USA: MEDIA WATCH

Washington Post: THE ENEMY PRESS

After New York Times reporter Eric Lichtblau wrote a story
reporting that the Federal Bureau of Investigation had collected
extensive information on antiwar demonstrators, FBI spokeswoman
Cassandra Chandler sent around a memo urging agency officials to
"please avoid providing information to this reporter," and the
Justice Department revoked his press credentials.

PROPAGANDA WATCH: IRAQ HANDOVER

Juan Cole: POWER PLAY
The "handover of power" to Iraq is "a publicity stunt and has
almost no substance to it," says Middle East history professor Juan
Cole. "Gwen Ifill said on US television on Sunday that she had
talked to Condaleeza Rice, and that her hope was that when
something went wrong in Iraq, the journalists would now grill
Allawi about it rather than the Bush administration. (Or words to
that effect.) Ifill seems to me to have given away the whole Bush
show. That's what this whole thing is about. It is Public Relations
and manipulation of journalists. Let's see if they fall for it."

NEW "DEMOCRATIC" IRAQ

NEW YORK TIMES: Who Lost Iraq? By PAUL KRUGMAN

The formal occupation of Iraq came to an ignominious end yesterday with a furtive ceremony, held two days early to foil insurgent attacks, and a swift airborne exit for the chief administrator. In reality, the occupation will continue under another name, most likely until a hostile Iraqi populace demands that we leave. But it's already worth asking why things went so wrong.

The Iraq venture may have been doomed from the start — but we'll never know for sure because the Bush administration made such a mess of the occupation. Future historians will view it as a case study of how not to run a country.

Up to a point, the numbers in the Brookings Institution's invaluable Iraq Index tell the tale. Figures on the electricity supply and oil production show a pattern of fitful recovery and frequent reversals; figures on insurgent attacks and civilian casualties show a security situation that got progressively worse, not better; public opinion polls show an occupation that squandered the initial good will.

VIDEO: MIDDLE EAST NEWS

Mosaic TV: World News Reports From Middle East TV For 06/28/04:

The nation's only uncensored compilation of daily television news reports from more than 15 countries in the Middle East. QuickTime Video.

NEW "DEMOCRATIC" IRAQ

Guardian: Iraqis have lived this lie before
The British transfer of sovereignty in the 20s was equally meaningless

In Iraq, we have an expression: same donkey, different saddle. Iraq's long-heralded interim government has now formally assumed sovereignty. Official labels and tags have duly changed. The US administrator will now be an ambassador, while Sheikh Ghazi al Yawar and Iyad Allawi, US-appointed members of the former governing council, are to be known as president and prime minister.
To formalise the change, the UN has already issued a resolution under which "multinational forces" will replace "US-led forces". On the issue of control over US troops, the message is clear: the US forces are there to stay only because "Iraqi people" has asked them to. But which Iraqi people? Do they mean the new administration headed by the CIA's Iyad Allawi? And why does all this sound strangely familiar?

NEW "DEMOCRATIC" IRAQ

The Star: A pitiful occasion for the people by Robert Fisk

Beirut - So, in the end, America's enemies set the date.

The handover of "full sovereignty" was secretly brought forward so that the ex-CIA intelligence officer who is now premier of Iraq could avoid another bloody offensive by America's enemies.

What was supposed to be the most important date in Iraq's modern history was changed - like a birthday party, because it might rain on Wednesday.

Pitiful is the word that comes to mind.

Here we were, handing "full sovereignty" to the people of Iraq - "full", of course, providing we forget the 160 000 foreign soldiers whom Prime Minister Iyad Allawi has apparently asked to stay on in Iraq, "full" providing we forget the 3 000 US diplomats in Baghdad who will constitute the largest US embassy in the world.

And we never even told the Iraqi people we had changed the date.

Few, save of course for the Iraqis, understood the cruellest paradox of the event.

For it was the new Iraqi Foreign Minister - should we not put his title, too, into quotation marks? - who chose to leak "bringing forward" of "sovereignty in Iraq" at the Nato summit in Turkey.

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NEW DEMOCRATIC IRAQ

Newsasia: Nine killed on first day of Iraq government, Turkish hostages freed

Three US soldiers and six Iraqis were killed in violence on the first day of business for Iraq's new government after it formally regained sovereignty from the US-led coalition.

