The interested person desiring to witness first hand this magic, should keep his eye on troop movements in both the U.S. European Command (EUCOM) and the U.S. Central Command (CENTCOM) starting next spring. Under military gerrymandering, Syria does not fall under CENTCOM but under EUCOM. This will allow troop buildup in the European Command to go mostly unnoticed but will portent a definite go on Syria. Also watch for “paper transfers” of troops out of CENTCOM to EUCOM. This type of transfer will most likely involve troops along the Iraq-Syrian border and could wind up as the lead units into Syria.
Lewis proposed the reinstatement, with some amendments and on an interim basis, of a constitutional monarchy in which there would be an elected parliament and a king who would appoint a prime minister. Further, they wrote that the king would appoint the prime minister, who "should be a modern Shiite with a record of opposition to tyranny and oppression," a description that would seem to fit Iraqi National Congress leader Ahmed Chalabi. For King they floated the names of former Jordanian Crown Prince Hassan and Chalabi, although they gave no formal endorsement of either.
mred- here comes the King Bush plan. who's next? syrias next.
And among the great mass of "the people" itself, there is -- nothing. Silence. Inattention. Indifference. Acquiescence. State terrorism -- lawless seizure, filthy torture, official murder -- is simply accepted, a part of "normal life," as in Nazi Germany or Stalin's empire, where "decent people" with "nothing to hide" approved and applauded the work of the "organs" in "defending national security." This is the scandal, this is the nation's festering shame. This acquiescence to state terror will breed -- and attract -- a thousand evils for every one it supposedly prevents.
"Their justification for refusing me was that under American law ... [they] have the right to refuse a foreign journalist entry," she said.
It didn’t take much investigating, however, to note something funny about the voter purge once I got my hands on Katherine Harris’ computer files. One criminal, Thomas Cooper, was listed as convicted of a felony on “January 30, 2007.” The whole list was rotten with these whacky faux felony convictions—and loaded with the tag line “BLA”—black voter. "lynching by laptop” one called it. And now, King warns, America faces “Florida-tion of the nation”—the system that disenfranchised tens of thousands of black folk in Florida would now be imposed by a new federal law upon all 50 states.
The new law to “Help America Vote” will eat up $3.9 billion of the taxpayers’ money, partly to tempt states and counties to adopt computerized ‘touch-screen’ voting—an expensive electronic con game. Led by Professor David Dill of Stanford University, 300 of America’s top computer academics have signed their own petition warning of the dangers of electronic voting.
In 2002, Comal County, Texas, tried out new computer voting machines—and three Republican candidates each won their respective offices with exactly 18,181 votes. “Isn’t that the weirdest thing?” County Clerk Joy Streater asked at the time. “We noticed it right away, but it is just a big coincidence.”
Just down the road in Scurry County, Texas, two unexpected landslide wins for Republican candidates struck election clerks as just one coincidence too many. That county’s clerk, Joan Bunch, investigated and found that a faulty computer chip had caused the county’s optical scanner to record Democratic votes as Republican instead. After two manual recounts and one electronic recount using a replacement chip in the scanner, the Democratic candidates were found to have won by large margins and the original results were overturned.
The massive Harvard University Civil Rights Project study released last year found that it was 50 percent more likely for a black vote to be “spoiled” than a white vote. In Florida, the U.S. Civil Rights Commission found that a black vote was nearly 10 times as likely as a white vote to be rejected.
In my investigations in Florida for the BBC, I found that in 2000, paper ballots read by optical scanners in the county with the highest black population were 25 times as likely to be rejected as those cast in the neighboring majority white county, using the same paper ballots—but a different automated counting system.
Australia should prepare for car bomb attacks such as those that have rocked Istanbul, Baghdad and Jakarta during the past three months, al-Qa'ida has warned. Delivered in an email sent over the weekend to the Arab newspaper Al-Quds Al-Arabi, it also predicted renewed strikes against the US, Britain, Italy and Japan.
Israel has used its policy of targeted assassination to serially kill five Palestinians, each of which was described as 'the head of the military wing of Hamas in Hebron.'
"You will see the cars of death with your own eyes," the first statement said. A second statement warned Japan, which is weighing up a controversial debate whether to commit non-combat troops to Iraq, that "our strikes will reach the heart of Tokyo".
mred - im not sure about why japan has hit the headlines... reminds me of the norway (?) thing.
If Soros was merely a political opponent of Bush he would not be worth writing about beyond what was reported last week, but his concerns are deeper and more informed. He is concerned about the global financial system and its impact on global stability. This is a subject on which he speaks with authority. He became a billionaire from exploiting the deregulated global financial system.
Yesterday, US forces turned off a pipeline carrying oil from Iraq to Syria.
