sits in his wheelchair...
Was there a judgment by the High Court of Justice? There was. It banned precisely the types of torture he underwent: the "banana posture," the "shabah" (body stretching with hands tied to a chair), "invisible" blows and the "frog posture" (being forced to stand for hours on the toes in a crouching position) - all the way to a vicious kick to his chest that bent his body backward while he was tied to a chair with his arms and legs, and which was the probable cause of the partial paralysis of his legs.
Throwing up with the vomit entering his nostrils, losing consciousness and being given only saltwater to drink, relieving himself in his pants, not sleeping or resting - all of that for four consecutive days and nights.
Ashqar is not alone. The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel has just issued a new report containing the testimonies of nine torture victims (English version: www.stoptorture.org.il//eng ). As the authors of the shocking report say, the testimonies "paint a dismal picture in which can be discerned various categories of secret-keeping collaborators, who, in keeping silent, protect the [Shin Bet] system of torture." ...

This is the response received by Haaretz from the Shin Bet:
Luwaii Ashqar was arrested in April 2005, after serious suspicions were raised against him concerning his involvement in terrorism, including possession of weapons and assistance to wanted individuals - terror activists from Islamic Jihad...The suspect was tried and convicted in a plea bargain, and sentenced to 14 months in prison and another 14 months in prison stemming from a pending conditional sentence, so that all told he was sentenced to 26 months in prison. In addition, he received a 28-month suspended sentence.

His interrogation was carried out according to the rules and directives, with constant review of the interrogation process.
During the interrogation, the above-named put forward medical complaints, which were examined and treated by the appropriate medical authorities, including an examination he underwent in hospital.
It should be noted that during the interrogation he did not cite medical complaints of the same seriousness as those mentioned in the query.
Complaints relating to his interrogation, from, among other sources, the Committee Against Torture and the Red Cross, were referred to the State Prosecutor's Office for examination, which ordered an examination by the Ombudsman of Interogees' Complaints.
The examination of the complaints did not turn up any excesses in the interrogation, and in the wake of this, the official in charge of the OIC in the State Prosecutor's Office decided to close the examination file. www.uruknet.info?p=33808

Killing the Palestinians
Sonja Karkar, Global Research
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=5931

A drive through the West Bank quickly dispels any notions one might have of Israel’s beneficent intentions. There are none. The first ugly blight on the horizon are gleaming white structures clumped together on hilltops. They jut out treeless, naked and unashamed as below them the green valleys continue to gently undulate in their menacing shadows. A shimmering sliver cuts through the land or over it, every now and then brought to life by cars that speed along these highways towards Jerusalem, Tel Aviv or Haifa: and below them, life barely moves at all. A looming watchtower confirms the feeling of something very wrong. Grey and threatening with cavernous windows, behind which shadows watch and aim at things that move, this is one of hundreds of such towers overseeing the mass of humanity waiting endlessly at yet another checkpoint that makes every journey torture for every Palestinian.
Soldiers, machine guns, tanks make up the rest of the set pieces as does the razor wire which coils around the kilometres of fencing before it comes up against the Wall – mammoth in size and structure and even more monstrous in the reason for its existence.

