Wednesday, January 14, 2004

IRAQ WAR: LIES, LIES, LIES

NY Times: Hussein Warned Iraqis to Beware Outside Fighters, Document Says

Saddam Hussein warned his Iraqi supporters to be wary of joining forces with foreign Arab fighters entering Iraq to battle American troops, according to a document found with the former Iraqi leader when he was captured, Bush administration officials said Tuesday.

The document appears to be a directive, written after he lost power, from Mr. Hussein to leaders of the Iraqi resistance, counseling caution against getting too close to Islamic jihadists and other foreign Arabs coming into occupied Iraq, according to American officials.

"Es gab keine Massenvernichtungswaffen, es gab keine Verbindung zu Al-Quida. Es gab niemals einen pausiblen Grund f?r einen pr?ventiven Angriffskrieg."
PR WATCH

Columbia Journalism Review: Answer the &$%#* Question!

Ever Wonder Why They Won?t? They?ve Been Media-Trained. And the Public Is the Loser

Columbia Journalism Review editor Trudy Lieberman, after examining transcripts from some 50 major news shows, concludes that "journalism has morphed into a cog in a great public relations
machine." Lieberman blames the prevalence of PR-driven media training: "At a time when the audience makes decisions based on perceptions rather than facts, the goal is to create positive perceptions of companies and their products, politicians and their policies." Recent interview excerpts illustrate how "trained" guests can easily gain control, especially when the "unwritten rules" discourage journalists from insisting on real answers
CRIME

Oberhesische Presse: Mit Helikopter Graffiti-Sprayern auf der Spur

...Der BGS ?bernehme bahnpolizeiliche Aufgaben und ?berwache regelm??ig die Gegend entlang der Bahnschienen in Marburg, sagte der Inspektionsleiter des BGS Gie?en, Udo Becker. ?Erg?nzend zu Streifenwagen setzen wir Hubschrauber ein?, sagte Becker. Ziel des Helikopter-Einsatzes ist laut Becker die ?Beobachtung von Sachbesch?digungen? im Zuge der Gefahrenabwehr. So haben die BGS-Mitarbeiter am Wochenende mit einem W?rmebildger?t unter anderem nach Sachbesch?digungen wie Graffiti-Zeichnungen und illegalen M?llablagerungen gesucht, erkl?rte Becker....
USA: VOTE FRAUD 2000

Weeklydig: Winning the Election - The Republican Way: Racism, Theft and Fraud in Florida

When future historians want to know what happened to America in 2000,
they'll read Greg Palast's The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. The book
follows the paper trail of perjury, deception and incompetence left by the
Bush family, and the billionaires who fund them, as they trample through
the world - from mining disaster cover-ups to the California energy scandal
to the pre-9/11 intelligence black-out that let a handful of Saudi
terrorists slip past the NSA, FBI and CIA.

Interview with Greg Palast....

"CHECK IT"
USA

Onlinejournal: Paranoid shift

"Perhaps the biggest hidden reason people don't make the paranoid shift is that knowledge brings responsibility. If we acknowledge that an inner circle of ruling elites controls the world's most powerful military and
intelligence system; controls the international banking system; controls the most effective and far-reaching propaganda network in history; controls all three branches of government in the world's only superpower; and
controls the technology that counts the people's votes, we might be then forced to conclude that we don't live in a particularly democratic system. And then voting and making contributions and trying to stay informed
wouldn't be enough. Because then the duty of citizenship would go beyond serving as a loyal opposition, to serving as a 'loyal resistance' - like the Republicans in the Spanish Civil War, except that in this case the
resistance to fascism would be on the side of the national ideals, rather than the government.

"CHECK IT"
BALKAN

Chroniclesmagazine: JIHADIST HOTBED IN THE BALKANS: THE TRUTH IS OUT

For years we have been warning that flawed pro-Muslim Western policies would turn the Balkans from a “protectorate of the New World Order into an Islamic threat to Western interests” (Chronicles, December 2001). This has already happened, according to a spate of media reports and statements by Western governments and top diplomats over the past few weeks.

“US to build Balkan anti-terrorism center in Bulgaria,” news agencies reported on January 6, to monitor and detect terrorist threats to the United States and Balkan countries. In addition to the CIA-staffed center, Bulgarian media reported that the FBI also plans to set up an office in Sofia working with the center. US intelligence experts are quoted as saying that al-Qaida has a training base in the Balkans and uses the region as a terror route to West.