And Britain and Spain, which backed Mr Bush on Iraq, have both said they will not support a quick military move against Syria. “Syria has been and will be a friend of Spain,” Spanish Prime Minister Jose Maria Aznar said yesterday. “It will not be the target of any war actions.”
But Lynch is also a mite angry about the Pentagon's manipulation of events and can't seem to stop correcting the record.
"This White House believes they can spin their way out of anything and they assume reality will surrender to their spin," says Mark Crispin Miller, a media analyst at New York University.
"She's not a hero, but a `war celebrity.' The truth rarely has anything to do with celebrity."
Then, there are the veterans. Many of them are furious that, despite the now-known facts of her capture, Lynch still was awarded a Bronze Star for bravery, along with a Purple Heart for being injured and a PoW medal on her discharge from the army in August.
Sum total: 10 wanted Palestinians assassinated; 30 innocent Palestinian killed; 180 innocent Israelis killed in retaliation directly following the assassinations. As the Israeli Chief-of-Staff so often boasts, "the 'targeted prevention'(/assassination) policy is working perfectly."
Diebold Systems is actually seeking to make it illegal to even present evidence to the public about this computerized threat to democracy.
Many lobbyists for electronic voting companies are ex-election officials
Jones sought the GOP gubernatorial nomination but lost. He returned to private life in January and several months later began part-time consulting for Sequoia; he wouldn't say how much he is paid. He also serves on Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger's transition team.
Every point between Iraqi battlefields and American military hospitals and graveyards is under complete State media control. The President doesn’t do funerals.
Asking whether any one of the council could lead the country, perhaps as an interim president while a constitution is drawn up, was a risible idea. "Impossible, impossible, impossible," he said.
When asked by Sir David Frost if he ever believed such intelligence, President Bush replied: "I believed he was a dangerous man." When asked a second time, he said: "Well, I believed a lot of things."
During the interview, the President also sparked speculation about potential changes to his cabinet should he win a second term of office. When asked whether the same team - the Vice President, Dick Cheney, the Defence Secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, the Secretary of State, Colin Powell and the National Security Adviser, Condoleezza Rice - would serve in a second Bush administration, he replied: "It's been a fabulous team, and Cheney for certain.
These are good, honest, decent, hard-working, experienced people who give me good, unvarnished advice and when I make a decision say: 'Yes sir, Mr President, we'll go execute it'."
mred - im always astonished.
mar21, 03
MR. PERLE: It's difficult to add to what we are all seeing in the television coverage of the war. My impression is the same as I imagine most of you have: that this war is going well, that the resistance has been minimal. That doesn't surprise me. I think it doesn't surprise our planners. We've been saying now for a very long time that there are very few people who were prepared to fight for Saddam and even fewer who were prepared to die for Saddam. And there's a certain irony in, as far as I could tell watching the television news this morning, there are more demonstrators in San Francisco than there are people prepared to fight for Saddam in Iraq.
It's not just about ferreting out and destroying weapons of mass destruction, although that will happen in due course and we'll settle once and for all the debate about whether Saddam has these weapons or not.
mred - its odd that he is talking about 'settle the debate once and for all' back on mar21 ( i think this was the first day or so of invasion)
leeden: And my final caution, again, as I've said from the beginning, is that this is a battle in a longer war. Iraq is not the war. And the war is a regional war, and we cannot be successful in Iraq if we only do Iraq alone. And I think that the terror countries bordering Iraq, namely, Iran and Syria, know that. I think that Saddam's plan was to disappear into Syria, as Osama bin Laden disappeared into Iran at the end of--in the middle of the Afghan war. I think that the Iranians and the Syrians fully intend to do everything in their power to destabilize our efforts in Iraq once the war is over and once we're in stable positions on the ground. And there are two models for that. One is Lebanon in the 1980s and Afghanistan today.
MR. SIKORSKI: First of all, I'd like to pass to my fellow panelists wishes of victory from a country, Poland, that is fighting in this war along with American troops. May your military be more subtle and more effective than your diplomacy.
leeden: How it is that countries like France and Germany refuse even to speak of the legitimate desire for freedom on the part of the Iranian people is really quite beyond me and one of the most appalling parts of the disagreements that we've been having recently. They seem to have totally forgotten the lessons of their own recent history.
And so I certainly hope that Iraq is just one battle in a broader war. ... dealing with Iran and bringing down the regime in Iran is the central act because Iran is the world's most dangerous terrorist country. It's the mother of modern terrorism. It invented jihadism. It created Hezbollah and Islamic Jihad. I mean, Iran is the centerpiece of the war.
MR. DONNELLY: Very briefly, I'd like to address the presumption that France and Germany are going to be so incredibly relevant to the post-war world order. Look, if anything has been demonstrated over the last couple of weeks, it's that the French and German ability to actually practically do anything about it is very small.