Closing in
The Wall is Israel’s provocative solution to the Palestinian problem in the West Bank. It is a wall ostensibly built for Israel’s security, yet its path does not follow the borders between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Instead, at many points it goes deep into the heart of Palestinian territory. The Wall is being built, despite an advisory opinion by the International Court of Justice that condemned it. It is being built despite a similar wall coming down almost two decades ago between East and West Berlin. Then, the whole world breathed a sigh of relief that such barbarity had finally come to an end – in the West at least. Israel’s Prison Wall - much higher and longer and begun only 4 years ago – hardly raises a whimper of protest where it counts, despite it being built contrary to the Court’s ruling. It is a wall, the like of which most people cannot imagine – 8 metres high in places and up to 100 metres wide in others and running 720 kilometres the length and breadth of the West Bank – a wall in some places and electrified razor fencing with ditches and a no-man’s land in others. Already 180 kilometres of wall run right through thousands upon thousands of acres of private land – Palestinian land. Half of that wall encircles East Jerusalem, isolating the city from the rest of the occupied West Bank and separating it from its Palestinian neighbourhoods which are dependent on Jerusalem for their survival. In the process, the Wall has skirted around three of the largest illegal Jewish settlement blocs –aggressively staking out more territory – and connected them to Israel, wiping out all the areas needed for Palestinian natural growth and economic development.
The Wall is the most dangerous phase of Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land because it allows for the continual expansion of illegal Israeli settlements deep inside the West Bank. The end result for the Palestinians will be three miserable truncated enclaves without access to valuable water resources or the fertile agricultural land on which they have depended for centuries. Certainly, there will be no contiguity between them or the walled-in Gaza Strip on the coast. It also means that Palestinian movement will have to be severely curtailed within the West Bank in order to protect these implanted illegal settlements. And these illegal activities are still going on while everyone continues to talk in absolute terms about a two-state solution and totally ignoring the realities on the ground. The wall has relegated Palestinian self-determination in their own sovereign state to the bulldozed, treeless dust heap of a prison that Israel has deliberately and systematically succeeded in diminishing. This is the land that Israel wants and is taking, while herding Palestinians into ever smaller disconnected Bantustans, in order to establish an exclusively Jewish state.

How it happened
The actual owners of all of historic Palestine - the Palestinians - have watched their land being dispensed, taken, fragmented, violated and bartered over since 1947 with no regard for their ownership by stint of their birth, residence, contributions, achievements, and continuous ancestry going back to time immemorial. Not only were they - the majority population - driven from it, made refugees and refused their right to return home, those who remained in what was left, have now found themselves living under a brutal regime of occupation...
Emerging out of British and European colonialism and a desire to protect Western interests, the United Nations had arbitrarily given 55 per cent to European Jewish immigrants and left the Palestinians with 45 per cent of their own country. The Palestinians did not accept this, but soon news of massacres and the razing of villages began filtering through which terrified Palestinians into fleeing for their lives. A war ensued involving the Arab states and the newly-created Israel, but it was a war for which the Palestinians were not prepared. The exodus of Palestinian families gathered momentum and became a tragic turning point in their history known as al-Nakba or "the Catastrophe". The fleeing families sought refuge in neighbouring Arab countries until they could return home. This never happened: most of them are still languishing in pitiful circumstances in refugee camps waiting for the day they can return and/or receive compensation for the terrible damage done. For those who stayed, the only concession the world made was to allow them a reduced 22 per cent of their own land. But, the Palestinians never really had it – the West Bank and East Jerusalem was controlled by Jordan, and the Gaza Strip, by Egypt. Israel waited in the wings.
In 1967, Israel wrested control of all the remaining lands of historic Palestine when it won the 6-day war – an occupation that has continued for 40 long and bitter years and now affects some 4 million Palestinians. Israel never adhered to the requirements of international law and conventions that required it to withdraw to the 1949 armistice "Green" line once hostilities had ceased...
Like any people, the Palestinians want to be free and independent and to live in peace: they have pursued all avenues towards that end. None of them have been successful, despite umpteen United Nations resolutions supporting their inalienable right to self-determination. America holds veto power in the Security Council and uses it always in favour of Israel. Also, the effects of the Israel Lobby’s powerful influence have been felt not only in government circles, but also the media, business, NGOs, academia and even in trade unions and religious organizations at the highest levels. Therefore, as long as the world’s only superpower - the United States of America - supports Israel, the international community is powerless to implement the UN resolutions. Only at the grassroots level is there a chance for people to come together and force the issue by demanding truth and justice for the Palestinians. But, time is running out.

Today, the Palestinians are facing imminent ruin as Israel embarks on yet another reprehensible program that deliberately regards the Palestinians as "non-existent"... the 1.4 million Palestinians citizens of Israel... are the subject of an elaborate system of laws and administrative regulations that have been designed to discriminate against non-Jews – essentially the Palestinians – in order to create and preserve an exclusively Jewish state. Now, all the Palestinians are being discriminated against in favour of Jews from anywhere in the world who want to make Israel their home, including those who want to settle in the illegal settlements being built in the areas that have long been designated for a future Palestinian state.M Those deviant laws and regulations have allowed Israel to expropriate Palestinian land, confiscate their property and demolish some 18,000 homes since 1967 to make way for the illegal settlements, Israeli-only roads, prohibited military areas and the Wall. The result has been the breaking up of lush and productive farming communities and a centuries-old Palestinian society that prospered in ancient cities like Jerusalem, Bethlehem, Nablus, Hebron, Jenin and Ramallah. Long used to visiting and trading between these towns, the Palestinians have been forcibly stopped from moving freely by a grid of Israeli military checkpoints that make it difficult and sometimes impossible to get to work, school, shops, hospitals, or just visiting friends and family. At these checkpoints, Palestinians are humiliatingly subjected to endless waiting, never knowing if they will be refused permission to continue their journey or be detained or even die. Such is daily life for every Palestinian in the Occupied Territories ....