During the war Bosnia become a training camp for Islamist activists from all over the world, the magazine quotes a French expert as saying, with up to 5,000 foreign volunteers fighting with Izetbegovic’s troops. Many remained behind, “too many to be safe,” according to George Friedman, director of Stratfor. The Balkans are “of strategic importance” to Al-Qa’ida, he says; the organization can use the region for its objectives at any time.

"Wer hat wohl die Islamisten während des Krieges nach Bosnien gebracht und Unterstützt? Genau, der Westen."
QUOTE OF THE DAY

John Kerry Responds to Secretary O’Neill’s Iraq Charges

“These are very serious charges by a former high ranking Administration official. We already knew the Administration failed to focus on the threat from Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda. We already knew the Administration broke every promise they made to work through the U.N., use the resolution to enforce inspections, build a coalition, and plan for peace. But Secretary O’Neill’s revelations would mean the Administration never intended to even try to keep those promises. It would mean they were dead-set on going to war alone since almost the day they took office and deliberately lied to the American people, Congress, and the world. It would mean that for purely ideological reasons they planned on putting American troops in a shooting gallery occupying an Arab country almost alone. The White House needs to answer these charges truthfully because they threaten to shatter their already damaged credibility as never before.”

USA: IRAQ WAR

NY Times OP/ED: The Faulty Weapons Estimates

There seems little doubt that the Bush administration's prime justification for invading Iraq — the fear that Saddam Hussein harbored weapons of mass destruction — was way off base. Nine months of fruitless searching have made that increasingly clear.

But last week three new reports cast further doubt on the administration's reckless rush to invade Iraq. Taken together, they paint a picture far different from the one presented to Americans early last year. They depict a world in which Saddam Hussein, though undeniably eager to make Iraq a threatening world power, was far from any serious steps to do that. The reports strengthen our conviction that whatever threat Iraq posed did not require an immediate invasion without international support. And they underline the importance of finding out how far the Bush administration's obsession with the Iraqi dictator warped the American intelligence reports that did so much to convince Congress and the public that the attack was justified.

"Die NY Times fordert nun eine unabhängige Untersuchung darüber, wie es zum Irak Krieg gekommen ist. Die NY Times hätte sich besser vor einem halben Jahr darüber Gedanken gemacht, als Sie fast täglich Regierungs-Propaganda auf Seite 1 abdruckte"
QUOTE OF THE DAY

Morpheus: "Do you want to know what it is? The matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or turn on your television set. You can feel it when you go to work, when you go to church, when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
That you are a slave, Neo, like everyone else, you were born into a prison that you cannot see, that you cannot smell, or taste or touch. A prison for your mind."

Monday, January 12, 2004

O'NEILL ON 60 MINUTES: VIDEO

CBS News: Bush Sought ‘Way’ To Invade Iraq?

"Click on the Video Link"

VIDEO

Information Clearinghouse: Breaking The Silence

A hard hitting special report into the "war on terror" Award winning journalist John Pilger

"Download it"
USA: 911

USA Politics Today: Why Is Bush And His National Security Team Acting So Guilty About 9/11?

Early in 2002, national security advisor Condoleezza Rice said "no one could have predicted that they would try to use a hijacked airplane as a missile…” to bring down the World Trade Towers.

Early in 2004 she is fighting hard not to have to repeat that claim under oath.

Because it was a lie.

In the immediate aftermath of the attack on New York and Washington most Americans were ready to believe that Osama Bin Laden hit us with a sucker punch that no one could have seen coming. The evidence is now overwhelming that the punch was telegraphed in advance and that gross incompetence let that punch land and do its terrible damage.

Just before Christmas, and under-reported by the press, was this startling statement by Thomas Kean, chairman of the independent commission investigating 9/11:

"This was not something that had to happen."

Mr. Kean is a Republican. He’s the former governor of New Jersey and now a university president. He was appointed commission chairman by President Bush. He’s hardly one to make wild and outrageous statements. His view that 9/11 could have been prevented clearly comes from information Mr. Kean has learned from looking at official classified documents.

And now Mr. Kean and other members of the investigating commission want Ms Rice and other responsible government officials to testify in public and under oath about what they knew about terrorist activity in the months prior to 9/11--and what they did with that information. The commission wants to know why those charged with U.S. security failed to keep us secure.

Ms Rice doesn’t want to go there. Neither for that matter does President Bush. They are resisting the request to testify. And they have made clear they don't want to do it under oath or in public.

