IRAQI RESISTANCE
AP: Six US Soldiers Killed In Iraq Road Bombings
BAGHDAD, Iraq -- The United Nations agreed Tuesday to send a team to Iraq to help break the impasse over electing a new government, as the deaths of six more American soldiers in roadside bombings underscored concerns about security in the volatile nation.
A bomb that exploded south of Baghdad killed three U.S. soldiers and wounded three others Tuesday night, hours after another bombing west of the capital killed three U.S. paratroopers and wounded one, the military said. In addition, two employees of Cable News Network died in a shooting south of Baghdad.
Wednesday, January 28, 2004
USA
Guardian: The US is now in the hands of a group of extremists by George Soros
Fundamentalism has spawned an ideology of American supremacy
The invasion of Iraq was the first practical application of the pernicious Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military action, and it elicited an allergic reaction worldwide - not because anyone had a good word to say about Saddam Hussein, but because we insisted on invading Iraq unilaterally without any clear evidence that he had anything to do with September 11 or that he possessed weapons of mass destruction.
The gap in perceptions between America and the rest of the world has never been wider. Abroad, America is seen as abusing the dominant position it occupies; opinion at home has been led to believe that Saddam posed a clear and present danger to national security. Only in the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion are people becoming aware they have been misled
Guardian: The US is now in the hands of a group of extremists by George Soros
Fundamentalism has spawned an ideology of American supremacy
The invasion of Iraq was the first practical application of the pernicious Bush doctrine of pre-emptive military action, and it elicited an allergic reaction worldwide - not because anyone had a good word to say about Saddam Hussein, but because we insisted on invading Iraq unilaterally without any clear evidence that he had anything to do with September 11 or that he possessed weapons of mass destruction.
The gap in perceptions between America and the rest of the world has never been wider. Abroad, America is seen as abusing the dominant position it occupies; opinion at home has been led to believe that Saddam posed a clear and present danger to national security. Only in the aftermath of the Iraqi invasion are people becoming aware they have been misled
USA
San Francisco Gate: Are Parallels To Nazi Germany Crazy?
The customers always write. I get about 400 e-mails in response to my columns every week, which might explain why I didn't answer yours. Here, slightly edited, is one of the more interesting ones from last week. It's from Herr Moellers in Germany:
"Dear Mr. Sorensen,
"I have many American friends and used to go on business travel to the U.S. a lot (I stopped doing that after even our European governments have given in to Uncle Sam's appetite for information about individuals traveling to God's Own Country), and I am shocked by the deterioration of democracy in a country that I used to love. This administration is a shame and the destabilization they have brought to the world is scaring the s** out of me.
"My father was a Nazi soldier and he realized during the war what he and most of his generation was led into. I have learned from him that a nation can be guilty and that we must stop the arrogance of the powers at the very beginning. To me, America is becoming truly scary and the parallels to the development in Germany of the thirties (although the reason behind it are totally different) are sickening.
"Thank you for writing about this development. The world is waiting for signs of opposition in the Unilateral States of America!"
Herr Moellers' e-mail is typical of a half dozen or so I've received over the past year from people with intimate knowledge of Nazi Germany.
I respect experience, so I'm inclined to believe what these people are telling me. Perhaps their memories help explain the attitude of Germans toward the Bush administration these days.
They've been there, they've done that. They know what a corrupt government smells like.
But are they "over the top"? Are they overreacting to a normal swing of the pendulum in American politics?
To make a comparison between Germany in the 1930s and America now, I relied on a Web site called "A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust." The passages in quotations below are taken from the site.
"With Adolf Hitler's ascendancy to the chancellorship, the Nazi Party quickly consolidated its power. Hitler managed to maintain a posture of legality throughout the Nazification process."
Whether by chance or design, George W. Bush is the most powerful American president in modern history. Not only does he have both houses of Congress beholden to him, but the majority of the Supreme Court is acting like a quintet of Bush lapdogs. And it all appears legal.
"Domestically, during the next six years, Hitler completely transformed Germany into a police state."
Civil libertarians insist that this is happening here now, with the USA Patriot Act in force and Patriot II on the table.
"Hitler engaged in a 'diplomatic revolution' by negotiating with other European countries and publicly expressing his strong desire for peace."
Nobody can accuse Bush of being overly diplomatic, but, like all political leaders, he is an apostle for peace, even while starting two wars during his brief tenure.
In 1933, the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building, was burned to the ground. Nobody knows for sure who set the fire. The Nazis blamed communists. "This incident prompted Hitler[,then Germany's chancellor,] to convince [German President Paul von] Hindenburg to issue a Decree for the Protection of People and State that granted Nazis sweeping power to deal with the so-called emergency."
The Reichstag fire parallels the Sept. 11 attacks here, and Hindenburg's decree parallels our USA Patriot Act.
Soon after Hitler took power, the concentration camp at Dachau was created and "the Nazis began arresting Communists, Socialists and labor leaders ... . Parliamentary democracy ended with the Reichstag passage of the Enabling Act, which allowed the government to issue laws without the Reichstag."
"CHECK IT"
San Francisco Gate: Are Parallels To Nazi Germany Crazy?
The customers always write. I get about 400 e-mails in response to my columns every week, which might explain why I didn't answer yours. Here, slightly edited, is one of the more interesting ones from last week. It's from Herr Moellers in Germany:
"Dear Mr. Sorensen,
"I have many American friends and used to go on business travel to the U.S. a lot (I stopped doing that after even our European governments have given in to Uncle Sam's appetite for information about individuals traveling to God's Own Country), and I am shocked by the deterioration of democracy in a country that I used to love. This administration is a shame and the destabilization they have brought to the world is scaring the s** out of me.
"My father was a Nazi soldier and he realized during the war what he and most of his generation was led into. I have learned from him that a nation can be guilty and that we must stop the arrogance of the powers at the very beginning. To me, America is becoming truly scary and the parallels to the development in Germany of the thirties (although the reason behind it are totally different) are sickening.
"Thank you for writing about this development. The world is waiting for signs of opposition in the Unilateral States of America!"
Herr Moellers' e-mail is typical of a half dozen or so I've received over the past year from people with intimate knowledge of Nazi Germany.
I respect experience, so I'm inclined to believe what these people are telling me. Perhaps their memories help explain the attitude of Germans toward the Bush administration these days.
They've been there, they've done that. They know what a corrupt government smells like.
But are they "over the top"? Are they overreacting to a normal swing of the pendulum in American politics?
To make a comparison between Germany in the 1930s and America now, I relied on a Web site called "A Teacher's Guide to the Holocaust." The passages in quotations below are taken from the site.
"With Adolf Hitler's ascendancy to the chancellorship, the Nazi Party quickly consolidated its power. Hitler managed to maintain a posture of legality throughout the Nazification process."
Whether by chance or design, George W. Bush is the most powerful American president in modern history. Not only does he have both houses of Congress beholden to him, but the majority of the Supreme Court is acting like a quintet of Bush lapdogs. And it all appears legal.
"Domestically, during the next six years, Hitler completely transformed Germany into a police state."
Civil libertarians insist that this is happening here now, with the USA Patriot Act in force and Patriot II on the table.
"Hitler engaged in a 'diplomatic revolution' by negotiating with other European countries and publicly expressing his strong desire for peace."
Nobody can accuse Bush of being overly diplomatic, but, like all political leaders, he is an apostle for peace, even while starting two wars during his brief tenure.
In 1933, the Reichstag, Germany's parliament building, was burned to the ground. Nobody knows for sure who set the fire. The Nazis blamed communists. "This incident prompted Hitler[,then Germany's chancellor,] to convince [German President Paul von] Hindenburg to issue a Decree for the Protection of People and State that granted Nazis sweeping power to deal with the so-called emergency."
The Reichstag fire parallels the Sept. 11 attacks here, and Hindenburg's decree parallels our USA Patriot Act.
Soon after Hitler took power, the concentration camp at Dachau was created and "the Nazis began arresting Communists, Socialists and labor leaders ... . Parliamentary democracy ended with the Reichstag passage of the Enabling Act, which allowed the government to issue laws without the Reichstag."
"CHECK IT"
IRAQI RESISTANCE
Guardian: Insurgents Attack Polish Forces in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents attacked the headquarters of Polish
forces in a southern city, triggering a gunbattle that killed one Iraqi
policeman. In Baghdad, guerrillas fired a rocket into the U.S. compound but caused
on casualties. As attacks continued, Iraq's interim interior minister
blamed Osama bin Laden's terror network al-Qaida for many of the suicide car
bombings in the country in recent weeks.
"Es gibt nach wie vor keinen einzigen ausländischen Kämpfer den die Amerikaner vorzeigen könnten um ihre behauptungen von Al-Quida Terroristen im Irak zu untermauern."
Guardian: Insurgents Attack Polish Forces in Iraq
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents attacked the headquarters of Polish
forces in a southern city, triggering a gunbattle that killed one Iraqi
policeman. In Baghdad, guerrillas fired a rocket into the U.S. compound but caused
on casualties. As attacks continued, Iraq's interim interior minister
blamed Osama bin Laden's terror network al-Qaida for many of the suicide car
bombings in the country in recent weeks.
"Es gibt nach wie vor keinen einzigen ausländischen Kämpfer den die Amerikaner vorzeigen könnten um ihre behauptungen von Al-Quida Terroristen im Irak zu untermauern."
IRAQI RESISTANCE
Asia Times: Targeting weak points: Iraq's oil pipelines
As with all models of asymmetrical warfare, a central element in the strategy of the Iraqi insurgency has been to attack weak point targets of least resistance, mainly through rudimentary attacks on supply lines, transports, or convoys and sabotage of the most vulnerable points of the Iraqi infrastructure. Seeking to enhance the disruptive effects of their attacks, the insurgents have also implemented specific attacks on the networks of oil pipelines.
Tactically, these attacks seek to disrupt the overall reconstruction effort and, with the Iraqi oil sector playing such a significant role both in terms of post-conflict economics and regional geopolitics, also serve as a major psychological blow to the stabilization effort
Asia Times: Targeting weak points: Iraq's oil pipelines
As with all models of asymmetrical warfare, a central element in the strategy of the Iraqi insurgency has been to attack weak point targets of least resistance, mainly through rudimentary attacks on supply lines, transports, or convoys and sabotage of the most vulnerable points of the Iraqi infrastructure. Seeking to enhance the disruptive effects of their attacks, the insurgents have also implemented specific attacks on the networks of oil pipelines.
Tactically, these attacks seek to disrupt the overall reconstruction effort and, with the Iraqi oil sector playing such a significant role both in terms of post-conflict economics and regional geopolitics, also serve as a major psychological blow to the stabilization effort
IRAQ
Islamonline: U.S.-Occupied Iraq Ready To Cooperate With Israel
BAGHDAD, January 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A minister appointed by the U.S.-handpicked Iraqi Interim Governing Council (IGC) said Sunday, January 25, his "country" was ready to sell electricity to Israel.
Interim Electricity Minister Aiham al-Samarrai was quoted by the Qatari news agency as telling reporters "it was necessary to change the old mindset that banned dealing with them (Israel). It is a democratic world." "Der kleine Zyniker hat nur vergessen, dass er nicht vom Irakischen Volk, sondern von den Amerikanern gewählt wurde...wie demokratisch"
Islamonline: U.S.-Occupied Iraq Ready To Cooperate With Israel
BAGHDAD, January 25 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – A minister appointed by the U.S.-handpicked Iraqi Interim Governing Council (IGC) said Sunday, January 25, his "country" was ready to sell electricity to Israel.
Interim Electricity Minister Aiham al-Samarrai was quoted by the Qatari news agency as telling reporters "it was necessary to change the old mindset that banned dealing with them (Israel). It is a democratic world." "Der kleine Zyniker hat nur vergessen, dass er nicht vom Irakischen Volk, sondern von den Amerikanern gewählt wurde...wie demokratisch"
IRAQI RESISTANCE
Santa Fe News: Seven Iraqi Police Killed In Attacks; Search Continues For Americans Missing In Mosul
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents fired a rocket at the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition after gunmen killed seven Iraqi policemen in a pair of attacks west of Baghdad. A senior Iraqi official blamed al-Qaida for many of the suicide bombings around the country in recent weeks.
In the north, military divers searched Monday the muddy waters of the Tigris River for three missing U.S. soldiers, including two pilots of an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter that crashed Sunday in Mosul during rescue operations after a patrol boat capsized.
It was the fifth U.S. helicopter lost in Iraq this month, three of which were downed by hostile fire.
Santa Fe News: Seven Iraqi Police Killed In Attacks; Search Continues For Americans Missing In Mosul
BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) - Insurgents fired a rocket at the headquarters of the U.S.-led coalition after gunmen killed seven Iraqi policemen in a pair of attacks west of Baghdad. A senior Iraqi official blamed al-Qaida for many of the suicide bombings around the country in recent weeks.
In the north, military divers searched Monday the muddy waters of the Tigris River for three missing U.S. soldiers, including two pilots of an OH-58D Kiowa Warrior helicopter that crashed Sunday in Mosul during rescue operations after a patrol boat capsized.
It was the fifth U.S. helicopter lost in Iraq this month, three of which were downed by hostile fire.
IRAQI WMD
SMH: Nearly all WMD claims wrong: Kay
The Central Intelligence Agency's outgoing chief weapons inspector, David Kay, has concluded that the US was almost certainly wrong in its pre-war belief that Iraq had any significant stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
Dr Kay, who headed the US search for WMDs after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime until he resigned on Friday, based his views on his team's interviews with Iraqi scientists, reviews of documents and examinations of facilities and other materials.
"I'm personally convinced that there were not large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction," he said on Saturday. "We don't find the people, the documents or the physical plants that you would expect to find if the production was going on. I think they gradually reduced stockpiles throughout the 1990s."
SMH: Nearly all WMD claims wrong: Kay
The Central Intelligence Agency's outgoing chief weapons inspector, David Kay, has concluded that the US was almost certainly wrong in its pre-war belief that Iraq had any significant stockpiles of weapons of mass destruction.
Dr Kay, who headed the US search for WMDs after the fall of Saddam Hussein's regime until he resigned on Friday, based his views on his team's interviews with Iraqi scientists, reviews of documents and examinations of facilities and other materials.
"I'm personally convinced that there were not large stockpiles of newly produced weapons of mass destruction," he said on Saturday. "We don't find the people, the documents or the physical plants that you would expect to find if the production was going on. I think they gradually reduced stockpiles throughout the 1990s."
Tuesday, January 27, 2004
IRAQ WAR
Independent: No humanitarian case for Iraq war, says rights group
The United States and Britain had no justification for invading Iraq either on the grounds of alleged threats from illicit weapons and terrorism, or as a humanitarian mission, an international civil rights group said yesterday.