MR. KRISTOL: France is a different story because France actually led a campaign to undermine the U.S. ability to wage what we thought was a war necessary for our security and for our interests. And that is unprecedented behavior by a nation that claims to be an ally.
perle: There wasn't much leadership to lay out the issues in this war for Germans, and so it's not surprising that German opinion wound up where it did.
I don't think we're vindictive. I really don't. And the issue isn't going to be American vindictiveness. The issue in terms of reconstruction, in particular the warmth of the welcome for French and German businesses wishing to participate in the reconstruction, will be decided by Iraqis. And you could forgive the Iraqis in this situation for being vindictive, free Iraqis. As they see it, France to the very end, even today, resisted the liberation of their country. So they're not likely to be grateful to France or well disposed toward France, and to a lesser degree, I don't think they will feel they owe a debt to Germany. So there may be some vindictiveness, but it will come not from Americans but from Iraqis.
The UN structure doesn't allow for action in the absence of aggression across national borders, and yet that's the threat we now face.
MR. LEDEEN: Well, that's the least of (?) vision. We're going to have to get France off the Security Council.
MR. LEDEEN: And then, last, I would just like to make a general point about a lot of the anti-war demonstrators who have reached really new lows in disgusting-ness with the kinds of things they're throwing around the streets of their own cities. And, that is, you know, I'm a lifelong contrarian and demonstrator, and I love a good demonstration, and even a good riot. But it's hard to take these people seriously because where were they and where are they when the Iraqi people are being slaughtered by their own regime, or when Iranians are being slaughtered by their own regime?
I mean, it would be fine--I have not the slightest problem with people demonstrating against American military action. That's a legitimate position. But they can't do it now in the name of peace and the well-being of these people when they didn't do it then when these people were being slaughtered. You can't have it both ways. That's a total definition of hypocrisy.
MR. PERLE: Well, I don't know that it's possible to get very deeply into this now. I have a personal preference, and it's for the Iraqi National Congress and its leader, Ahmed Chalabi, who has fought this battle all these years, has worked very hard to bring unity to differing groups in Iraq, in the belief that a free government of Iraq should be broadly representative of all the people of that country, should be democratic, should renounce weapons of mass destruction, and should support a peace process in the Middle East.
MR. DONNELLY: I'll resist the temptation to speechify except to say that Americans' notions of legitimacy have always been formed, from our founding, from the idea that the government's business was to protect, sustain, enhance individual political liberties, not control of geography, not even the form of democracy, but at the core of the matter was does the government protect the individual.
"R. DONNELLY: Michael, final word?
MR. LEDEEN: No. Richard, as usual, put my ideas better than I could.
MR. DONNELLY: He has that annoying habit of doing that for us all.
On behalf of AEI, thank you to the panel and to everybody who came today."
mred - infuckingdeed.
Wilson isn't waiting for George W. Bush to hand over the perp. In mid-October, the former ambassador began passing copies of an embarrassing internal report to reporters across the US. The-Edge has received copies of this document.
The 56-page investigation was assembled by USAF Colonel (Ret.) Sam Gardiner. "Truth from These Podia: Summary of a Study of Strategic Influence, Perception Management, Strategic Information Warfare and Strategic Psychological Operations in Gulf II" identifies more than 50 stories about the Iraq war that were faked by government propaganda artists in a covert campaign to "market" the military invasion of Iraq.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld announced plans to create an Office of Strategic Influence early in 2002. At the same time British Prime Minister Tony Blair's Strategy Director Alastair Campbell was setting up an identical operation in London.
White House critics were quick to recognize that "strategic influence" was a euphemism for disinformation. Rumsfeld had proposed establishing the country's first Ministry of Propaganda.
The criticism was so severe that the White House backed away from the plan. But on November 18, several months after the furor had died down, Rumsfeld arrogantly announced that he had not been deterred. "If you want to savage this thing, fine: I'll give you the corpse. There's the name. You can have the name, but I'm gonna keep doing every single thing that needs to be done -- and I have."
The coordination between the propaganda engines of Washington and London even involved the respective First Wives. On November 17, 2001, Laura Bush issued a shocking statement: "Only the terrorists and the Taliban threaten to pull out women's fingernails for wearing nail polish." Three days later, a horrified Cherie Blaire told the London media, "In Afghanistan, if you wear nail polish, you could have your nails torn out."
The "Rescue" of Jessica Lynch
The Pentagon's control over the news surrounding the capture and rescue of Pfc. Jessica Lynch receives a good deal of attention in Gardiner's report. "From the very beginning it was called an 'ambush'," Gardiner noted. But, he pointed out, "If you drive a convoy into enemy lines, turn around and drive back, it's not an ambush. Military officers who are very careful about how they talk about operations would normally not be sloppy about describing this kind of event," Gardiner complained. "This un-military kind of talk is one of the reasons I began doing this research."