The Bush White House fought mightily against creating the Kean commission in the first place. When public pressure forced Congress to go ahead despite their objections, the White House did everything possible to throw nails in the road. They insisted on a two-year time-table. Then they dragged their feet for months in appointing commission members. They even tried to slip pet lap dog Henry Kissinger in as chairman. When that failed, they put the commission on a starvation budget. Then they fought attempts by the commission to see critical documents. Now they don’t want to testify in public or under oath.

Do you get the impression the administration has something to hide?
AFGHANISTAN

ABC News: Thousands Of Recruits Desert Afghan Army

Almost one-third of Afghanistan's nascent national army has deserted after completing training by instructors from the United States, France and Britain.

The Afghan National Army currently boasts about 10,000 troops.

That number was already dwarfed by the 100,000 or so militia members loyal to warlords around the country.

The Afghan army has been charged with the responsibility of disarming, demobilising and reintegrating the militia men.

But after receiving about $65 a month during training, 3,000 Afghan army recruits have deserted.


ISRAEL

AP: 120,000 Protest Sharon Settlement 'Evacuation' Plan

TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) -- More than 100,000 settlers and their backers on Sunday protested the Israeli prime minister's plans to evacuate Jewish settlements as part of a peace agreement or a unilateral withdrawal from Palestinian areas.

The demonstrators filled a Tel Aviv square to listen to ministers from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's own Cabinet heap criticism on him. Some threatened to leave the ruling coalition of he carries out the plan.

Sharon has warned that in a peace deal, Israel would not be able to retain all of its settlements in the West Bank and Gaza. He has also said some settlements would be moved if peace efforts collapse and Israel moves unilaterally to draw its own boundary with Palestinian areas.
UK: 1984

Independent: UK City Residents Video Viewed
Up To 300 Times A Day


"Estimates suggest that residents of a city such as London can each expect to be captured on CCTV cameras up to 300 times a day, and much of the filming breaches existing data guidelines."

More than four million surveillance cameras monitor our every move, making Britain the most-watched nation in the world, research has revealed.

The number of closed circuit television (CCTV) cameras has quadrupled in the past three years, and there is now one for every 14 people in the UK. The increase is happening at twice the predicted rate, and it is believed that Britain accounts for one-fifth of all CCTV cameras worldwide. Estimates suggest that residents of a city such as London can each expect to be captured on CCTV cameras up to 300 times a day, and much of the filming breaches existing data guidelines.


IRAQ

Electronic Iraq: Hideous Evidence US Military
Tortures Iraqis With Electricity


January 2003 -- Sadiq Zoman Abrahim, 55 years old, was detained this past August in Kirkuk by US Soldiers during a home raid which produced no weapons. He was taken to the police office in Kirkuk, questioned by the Americans there, then transferred to Kirkuk Airport Detention Center.

It was from this detention center he was transferred to Tikrit Airport Detention Center. While in this detention center Mr. Abrahim managed to find a man who was about to be released, and have him pass on to his family information about where he was.

It was from this place that the Americans transferred him, comatose, to the hospital in Tikrit.

"CHECK IT"
PIC OF THE DAY

SAINT BUSH: The Mandate Of Heaven? Press Often Halo's Bush In Photos





USA: IRAQ WAR

Rense: Revealed - Bush Planned To Invade Iraq 9 Mos Before 911

FORMER TREASURY SECRETARY PAUL ONEILL SAYS INVASION OF IRAQ WAS PLANNED IN THE FIRST DAYS OF THE BUSH ADMINISTRATION LONG BEFORE 9/11, IN AN EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW SUNDAY ON "60 MINUTES"


The Bush Administration began laying plans for an invasion of Iraq including the use of American troops within days of President Bush's inauguration in January of 2001, not eight months later after the 9/11 attacks as has been previously reported. That is what former Treasury Secretary Paul O'Neill says in his first interview about his time as a White House insider. O'Neill talks to Lesley Stahl in the interview, to be broadcast on 60 MINUTES Sunday, Jan. 11 (7:00-8:00 PM, ET/PT) on the CBS Television Network.

CBS News: Bush Sought ?Way? To Invade Iraq?

(CBS) A year ago, Paul O'Neill was fired from his job as George Bush's Treasury Secretary for disagreeing too many times with the president's policy on tax cuts.

Now, O'Neill - who is known for speaking his mind - talks for the first time about his two years inside the Bush administration. His story is the centerpiece of a new book being published this week about the way the Bush White House is run.

Entitled "The Price of Loyalty," the book by a former Wall Street Journal reporter draws on interviews with high-level officials who gave the author their personal accounts of meetings with the president, their notes and documents.

"surprise, surprise"