The failure to find Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction has left President George Bush and Tony Blair claiming that the invasion was on humanitarian grounds, said a hard-hitting annual report of Human Rights Watch. It said that the West had done nothing when Saddam massacred Kurds and Shias in the past, and there was no evidence of any continuing mass killings at the start of the war in March 2003.
The report claimed that the US and British occupation forces had "sidelined human rights... as a matter of secondary importance. The rule of law has not arrived and Iraq is still beset by the legacy of human rights abuses of the former government, as well as new ones that have emerged under the occupation." The reasons given for war by Mr Bush and Mr Blair - WMD and Saddam's alleged links with international terrorism - hadnot been proved, said Kenneth Roth, executive director of the organisation
Independent: No humanitarian case for Iraq war, says rights group
The United States and Britain had no justification for invading Iraq either on the grounds of alleged threats from illicit weapons and terrorism, or as a humanitarian mission, an international civil rights group said yesterday.
The failure to find Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction has left President George Bush and Tony Blair claiming that the invasion was on humanitarian grounds, said a hard-hitting annual report of Human Rights Watch. It said that the West had done nothing when Saddam massacred Kurds and Shias in the past, and there was no evidence of any continuing mass killings at the start of the war in March 2003.
The report claimed that the US and British occupation forces had "sidelined human rights... as a matter of secondary importance. The rule of law has not arrived and Iraq is still beset by the legacy of human rights abuses of the former government, as well as new ones that have emerged under the occupation." The reasons given for war by Mr Bush and Mr Blair - WMD and Saddam's alleged links with international terrorism - hadnot been proved, said Kenneth Roth, executive director of the organisation
UK
News of the World: Cash-Strapped Student
Auctions Virginity For Tuition
A student is so hard up she has decided to make the ultimate sacrifice ...she is selling her virginity to the highest bidder on the internet.
So far more than 400 men, many of them sickos, have placed bids offering 18-year-old Rosie Reid up to £10,000 for sex.
The drastic action has left Rosie's parents sickened. Her doctor dad has told her she "is selling her soul". Her nurse mum is outraged.
And Rosie is even willing to sleep with a man despite it being abhorrent to her"she is a LESBIAN.
But she would rather prostitute herself than see her studies suffer
News of the World: Cash-Strapped Student
Auctions Virginity For Tuition
A student is so hard up she has decided to make the ultimate sacrifice ...she is selling her virginity to the highest bidder on the internet.
So far more than 400 men, many of them sickos, have placed bids offering 18-year-old Rosie Reid up to £10,000 for sex.
The drastic action has left Rosie's parents sickened. Her doctor dad has told her she "is selling her soul". Her nurse mum is outraged.
And Rosie is even willing to sleep with a man despite it being abhorrent to her"she is a LESBIAN.
But she would rather prostitute herself than see her studies suffer
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES:
Palestine Chronicle: Israel's 'Wall' and Why It's Not a 'Fence'
Israelis claim that since most of the length of the 'Wall' is made up of barbed wide, it should be called a 'fence' .."
By RAY HANANIA
The Palestine Chronicle
The Palestinians call it the Wall. Israelis cleverly give it a softer spin as "the fence." Palestinians say it's intended to destroy Palestine. The Israelis hide their reasons for building it behind the broad claim that it will somehow prevent "terrorism."
This week, I had a chance to understand the "Wall" close-up, described in detailed photographs and personal testimonies from three Palestinians who spoke at the Palestinian American Congress conference in Chicago.
And what I learned about the Wall shocked even me.
Mohammed Alatar, a member of Palestinians for Peace and Democracy in Dallas, Texas, presented a lengthy Power-Point display on the true insidious nature of the Wall. (By the way. Alatar's poignant power point presentation is on my web page at www.hanania.com and you can download your own copy and see it for yourself.)
Let me address the issue of the word "fence" head on. Israelis claim that since most of the length of the "Wall" is made up of barbed wide, electrical wire and a fence, it should be called a "fence." But my response is simple. So what? Many of the concentration camps erected by the Nazis during World War II were bordered not by walls, but by fences, too. Does it make it any more innocent?
Palestine Chronicle: Israel's 'Wall' and Why It's Not a 'Fence'
Israelis claim that since most of the length of the 'Wall' is made up of barbed wide, it should be called a 'fence' .."
By RAY HANANIA
The Palestine Chronicle
The Palestinians call it the Wall. Israelis cleverly give it a softer spin as "the fence." Palestinians say it's intended to destroy Palestine. The Israelis hide their reasons for building it behind the broad claim that it will somehow prevent "terrorism."
This week, I had a chance to understand the "Wall" close-up, described in detailed photographs and personal testimonies from three Palestinians who spoke at the Palestinian American Congress conference in Chicago.
And what I learned about the Wall shocked even me.
Mohammed Alatar, a member of Palestinians for Peace and Democracy in Dallas, Texas, presented a lengthy Power-Point display on the true insidious nature of the Wall. (By the way. Alatar's poignant power point presentation is on my web page at www.hanania.com and you can download your own copy and see it for yourself.)
Let me address the issue of the word "fence" head on. Israelis claim that since most of the length of the "Wall" is made up of barbed wide, electrical wire and a fence, it should be called a "fence." But my response is simple. So what? Many of the concentration camps erected by the Nazis during World War II were bordered not by walls, but by fences, too. Does it make it any more innocent?
USA
Alternet: America's Empire of Bases
As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize – or do not want to recognize – that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire – an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class. Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can't begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order.
It's not easy to assess the size or exact value of our empire of bases. Official records on these subjects are misleading, although instructive. According to the Defense Department's annual "Base Structure Report" for fiscal year 2003, which itemizes foreign and domestic U.S. military real estate, the Pentagon currently owns or rents 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries and has another 6,000 bases in the United States and its territories.
Alternet: America's Empire of Bases
As distinct from other peoples, most Americans do not recognize – or do not want to recognize – that the United States dominates the world through its military power. Due to government secrecy, our citizens are often ignorant of the fact that our garrisons encircle the planet. This vast network of American bases on every continent except Antarctica actually constitutes a new form of empire – an empire of bases with its own geography not likely to be taught in any high school geography class. Without grasping the dimensions of this globe-girdling Baseworld, one can't begin to understand the size and nature of our imperial aspirations or the degree to which a new kind of militarism is undermining our constitutional order.
It's not easy to assess the size or exact value of our empire of bases. Official records on these subjects are misleading, although instructive. According to the Defense Department's annual "Base Structure Report" for fiscal year 2003, which itemizes foreign and domestic U.S. military real estate, the Pentagon currently owns or rents 702 overseas bases in about 130 countries and has another 6,000 bases in the United States and its territories.
IRAQ
Seattle Times: Iraq may be on path to civil war, CIA officials warn
WASHINGTON — CIA officers in Iraq are warning that the country may be on a path to civil war, current and former U.S. officials said yesterday, starkly contradicting the upbeat assessment President Bush gave in his State of the Union address.
The CIA officers' bleak assessment was delivered orally to Washington this week, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified information involved.
The warning echoed growing fears that Iraq's Shiite majority, which until now has accepted the U.S. occupation grudgingly, could turn to violence if its demands for direct elections are spurned.
Meanwhile, Iraq's Kurdish minority is pressing for autonomy and shares of oil revenue.
"Both the Shiites and the Kurds think that now's their time," one intelligence officer said. "They think that if they don't get what they want now, they'll probably never get it. Both of them feel they've been betrayed by the United States before."
Seattle Times: Iraq may be on path to civil war, CIA officials warn
WASHINGTON — CIA officers in Iraq are warning that the country may be on a path to civil war, current and former U.S. officials said yesterday, starkly contradicting the upbeat assessment President Bush gave in his State of the Union address.
The CIA officers' bleak assessment was delivered orally to Washington this week, said the officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the classified information involved.
The warning echoed growing fears that Iraq's Shiite majority, which until now has accepted the U.S. occupation grudgingly, could turn to violence if its demands for direct elections are spurned.
Meanwhile, Iraq's Kurdish minority is pressing for autonomy and shares of oil revenue.
"Both the Shiites and the Kurds think that now's their time," one intelligence officer said. "They think that if they don't get what they want now, they'll probably never get it. Both of them feel they've been betrayed by the United States before."
WAR ON TERROR
CNS News: US War on Terror May Spread to Syria, Report Says
new report indicates that Syria may be the next target in the U.S. war on terror.
In a report released Friday by the London-based Jane's Intelligence Digest, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was quoted as saying that the U.S. is considering "multi-faceted attacks," which could be conducted against Hezbollah positions in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, controlled by Syria.
According to the report, the U.S. move would "almost certainly involve a confrontation" between American Special Forces and Syrian troops.
The report highlights potential military action against Somalia as well as Syria. According to the Jane's report, "Covert U.S. forces have periodically infiltrated Somalia over the past two years to conduct surveillance and even potentially snatch suspects wanted for the November 2002 suicide bomb attacks in Mombassa, Kenya."
CNS News: US War on Terror May Spread to Syria, Report Says
new report indicates that Syria may be the next target in the U.S. war on terror.
In a report released Friday by the London-based Jane's Intelligence Digest, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld was quoted as saying that the U.S. is considering "multi-faceted attacks," which could be conducted against Hezbollah positions in Lebanon's Bekaa Valley, controlled by Syria.
According to the report, the U.S. move would "almost certainly involve a confrontation" between American Special Forces and Syrian troops.
The report highlights potential military action against Somalia as well as Syria. According to the Jane's report, "Covert U.S. forces have periodically infiltrated Somalia over the past two years to conduct surveillance and even potentially snatch suspects wanted for the November 2002 suicide bomb attacks in Mombassa, Kenya."
IRAQ WAR
Globe and mail: 'It's just wrong what we're doing'
In an exclusive interview, repentant Vietnam War architect Robert McNamara breaks his silence on Iraq: The United States, he says, is making the same mistakes all over again
'Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why."
With those words, written nine years ago, Robert McNamara began an extraordinary final phase of his career -- devoted to chronicling the errors, delusions and false assumptions that turned him into the chief architect and most prominent promoter of the Vietnam war.
No historic figure has put so much effort into self-examination: At the age of 87, he has now written three very detailed and analytical books, and starred in one very good movie, devoted to the fundamental mistakes that led the United States into the most politically costly and least successful war in its history.
What, then, does he think about Iraq? Until now, the former secretary of defence has avoided comment on the actions of that job's current occupant, Donald Rumsfeld. The two are often compared to each other in their autocratic leadership styles and in their technocratic, numbers-driven approaches to war. And their wars, of course, are often likened. But Robert McNamara has insisted in staying out of the fray.
He decided to break his silence on Iraq when I called him up the other day at his Washington office. I told him that his carefully enumerated lists of historic lessons from Vietnam were in danger of being ignored. He agreed, and told me that he was deeply frustrated to see history repeating itself.
Globe and mail: 'It's just wrong what we're doing'
In an exclusive interview, repentant Vietnam War architect Robert McNamara breaks his silence on Iraq: The United States, he says, is making the same mistakes all over again
'Yet we were wrong, terribly wrong. We owe it to future generations to explain why."
With those words, written nine years ago, Robert McNamara began an extraordinary final phase of his career -- devoted to chronicling the errors, delusions and false assumptions that turned him into the chief architect and most prominent promoter of the Vietnam war.
No historic figure has put so much effort into self-examination: At the age of 87, he has now written three very detailed and analytical books, and starred in one very good movie, devoted to the fundamental mistakes that led the United States into the most politically costly and least successful war in its history.
What, then, does he think about Iraq? Until now, the former secretary of defence has avoided comment on the actions of that job's current occupant, Donald Rumsfeld. The two are often compared to each other in their autocratic leadership styles and in their technocratic, numbers-driven approaches to war. And their wars, of course, are often likened. But Robert McNamara has insisted in staying out of the fray.
He decided to break his silence on Iraq when I called him up the other day at his Washington office. I told him that his carefully enumerated lists of historic lessons from Vietnam were in danger of being ignored. He agreed, and told me that he was deeply frustrated to see history repeating itself.
Monday, January 26, 2004
IRAQ: "DEMOCRACY"
Guardian: Of course the White House fears free elections in Iraq by Naomi Klein
"The people of Iraq are free," declared President Bush in his state of
the union address on Tuesday. The previous day, 100,000 Iraqis begged to
differ. They took to Baghdad's streets, shouting: "Yes, yes to
elections. No, no to selection."
According to Iraq occupation chief Paul Bremer, there really is no
difference between the White House's version of freedom and the one
being demanded on the street. Asked whether his plan to form an Iraqi
government through appointed caucuses was heading towards a clash with Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani's call for direct elections, Bremer said he had no
"fundamental disagreement with him".
It was, he said, a mere quibble over details. "I don't want to go into
the technical details of refinements. There are - if you talk to experts in
these matters - all kinds of ways to organise partial elections and
caucuses. And I'm not an election expert, so I don't want to go into
the details. But we've always said we're willing to consider refinements."
I'm not an election expert either, but I'm pretty sure there are
differences here that cannot be refined. Al-Sistani's supporters want
all Iraqis to have a vote and the people they elect to write the laws of
the country - your basic, imperfect, representative democracy.
Bremer wants his Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to appoint the
members of 18 regional organising committees. These will then choose
delegates to form 18 selection caucuses. These will then select
representatives to a transitional national assembly. The assembly will
have an internal vote to select an executive and ministers, who will form
the new government. This, Bush said in the state of the union address,
constitutes "a transition to full Iraqi sovereignty".
Got that? Iraqi sovereignty will be established by appointees
appointing appointees to select appointees to select appointees. Add the fact that
Bremer was appointed to his post by President Bush and Bush to his by
the US Supreme Court, and you have the glorious new democratic tradition of
the appointocracy: rule by an appointee's appointee's appointees'
appointees' appointees' selectees.
Guardian: Of course the White House fears free elections in Iraq by Naomi Klein
"The people of Iraq are free," declared President Bush in his state of
the union address on Tuesday. The previous day, 100,000 Iraqis begged to
differ. They took to Baghdad's streets, shouting: "Yes, yes to
elections. No, no to selection."
According to Iraq occupation chief Paul Bremer, there really is no
difference between the White House's version of freedom and the one
being demanded on the street. Asked whether his plan to form an Iraqi
government through appointed caucuses was heading towards a clash with Ayatollah
Ali al-Sistani's call for direct elections, Bremer said he had no
"fundamental disagreement with him".
It was, he said, a mere quibble over details. "I don't want to go into
the technical details of refinements. There are - if you talk to experts in
these matters - all kinds of ways to organise partial elections and
caucuses. And I'm not an election expert, so I don't want to go into
the details. But we've always said we're willing to consider refinements."