The final solution – ethnic cleansing
The diabolical endgame is closing in. Left on the board are apartheid, enslavement, transfer, ethnic cleansing and genocide. Unpalatable as these terms are, more and more people are beginning to see just where Israel’s policies and practices are heading.
The first person to coin the term "genocide" was a Polish-Jewish legal scholar Raphael Lemkin whose idea was widely accepted by the international community and it became one of the legal bases of the Nuremburg Trials. It is interesting to see the parallel between his definition and what is happening to the Palestinians today:
"Generally speaking, genocide does not necessarily mean the immediate destruction of a nation, except when accomplished by mass killings of all members of a nation. It is intended rather to signify a coordinated plan of different actions aiming at the destruction of essential foundations of the life of national groups, with the aim of annihilating the groups themselves. The objectives of such a plan would be the disintegration of the political and social institutions, of culture, language, national feelings, religion, and the economic existence of national groups, and the destruction of the personal security, liberty, health, dignity, and even the lives of the individuals belonging to such groups." Axis Rule in Occupied Europe (Wash DC: Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, 1944), p79.

For those people who think that what is happening to the Palestinians is not apartheid or ethnic cleansing or genocide, ask the Palestinian parents who have just lost their children, the Palestinian families who are watching bulldozers rip into their homes, the Palestinian children who are too afraid to go to school, the elderly and the handicapped who are too afraid to stay at home, the Palestinian mothers who have lost their babies, the Palestinian children who wet their beds, the half-alive Palestinians without legs and arms and only half their face.

Ask the Palestinians who have collapsed from heart attacks and strokes because ambulances are not allowed through. Ask Palestinians who must scramble over torn up bitumen and take the long way round while Israelis zoom along modern highways built only for their use. Ask the Palestinians who are spat on and ridiculed, stripped, taunted and humiliated in front of the waiting crowds by the Israeli soldiers for whom it has become a sport.

Ask the Palestinians who come home weary from all that waiting and all that shame to find their family homes reduced to rubble, their children sobbing, their possessions scattered and buried. Ask the Palestinians who come back to the ruins of their offices and their schools only to find walls and files and books and pictures smeared with soldiers’ excrement and fouled with their urine. Ask the thousands of Palestinians who have been woken at gunpoint in the early hours of the morning and herded outside. And then ask the families how they feel when their fathers, brothers, grandfathers, and sons are bound and blindfolded, beaten up and taken away and then killed or jailed or simply disappear without a trace.

Ask the Palestinians how they feel when they hear the rumble of 200 Israeli tanks mass along a 9 kilometre stretch outside their cities. Ask the Palestinians if they shudder when they hear the scream of F-16 bombers slice the skies, or hear the whirr of Apache helicopters hovering overhead. Ask the Palestinians how it feels to have a gun pointing at you when you have been waiting at the checkpoints in the hot sun or the bitter wind and icy rain for hours.

Ask the Palestinians what it is like to be stateless, to have no papers, no passport, no legitimacy. Ask the Palestinians who apply for a laissez passez allowing them to travel overseas, what it is like to be refused re-entry by Israel if they are late for any reason. Ask what it is like to then have to move from country to country because no one will accept you as a citizen. Ask the Palestinian refugees who are languishing in camps without any future or hope for their children because Israel refuses to allow them to return home. Ask Palestinians who have tried to seek asylum and have been told that they must be held in detention for the rest of their lives because Israel will not accept them and neither will any other country. Ask the Palestinians who "write born in Palestine" on forms when it really was Palestine and have it crossed out because no such place is recognised even though legally and actually it is right.