As Ankara hailed the release of three Turks kidnapped in Iraq and threatened with decapitation, US President George W. Bush said NATO's agreement to train the new Iraqi army was "a crucial success for the Iraqi people".

NEW DEMOCRATIC IRAQ

Informationclearinghouse: John Pilger On Iraq And The Future
America will wake up to the deaths of their children in Iraq'
Campaigning journalist John Pilger has vehemently opposed the Bush-Blair ‘war on terror’. With power due to be handed to the Iraqi people on Wednesday, Torcuil Crichton asked for his thoughts on that country’s future, and the prospects for world peace

Aljazeera: Foreign Hands Behind Iraq Blasts Say Experts
Iraqi experts accused 'foreign hands' of being behind the deadly string of random attacks in the war-torn country in an attempt to stir unrest ahead of the handover of power to Iraqis
The vicious cycle of violence will give reason to the overstay of the US-led occupation in the country after the power handover, he said.

YAHOO News: Iraqi Militants Kill US Soldier - Report
BAGHDAD, Iraq - Iraqi militants killed an American soldier they have held hostage for nearly three months, saying the killing was because the U.S. government did not change its policy in Iraq, Al-Jazeera television reported Tuesday.
News of the killing of Spc. Keith M. Maupin, 20, of Batavia, Ohio, came hours after the United States returned sovereignty in Iraq to an interim government. The report did not say when Maupin was killed.

Independent: Another Bloody Day In Iraq As US Transfers Power By Patrick Cockburn in Baghdad and Leyla Linton
Two car bombs in the city of Hillah that killed at least 23 civilians and a rocket attack that left dead two children who were playing on the bank of the Tigris River in Baghdad have raised the political temperature before Wednesday's transfer of sovereignty.

A further 58 people were injured in the blasts in Hillah, south of Baghdad, including Noor Ahmed, a two-year-old whose right arm had to be amputated.

Yesterday's rocket attack in Baghdad, which came as President George Bush posed for a photograph with other Nato leaders in an Ottoman palace in Istanbul, was followed by the seizure of a US Marine. The hostage, like three Turks whose capture was announced on Saturday, has been threatened with beheading.

NEW IRAQ: 28.06.2004

Spiegel: Die geknebelte Demokratie
Die USA haben die Macht zwei Tage früher als vorgesehen an die irakische Übergangsregierung abgegeben. Doch ihr Plan für die Stabilisierung des Landes könnte ebenso scheitern wie der Großbritanniens nach dem Ersten Weltkrieg, als der Irak im Chaos versank. Die neuen Herrscher bieten Radikalen zu viele Angriffsfläche.

Independent: Power handed over to new Iraq government
The US-led coalition handed over sovereignty to the new Iraqi government today - two days earlier than planned.

The surprise move - formally ending the occupation by coalition forces - took place in a low-key ceremony in Baghdad's heavily-guarded Green Zone.

British and US officials said the transfer of power had been brought forward to "seize the political initiative" from anti-coalition militants who have been waging a bloody terrorist campaign.

IRAQ: SOVEREIGNTY

Financial Times: Iraq ministers told only US can impose martial law

The US-led occupation authority in Baghdad has warned Iraq's interim government not to carry out its threat of declaring martial law, insisting that only the US-led coalition has the right to adopt emergency powers after the June 30 handover of sovereignty.

Senior American officials say Iraq's authorities are bound by human rights clauses in the interim constitution, known as the Transitional Administrative Law, prohibiting administrative detention.

But they say the recent United Nations Security Council resolution 1546 sanctions the use by foreign forces in Iraq of "all necessary measures" to provide security.

A senior coalition official in Baghdad said: "Under the UN resolution, the multinational force will have the power to take all actions traditionally associated with martial law." He said they had raised their legal objections with Iyad Allawi, Iraq's prime minister.

"Have you checked your dictionary to determine the meaning of the word, "Sovereignty?"

USA

Guardian: Moonie leader 'crowned' in Senate

The US Senate was used for a bizarre ritual in which the Rev Sun Myung Moon, the head of the Unification church, was "crowned" and declared himself the messiah in the presence of more than a dozen Republican and Democratic members of Congress, it was reported yesterday.
"Emperors, kings and presidents ... have declared to all heaven and Earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity's saviour, messiah, returning Lord and true parent," the 85-year-old Korean "Moonie" cult leader told several hundred guests at the meeting in one of the Senate's office buildings on March 23, according to the Washington Post

AIDS

Rense: AIDS As Biological And
Psychological Warfare

Despite repeated denials from Defense Department officials, allegations persist that AIDS is a genetically altered virus, which has been deliberately released to wipe out homosexuals and/or non-whites in the U.S. and reduce populations in third world countries.