I'm not an election expert either, but I'm pretty sure there are
differences here that cannot be refined. Al-Sistani's supporters want
all Iraqis to have a vote and the people they elect to write the laws of
the country - your basic, imperfect, representative democracy.
Bremer wants his Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) to appoint the
members of 18 regional organising committees. These will then choose
delegates to form 18 selection caucuses. These will then select
representatives to a transitional national assembly. The assembly will
have an internal vote to select an executive and ministers, who will form
the new government. This, Bush said in the state of the union address,
constitutes "a transition to full Iraqi sovereignty".
Got that? Iraqi sovereignty will be established by appointees
appointing appointees to select appointees to select appointees. Add the fact that
Bremer was appointed to his post by President Bush and Bush to his by
the US Supreme Court, and you have the glorious new democratic tradition of
the appointocracy: rule by an appointee's appointee's appointees'
appointees' appointees' selectees.
IRAQ: NO WMD
Guardian: New WMD blow for Blair
Survey chief resigns saying Iraq never had stockpiles
Tony Blair last night suffered a blow on the eve of the most testing week of his premiership when the US official at the helm of the hunt for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction asserted Iraq did not have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
Resigning from his post after nine fruitless months in charge of the Iraq Survey Group he said he did not think there had been a large-scale weapons programme inside Iraq since 1991.
David Kay, a hardline CIA of ficial close to the Republicans also criticised President George Bush for failing to give him adequate support.
Guardian: New WMD blow for Blair
Survey chief resigns saying Iraq never had stockpiles
Tony Blair last night suffered a blow on the eve of the most testing week of his premiership when the US official at the helm of the hunt for Saddam's weapons of mass destruction asserted Iraq did not have large stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons.
Resigning from his post after nine fruitless months in charge of the Iraq Survey Group he said he did not think there had been a large-scale weapons programme inside Iraq since 1991.
David Kay, a hardline CIA of ficial close to the Republicans also criticised President George Bush for failing to give him adequate support.
UK: HUTTON INQUIRY/DAVID KELLY
GLOBE INTEL: EXPLOSIVE HUTTON REPORT WILL SHATTER UK/US POLITICAL AND INTELLIGENCE RELATIONSHIPS (complete) by Gordon Thomas
In Court 78, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London's Strand at 11am next Wednesday (January 28), Lord Hutton will deliver his report into the death of Dr David Kelly, Britain's weapons expert.
"The Hutton Report must clearly show both President Bush and Tony Blair were seriously misleading in the way they used original raw intelligence for their own political ends to go to war with Iraq."
That is the stark conclusion of a detailed evaluation prepared by analysts of Britain's security services.
Their conclusions are based on the same review of evidence Lord Hutton conducted to produce his own report.
The analysts also had the input of security service psychologists. They evaluated the body language of witnesses and their choice of words in giving evidence before Hutton.
They judged Blair's appearance before Hutton as "cold about Dr Kelly's death and imbued with a lawyer's cockiness".
Britain's Secretary of Defence, Geoff Hoon, is described as "shifty".
John Scarlett, the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee - the bridge between the intelligence services and Downing Street - is likened to "an intelligence officer who has acquired the evasive technique of a politician".
The analysts report is now in the hands of Sir Richard Dearlove, director-general of MI6, and Eliza Manningham-Buller of MI5.
Dearlove, predict the analysts, can expect to be "mildly criticised" by the Hutton report for failure to prevent raw intelligence from becoming politicised.
But Hutton's most damaging judgement could leave Britain's Secretary of Defence, Geoff Hoon, resigning and Prime Minister, Tony Blair, fighting for his political life.
A senior MI5 officer, who has seen a copy of the intelligence service report, said: "it predicts no one involved in the death of Dr Kelly will escape. The BBC and its reporter, Andrew Gilligan, will be severely censured for its lack of news-gathering controls over the way it handled Gilligan's story about Kelly. In the political arena, Alastair Campbell, Downing Street's former communications director, will be severely censured".
The MI6 analysts reserve praise for Dr Kelly's widow, Janice - "a courageous woman who knew very little of her husband's work". They predict she will "be a shining light in the otherwise dark pages of Hutton".
The MI5 officer predicted the Hutton Report will stun both London and Washington for its "ice cold ferocity".
He said: "the analysts concluded Blair and Bush spoon-fed each other intelligence they knew had been spun to make a case for war with Iraq. Hutton will destroy what credibility they have left. Blair is a man standing at the edge of the gallows trapdoor. He could hang himself by his evasions and half-truths".
Hutton, Britain's most distinguished Law Lord, will undoubtedly lay bare many of the so far unresolved machinations behind the claim of the president and prime minister of why they had to go to war with Iraq.
For Blair, already deeply embattled in a quagmire of evasions and, at times, untruths, it could finally mark the end of his premiership. He may not even survive to see George Bush achieve his dream of being re-elected in November.
And, for the president, Hutton's findings could be equally uncomfortable - finally exposing the fact there were no weapons of mass destruction.
Hutton could also be the spectre that will shadow all Bush says and does in the coming months on the stump.
"But both prime minister and president will undoubtedly look for scapegoats. One will be George Tenet, director of the CIA", said the MI5 officer.
Dearlove has already said he is resigning soon after the Hutton Report is published.
"Tenet may finally decide that he, too, has had enough of increasingly politicised intelligence work. He has told friends he does not plan to serve in any future Bush Administration", confirmed a CIA officer in Washington.
For the intelligence chiefs, the Hutton Report will make bitter-sweet reading.
On the evidence given before him, Lord Hutton will have to pronounce on such key issues as how far politicians in London and Washington spun raw intelligence to promote the need to go to war.
He will also have to pronounce on the relationship between the CIA and MI6.
"When he gave evidence by audio link from his office, Dearlove maintained his service's traditional stiff upper lip. But behind the scenes, we had no doubt about his concern at the way pressure had come from Washington and Downing Street", said the officer.
Hutton will also reveal embarrassing details about the secret life of the central figure in the report: Dr David Kelly.
Kelly had close links with MI6, the CIA, and MI5. He had also worked with Mossad, providing advice on Iraq's capability to launch biological and chemical weapons.
Those links could be exposed in explosive detail in the Hutton Report. Kelly was more than a £63,000 a year scientist. Lord Hutton may conclude Kelly had informed Dearlove the weapons did not exist. Dearlove told Tenet and John Scarlett. He told Tony Blair. Blair told Bush.
Hutton will likely pronounce on why Kelly, who had been a key member of the team preparing what became known as the "sexed up dossier", had suddenly found himself out of the Downing Street loop.
More than any scientist, Kelly knew about types and strains of micro-organisms, numbers of shells and aerial bombs filled with botulinum toxin. He knew the latest figures for the production of bio-weapons material in China, the gallons of growth material in Syria, Pakistan - and which countries had sold the material. He knew what Saddam did not have - and had not possessed for some time: biological and chemical weapons.
Almost uniquely, Kelly kept a large amount of his secret data in his study at home. There, on his desktop computer, were tens of thousands of secret documents and photographs.
Colleagues concerned about this were reassured by Kelly that his bosses in the Ministry of Defence or the Foreign Office were happy with his unorthodox methods. Hutton is also likely to criticise this laxness.
"In reality, Kelly was an academic who had escaped the dull confines of academia to live in the ever-dangerous world of secret intelligence and the hunt for weapons of mass destruction", said the MI5 officer, quoting from the intelligence analysts' report.
It predicts Hutton will have to consider such issues:
Why Dr Kelly's involvement in intelligence work had placed him on the hit list of Saddam's Hussein's notorious death squads.
Why Scotland Yard's Special Branch and the Thames Valley police, who had day-to-day responsibility to protect Kelly's home in the picture postcard village in Oxfordshire where he lived, did not provide Dr Kelly with protection at the outset of the Iraq War.
The intelligence analysts also predict Hutton will closely focus on:
Why did Dr. Kelly arrive home so upset the night before his death that his wife, Janice, was visibly shocked at his manner and appearance?
Why did Kelly leave his home suddenly on that Friday afternoon of his death.
Why, after his body was discovered, did MI5 officers and forensic scientists from Porton Down, Britain's bio-chemical research establishment, search the Kelly home? They left with a number of items sealed in bags. The police would not say what the items had to do with Kelly's death. Hutton may well reveal them.
Such issues will ensure that Kelly's death will be increasingly linked to his secret work for spy agencies, including Mossad.
Kelly's involvement with Mossad dated from April 1995. He travelled with two MI6 officers from London to New York. At the city's Israeli consulate they met two Mossad officers. Present, were officers of the Canadian Secret Intelligence Services and agents from the FBI.
The purpose of the meeting was to track how 32 tonnes of bacterial growth medium - essential for manufacturing lethal germs - was being illegally exported to Iraq from Montreal.
Dr Kelly - already a world-ranking expert on biological weapons - had played a "crucial role" in identifying the growth medium.
While many of the details to this day remain secret, Shabtai Shavit, who had been Mossad director-general at the time of the operation, would later pay tribute to Dr. Kelly's "great skills".
The scientist was first choice when the United Nations came to appoint a senior advisor to supervise the break-up of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme after the first Gulf War.
Kelly's ability to do so placed him on Saddam's hit list. But in the end Saddam turned out to be too frightened of the repercussions to have assassinated a senior UN official at the time Iraq was rebuilding itself after the 1991 war.
In between working in Iraq, Dr Kelly was also in charge of the programme to dismantle Russia's biological warfare weapons programme under the trilateral agreement brokered between Russia, the United States and Britain.
In Moscow, Kelly met Russia's top microbiologist Vladimir Pasechnik. He was then a 53-year-old chemist who was director of the Ultra Pure Biopreperations Institute in St Petersburg.
The two men had become friends to the point where Pasechnik told Kelly - according to an MI5 document - he was "part of the Biopreparat, a large secret programme, which is developing biological weapons like plague and smallpox".
Kelly knew that plague, or Yersinia pestis, had brought the Black Death that wiped out a third of the population of Europe in 1348. It was air-transmitted, propelled by pneumonia like coughing.
Kelly reported what he had been told to Christopher Davis, then an MI6 officer.
"Davis was a close friend of Dr Kelly's. He could have thrown considerable light on Kelly's mindset. But curiously, Davis was not called by Hutton to give evidence", said the MI5 officer.
But others who did stand before the Law Lord cannot be looking forward to how he judges them when he speaks in Law Court 78 next Wednesday.
Ironically, it is only a short distance from the hotel lobby where Dr Kelly met BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan to set in motion the "sexed up dossier" story that Gilligan broadcast. The news report ultimately led to Dr Kelly's suicide.
"Unlike the on-going saga of Princess Diana's death, you can be certain that Lord Hutton will show conclusively that Dr Kelly did kill himself. But what Hutton will also show is the role played by all those who combined to drive him to do so", concludes the evaluation of the intelligence analysts.
The MI5 officer said he understood that details in the intelligence analysis had been fed to a Tory politician with long-time contacts to the intelligence world.
Those details may have helped Conservative Party leader, Michael Howard, to focus in the House of Commons Prime Minister's Questions for two weeks running on the same question to Blair about lying in his role about naming Dr Kelly.
The prime minister has already said he would resign if Hutton judged that he had named the scientist.
GLOBE INTEL: EXPLOSIVE HUTTON REPORT WILL SHATTER UK/US POLITICAL AND INTELLIGENCE RELATIONSHIPS (complete) by Gordon Thomas
In Court 78, at the Royal Courts of Justice in London's Strand at 11am next Wednesday (January 28), Lord Hutton will deliver his report into the death of Dr David Kelly, Britain's weapons expert.
"The Hutton Report must clearly show both President Bush and Tony Blair were seriously misleading in the way they used original raw intelligence for their own political ends to go to war with Iraq."
That is the stark conclusion of a detailed evaluation prepared by analysts of Britain's security services.
Their conclusions are based on the same review of evidence Lord Hutton conducted to produce his own report.
The analysts also had the input of security service psychologists. They evaluated the body language of witnesses and their choice of words in giving evidence before Hutton.
They judged Blair's appearance before Hutton as "cold about Dr Kelly's death and imbued with a lawyer's cockiness".
Britain's Secretary of Defence, Geoff Hoon, is described as "shifty".
John Scarlett, the head of the Joint Intelligence Committee - the bridge between the intelligence services and Downing Street - is likened to "an intelligence officer who has acquired the evasive technique of a politician".
The analysts report is now in the hands of Sir Richard Dearlove, director-general of MI6, and Eliza Manningham-Buller of MI5.
Dearlove, predict the analysts, can expect to be "mildly criticised" by the Hutton report for failure to prevent raw intelligence from becoming politicised.
But Hutton's most damaging judgement could leave Britain's Secretary of Defence, Geoff Hoon, resigning and Prime Minister, Tony Blair, fighting for his political life.
A senior MI5 officer, who has seen a copy of the intelligence service report, said: "it predicts no one involved in the death of Dr Kelly will escape. The BBC and its reporter, Andrew Gilligan, will be severely censured for its lack of news-gathering controls over the way it handled Gilligan's story about Kelly. In the political arena, Alastair Campbell, Downing Street's former communications director, will be severely censured".
The MI6 analysts reserve praise for Dr Kelly's widow, Janice - "a courageous woman who knew very little of her husband's work". They predict she will "be a shining light in the otherwise dark pages of Hutton".
The MI5 officer predicted the Hutton Report will stun both London and Washington for its "ice cold ferocity".
He said: "the analysts concluded Blair and Bush spoon-fed each other intelligence they knew had been spun to make a case for war with Iraq. Hutton will destroy what credibility they have left. Blair is a man standing at the edge of the gallows trapdoor. He could hang himself by his evasions and half-truths".
Hutton, Britain's most distinguished Law Lord, will undoubtedly lay bare many of the so far unresolved machinations behind the claim of the president and prime minister of why they had to go to war with Iraq.
For Blair, already deeply embattled in a quagmire of evasions and, at times, untruths, it could finally mark the end of his premiership. He may not even survive to see George Bush achieve his dream of being re-elected in November.
And, for the president, Hutton's findings could be equally uncomfortable - finally exposing the fact there were no weapons of mass destruction.
Hutton could also be the spectre that will shadow all Bush says and does in the coming months on the stump.
"But both prime minister and president will undoubtedly look for scapegoats. One will be George Tenet, director of the CIA", said the MI5 officer.
Dearlove has already said he is resigning soon after the Hutton Report is published.
"Tenet may finally decide that he, too, has had enough of increasingly politicised intelligence work. He has told friends he does not plan to serve in any future Bush Administration", confirmed a CIA officer in Washington.
For the intelligence chiefs, the Hutton Report will make bitter-sweet reading.
On the evidence given before him, Lord Hutton will have to pronounce on such key issues as how far politicians in London and Washington spun raw intelligence to promote the need to go to war.