Ask the Palestinian workers who come home empty-handed because a wall rises between them and their jobs, the Palestinian farmers whose crops are rotting on trees they cannot get to and whose farming land has been turned into roads and Israeli settlements. Ask the men who wait at gates in the wall to open, sometimes all day, to tend to their land so that Israel cannot use the Absentee Laws against them.
Ask what you would say if all this was happening to you and every door to freedom was slammed shut forcing you to stumble from one dead end to another. Ask what you would do, what you would accept. Ask if it is human and if you could see it done even to the least of mankind... Forty years of oppression and almost sixty years of dispossession are too many years of pain for any human being. It is time for the Palestinians to be released from Israel’s vice-like control. It is time to balance the scales of justice. It is time to stop killing the Palestinians.
Sonja Karkar is the founder and President of Women for Palestine in Melbourne, Australia. See www.womenforpalestine.com

IS THE WORST YET TO COME IN GAZA?
Desert Peace
It's come down to a 'numbers game'.... how long will it take the population of Gaza to run out of food? The speculation has already started with Abbas, Olmert and Bush doing the guessing. 10 days seems to be the general opinion.... What then? What surprises will be in store for a people that have already had their lives destroyed by a joint Israeli/American conspiracy against them.... now that a section of their own has joined forces with that devil?...http://www.uruknet.de/?p=33824

Hamas: We can prove Fatah link to CIA: The headquarters of the General Security Service, commanded by Ramallah-based General Tawfik Tirawi, fell to Hamas gunmen. Hamas said documents it found there prove that the Fatah-affiliated security apparatus has close ties with the Central Intelligence Agency http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

Abbas seeks Israel's cooperation in West Bank
Abbas' aides have asked Israel to assist Salam Fayyad's new cabinet in the battle over public opinion, against Ismail Haniyeh's Hamas government, which is refusing to resign. Ynet has learned that even before Fatah's last outpost in the Strip was taken over by Hamas, Hajj Ismail Jaber, deputy commander of the Palestinian security forces, began negotiating the issue with Israel. http://www.uruknet.de/?p=33771

Fatah Troops Enter Gaza With Israeli Assent
Hundreds Were Trained in Egypt Under U.S.-Backed Program to Counter Hamas
Washington Post Foreign Service http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/17/AR200705...

"War is nothing but a continuation of politics by other means."
von Clausewitz

VIDEO: Rumsfeld ordered torture
  Former head of Abu Ghraib, Karpinski, willing to testify
http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/evan/44781
 

Women: weapons and booty of unjust wars and unjust "peace"
US Soldier Sodomised Female Iraqi Detainee:
June 17, 2007
Seymour Hersh interview with General Anthony Taguba, who investigated Abu Ghraib, confirms details of the abuse not previously public. It also confirms that the torture was sanctioned from the top. http://www.truthout.org:80/docs_2006/061707A.shtml

"The United States must cultivate a mental view toward world settlement after this war which will enable us to impose our own terms, amounting perhaps to a pax-Americana."
U.S. Department of State - Source: Minutes S-3 of the Security Subcommittee, Advisory Committee on Postwar Foreign Policy, 6 May, 1942, Notter File, Box 77, Record Group 59, Records of the Department of State, National Archives, DC.

THE MARK OF THE DEFEATED BEAST: U.S. & COLLABORATORS INTENSIFY ATTEMPTS TO STIR UP "SECTARIAN STRIFE" BLAMING "AL-QAEDA" FOR ITS STATE TERRORIST CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
US military launches massive assault in Iraq
By Bill Van Auken
20 June 2007
Backed by armored columns and helicopter gunships, some 10,000 US troops have launched a massive assault on the provincial capital of Baquba and other areas north and east of the Iraqi capital of Baghdad. The operation, dubbed Arrowhead Ripper, is one of the largest since the US invasion of Iraq in March 2003. It is being portrayed as an offensive aimed at clearing Al Qaeda [SIC] terrorists from Diyala province, which is said to have become a new stronghold for the group. In reality, the attack is directed at crushing opposition to the US occupation in a region where the overwhelming majority of the population opposes the American presence and is therefore a center of resistance in which Al Qaeda plays a decidedly limited role.