At first glance it seems like the epitome of paranoia to accuse the military of conspiring to exterminate citizens of their own country, and even some of their own troops. However, the vast majority of military personnel could be completely unaware of such a plot in their midst, while a relative handful of traitors in key positions could conduct it under cover of classified operations. And the circumstantial evidence is actually quite compelling, that the AIDS virus was artificially engineered, and planted in several different locations at about the same time through vaccination programs, and possibly blood bank contamination.

SPAIN: MADRID BOMBING

Times: Bomb squad link in Spanish blasts
The man accused of supplying the dynamite used in the al-Qaeda train bombings in Madrid was in possession of the private telephone number of the head of Spain’s Civil Guard bomb squad, it emerged yesterday.
Emilio Suárez Trashorras, who is alleged to have supplied 200kg of dynamite used in the bombs, had obtained the number of Juan Jesús Sánchez Manzano, the head of Tedax...
The revelation has raised fresh concerns in Madrid about links between those held responsible for the March bombings, which killed 190 people, and Spain’s security services, and shortcomings in the police investigation. Señor Suárez Trashorras and two other men implicated in the bombings have already been identified as police informers. Other members of the group had evaded police surveillance, despite concerns within the security services about their activities and evidence of their association with al-Qaeda.

BBC: Spain suspects 'were informants'
The Spanish interior ministry says it is investigating reports that two suspects in the 11 March Madrid train bombings were police informants.
The move came after Spain's El Mundo newspaper said Moroccan Rafa Zuher and Spaniard Jose Emilio Suarez had been in contact with police before the attacks.
The men are suspected of providing dynamite for the attacks, which killed 191 people and injured more than 2,000.
The paper said they passed on details about drug deals and other crimes.
Mr Suarez, a former miner, was arrested a week after the attacks and is the only Spanish-born suspect in custody.

ISRAEL

Counterpunch: Israel's Intelligence Scandal by Uri Avnery

Two weeks ago, the international community made a shocking declaration.

Giving in to a demand by George Bush, the “Quartet” accepted the “Revised Disengagement Plan” of Ariel Sharon. This means that the United Nations, the European Union, the Russian Federation and the United States confirmed this document. I wonder if any one of the honorable diplomats has read the document with their own eyes.

In the first paragraph of the “plan”, the following words appear: “Israel has come to the conclusion that at present, there is no Palestinian partner with whom it is possible to make progress on a bilateral peace process.”

That is to say, the international community has confirmed that the Palestinian people has no right to take part in the determination of its own fate. Everything will be decided by the Government of Israel alone, with the backing of the United States, whose position will be automatically accepted by the other partners of the “Quartet”.

The European Union with its 25 member-states, the government of the Russian Federation and the organization that represents the entire world have humbly accepted the edict of Bush, the dictator of the world, who is himself a captive of Sharon. Sharon decided long ago that the elected president of the Palestinian people is “irrelevant”, together with the whole Palestinian leadership.

The Palestinian people have been eliminated from the list of decision-makers, thereby also abolishing in practice all the agreements signed with them, from Oslo to the Road Map.

IRAQ

NEW YORKER: Plan B By Seymour M. Hersh

In July, 2003, two months after President Bush declared victory in Iraq, the war, far from winding down, reached a critical point. Israel, which had been among the war's most enthusiastic supporters, began warning the Administration that the American-led occupation would face a heightened insurgency - a campaign of bombings and assassinations - later that summer. Israeli intelligence assets in Iraq were reporting that the insurgents had the support of Iranian intelligence operatives and other foreign fighters, who were crossing the unprotected border between Iran and Iraq at will. The Israelis urged the United States to seal the nine-hundred-mile-long border, at whatever cost.