He will also have to pronounce on the relationship between the CIA and MI6.
"When he gave evidence by audio link from his office, Dearlove maintained his service's traditional stiff upper lip. But behind the scenes, we had no doubt about his concern at the way pressure had come from Washington and Downing Street", said the officer.
Hutton will also reveal embarrassing details about the secret life of the central figure in the report: Dr David Kelly.
Kelly had close links with MI6, the CIA, and MI5. He had also worked with Mossad, providing advice on Iraq's capability to launch biological and chemical weapons.
Those links could be exposed in explosive detail in the Hutton Report. Kelly was more than a £63,000 a year scientist. Lord Hutton may conclude Kelly had informed Dearlove the weapons did not exist. Dearlove told Tenet and John Scarlett. He told Tony Blair. Blair told Bush.
Hutton will likely pronounce on why Kelly, who had been a key member of the team preparing what became known as the "sexed up dossier", had suddenly found himself out of the Downing Street loop.
More than any scientist, Kelly knew about types and strains of micro-organisms, numbers of shells and aerial bombs filled with botulinum toxin. He knew the latest figures for the production of bio-weapons material in China, the gallons of growth material in Syria, Pakistan - and which countries had sold the material. He knew what Saddam did not have - and had not possessed for some time: biological and chemical weapons.
Almost uniquely, Kelly kept a large amount of his secret data in his study at home. There, on his desktop computer, were tens of thousands of secret documents and photographs.
Colleagues concerned about this were reassured by Kelly that his bosses in the Ministry of Defence or the Foreign Office were happy with his unorthodox methods. Hutton is also likely to criticise this laxness.
"In reality, Kelly was an academic who had escaped the dull confines of academia to live in the ever-dangerous world of secret intelligence and the hunt for weapons of mass destruction", said the MI5 officer, quoting from the intelligence analysts' report.
It predicts Hutton will have to consider such issues:
Why Dr Kelly's involvement in intelligence work had placed him on the hit list of Saddam's Hussein's notorious death squads.
Why Scotland Yard's Special Branch and the Thames Valley police, who had day-to-day responsibility to protect Kelly's home in the picture postcard village in Oxfordshire where he lived, did not provide Dr Kelly with protection at the outset of the Iraq War.
The intelligence analysts also predict Hutton will closely focus on:
Why did Dr. Kelly arrive home so upset the night before his death that his wife, Janice, was visibly shocked at his manner and appearance?
Why did Kelly leave his home suddenly on that Friday afternoon of his death.
Why, after his body was discovered, did MI5 officers and forensic scientists from Porton Down, Britain's bio-chemical research establishment, search the Kelly home? They left with a number of items sealed in bags. The police would not say what the items had to do with Kelly's death. Hutton may well reveal them.
Such issues will ensure that Kelly's death will be increasingly linked to his secret work for spy agencies, including Mossad.
Kelly's involvement with Mossad dated from April 1995. He travelled with two MI6 officers from London to New York. At the city's Israeli consulate they met two Mossad officers. Present, were officers of the Canadian Secret Intelligence Services and agents from the FBI.
The purpose of the meeting was to track how 32 tonnes of bacterial growth medium - essential for manufacturing lethal germs - was being illegally exported to Iraq from Montreal.
Dr Kelly - already a world-ranking expert on biological weapons - had played a "crucial role" in identifying the growth medium.
While many of the details to this day remain secret, Shabtai Shavit, who had been Mossad director-general at the time of the operation, would later pay tribute to Dr. Kelly's "great skills".
The scientist was first choice when the United Nations came to appoint a senior advisor to supervise the break-up of Iraq's weapons of mass destruction programme after the first Gulf War.
Kelly's ability to do so placed him on Saddam's hit list. But in the end Saddam turned out to be too frightened of the repercussions to have assassinated a senior UN official at the time Iraq was rebuilding itself after the 1991 war.
In between working in Iraq, Dr Kelly was also in charge of the programme to dismantle Russia's biological warfare weapons programme under the trilateral agreement brokered between Russia, the United States and Britain.
In Moscow, Kelly met Russia's top microbiologist Vladimir Pasechnik. He was then a 53-year-old chemist who was director of the Ultra Pure Biopreperations Institute in St Petersburg.
The two men had become friends to the point where Pasechnik told Kelly - according to an MI5 document - he was "part of the Biopreparat, a large secret programme, which is developing biological weapons like plague and smallpox".
Kelly knew that plague, or Yersinia pestis, had brought the Black Death that wiped out a third of the population of Europe in 1348. It was air-transmitted, propelled by pneumonia like coughing.
Kelly reported what he had been told to Christopher Davis, then an MI6 officer.
"Davis was a close friend of Dr Kelly's. He could have thrown considerable light on Kelly's mindset. But curiously, Davis was not called by Hutton to give evidence", said the MI5 officer.
But others who did stand before the Law Lord cannot be looking forward to how he judges them when he speaks in Law Court 78 next Wednesday.
Ironically, it is only a short distance from the hotel lobby where Dr Kelly met BBC reporter Andrew Gilligan to set in motion the "sexed up dossier" story that Gilligan broadcast. The news report ultimately led to Dr Kelly's suicide.
"Unlike the on-going saga of Princess Diana's death, you can be certain that Lord Hutton will show conclusively that Dr Kelly did kill himself. But what Hutton will also show is the role played by all those who combined to drive him to do so", concludes the evaluation of the intelligence analysts.
The MI5 officer said he understood that details in the intelligence analysis had been fed to a Tory politician with long-time contacts to the intelligence world.
Those details may have helped Conservative Party leader, Michael Howard, to focus in the House of Commons Prime Minister's Questions for two weeks running on the same question to Blair about lying in his role about naming Dr Kelly.
The prime minister has already said he would resign if Hutton judged that he had named the scientist.
SYRIA/ISRAEL
Antiwar.com: The Syrian Threat
Letter from Israel by Ran HaCohen
"Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land" (Jer 1:14) is a verse every Israeli pupil learns by heart. This biblical truth has never been more true than these days: the Syrian President, in a major threat to the Jewish state, offers Israel to resume peace talks. A blatant crime against war itself. Israel, understandably, is forced to defend itself.
There are several convincing reasons why Israel should reject the peaceful Syrian hand. First of all, Syria should come to the negotiation table without any preconditions. When Assad proved evil enough to accept this, Israel demanded that Syria stop it alleged support for "terrorism" (and accept the Israeli-American definition of terrorism, to include resistance to occupation). Fair enough: both sides, except the Israeli side, should come to the negotiation table without any preconditions. Imagine Syria demanding that Israel end its occupation, or just dismantle its death squads, as a precondition to resume peace talks.
Then we are told that president Assad is young and inexperienced. A problem indeed. A good solution would be to reject his offer for a few more decades of hostility, when all our "experts for Arab issues" will be able to claim safely that he is too old to change, and/or that his days are counted. Then we can wait for his successor, hopefully a young and inexperienced one.
Antiwar.com: The Syrian Threat
Letter from Israel by Ran HaCohen
"Out of the north an evil shall break forth upon all the inhabitants of the land" (Jer 1:14) is a verse every Israeli pupil learns by heart. This biblical truth has never been more true than these days: the Syrian President, in a major threat to the Jewish state, offers Israel to resume peace talks. A blatant crime against war itself. Israel, understandably, is forced to defend itself.
There are several convincing reasons why Israel should reject the peaceful Syrian hand. First of all, Syria should come to the negotiation table without any preconditions. When Assad proved evil enough to accept this, Israel demanded that Syria stop it alleged support for "terrorism" (and accept the Israeli-American definition of terrorism, to include resistance to occupation). Fair enough: both sides, except the Israeli side, should come to the negotiation table without any preconditions. Imagine Syria demanding that Israel end its occupation, or just dismantle its death squads, as a precondition to resume peace talks.
Then we are told that president Assad is young and inexperienced. A problem indeed. A good solution would be to reject his offer for a few more decades of hostility, when all our "experts for Arab issues" will be able to claim safely that he is too old to change, and/or that his days are counted. Then we can wait for his successor, hopefully a young and inexperienced one.
SYRIA/ISRAEL
Forward: U.S. Advice To Israelis: Don't Start Syria Talks
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration recently advised the Israeli government against taking up the offer of Syrian President Bashar Assad to resume peace negotiations, Israeli and American diplomats in Washington confirmed.
The administration, according to sources, voiced several concerns regarding Assad's recent public claims that he is willing to resume peace negotiations with Israel. The main concern, sources said, is that negotiations with Syria, which have slim chances of yielding an agreement anytime soon, would divert attention from the Israeli-Palestinian track and impede efforts to implement the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan.
"Die Usa gibt Israel den Ratschlag keine Friedensgespräche mit Syrien zu führen, da Sie eine eigene Syrien-Politik machen wollen um weiterhin Druck auf die Regierung Assad auszüben..soviel zu den Amerikanischen Friedensbemühungen im Nahen Osten"
Forward: U.S. Advice To Israelis: Don't Start Syria Talks
WASHINGTON — The Bush administration recently advised the Israeli government against taking up the offer of Syrian President Bashar Assad to resume peace negotiations, Israeli and American diplomats in Washington confirmed.
The administration, according to sources, voiced several concerns regarding Assad's recent public claims that he is willing to resume peace negotiations with Israel. The main concern, sources said, is that negotiations with Syria, which have slim chances of yielding an agreement anytime soon, would divert attention from the Israeli-Palestinian track and impede efforts to implement the U.S.-backed "road map" peace plan.
"Die Usa gibt Israel den Ratschlag keine Friedensgespräche mit Syrien zu führen, da Sie eine eigene Syrien-Politik machen wollen um weiterhin Druck auf die Regierung Assad auszüben..soviel zu den Amerikanischen Friedensbemühungen im Nahen Osten"
Sunday, January 25, 2004
SITE OF THE DAY
CHECK: http://www.propagandacritic.com/
Created eight years ago, when the world-wide web was in its infancy, the propaganda site is inspired by the pioneering work of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA). From 1937 to 1942, the IPA was dedicated to promoting the techniques of propaganda analysis among critically-minded citizens.
CHECK: http://www.propagandacritic.com/
Created eight years ago, when the world-wide web was in its infancy, the propaganda site is inspired by the pioneering work of the Institute for Propaganda Analysis (IPA). From 1937 to 1942, the IPA was dedicated to promoting the techniques of propaganda analysis among critically-minded citizens.
PR-WATCH
hrainford: Why is the Internet not controlled by the authorities?
For Public Relations to be successful it must be perceived as information independent from the originator. This gives it credibility not there if it is perceived as self promotion.
The reason there is so much promotion of the “free press” is because if it was widely known that the “free press” was really advertising the concepts of the elite the masses would be more suspicious of the content. The media does allow some miscellaneous uncontrolled content but only to maintain credibility.
hrainford: Why is the Internet not controlled by the authorities?
For Public Relations to be successful it must be perceived as information independent from the originator. This gives it credibility not there if it is perceived as self promotion.
The reason there is so much promotion of the “free press” is because if it was widely known that the “free press” was really advertising the concepts of the elite the masses would be more suspicious of the content. The media does allow some miscellaneous uncontrolled content but only to maintain credibility.
UK
Independent: 'Jewish Lobby' Now An
Anti-Semitic Term - US Diplomat
A senior US diplomat in London has ruffled feathers in Britain's foreign policy establishment by publicly implying that a reference to the "Jewish lobby" in the United States is an anti-Semitic remark.
The incident happened yesterday at a Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) lecture on US foreign policy given by David Johnson, who is the second in command at the American embassy in London.
During the question-and-answer session he was asked: "Will the US ever be willing to impose an equitable peace settlement in the Middle East, or is it perhaps that the Jewish lobby in America is too strong to make that feasible?"
Mr Johnson responded indignantly, saying: "I am highly resentful of the last part of your remarks, just because of its ethnic slur." And he went on: "During my time here I have become increasingly troubled by the willingness of European audiences to skirt up to the side of anti-Semitic language as a political criticism."
Independent: 'Jewish Lobby' Now An
Anti-Semitic Term - US Diplomat
A senior US diplomat in London has ruffled feathers in Britain's foreign policy establishment by publicly implying that a reference to the "Jewish lobby" in the United States is an anti-Semitic remark.
The incident happened yesterday at a Royal Institute of International Affairs (RIIA) lecture on US foreign policy given by David Johnson, who is the second in command at the American embassy in London.
During the question-and-answer session he was asked: "Will the US ever be willing to impose an equitable peace settlement in the Middle East, or is it perhaps that the Jewish lobby in America is too strong to make that feasible?"
Mr Johnson responded indignantly, saying: "I am highly resentful of the last part of your remarks, just because of its ethnic slur." And he went on: "During my time here I have become increasingly troubled by the willingness of European audiences to skirt up to the side of anti-Semitic language as a political criticism."
911
Guardian: German Trial Hears
How Iranian Agent Warned US Of Impending al-Qaida Attack
The United States was warned of impending September 11 terrorist attacks by an Iranian spy, but ignored him, German secret service agents testified yesterday in the trial of an alleged al-Qaida terrorist.
The spy, identified as Hamid Reza Zakeri, tried to warn the CIA after leaving Iran in 2001, but was not believed, two German officers who interviewed him told the Hamburg court.
Guardian: German Trial Hears
How Iranian Agent Warned US Of Impending al-Qaida Attack
The United States was warned of impending September 11 terrorist attacks by an Iranian spy, but ignored him, German secret service agents testified yesterday in the trial of an alleged al-Qaida terrorist.
The spy, identified as Hamid Reza Zakeri, tried to warn the CIA after leaving Iran in 2001, but was not believed, two German officers who interviewed him told the Hamburg court.
Tuesday, January 20, 2004
WIPE OUT WEF
Indymedia: Aufruf zum WEF 2004
Aufruf, Demokonzept und Daten gegen das WEF
revolutionäres Bündnis gegen das WEF, 20.01.2004 15:57
Aufruf, Daten, Konzept, Infoabend usw.
Wie jedes Jahr trifft sich die Elite aus Wirtschaft, Politik und Kultur zum Weltwirtschaftsforum in Davos.
Wie jedes Jahr versuchen sie einen Lösungsansatz zu finden um das Kapital aus der Krise zu führen.
Wie jedes Jahr entwickeln sie zu diesem Zweck Strategien, welche für uns einmal mehr in verschärften gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen spürbar werden. Beispiele dafür sind Massenentlassungen und Angriffe auf soziale Errungenschaften der ArbeiterInnen, wie etwa die Sozialversicherungen, Lohnabbau, sowie Abbau der gesellschaftlichen Kinderbetreuung (Krippen, Horte). Existenzprobleme und soziale Unsicherheit sind die Folge davon.