In one of its first communiqués, the Pentagon claimed that a “quick-strike nighttime air assault” by the 3rd Stryker Brigade Combat Team, 2nd Infantry Division had included an assault by attack helicopters and ground forces which had “engaged and killed 22 anti-Iraqi forces in and around Baquba.” “Anti-Iraqi forces” is the Orwellian term used by the American military command to describe any Iraqis who resist the US occupation of their country. ....

The operation is the largest since US troops laid a murderous siege to the predominantly Sunni city of Fallujah in November 2004, killing thousands, reducing most of its buildings to rubble and turning tens of thousands more into refugees. Baquba, about 30 miles northeast of Baghdad, is roughly the same size as Fallujah—both had pre-war populations of over 300,000. Whether it will be subjected to similar devastation remains to be seen. The siege of Baquba was joined with a series of other actions by US and allied forces in the southern suburbs of Baghdad as well as in the predominantly Shia south of the country. In the Arab Jubour area south of the capital, an offensive began with a nighttime raid by American B-1 bombers, which dropped “precision-guided bombs” in heavily populated areas.
Meanwhile, further south in Maysan province, US and British forces launched attacks on Shia militiamen, who fought back with machine guns and rocket-propelled grenades. The US-led forces called in air strikes, which left dozens dead.
From each of these fronts in the US-led counteroffensive against the Iraqi resistance there emerged reports of atrocities, civilian deaths and sweeping house-to-house raids together with the roundup of many Iraqis as “security detainees.” Television broadcasts from Baquba included footage of long lines of blindfolded Iraqi males being held at gunpoint or herded into vehicles for transfer to one of the large US prison camps in the country.
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2007/jun2007/iraq-j20.shtml

The Mahdi Army and the [puppet] government forces burned the mosque Khodeir al-Janabi in Baghdad
Association of Muslim Scholars in Iraq (AMSI) June 13, 2007
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=33663&s2=15
This afternoon the Mahdi Army militia burned the mosque Khodeir al-Janabi in al-Baiah neighborhood in Baghdad. Local sources stated that the Mahdi Army militiamen attacked the mosque in collaboration with the forces of the so-called "Save the System". Last week the Fattah Pasha Mosqueal-Baiah was bombed by these militias and by government forces backing them.

Sceptical After Second Shrine Attack
Inter Press Service
By Ali al-Fadhily*
"We now realise the plot more than we did before," Mustafa Hussain from the predominately Shia area of Sadr City in Baghdad told IPS, "I am not sure who is doing this and I do not have the habit of speculating, but now I, and most Iraqis, are sure it is just a conspiracy to divide Iraqis into Shiite and Sunnis. All this was planned and paid for by people outside our country and community."
"They are dreaming of evicting the people of Samarra in order to deepen the wound in the Iraqi flesh," 35-year-old Yassir al-Samarrai'i, a local television reporter from Samarra told IPS in Baghdad, "Their problem is that Iraqis are still reluctant to engage in full scale civil war despite all the dirty business the occupiers have conducted to ignite it by these shrine explosions."
"I am a Shiite, but I know for sure that Sunnis have the same respect we have for holy shrines and they would never do anything to humiliate their sacred status," 29-year-old Ruqaya Salih told IPS in Baghdad, "Americans must know that there are Iraqis who realise that they are planning to divide the community."

"They attacked ten mosques in Basra including the one that has the grave of Talha Bin Obaidillah, Mohammad's companion," Sheik Abdul-Wahab Hassan
in Baghdad told IPS, "Sunnis will not fall for such acts, knowing the fact that their Shiite brothers would not commit such crimes except those Shiite
who collaborate with the occupying forces and Iran."** Dahr Jamail's MidEast Dispatches ** http://dahrjamailiraq.com ** Website by http://jeffpflueger.com **