One of the things that struck Gardiner as revealing was the fact that, as Newsweek reported: "as soon as Lynch was in the air, [the Joint Operations Center] phoned Jim Wilkinson, the top civilian communications aide to CENTCOM Gen. Tommy Franks."
It struck Gardiner as inexplicable that the first call after Lynch's rescue would go to the Director of Strategic Communications, the White House's top representative on the ground.
In our latest episode of continuing adventures with the USA Patriot Act, FBI agents say they have used the new anti-terrorism law to prosecute a political bribery case centered on the owner of some Las Vegas strip clubs.
What do topless dancers in Vegas have to do with terrorism, you may ask? Nothing, everyone agrees
this is karl.
The Texas GOP platform states the following:
“Congress should be urged to exercise its authority under Article III, Sections 1 and 2 of the United States Constitution, and should withhold appellate jurisdiction of the Supreme Court in such cases involving abortion, religious freedom, and all rights guaranteed under the Bill of Rights.”
However, if the Texas GOP is successful in removing the Supreme Court from the cycle of due process, then the inversion of a government “of the people, by the people, for the people” will have been fulfilled. It will then be a government “of the junta, by the junta, for the junta.”
It is enough that these freedoms are under attack by the right wing, but when there are three major players in powerful positions in American politics (Bush, DeLay, Rove) all backing the same ideology from the Texas GOP party platform, it is time to be mindful.
It is another battle between the will of the State and the rights of its citizens, and the Texas GOP is dancing on the edge of the definition of fascism by not allowing for the Judiciary to respond to legitimate appellate concerns. This idea is not the balance of powers — it is those powers unbalanced.
“We want no Supreme Court when it comes to abortion, religion, and the Bill of Rights,” they say, as they seek to topple the freedoms and safeguards which exist to protect the rights of American citizens. Their platform begs the question: If they are not for the rights of American citizens, what, exactly, are they for?
mred - in case there was any doubt. democracy. scamocracy.
Lord Carlile was appointed on 11 September 2001 - coincidentally - to review the functioning of the Government's Terrorism Act and, later, the Anti-Terrorism, Crime and Security Act.
Whites are 125 percent more likely to use marijuana than blacks; 181 percent more likely to use cocaine; 431 percent more likely to use inhalants; 516 percent more likely to use LSD.
And yet blacks account for 79 percent of all drug arrests.
JERUSALEM, Nov 12 (Reuters) - A secret Israeli memorandum says the country has failed to honour commitments under a U.S. peace plan to evacuate illegal settler outposts and has sought "in every way to whitewash their existence and build more".
vidal:
The Afghans had nothing to do with what happened to our country on September 11. But Saudi Arabia did. It seems like Osama is involved, but we don't really know. I mean, when we went into Afghanistan to take over the place and blow it up, our commanding general was asked how long it was going to take to find Osama bin Laden. And the commanding general looked rather surprised and said, well, that's not why we are here.
You know, the average American thinks we just give away billions in foreign aid, when we are the lowest in foreign aid among developed countries. And most of what we give goes to Israel and a little bit to Egypt.
I was in Guatemala when the CIA was preparing its attack on the Arbenz government [in 1954]. Arbenz, who was a democratically elected president, mildly socialist. His state had no revenues; its biggest income maker was United Fruit Company. So Arbenz put the tiniest of taxes on bananas, and Henry Cabot Lodge got up in the Senate and said the Communists have taken over Guatemala and we must act. He got to Eisenhower, who sent in the CIA, and they overthrew the government. We installed a military dictator, and there's been nothing but bloodshed ever since.
The second law of thermodynamics always rules: Everything is always running down. And so is our Bill of Rights.
No one has been elected president in the last 50 years unless he ran against the federal government. So, the government should get through its head that it is hated not only by foreigners whose countries we have wrecked, but also by Americans whose lives have been wrecked.
He will leave office the most unpopular president in history. The junta has done too much wreckage.
They were suspiciously very ready with the Patriot Act as soon as we were hit. Ready to lift habeas corpus, due process, the attorney-client privilege. They were ready. Which means they have already got their police state. Just take a plane anywhere today and you are in the hands of an arbitrary police state.
I mean, to watch Bush doing his little war dance in Congress . . . about "evildoers" and this "axis of evil" -- Iran, Iraq and North Korea. I thought, he doesn't even know what the word axis means. Somebody just gave it to him. And the press didn't even call him on it. This is about as mindless a statement as you could make. Then he comes up with about a dozen other countries that might have "evil people" in them, who might commit "terrorist acts."
Anybody who could get up and make that speech to the American people is not himself an idiot, but he's convinced we are idiots
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