Wie jedes Jahr versuchen sie das Ausbeutungsverhältnis in strategisch wichtigen Regionen neu zu etablieren. Gut sichtbar geworden ist dies anhand der imperialistischen Kriege im Nahen Osten.
Das WEF ist nicht zu trennen von den gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen, den Ausbeutungsverhältnissen des Kapitalismus. Für uns ist deshalb klar: Ein Dialog kommt nicht in Frage! Und zwar weder mit dem WEF, noch mit den Schergen des Kapitals oder dem Staat und den Behörden, die den Rahmen für ihre Ausbeutungsprojekte garantieren. Es ist für uns deshalb auch kein Thema, etwa eine Demokratisierung des WEFs zu fordern, vielmehr wollen wir das WEF als Werkzeug des internationalen Kapitals abschaffen. Einen Angriff auf das WEF verstehen wir als einen Angriff auf das kapitalistische System.
In diesem Sinne rufen wir auf zur Demo gegen das World Economic Forum in Davos, weil wir uns diesen politischen Raum zurückerobern wollen.
Treffpunkt 24.01.2004, 14:00 Uhr Bahnhof Davos Dorf
Treffpunkt Zürich: 10.30 Hauptbahnhof für auf den Zug
10.30 Carparkplatz für auf die Busse.
Treffpunkt Bern: 09.00h Bhf. Bern
Demonstrieren sonst Blockieren!
Smash WEF heisst Kapitalismus zerschlagen!
Kampf dem Kapital!
Für eine Gesellschaft ohne Ausbeutung und Unterdrückung!
Indymedia: Aufruf zum WEF 2004
Aufruf, Demokonzept und Daten gegen das WEF
revolutionäres Bündnis gegen das WEF, 20.01.2004 15:57
Aufruf, Daten, Konzept, Infoabend usw.
Wie jedes Jahr trifft sich die Elite aus Wirtschaft, Politik und Kultur zum Weltwirtschaftsforum in Davos.
Wie jedes Jahr versuchen sie einen Lösungsansatz zu finden um das Kapital aus der Krise zu führen.
Wie jedes Jahr entwickeln sie zu diesem Zweck Strategien, welche für uns einmal mehr in verschärften gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen spürbar werden. Beispiele dafür sind Massenentlassungen und Angriffe auf soziale Errungenschaften der ArbeiterInnen, wie etwa die Sozialversicherungen, Lohnabbau, sowie Abbau der gesellschaftlichen Kinderbetreuung (Krippen, Horte). Existenzprobleme und soziale Unsicherheit sind die Folge davon.
Wie jedes Jahr versuchen sie das Ausbeutungsverhältnis in strategisch wichtigen Regionen neu zu etablieren. Gut sichtbar geworden ist dies anhand der imperialistischen Kriege im Nahen Osten.
Das WEF ist nicht zu trennen von den gesellschaftlichen Verhältnissen, den Ausbeutungsverhältnissen des Kapitalismus. Für uns ist deshalb klar: Ein Dialog kommt nicht in Frage! Und zwar weder mit dem WEF, noch mit den Schergen des Kapitals oder dem Staat und den Behörden, die den Rahmen für ihre Ausbeutungsprojekte garantieren. Es ist für uns deshalb auch kein Thema, etwa eine Demokratisierung des WEFs zu fordern, vielmehr wollen wir das WEF als Werkzeug des internationalen Kapitals abschaffen. Einen Angriff auf das WEF verstehen wir als einen Angriff auf das kapitalistische System.
In diesem Sinne rufen wir auf zur Demo gegen das World Economic Forum in Davos, weil wir uns diesen politischen Raum zurückerobern wollen.
Treffpunkt 24.01.2004, 14:00 Uhr Bahnhof Davos Dorf
Treffpunkt Zürich: 10.30 Hauptbahnhof für auf den Zug
10.30 Carparkplatz für auf die Busse.
Treffpunkt Bern: 09.00h Bhf. Bern
Demonstrieren sonst Blockieren!
Smash WEF heisst Kapitalismus zerschlagen!
Kampf dem Kapital!
Für eine Gesellschaft ohne Ausbeutung und Unterdrückung!
MIDDLE EAST
Guardian: Israeli fighter jets strike south Lebanon
Israeli fighter jets today attacked Hizbullah guerrilla targets in south Lebanon, Israeli military officials said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials said that Israeli warplanes hit Hizbullah bases in the Bekaa Valley, the area of south Lebanon that is closest to the Syrian border.
Israel's Channel Two TV said that at least four explosions were heard. There were two targets but no immediate reports of casualties, the report said. The air strike followed a border incident yesterday, in which Hizbullah guerrillas fired an anti-tank missile at a bulldozer clearing explosives. An Israeli soldier was killed and another seriously wounded.
The Israeli army today changed its account of the border incident to acknowledge that the soldier killed in the clash had actually been on Lebanese and not Israeli soil at the time.
"We deviated [from standard procedure] by going into Lebanon," Reuters reported Brigadier General Yair Golan as saying.
"From their [Hizbullah's] standpoint [the attack] is legitimate, although not from ours," Brig Gen Golan said. "It is very serious and an escalation ... it is a provocation by Hizbullah."
"Israel schickt Soldaten über die Grenze nach Libanon. Sie werden, was vorauszusehen war, attackiert. Israel nennt das eine Provokation und bombardiert im Gegenzug Hisbollah Stellungen im Libanon um nachher Syrien die Schuld für den Zwischenfall zu geben.?????"
Guardian: Israeli fighter jets strike south Lebanon
Israeli fighter jets today attacked Hizbullah guerrilla targets in south Lebanon, Israeli military officials said.
Speaking on condition of anonymity, the officials said that Israeli warplanes hit Hizbullah bases in the Bekaa Valley, the area of south Lebanon that is closest to the Syrian border.
Israel's Channel Two TV said that at least four explosions were heard. There were two targets but no immediate reports of casualties, the report said. The air strike followed a border incident yesterday, in which Hizbullah guerrillas fired an anti-tank missile at a bulldozer clearing explosives. An Israeli soldier was killed and another seriously wounded.
The Israeli army today changed its account of the border incident to acknowledge that the soldier killed in the clash had actually been on Lebanese and not Israeli soil at the time.
"We deviated [from standard procedure] by going into Lebanon," Reuters reported Brigadier General Yair Golan as saying.
"From their [Hizbullah's] standpoint [the attack] is legitimate, although not from ours," Brig Gen Golan said. "It is very serious and an escalation ... it is a provocation by Hizbullah."
"Israel schickt Soldaten über die Grenze nach Libanon. Sie werden, was vorauszusehen war, attackiert. Israel nennt das eine Provokation und bombardiert im Gegenzug Hisbollah Stellungen im Libanon um nachher Syrien die Schuld für den Zwischenfall zu geben.?????"
Monday, January 19, 2004
IRAQ
Guardian: Why The US Is Running
Scared Of Elections In Iraq
Washington's Plan To Transfer Power Without A Direct Vote Is A Fraud
The occupation of Iraq continues to get worse for George Bush and Tony Blair. The deaths of at least 20 people in a suicide bomb attack outside the coalition headquarters in Baghdad yesterday morning underlines the spiralling unrest in the country. The toll of US casualties since Saddam Hussein's capture is higher than in the same period before it. Angry protests over unemployment and petrol shortages have erupted in several cities in the south, in areas under British control.
Guardian: Why The US Is Running
Scared Of Elections In Iraq
Washington's Plan To Transfer Power Without A Direct Vote Is A Fraud
The occupation of Iraq continues to get worse for George Bush and Tony Blair. The deaths of at least 20 people in a suicide bomb attack outside the coalition headquarters in Baghdad yesterday morning underlines the spiralling unrest in the country. The toll of US casualties since Saddam Hussein's capture is higher than in the same period before it. Angry protests over unemployment and petrol shortages have erupted in several cities in the south, in areas under British control.
Sunday, January 18, 2004
IRAQI RESISTANCE
Washington Post: Clerics Urge Shiites to Protest
Call for Iraqi Elections Carries Hint of Violence
KARBALA, Iraq, Jan. 16 -- Preachers in Shiite Muslim mosques appealed to their followers Friday to prepare for demonstrations, strikes and possible confrontations with occupation troops to back up demands for elections in advance of a transfer of authority from a U.S.-led administration to Iraqis.
The calls increased pressure on the Bush administration and its handpicked Iraqi Governing Council to satisfy demands by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's most influential cleric, for elections. President Bush's chief administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and top Governing Council leaders are scheduled to meet in New York next week in hopes of enlisting U.N. help in changing Sistani's mind.
Washington Post: Clerics Urge Shiites to Protest
Call for Iraqi Elections Carries Hint of Violence
KARBALA, Iraq, Jan. 16 -- Preachers in Shiite Muslim mosques appealed to their followers Friday to prepare for demonstrations, strikes and possible confrontations with occupation troops to back up demands for elections in advance of a transfer of authority from a U.S.-led administration to Iraqis.
The calls increased pressure on the Bush administration and its handpicked Iraqi Governing Council to satisfy demands by Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani, the country's most influential cleric, for elections. President Bush's chief administrator for Iraq, L. Paul Bremer, and top Governing Council leaders are scheduled to meet in New York next week in hopes of enlisting U.N. help in changing Sistani's mind.
DOCUMENTARY: CARLYLE GROUP
Informationclearinghouse: Exposed: The Carlyle Group
Shocking documentary uncovers the subversion of Americas democracy.
I defy you to watch this 48 minute documentary and not be outraged about the depth of corruption and deceit within the highest ranks of our government and the first family.
Note: The first one minute forty seven seconds of this program is in broadcast in Dutch, The remainder is in English
WATCH IT HERE
Informationclearinghouse: Exposed: The Carlyle Group
Shocking documentary uncovers the subversion of Americas democracy.
I defy you to watch this 48 minute documentary and not be outraged about the depth of corruption and deceit within the highest ranks of our government and the first family.
Note: The first one minute forty seven seconds of this program is in broadcast in Dutch, The remainder is in English
WATCH IT HERE
IRAQ: VIDEO
Rense: Video - Iraqi Farmers Slaughtered By US Apache Copter
In the video, the 'vehicle' on the left side of the frame is clearly a farm tractor...
"The clip was cut from a longer video obtained by ABC News last week and verified by a senior US army official." - WRH.com
Download the MPEG movie HERE
Rense: Video - Iraqi Farmers Slaughtered By US Apache Copter
In the video, the 'vehicle' on the left side of the frame is clearly a farm tractor...
"The clip was cut from a longer video obtained by ABC News last week and verified by a senior US army official." - WRH.com
Download the MPEG movie HERE
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."
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 &$%#* Question!
Ever Wonder Why They Won?t? They?ve Been Media-Trained. And the Public Is the Loser
Columbia Journalism Review editor Trudy Lieberman, after examining transcripts from some 50 major news shows, concludes that "journalism has morphed into a cog in a great public relations
machine." Lieberman blames the prevalence of PR-driven media training: "At a time when the audience makes decisions based on perceptions rather than facts, the goal is to create positive perceptions of companies and their products, politicians and their policies." Recent interview excerpts illustrate how "trained" guests can easily gain control, especially when the "unwritten rules" discourage journalists from insisting on real answers
Columbia Journalism Review: Answer the &$%#* 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....
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"
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"
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."
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.”
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"
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."
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
VIDEO
Information Clearinghouse: Breaking The Silence
A hard hitting special report into the "war on terror" Award winning journalist John Pilger
"Download it"
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?
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.
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.
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.
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"
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"
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"
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"
Monday, January 05, 2004
IRAQI DEMOCRACY
IOL: US Restricts Civilian Demonstrations In Iraq
BAGHDAD (IslamOnline.net) - U.S. occupation authorities in Iraq have imposed strict restrictions on the right of the Iraqi people to demonstrate, particularly in the capital Baghdad, in what Iraqi political analysts described as the real face of sugar-coated democracy clichés.
A statement issued by the U.S.-led authority and broadcast by the Iraqi media network Wednesday, December 31, said
It demanded those who want to demonstrate or organize a meeting to submit a written request to the occupation authorities no less than a day before.
The request, according to the statement, must include the purpose and duration of the demonstration, an estimate of the maximum number of demonstrators and names and addresses of the organizers.
Detention Threat
If a permit is granted, the American statement said, demonstrators would not be allowed to wear the traditional galabiya (a loose shirt-like garment), helmets, hoods or even cover their faces.
Would-be Iraqi demonstrators must also not carry guns, even the licensed, stones or sticks, added the statement.
Last but not least, any demonstration must not last more than four hours and should not be organized less than 500 meters away from the headquarters of the occupation forces and the affiliated institutions.
IOL: US Restricts Civilian Demonstrations In Iraq
BAGHDAD (IslamOnline.net) - U.S. occupation authorities in Iraq have imposed strict restrictions on the right of the Iraqi people to demonstrate, particularly in the capital Baghdad, in what Iraqi political analysts described as the real face of sugar-coated democracy clichés.
A statement issued by the U.S.-led authority and broadcast by the Iraqi media network Wednesday, December 31, said
It demanded those who want to demonstrate or organize a meeting to submit a written request to the occupation authorities no less than a day before.
The request, according to the statement, must include the purpose and duration of the demonstration, an estimate of the maximum number of demonstrators and names and addresses of the organizers.
Detention Threat
If a permit is granted, the American statement said, demonstrators would not be allowed to wear the traditional galabiya (a loose shirt-like garment), helmets, hoods or even cover their faces.
Would-be Iraqi demonstrators must also not carry guns, even the licensed, stones or sticks, added the statement.
Last but not least, any demonstration must not last more than four hours and should not be organized less than 500 meters away from the headquarters of the occupation forces and the affiliated institutions.
TERROR
Reuters: Purported Bin Laden Tape
Mentions Saddam Capture
DUBAI (Reuters) - The Arabic television channel Al Jazeera aired an audio tape on Sunday purported to be from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in which he mentioned the arrest of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein by U.S. troops last month.
Saddam was captured on December 13. If authenticated, the tape would prove that the man being hunted by the United States for masterminding the attacks on U.S. cities on September 11, 2001, is still alive.
In Washington, a Central Intelligence Agency spokesman said it might take a couple of days to determine whether the tape, which sounded like previous broadcast recordings by the al Qaeda leader, was genuine.
The voice said Muslim and Arab leaders had reason to fear the precedent of letting foreigners topple a Muslim government, "especially after they saw the capture of their former comrade in treachery and collaboration with America" -- meaning Saddam.
The recording, which rambled like a sermon between a myriad of topics, urged Muslims to fight U.S. occupation forces in Iraq and criticized Gulf Arab governments for supporting Washington's invasion of an Arab country.
Reuters: Purported Bin Laden Tape
Mentions Saddam Capture
DUBAI (Reuters) - The Arabic television channel Al Jazeera aired an audio tape on Sunday purported to be from al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden in which he mentioned the arrest of Iraqi president Saddam Hussein by U.S. troops last month.