Destroying once again the Two Imams' Shrines' Minarets in Samarra
The Arab Baath Socialist Party
It is becoming clearer every passing day that the sectarian strife or Fitna is one of the most important pillar of the US, Iranian and Zionist's plan, theoretically and practically and today's attack against Samarra's Imams Ali Al Hadi's and Hassan al Askari's shrines, comes within this framework. Now, a year and four months have passed since the first destruction took place uncovering the US -Iranian involvement in that destruction for the shrine was heavily guarded by two military and security US and Iraqi puppets belts! Despite that the explosion took place in a well studied technical way and with no obstacles. This destruction bears the evident US - Iranian signature to fuel a sectarian war all over Iraq, and we know that those who undertook such action are Iran's agents and namely Jaber Soolagh, allowing Mahdi army to move to serve a US and Iranian plan to ethnically cleanse Baghdad and transform Iraq's Capital from a city for all Iraqis into a city for a specific sect only and for Persians imported from Iran, leading to the most horrible inter sectarian cleansing throughout all Iraq's history... http://www.uruknet.de/?p=33687

"Suicide Bombings" Cover Story For US Military Ops In Iraq
Joe Quinn Signs of the Times http://www.signs-of-the-times.org/articles/show/130203-%22Suicide+Bombin...
Al-sarafiya bridge which, until two days ago, spanned the Tigris in Baghdad, linking Shia and Sunni neighborhoods of the city.
"Suicide bombings" are a daily occurrence in Iraq, and are the major propaganda tool used by the US government and its mainstream media to convince the world that there is still some "freedom and Democracy" work to be done by US troops in Iraq. But what if they are a cover for something else?...
The Tigris river now serves as a de facto dividing line between the mostly Shiite east and the largely Sunni west of the city, with the bridges the only connection between them. It's called "counter insurgency strategy" - divide and conquer. [...]

LEGALIZED TERRORISM: WHITE SUPREMACIST GANG VIOLENCE SUITS & SERVES U.S.
GANGS OF IRAQ
Seamus McGraw, Aftermath News
http://www.uruknet.de/?s1=1&p=33590&s2=11
...Lax enlistment standards have inadvertently allowed thousands of gang members to join the military, including young men who belong to the Crips, Bloods, Latin Kings, and various white supremacist groups.... no gang has infiltrated the armed forces as deeply as the Gangster Disciples, a 100,000-member Chicago-based syndicate that has been linked to an assortment of crimes ranging from murder to mortgage fraud. "There’s no doubt about it—the Gangster Disciples are the biggest [gang] in the Army," says Chicago Police Lieutenant Robert Stasch, who has spent 30 years tracking the group’s rise from a handful of street-corner hoodlums to what he calls "the most sophisticated criminal enterprise in the United States." Founded three decades ago by Larry Hoover, the Gangster Disciples have worked to burnish their image, says Stasch. They have courted politicians and sought to enhance their legitimacy. At one point Hoover changed the group’s name to "Growth and Development" and tried to portray himself as the leader of a community organization. According to Stasch, "They even set up a political action committee…that would actually go to various cities and states, and even to the federal level, in an attempt to get gang-friendly legislation enacted." Now, with the unintended [SIC] help of the U.S. Army, the gang is extending its reach worldwide. According to a Chicago Sun-Times article last year, Gangster Disciple graffiti has been spotted all over Iraq. The gang’s initials and main symbol, the six-pointed star, have been tagged on concrete blast barriers, armored vehicles, and even remote firebase guard shacks. In an astonishing study of just three Army bases over the past four years, a Department of Defense detective identified more than 300 active gang members. Some experts estimate that up to 2 percent of the soldiers on active duty—perhaps as many as 20,000—have sworn allegiance to one gang or another.[...]

Uncle Sam's "Islamic Terrorists": "Black Ops" against Iran, Lebanon and Syria
By Prof. Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research
The Bush administration has admitted that covert actions of an aggressive nature were applied against Iran and Syria. The stated objective was to wreck
the countries' economies and currency systems. The infamous Iran-Syria Policy and Operations Group (ISOG) created in early 2006, integrated by officials from the White House, the State Department, the CIA and the Treasury Department, had a mandate to destabilize Syria and Iran, and bring about "Regime Change":
http://onlinejournal.com/artman/publish/article_2042.shtml

Wilsonian imperialism, then and now
http://leninology.blogspot.com/2007/06/pakistan-on-brink-american-capita...
... The US is lauding Pakistan's contribution to the 'war on terror', although the Pakistani military is apparently a bit wary of battling the Talibs.
Meanwhile, the New York Times wing of US capitalism wonders if Pakistan can 'mix well with democracy'.