Aljazeera: Israeli Agents Now In Kurdistan

IRAQ

ZMAG: Doctrines And Visions: Who Is To Run The World, And How? by Noam Chomsky

We have just passed the first anniversary of the President's declaration of victory in Iraq. I won't speak about what is happening on the ground. There is more than enough information about that, and we can draw our own conclusions. I will just mention one aspect of it: What has happened to Iraqis? About that, we know little, because it is not investigated. Some surprise has recently been voiced in the British press about this gap in our knowledge. That's a misunderstanding. It is quite general practice. Thus we do not know within millions how many people died in the course of the US wars in Indochina. Information and concern are so slight that in the only careful study I have found, the mean estimate of Vietnamese who died is 100,000, about 5% of the official figure and probably 2-3% of the actual figure. Virtually no one knows that victims of the US chemical warfare that began in 1962 are estimated at about 600,000, still dying, or that it was recently discovered that the use of devastating carcinogens was at twice the announced rate, and at levels incomparably beyond anything tolerated within the industrial societies -- all in South Vietnam; the North was spared this particular atrocity

VENZUELA: COUP

ZMAG: The Final Answer Will Be Given by the Tanks by Justin Podur
Colombia's new border brigade and the Venezuelan referendum

few months ago, the commander of the Venezuelan Army, Raul Baduel, described something that worried him (1). Colombia had just purchased 46 AMX-30 battle tanks from Spain. The media claimed the tanks were to fight drug trafficking, but that hardly seemed plausible. Baduel suspected that the tanks were going to end up on the Venezuelan border.

This deployment was blandly reported in El Tiempo, Colombia's national newspaper, yesterday (2). The 46 tanks will be part of a new Brigade, especially created, to 'patrol the border'. Four battalions and a Special Forces group form this new Brigade. The tanks are supposed to arrive in (and watch the timing carefully, for we will revisit it) August....

....In August, Venezuelans are supposed to vote again to determine their future. There are many who think that the Venezuelan majority has spoken loudly and clearly already, and that this referendum is a sham. Sham or no, Chavez could easily win a fair referendum. The real danger is that if Uribe and the United States have their way, "The final answer" may be "given by the tanks."

"CHECK IT"

USA: ELECTIONS

Zmag: Lost Votes by Greg Palast

In the 2000 presidential election, 1.9 million Americans cast ballots that no one counted. "Spoiled votes" is the technical term. The pile of ballots left to rot has a distinctly dark hue: About 1 million of them -- half of the rejected ballots -- were cast by African Americans although black voters make up only 12 percent of the electorate.

This year, it could get worse.

These ugly racial statistics are hidden away in the mathematical thickets of the appendices to official reports coming out of the investigation of ballot-box monkey business in Florida from the last go-'round.

How do you spoil 2 million ballots? Not by leaving them out of the fridge too long. A stray mark, a jammed machine, a punch card punched twice will do it. It's easy to lose your vote, especially when some politicians want your vote lost.

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USA: PSYCHO BUSH

Capitol Hill Blue: New Information Shows Bush Indecisive, Paranoid, Delusional

The carefully-crafted image of George W. Bush as a bold, decisive leader is cracking under the weight of new revelations that the erratic President is indecisive, moody, paranoid and delusional.
“More and more this brings back memories of the Nixon White House,” says retired political science professor George Harleigh, who worked for President Nixon during the second presidential term that ended in resignation under fire. “I haven’t heard any reports of President Bush wondering the halls talking to portraits of dead Presidents but what I have been told is disturbing.”

....Dr. Frank, the Democrat, says the only diagnosis he can offer for the President’s condition is removal from office.

Dr. Williams, the Republican, says she must “reluctantly agree.”

“We have too many unanswered questions about the President’s behavior,” she says. “You cannot have those kinds of unanswered questions when you are talking about the leader of the free world.”

IRAQ: PROPAGANDA WATCH

VOA News: Iran Denies Report Of Troop Buildup On Iraq Border

Iran's state-run news agency IRNA quotes what it calls "an informed source" as denying a report in a Saudi-owned newspaper that says Iranian troops are massing on the border with Iraq.

The report in the pan-Arab Asharq al-Awsat, or "Middle East" newspaper, quotes what it calls "reliable sources" who say four Iranian battalions have moved to the southern border with Iraq. The sources say the troops are preparing to move into Iraq to fill a security vacuum if U.S. forces pull out after the transfer of sovereignty on June 30.

But IRNA quotes its source as saying the report is "fabricated and baseless" and is meant to help the United States continue its occupation of Iraq.

Iranian officials have previously said the Tehran government supports full sovereignty for Iraq.