Saddam was captured on December 13. If authenticated, the tape would prove that the man being hunted by the United States for masterminding the attacks on U.S. cities on September 11, 2001, is still alive.
In Washington, a Central Intelligence Agency spokesman said it might take a couple of days to determine whether the tape, which sounded like previous broadcast recordings by the al Qaeda leader, was genuine.
The voice said Muslim and Arab leaders had reason to fear the precedent of letting foreigners topple a Muslim government, "especially after they saw the capture of their former comrade in treachery and collaboration with America" -- meaning Saddam.
The recording, which rambled like a sermon between a myriad of topics, urged Muslims to fight U.S. occupation forces in Iraq and criticized Gulf Arab governments for supporting Washington's invasion of an Arab country.
ECONOMY: EURO VS. DOLLAR
Reuters: Dollar Tumbles Again to Begin Year
LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar continued its downward spiral Monday, hitting yet another low against the euro, helping send gold prices to 14-year highs and pushing Japanese authorities to step in to protect the yen.
Stock markets -- which had their best year in 2003 since 1986, according to at least one calculation -- were mixed. European shares hovered around break even, but Tokyo ended its first session of 2004 up more than one percent.
The new year showed no sign of breathing new life into the U.S. currency, which tumbled last year amid doubts about the United States' ability to fund its current account gap.
Reuters: Dollar Tumbles Again to Begin Year
LONDON (Reuters) - The dollar continued its downward spiral Monday, hitting yet another low against the euro, helping send gold prices to 14-year highs and pushing Japanese authorities to step in to protect the yen.
Stock markets -- which had their best year in 2003 since 1986, according to at least one calculation -- were mixed. European shares hovered around break even, but Tokyo ended its first session of 2004 up more than one percent.
The new year showed no sign of breathing new life into the U.S. currency, which tumbled last year amid doubts about the United States' ability to fund its current account gap.
USA
Toronto Star: America - The Real Danger Lies Within
PALM BEACH -- The year 2003 dramatically and dolefully illustrated Lord Acton's famous dictum that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
An almighty United States, unrestrained by any rival, international body, or world opinion, bestrode the globe, a belligerent colossus determined to monopolize global oil reserves and use its vast military power to crush lesser nations or malefactors that disturbed the Pax Americana.
For America's hard right - a curious farrago of Armageddon-seeking southern Protestants; neo-conservative supporters of Israel's right-wing Likud party; and the military-industrial-petroleum complex - the Bush administration's aggressive foreign policy of world domination, and utter contempt for international laws and old allies, marks a new era of national greatness. President George Bush, who vowed his foreign policy would be "humble" and "compassionate," has turned out to be the most radical president in modern U.S. history.
"CHECK IT"
Toronto Star: America - The Real Danger Lies Within
PALM BEACH -- The year 2003 dramatically and dolefully illustrated Lord Acton's famous dictum that absolute power corrupts absolutely.
An almighty United States, unrestrained by any rival, international body, or world opinion, bestrode the globe, a belligerent colossus determined to monopolize global oil reserves and use its vast military power to crush lesser nations or malefactors that disturbed the Pax Americana.
For America's hard right - a curious farrago of Armageddon-seeking southern Protestants; neo-conservative supporters of Israel's right-wing Likud party; and the military-industrial-petroleum complex - the Bush administration's aggressive foreign policy of world domination, and utter contempt for international laws and old allies, marks a new era of national greatness. President George Bush, who vowed his foreign policy would be "humble" and "compassionate," has turned out to be the most radical president in modern U.S. history.
"CHECK IT"
USA
The Telegraph: US Hawks Present War Manifesto To Bush
Tell Bush How To Win War On Terror
WASHINGTON -- President George W Bush was sent a public manifesto yesterday by Washington's hawks, demanding regime change in Syria and Iran and a Cuba-style military blockade of North Korea backed by planning for a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear sites.
The manifesto, presented as a "manual for victory" in the war on terror, also calls for Saudi Arabia and France to be treated not as allies but as rivals and possibly enemies.
The manifesto is contained in a new book by Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and "intellectual guru" of the hardline neo-conservative movement, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter. They give warning of a faltering of the "will to win" in Washington.
In the battle for the president's ear, the manifesto represents an attempt by hawks to break out of the post-Iraq doldrums and strike back at what they see as a campaign of hostile leaking by their foes in such centres of caution as the State Department or in the military top brass.
The Telegraph: US Hawks Present War Manifesto To Bush
Tell Bush How To Win War On Terror
WASHINGTON -- President George W Bush was sent a public manifesto yesterday by Washington's hawks, demanding regime change in Syria and Iran and a Cuba-style military blockade of North Korea backed by planning for a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear sites.
The manifesto, presented as a "manual for victory" in the war on terror, also calls for Saudi Arabia and France to be treated not as allies but as rivals and possibly enemies.
The manifesto is contained in a new book by Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and "intellectual guru" of the hardline neo-conservative movement, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter. They give warning of a faltering of the "will to win" in Washington.
In the battle for the president's ear, the manifesto represents an attempt by hawks to break out of the post-Iraq doldrums and strike back at what they see as a campaign of hostile leaking by their foes in such centres of caution as the State Department or in the military top brass.
Tuesday, December 30, 2003
QUOTES OF THE DAY
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." - Dick Cheney, August 26 2002
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." - George W. Bush, September 12 2002
"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world." - Ari Fleischer, December 2 2002
"We know for a fact that there are weapons there." - Ari Fleischer, January 9 2003
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." - George W. Bush, State of the Union address, January 28 2003
"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more." - Colin Powell, February 5 2003
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons." - George Bush, February 8 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." - George Bush, March 17 2003
"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." - Ari Fleischer, March 21 2003
"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them." - Gen. Tommy Franks, March 22 2003
"We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad." - Donald Rumsfeld, March 30 2003.
"Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction." - Dick Cheney, August 26 2002
"Right now, Iraq is expanding and improving facilities that were used for the production of biological weapons." - George W. Bush, September 12 2002
"If he declares he has none, then we will know that Saddam Hussein is once again misleading the world." - Ari Fleischer, December 2 2002
"We know for a fact that there are weapons there." - Ari Fleischer, January 9 2003
"Our intelligence officials estimate that Saddam Hussein had the materials to produce as much as 500 tons of sarin, mustard and VX nerve agent." - George W. Bush, State of the Union address, January 28 2003
"We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more." - Colin Powell, February 5 2003
"We have sources that tell us that Saddam Hussein recently authorized Iraqi field commanders to use chemical weapons." - George Bush, February 8 2003
"Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised." - George Bush, March 17 2003
"Well, there is no question that we have evidence and information that Iraq has weapons of mass destruction, biological and chemical particularly . . . all this will be made clear in the course of the operation, for whatever duration it takes." - Ari Fleischer, March 21 2003
"There is no doubt that the regime of Saddam Hussein possesses weapons of mass destruction. As this operation continues, those weapons will be identified, found, along with the people who have produced them and who guard them." - Gen. Tommy Franks, March 22 2003
"We know where they are. They are in the area around Tikrit and Baghdad." - Donald Rumsfeld, March 30 2003.
IRAQ
Information Clearinghouse: Inside Iraq - 'Where Are
Our Human Rights?' By Dahr Jamail Independent American Journalist in Iraq
(ICH) -- So far, every single journalist I've spoken with here has told me that they had followed the news closely prior to their arrival. But after being here even just a day, they have been astonished at how terrible the situation truly is.
It has now been over 9 months since the 'war' ended. The country of Iraq remains in chaos, and the lack of consistent basic services such as petrol, security, electricity, and running water continue to afflict Iraqis.
So many times I've heard people discuss that even though Saddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator, he still managed to get the electricity, water, and communications systems back up and running three months after the Gulf War. For the record, several engineers I've spoken with have stated that these portions of the infrastructure suffered far greater damage then, than during the more recent Anglo-American Invasion.
Each day I walk by a communications building that was bombed last March. While the building remains in shambles, a metal tower has been erected, and every other day a new dish appears on it. Several times when I've walked by it I see that the machine gun toting security guards near the 'entrance' of what is left of the building are wearing Bechtel security badges.
Meanwhile, in other parts of Baghdad there are no land lines, and I've yet to see one of the communication centers being rebuilt.
The lesson seems to be that if repairing/rebuilding something in Iraq isn't necessary to serve US and British interests, it is left as it is. Most Iraqis I speak with continue to wonder just when, exactly will the rebuilding of the damaged infrastructure begin.
Information Clearinghouse: Inside Iraq - 'Where Are
Our Human Rights?' By Dahr Jamail Independent American Journalist in Iraq
(ICH) -- So far, every single journalist I've spoken with here has told me that they had followed the news closely prior to their arrival. But after being here even just a day, they have been astonished at how terrible the situation truly is.
It has now been over 9 months since the 'war' ended. The country of Iraq remains in chaos, and the lack of consistent basic services such as petrol, security, electricity, and running water continue to afflict Iraqis.
So many times I've heard people discuss that even though Saddam Hussein was a ruthless dictator, he still managed to get the electricity, water, and communications systems back up and running three months after the Gulf War. For the record, several engineers I've spoken with have stated that these portions of the infrastructure suffered far greater damage then, than during the more recent Anglo-American Invasion.
Each day I walk by a communications building that was bombed last March. While the building remains in shambles, a metal tower has been erected, and every other day a new dish appears on it. Several times when I've walked by it I see that the machine gun toting security guards near the 'entrance' of what is left of the building are wearing Bechtel security badges.
Meanwhile, in other parts of Baghdad there are no land lines, and I've yet to see one of the communication centers being rebuilt.
The lesson seems to be that if repairing/rebuilding something in Iraq isn't necessary to serve US and British interests, it is left as it is. Most Iraqis I speak with continue to wonder just when, exactly will the rebuilding of the damaged infrastructure begin.
WWII
Rense: In 'Eisenhower's Death Camps' - A US Prison Guard's Story
In October, 1944, at age eighteen, I was drafted into the U.S. army. Largely because of the "Battle of the Bulge," my training was cut short. My furlough was halved, and I was sent overseas immediately. Upon arrival in Le Havre, France, we were quickly loaded into box cars and shipped to the front. When we got there, I was suffering increasingly severe symptoms of mononucleosis, and was sent to a hospital in Belgium. Since mononucleosis was then known as the "kissing disease," I mailed a letter of thanks to my girlfriend.
By the time I left the hospital, the outfit I had trained with in Spartanburg, South Carolina was deep inside Germany, so, despite my protests, I was placed in a ãrepo depotä(replacement depot). I lost interest in the units to which I was assigned and don't recall all of them: non-combat units were ridiculed at that time. My separation qualification record states I was mostly with Company C, 14th Infantry Regiment, during my seventeen-month stay in Germany, but I remember being transferred to other outfits also.
Rense: In 'Eisenhower's Death Camps' - A US Prison Guard's Story
In October, 1944, at age eighteen, I was drafted into the U.S. army. Largely because of the "Battle of the Bulge," my training was cut short. My furlough was halved, and I was sent overseas immediately. Upon arrival in Le Havre, France, we were quickly loaded into box cars and shipped to the front. When we got there, I was suffering increasingly severe symptoms of mononucleosis, and was sent to a hospital in Belgium. Since mononucleosis was then known as the "kissing disease," I mailed a letter of thanks to my girlfriend.
By the time I left the hospital, the outfit I had trained with in Spartanburg, South Carolina was deep inside Germany, so, despite my protests, I was placed in a ãrepo depotä(replacement depot). I lost interest in the units to which I was assigned and don't recall all of them: non-combat units were ridiculed at that time. My separation qualification record states I was mostly with Company C, 14th Infantry Regiment, during my seventeen-month stay in Germany, but I remember being transferred to other outfits also.
Monday, December 29, 2003
IRAQI RESISTANCE
Infromation Clearinghouse: Hooded Men Executing Saddam Officials by Robert Fisk in Baghdad
28 December 2003: (The Independent) General Charles de Gaulle gave the French resistance 48 hours to régler les comptes - settle accounts - after the liberation of France. But after the "liberation" of Iraq, the Baath party's enemies have declared it open season to hunt down and murder hundreds of the former regime's officials - with not the slightest attempt by the Anglo-American armies or their newly installed police force to end the bloodshed.
In the Shia city of Najaf, 42 ex-members of the Baath have been murdered and not a single arrest has followed. In Basra, controlled by British troops, almost 50 Baathists have been found with their hands bound behind their backs and a single bullet hole in the neck. Again, there have been no arrests. Hussam Thafer, a doctor at the Baghdad city mortuary, says that every day he receives "five or six" bodies of people who worked for the old regime.
Some of the killings may be personal revenge. The Independent on Sunday has learned of one young Shia who hunted down his former torturer in Baghdad, calmly told the man's family that he intended to execute him, refused financial retribution for his suffering and went on to murder the man. But many of the killings are being carried out systematically - and with the same cruelty Saddam's own henchmen once used against the regime's opponents.
Major-General Khalaf al-Alousi, a former director of the secret police in Baghdad, was assassinated on a Sunday afternoon this month when he visited a home he was renovating in Yarmouk. His wife, Um Ali, described how two men in black hoods were waiting for them in the yard and another in the house, and how she knew they were going to kill her husband . "I shouted and begged them not to do it, for the sake of his daughters," she said. The ex-general tried to talk to his killers. "I never saw such calm before," Um Ali said later. The gunmen fired 17 bullets into their victim
Infromation Clearinghouse: Hooded Men Executing Saddam Officials by Robert Fisk in Baghdad
28 December 2003: (The Independent) General Charles de Gaulle gave the French resistance 48 hours to régler les comptes - settle accounts - after the liberation of France. But after the "liberation" of Iraq, the Baath party's enemies have declared it open season to hunt down and murder hundreds of the former regime's officials - with not the slightest attempt by the Anglo-American armies or their newly installed police force to end the bloodshed.
In the Shia city of Najaf, 42 ex-members of the Baath have been murdered and not a single arrest has followed. In Basra, controlled by British troops, almost 50 Baathists have been found with their hands bound behind their backs and a single bullet hole in the neck. Again, there have been no arrests. Hussam Thafer, a doctor at the Baghdad city mortuary, says that every day he receives "five or six" bodies of people who worked for the old regime.
Some of the killings may be personal revenge. The Independent on Sunday has learned of one young Shia who hunted down his former torturer in Baghdad, calmly told the man's family that he intended to execute him, refused financial retribution for his suffering and went on to murder the man. But many of the killings are being carried out systematically - and with the same cruelty Saddam's own henchmen once used against the regime's opponents.
Major-General Khalaf al-Alousi, a former director of the secret police in Baghdad, was assassinated on a Sunday afternoon this month when he visited a home he was renovating in Yarmouk. His wife, Um Ali, described how two men in black hoods were waiting for them in the yard and another in the house, and how she knew they were going to kill her husband . "I shouted and begged them not to do it, for the sake of his daughters," she said. The ex-general tried to talk to his killers. "I never saw such calm before," Um Ali said later. The gunmen fired 17 bullets into their victim
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Electronic Intifada: 117 Palestinians killed, hundreds injured during media's "relative calm"
On December 25, an Israeli assassination squad killed five Palestinians in Gaza, and injured fifteen. Three of the dead were civilians. A short time later, a Palestinian blew himself up at a bus stop in the Tel Aviv suburb of Petah Tikva, killing four Israelis, three of whom were confirmed by Ha'aretz to be soldiers.
Many leading media organizations were quick to declare that these two incidents marked the end of a period of "relative calm" or "lull" in Israeli-Palestinian violence, that had supposedly lasted since the last Palestinian suicide attack in Haifa on 4 October.
In fact, the period since 4 October has been one of intense Israeli violence, in which 117 Palestinians were killed, including 23 children. At the same time, Israel destroyed almost five hundred Palestinian homes throughout the Occupied Territories.
Electronic Intifada: 117 Palestinians killed, hundreds injured during media's "relative calm"
On December 25, an Israeli assassination squad killed five Palestinians in Gaza, and injured fifteen. Three of the dead were civilians. A short time later, a Palestinian blew himself up at a bus stop in the Tel Aviv suburb of Petah Tikva, killing four Israelis, three of whom were confirmed by Ha'aretz to be soldiers.
Many leading media organizations were quick to declare that these two incidents marked the end of a period of "relative calm" or "lull" in Israeli-Palestinian violence, that had supposedly lasted since the last Palestinian suicide attack in Haifa on 4 October.
In fact, the period since 4 October has been one of intense Israeli violence, in which 117 Palestinians were killed, including 23 children. At the same time, Israel destroyed almost five hundred Palestinian homes throughout the Occupied Territories.
IRAQI RESISTANCE
Independent: Checkpoints Prove Useless Against Suicide Bombers in Iraq by Robert Fisk
A severed arm with a hand still attached to it lay a few metres from the broken gates of the mayor's office in Karbala yesterday, a piece of humanity every bit as bloody as the story of the seventh-century Shia martyr Hussein, the golden dome of whose shrine could be seen through the smog to the east.
They said the arm belonged to a police major - one of 11 cops killed in the four ferocious attacks on Saturday in this most holy of cities - but others claimed it belonged to the man who drove the truck-bomb right up to the gates.
In the parking lot outside, stunned Polish and Bulgarian troops, many of them in the clapped-out Russian vehicles that Saddam's own army used until its demise eight months ago, looked at the scene with a strange mixture of awe and contempt. Four Bulgarians were killed a mile away when another man drove an oil tanker right up to their camouflaged headquarters.
When I approached one Bulgarian officer a few metres from the 20-foot hole that the bomb had blasted in the road, he turned away in tears
Independent: Checkpoints Prove Useless Against Suicide Bombers in Iraq by Robert Fisk
A severed arm with a hand still attached to it lay a few metres from the broken gates of the mayor's office in Karbala yesterday, a piece of humanity every bit as bloody as the story of the seventh-century Shia martyr Hussein, the golden dome of whose shrine could be seen through the smog to the east.
They said the arm belonged to a police major - one of 11 cops killed in the four ferocious attacks on Saturday in this most holy of cities - but others claimed it belonged to the man who drove the truck-bomb right up to the gates.
In the parking lot outside, stunned Polish and Bulgarian troops, many of them in the clapped-out Russian vehicles that Saddam's own army used until its demise eight months ago, looked at the scene with a strange mixture of awe and contempt. Four Bulgarians were killed a mile away when another man drove an oil tanker right up to their camouflaged headquarters.
When I approached one Bulgarian officer a few metres from the 20-foot hole that the bomb had blasted in the road, he turned away in tears
UK
Scotsman: Blair under fire again for WMD claims
CLAIMS that weapons inspectors have uncovered massive evidence that Saddam Hussein had a network of clandestine laboratories have landed Tony Blair in trouble for the second time in a month after they were rubbished by the United States’ top man in Iraq.
Paul Bremer, unaware the claims had been made by the Prime Minister, said the comments sounded like a "red herring" put about to undermine the coalition by someone opposed to military action.
Scotsman: Blair under fire again for WMD claims
CLAIMS that weapons inspectors have uncovered massive evidence that Saddam Hussein had a network of clandestine laboratories have landed Tony Blair in trouble for the second time in a month after they were rubbished by the United States’ top man in Iraq.
Paul Bremer, unaware the claims had been made by the Prime Minister, said the comments sounded like a "red herring" put about to undermine the coalition by someone opposed to military action.
Saturday, December 27, 2003
IRAQ
information clearinghouse: From joy to despair: Iraqis pay for Saddam's capture by Robert Fisk
27 December 2003: (The Independent) Ali Salman Ali was the first victim of Saddam's capture, but he died on Christmas Day. As his father Salman Ghazi, 71, tells it, Ali must have been among the first of Iraq's Shia Muslims to scream his delight in the street after the former dictator emerged from his hole in the ground.
"He shouted that the Americans had come to save us and liberated us from that terrible regime," Mr Ghazi said yesterday, his sun-blasted, lined face and dark eyes staring at my notebook.
Behind me, the 12 cousins of Ali Salman Ali were heaving his cheap wooden coffin from the Baghdad mortuary on to the back of a rusting white pick-up with a cracked windscreen and a toy rabbit swinging from a chain over the mirror.
The Baghdad morgue is a grim enough place at any hour, let alone on a grey, greasy, wet Boxing Day and - though Christmas would have had no place in the family's observances - there was a kind of weariness among the men in their damp tribal robes with frayed golden fringes standing in the mud yesterday.
It had taken Ali Salman Ali two weeks to die.
information clearinghouse: From joy to despair: Iraqis pay for Saddam's capture by Robert Fisk
27 December 2003: (The Independent) Ali Salman Ali was the first victim of Saddam's capture, but he died on Christmas Day. As his father Salman Ghazi, 71, tells it, Ali must have been among the first of Iraq's Shia Muslims to scream his delight in the street after the former dictator emerged from his hole in the ground.
"He shouted that the Americans had come to save us and liberated us from that terrible regime," Mr Ghazi said yesterday, his sun-blasted, lined face and dark eyes staring at my notebook.
Behind me, the 12 cousins of Ali Salman Ali were heaving his cheap wooden coffin from the Baghdad mortuary on to the back of a rusting white pick-up with a cracked windscreen and a toy rabbit swinging from a chain over the mirror.
The Baghdad morgue is a grim enough place at any hour, let alone on a grey, greasy, wet Boxing Day and - though Christmas would have had no place in the family's observances - there was a kind of weariness among the men in their damp tribal robes with frayed golden fringes standing in the mud yesterday.
It had taken Ali Salman Ali two weeks to die.
IRAQI RESISTANCE
BBC: Troops dead in Iraq city blasts
Six coalition soldiers have been killed and many others injured after several blasts in the Iraqi city of Karbala, military officials say.
BBC: Troops dead in Iraq city blasts
Six coalition soldiers have been killed and many others injured after several blasts in the Iraqi city of Karbala, military officials say.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship . . . voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Hermann Goering
"Why, of course, the people don't want war. Why would some poor slob on a farm want to risk his life in a war when the best that he can get out of it is to come back to his farm in one piece? Naturally, the common people don't want war: neither in Russia nor in England nor in America, nor for that matter in Germany. That is understood. But, after all, it is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along, whether it is a democracy or a fascist dictatorship or a Parliament or a Communist dictatorship . . . voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country."
Hermann Goering
IRAQ: PROFIT OVER PEOPLE
Spiegel: IRAK-WIEDERAUFBAU: "Zur Kolonie degradiert"
Die US-Regierung verspricht ein "Wirtschaftswunder zwischen Euphrat und Tigris" und setzt dabei auf ein klassisches neoliberales Konzept: Radikalprivatisierung. Konzernen aus den USA, Großbritannien und den übrigen Staaten der Kriegskoalition bieten sich im Irak fortan unbegrenzte Möglichkeiten
Während Bremer einerseits noch den Versorgungsstaat alter Schule fortführt, setzt er an anderer Stelle auf Radikalprivatisierungen. Mit einem "Gesetz zur Regelung für Auslandsinvestitionen" hat er ausländischen Interessenten einen fast schrankenlosen Zugriff auf irakische Unternehmen ermöglicht. Investoren können die Firmen zu 100 Prozent der Anteile übernehmen und sämtliche Gewinne außer Landes schaffen. Ihre Aktivitäten sollen ab 2004 überdies vollständig von Steuern und Zöllen befreit werden. Nach Einschätzung des irakische Ökonomen Kamil Mahdi wird das Land mit diesem Gesetz zur Kolonie degradiert. "Die Amerikaner", so schrieb er im britischen "Guardian", sollten die Privatisierung sein lassen, bis Normalität eingekehrt ist und eine verfassungsmäßige Regierung eingesetzt wurde." Die Mitarbeiter mehrerer Staatsbetriebe haben schon angekündigt, ihre Arbeitgeber notfalls mit Waffengewalt gegen ausländische Übernahmen zu verteidigen.
Spiegel: IRAK-WIEDERAUFBAU: "Zur Kolonie degradiert"
Die US-Regierung verspricht ein "Wirtschaftswunder zwischen Euphrat und Tigris" und setzt dabei auf ein klassisches neoliberales Konzept: Radikalprivatisierung. Konzernen aus den USA, Großbritannien und den übrigen Staaten der Kriegskoalition bieten sich im Irak fortan unbegrenzte Möglichkeiten
Während Bremer einerseits noch den Versorgungsstaat alter Schule fortführt, setzt er an anderer Stelle auf Radikalprivatisierungen. Mit einem "Gesetz zur Regelung für Auslandsinvestitionen" hat er ausländischen Interessenten einen fast schrankenlosen Zugriff auf irakische Unternehmen ermöglicht. Investoren können die Firmen zu 100 Prozent der Anteile übernehmen und sämtliche Gewinne außer Landes schaffen. Ihre Aktivitäten sollen ab 2004 überdies vollständig von Steuern und Zöllen befreit werden. Nach Einschätzung des irakische Ökonomen Kamil Mahdi wird das Land mit diesem Gesetz zur Kolonie degradiert. "Die Amerikaner", so schrieb er im britischen "Guardian", sollten die Privatisierung sein lassen, bis Normalität eingekehrt ist und eine verfassungsmäßige Regierung eingesetzt wurde." Die Mitarbeiter mehrerer Staatsbetriebe haben schon angekündigt, ihre Arbeitgeber notfalls mit Waffengewalt gegen ausländische Übernahmen zu verteidigen.
SADDAM
Arabnews: Saddam Threatens To Expose US
JEDDAH -- Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, now being grilled by American investigators, has reportedly warned US authorities that he will expose Washington's "political games" and its behind-the-scene role in the occupation of Kuwait.
"Saddam threatened that if they continue to pressure him he will reveal startling facts - about America's political games with his country - that would shock the whole world," Al-Watan Arabic daily quoted a high-level European source as saying.
The source said Saddam had stopped answering the investigators' questions and asked them to "give him enough time to clear his mind." He did not elaborate further, the source added.
Arabnews: Saddam Threatens To Expose US
JEDDAH -- Former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, now being grilled by American investigators, has reportedly warned US authorities that he will expose Washington's "political games" and its behind-the-scene role in the occupation of Kuwait.
"Saddam threatened that if they continue to pressure him he will reveal startling facts - about America's political games with his country - that would shock the whole world," Al-Watan Arabic daily quoted a high-level European source as saying.
The source said Saddam had stopped answering the investigators' questions and asked them to "give him enough time to clear his mind." He did not elaborate further, the source added.
IRAQ: DEMOCRACY?
Independent: Iraq through the American looking glass by Robert Fisk (complete)
26 December 2003 : (The Independent) Something very unpleasant is being let loose in Iraq. Just this week, a company commander in the US 1st
Infantry Division in the north of the country admitted that, in order to elicit information about the guerrillas who are killing American troops, it
was necessary to "instill fear" in the local villagers. An Iraqi interpreter working for the Americans had just taken an old lady from her home to
frighten her daughters and grand-daughters into believing that she was being arrested.
A battalion commander in the same area put the point even more baldly. "With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for
projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," he said. He was speaking from a village that his men had surrounded with barbed
wire, upon which was a sign, stating: "This fence is here for your protection. Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot."
Try to explain that this treatment - and these words - offend the very basic humanity of the people whom the Americans claimed they came to
"liberate" and you are met in Baghdad with the same explanation: that a very small "remnant" of "diehards" - loyal to the now-captured Saddam
Hussein, etc, etc - have to be separated from the civilians whom they are "intimidating".
To point out that the intimidation is largely coming from the American occupation force - to the horror of the British in southern Iraq who
fear, understandably, that Iraqi revenge will be visited upon them as it was on the Italians and the Spanish - is useless.
Instead, we are told that American troops are winning those famous hearts and minds with the spirit of Christmas. There was a grim example of
this - and the inherent racism that pervades even reporting of such events - on the Associated Press wire agency just this week.
Describing how an American soldier in a Santa Claus hat was giving out stuffed animals to children, reporter Jason Keyser wrote that one
11-year- old child "looked puzzled, then smiled" as the soldier gave him a small, stuffed goat. Then the report continued: "Others in the crowd of mostly
Muslims grabbed greedily at the box," adding the soldier's remark that: "They don't know how to handle generosity."
I don't doubt the soldier's wish to do good. But what is one to make of the "mostly Muslims" who "grabbed greedily" at the gifts? Or the soldier's
insensitive remarks about generosity? Iraqi newspapers have been front--paging a Christmas card produced by US troops in Baghdad: "1st
Battalion, 22nd Infantry Wishes you a very Merry Christmas!" it says. But the illustration is of Saddam Hussein in his scruffy beard just
after his capture, with a Santa hat superimposed on top of his head. Funny enough for us, no doubt - I can't personally think of a better fall-guy for St
Nicholas - but a clear insult to Sunni Arabs who, however much they may loathe the beast of Baghdad, will see in this card a deliberate attempt
to humiliate Muslim Iraqis. It is for Iraqis to demean their ex-president - not their American occupiers.
It's almost as if the occupying powers want to look through Alice's looking glass. This week, we had the odd statement by British General Graeme
Lamb that Saddam could be compared to the Emperor Caligula. Now the good general was probably relying on Suetonius's Twelve Caesars for his views on
Caligula. But if anything, the Roman was a good deal more insane than Saddam and even more heedless of human life.
The crazy Uday Hussein, son of Saddam, might have been a more appropriate parallel. But what was all this supposed to achieve? A serious war
crimes trial - preferably outside Iraq and far from the country's contaminated judiciary - is the way to define the nature of Saddam's repulsive
regime.
All references to the ex-dictator as Hitler, Stalin, Attila the Hun or Caligula - like all suggestions that Tony Blair or George Bush are
Winston Churchill - are infantile. And again, they will appear insulting to the Sunni Muslims of Iraq, the one community which the Americans should be
desperate to placate, since it is the Sunnis who are primarily resisting the occupation.
But the looking-glass effect seems to have taken hold of US pro-consul Paul Bremer's entire authority. Like President George Bush, Bremer has now
taken to repeating the absurdity that the greater the West's success in Iraq, the more frequent will be the attacks on American troops.
"I personally feel that we'll actually have more violence in the next six months," he said a couple of week ago, "and the violence will be
precisely because of the fact that we're building momentum toward success." In other words, the better things become, the worse they're going to get. And
the greater the violence, the better we're doing in Iraq.
I wouldn't worry about this nonsense so much if it wasn't mirrored on the ground in Iraq. Take the US claim - now regarded as an absurdity - that
they killed "54 insurgents" in Samara a month ago. The truth is that they killed at least eight civilians and there's not a smidgen of evidence
that they killed anyone else. But still they insist on sticking to the story of their great victory.
Last week, they pushed out a similar version of the same story. This time there were 11 dead "insurgents" in Samara. But when The Independent
investigated, it could only find records of four dead civilians and a lot of wounded. None of the wounded - presumably "insurgents" if the
Americans believe their own story - had been visited in hospital by US forces who might, if they didn't question them, at least have apologised.
An even more peculiar habit has now manifest itself among spokesmen for the occupation authorities. When a tank drove over a prominent Shiite
Muslim cleric in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City three weeks ago, they claimed this was a "traffic accident", as if driving an M1A1 Abrams tank over a
car and a robed prelate is the kind of thing that can happen on any downtown street.
A few days later, after a truck-bomber crashed into a car and killed 17 civilians, the occupation lads churned out the same rubbish again. It
was, they said, a "traffic accident" involving a petrol tanker. But there was no tanker attached to the lorry.
The first American troops on the scene found the grenades intended to detonate the bomb and the victims were all blasted to bits - not
burned, as they would have been if the petrol tanker had simply caught fire. Those of us who reached the scene shortly after the slaughter could still smell
the explosives. But it was a "traffic accident".
Only yesterday we had an equally bizarre event. Jets, C-130 aircraft mounted with chain guns, and heavy artillery were all reported to be
striking "guerrilla bases" in Operation Iron Hammer south of Baghdad. But investigation proved that the targets were empty fields and that some
of the heavy guns were firing blank rounds as part of an artillery maintenance routine.
So let's get this right. Insurgents are civilians. Truck bombs and tanks that crush civilians are traffic accidents. And the "liberated"
civilians who live in villages surrounded by razor wire should endure "a heavy dose of fear and violence" to keep them on the straight and narrow.
Somewhere along the way, they will probably be told about democracy as well.
"CHECK IT, CHECK IT, CHECK IT"
Independent: Iraq through the American looking glass by Robert Fisk (complete)
26 December 2003 : (The Independent) Something very unpleasant is being let loose in Iraq. Just this week, a company commander in the US 1st
Infantry Division in the north of the country admitted that, in order to elicit information about the guerrillas who are killing American troops, it
was necessary to "instill fear" in the local villagers. An Iraqi interpreter working for the Americans had just taken an old lady from her home to
frighten her daughters and grand-daughters into believing that she was being arrested.
A battalion commander in the same area put the point even more baldly. "With a heavy dose of fear and violence, and a lot of money for
projects, I think we can convince these people that we are here to help them," he said. He was speaking from a village that his men had surrounded with barbed
wire, upon which was a sign, stating: "This fence is here for your protection. Do not approach or try to cross, or you will be shot."
Try to explain that this treatment - and these words - offend the very basic humanity of the people whom the Americans claimed they came to
"liberate" and you are met in Baghdad with the same explanation: that a very small "remnant" of "diehards" - loyal to the now-captured Saddam
Hussein, etc, etc - have to be separated from the civilians whom they are "intimidating".
To point out that the intimidation is largely coming from the American occupation force - to the horror of the British in southern Iraq who
fear, understandably, that Iraqi revenge will be visited upon them as it was on the Italians and the Spanish - is useless.
Instead, we are told that American troops are winning those famous hearts and minds with the spirit of Christmas. There was a grim example of
this - and the inherent racism that pervades even reporting of such events - on the Associated Press wire agency just this week.
Describing how an American soldier in a Santa Claus hat was giving out stuffed animals to children, reporter Jason Keyser wrote that one
11-year- old child "looked puzzled, then smiled" as the soldier gave him a small, stuffed goat. Then the report continued: "Others in the crowd of mostly
Muslims grabbed greedily at the box," adding the soldier's remark that: "They don't know how to handle generosity."
I don't doubt the soldier's wish to do good. But what is one to make of the "mostly Muslims" who "grabbed greedily" at the gifts? Or the soldier's
insensitive remarks about generosity? Iraqi newspapers have been front--paging a Christmas card produced by US troops in Baghdad: "1st
Battalion, 22nd Infantry Wishes you a very Merry Christmas!" it says. But the illustration is of Saddam Hussein in his scruffy beard just
after his capture, with a Santa hat superimposed on top of his head. Funny enough for us, no doubt - I can't personally think of a better fall-guy for St
Nicholas - but a clear insult to Sunni Arabs who, however much they may loathe the beast of Baghdad, will see in this card a deliberate attempt
to humiliate Muslim Iraqis. It is for Iraqis to demean their ex-president - not their American occupiers.
It's almost as if the occupying powers want to look through Alice's looking glass. This week, we had the odd statement by British General Graeme
Lamb that Saddam could be compared to the Emperor Caligula. Now the good general was probably relying on Suetonius's Twelve Caesars for his views on
Caligula. But if anything, the Roman was a good deal more insane than Saddam and even more heedless of human life.
The crazy Uday Hussein, son of Saddam, might have been a more appropriate parallel. But what was all this supposed to achieve? A serious war
crimes trial - preferably outside Iraq and far from the country's contaminated judiciary - is the way to define the nature of Saddam's repulsive
regime.
All references to the ex-dictator as Hitler, Stalin, Attila the Hun or Caligula - like all suggestions that Tony Blair or George Bush are
Winston Churchill - are infantile. And again, they will appear insulting to the Sunni Muslims of Iraq, the one community which the Americans should be
desperate to placate, since it is the Sunnis who are primarily resisting the occupation.
But the looking-glass effect seems to have taken hold of US pro-consul Paul Bremer's entire authority. Like President George Bush, Bremer has now
taken to repeating the absurdity that the greater the West's success in Iraq, the more frequent will be the attacks on American troops.
"I personally feel that we'll actually have more violence in the next six months," he said a couple of week ago, "and the violence will be
precisely because of the fact that we're building momentum toward success." In other words, the better things become, the worse they're going to get. And
the greater the violence, the better we're doing in Iraq.
I wouldn't worry about this nonsense so much if it wasn't mirrored on the ground in Iraq. Take the US claim - now regarded as an absurdity - that
they killed "54 insurgents" in Samara a month ago. The truth is that they killed at least eight civilians and there's not a smidgen of evidence
that they killed anyone else. But still they insist on sticking to the story of their great victory.
Last week, they pushed out a similar version of the same story. This time there were 11 dead "insurgents" in Samara. But when The Independent
investigated, it could only find records of four dead civilians and a lot of wounded. None of the wounded - presumably "insurgents" if the
Americans believe their own story - had been visited in hospital by US forces who might, if they didn't question them, at least have apologised.
An even more peculiar habit has now manifest itself among spokesmen for the occupation authorities. When a tank drove over a prominent Shiite
Muslim cleric in the Baghdad suburb of Sadr City three weeks ago, they claimed this was a "traffic accident", as if driving an M1A1 Abrams tank over a
car and a robed prelate is the kind of thing that can happen on any downtown street.
A few days later, after a truck-bomber crashed into a car and killed 17 civilians, the occupation lads churned out the same rubbish again. It
was, they said, a "traffic accident" involving a petrol tanker. But there was no tanker attached to the lorry.
The first American troops on the scene found the grenades intended to detonate the bomb and the victims were all blasted to bits - not
burned, as they would have been if the petrol tanker had simply caught fire. Those of us who reached the scene shortly after the slaughter could still smell
the explosives. But it was a "traffic accident".
Only yesterday we had an equally bizarre event. Jets, C-130 aircraft mounted with chain guns, and heavy artillery were all reported to be
striking "guerrilla bases" in Operation Iron Hammer south of Baghdad. But investigation proved that the targets were empty fields and that some
of the heavy guns were firing blank rounds as part of an artillery maintenance routine.
So let's get this right. Insurgents are civilians. Truck bombs and tanks that crush civilians are traffic accidents. And the "liberated"
civilians who live in villages surrounded by razor wire should endure "a heavy dose of fear and violence" to keep them on the straight and narrow.
Somewhere along the way, they will probably be told about democracy as well.
"CHECK IT, CHECK IT, CHECK IT"
PROPAGANDA WATCH
British Journalism Review: Britain’s security services and journalists: the secret story
British journalists – and British journals – are being manipulated by the secret intelligence agencies, and I think we ought to try and put a stop to it.
The manipulation takes three forms. The first is the attempt to recruit journalists to spy on other people, or for spies to go themselves under journalistic “cover”. This occurs today and it has gone on for years. It is dangerous, not only for the journalist concerned, but for other journalists who get tarred with the espionage brush. Farzad Bazoft was a colleague of mine on the London Observer when he was executed by Saddam Hussein for espionage. It did not, in a sense, matter whether he was really a spy or not. Either way, he ended up dead.
The second form of manipulation that worries me is when intelligence officers are allowed to pose as journalists in order to write tendentious articles under false names. Evidence of this only rarely comes to light, but two examples have surfaced recently – mainly because of the whistleblowing activities of a couple of renegade officers – David Shayler from MI5 and Richard Tomlinson from MI6.
The third sort of manipulation is the most insidious – when intelligence agency propaganda stories are planted on willing journalists, who disguise their origin from their readers. There is – or has been until recently – a very active programme by the secret agencies to colour what appears in the British press, called, if publications by various defectors can be believed, “I/Ops”. That is an abbreviation for Information Operations, and I am – unusually – in a position to provide some information about it.
British Journalism Review: Britain’s security services and journalists: the secret story
British journalists – and British journals – are being manipulated by the secret intelligence agencies, and I think we ought to try and put a stop to it.
The manipulation takes three forms. The first is the attempt to recruit journalists to spy on other people, or for spies to go themselves under journalistic “cover”. This occurs today and it has gone on for years. It is dangerous, not only for the journalist concerned, but for other journalists who get tarred with the espionage brush. Farzad Bazoft was a colleague of mine on the London Observer when he was executed by Saddam Hussein for espionage. It did not, in a sense, matter whether he was really a spy or not. Either way, he ended up dead.
The second form of manipulation that worries me is when intelligence officers are allowed to pose as journalists in order to write tendentious articles under false names. Evidence of this only rarely comes to light, but two examples have surfaced recently – mainly because of the whistleblowing activities of a couple of renegade officers – David Shayler from MI5 and Richard Tomlinson from MI6.
The third sort of manipulation is the most insidious – when intelligence agency propaganda stories are planted on willing journalists, who disguise their origin from their readers. There is – or has been until recently – a very active programme by the secret agencies to colour what appears in the British press, called, if publications by various defectors can be believed, “I/Ops”. That is an abbreviation for Information Operations, and I am – unusually – in a position to provide some information about it.
OCCUPIED TERRITORIES
Counterpunch: Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, Rafah Counts the Dead Merry Christmas December 25, 2003
Israeli occupation forces left the center of Rafah, although as is
normal the Israelis remain at the border they have created. The Wall the
Israelis are building with armoured machines is overshadowed only by its many
sniper posts. Israeli soldiers remain daily to shoot and shell into the homes
at whatever is the latest point in the "border." The line changes as the
Israelis demolish more houses, turning what once was the center of the
city into the border.
The Israelis killed ten Palestinians in Rafah yesterday. Forty
Palestinians are in the hospital. The number of demolished homes is yet to be
determined as Israeli tanks and bulldozers have just left the Yibna Camp where
they attacked heavily yesterday. Palestinian medical and search crews are
beginning to dig through the rubble looking for bodies, as several
people report fears that there is a family still inside one of the demolished
houses.
Israeli occupation forces not only destroyed more people's homes, but
demolished the UNWRA (United Nations Relief Works Agency) Clinic as
well. The Israelis continue to target the United Nations unchallenged
Counterpunch: Bethlehem Celebrates Christmas, Rafah Counts the Dead Merry Christmas December 25, 2003
Israeli occupation forces left the center of Rafah, although as is
normal the Israelis remain at the border they have created. The Wall the
Israelis are building with armoured machines is overshadowed only by its many
sniper posts. Israeli soldiers remain daily to shoot and shell into the homes
at whatever is the latest point in the "border." The line changes as the
Israelis demolish more houses, turning what once was the center of the
city into the border.
The Israelis killed ten Palestinians in Rafah yesterday. Forty
Palestinians are in the hospital. The number of demolished homes is yet to be
determined as Israeli tanks and bulldozers have just left the Yibna Camp where
they attacked heavily yesterday. Palestinian medical and search crews are
beginning to dig through the rubble looking for bodies, as several
people report fears that there is a family still inside one of the demolished
houses.
Israeli occupation forces not only destroyed more people's homes, but
demolished the UNWRA (United Nations Relief Works Agency) Clinic as
well. The Israelis continue to target the United Nations unchallenged
IRAQI RESISTANCE
Al Jazeera: US bombs Baghdad for third night
US-led occupation forces have bombed Baghdad for the third consecutive night as resistance fighters lobbed at least three mortar bombs at the occupying administration headquarters.
The night attack came 17 hours after resistance fighters fired more than a dozen rockets and mortar bombs in central Baghdad, hitting the vicinity of the US headquarters, two hotels occupied by Westerners, two embassies and an apartment bloc.
Al Jazeera: US bombs Baghdad for third night
US-led occupation forces have bombed Baghdad for the third consecutive night as resistance fighters lobbed at least three mortar bombs at the occupying administration headquarters.
The night attack came 17 hours after resistance fighters fired more than a dozen rockets and mortar bombs in central Baghdad, hitting the vicinity of the US headquarters, two hotels occupied by Westerners, two embassies and an apartment bloc.
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