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 PolyPsy List Archives
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Conscience is the root of all true courage; if a man would be brave let him obey his conscience. - James Freeman Clarke "Whatever you do will be insignificant, but it is very important that you do it." - Gandhi Too often we underestimate the power of a touch, a smile, a kind word, a listening ear, an honest compliment, or the smallest act of caring, all of which have the potential to turn a life around. - Leo Buscaglia "If the nation states of the world are working day and night on a crash course of their own for our mutual annihilation, we cannot afford to be any slower in our work in the opposite direction. The leisurely teaching that was possible in ancient tribal cultures is no longer appropriate. The forces of nuclear and ecological destruction are in a hurry, and we must be too. People need to be awakened, not just through ordinary reality education, however important it is, but also through personal heartfelt spiritual realization-deep realization of the connectedness of all things. May we work together, and fast as we can." -- Michael Harner, a Shaman Before we can achieve Planetary Sustainability, we have to attain 'Citizenry Sustainability.' A military revolution - large enough to make any difference - will also reap more pain, confusion, and denial. More than we can heal to regain sufficient capacity for planetary healing - before Global Warming takes the rest of us. We're going to have to outsmart that unevolved part of us - and those who represent it politically. That means we vote with our our dollar and our pen or keyboard, and maybe with our feet - as well as with the ballot. - Christopher Pringer |
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the Oct 27 Action Are still available for $2 ea! Please ask Chris Pringer via PolyPsyArt@iinet.com or ask your local Oct27 Coalition Rep |
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Yo! You Want Signs? We Have Signs. More than I can show here - for your yard, for your hands, even for the top of your car, AND for certain Seattle area neighborhoods as well... Here you go! Tell 'em Rad-Dad sent you <grin> |
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You keep your activism current, right? Well then, let's keep the message on cue for the current situation, I say <grin>. A certain Veteran for Peace keeps used to his car-sign message on cue - at Greenlake pro-peace vigil in May of 2004 (with almost 800 crosses representing GI's killed in Iraq). |
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Much of the legislation is still in effect [Jan 2010]: Let us demand withdrawal of the "October Surprise" legislation that removed key citizen protections [More in Civil Rights section of Political Refs Page. You can right-click both these links & open in new tabs.] |
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¤ The references here were assembled and, for the most part annotated, by Christopher Pringer, from Fall'02 onward. For statements about specific political/corporate issues or events made on political pages at this site, the following links should provide documentation to dispell any related doubts. If you would like to suggest better, more current or relevant references, or differ with items on this list as to actual relevance, etc, I would like to hear from you PolyPsyArt@iinet.com (incl. "permit2chris" in body of email). Thank you for utilizing this and related pages as your inner guidance directs. -Chris (incl. "permit2chris" in body of email)
A1. M I D - E A S T P O L I C I E S, & S T R A T E G I E S, -- AN O V E R V I E W -- D E V E L O P I N G T H E O B A M A A P P R O A C H
A2. O B A M A, A F G H A N I S T A N, & P A K I S T A N -- P O L I C I E S, & S T R A T E G I E S I N "T R I B A L I S T A N"  Check out map at http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/taliban/tribal/map.html
Insurgent Faction Presents Afghan Peace Plan By CARLOTTA GALL, New York Times, Published: March 23, 2010. "The delegation represents fighters loyal to Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, 60, one of the most brutal of Afghanistan’s former resistance fighters who leads a part of the insurgency against American, NATO and Afghan forces in the north and northeast of the country. His representatives met Monday with President Karzai and other Afghan officials in the first formal contact between a major insurgent group and the Afghan government after almost two years of backchannel communications, which diplomats say the United States has supported. Though the insurgent group, Hezb-i-Islami, or Islamic Party, operates under a separate command..."
U.S. May Fill Afghan Civilian Posts With Military Personnel -- Obama to rely heavily upon mercenaries, NYTimes, 23 Apr 2009: The Obama administration will likely turn to military personnel to fill hundreds of posts in Afghanistan that had been intended for civilian experts, senior officials said Wednesday. Senior Pentagon and administration officials now acknowledge that many of those new positions will be filled by military personnel -- and by contractors... Not enough civilians are readily available inside the Afghan government, officials said, forcing the administration to turn to the military, Pentagon civilians and private contractors, at least for the initial deployments. [4/23/09]
The approach of wisdom by Afghanistan expert, Tamim Ansary: "When I asked him (in March at the NW VFP Regional Conference) about NGO's building community amongst the tribes, he seemed to say, if I can summarize it, that he appreciated those few that have hung in there while not taking credit for the U.S. while doing it. Tamim's background is impressive..." He gave the example of Julia Bolz building schools (info & links below).
"HEARTS AND MINDS and an Exitable Strategy for Afghanistan/Pakistan " -or 'Tribalistan' since the Afghans & Pakistani's respond much more as one community of tribes. (at this site; There are some very nicely done resource pages at facebook, by the way.)
Julia Bolz & Building Schools and Hope, Bridges of Understanding: Tamim Ansary mentioned Julia Bolz's project “Journey with an Afghan School” as an optimal NGO for bringing peace to Afghanistan. Primarily because Julia Bolz is not affiliated with any church or religion. Her work is entirely secular and humanitarian. Together with her American teammates, Julia has built and supplied 15 new schools and repaired 15 others destroyed by war in Afghanistan. Julia on Educating and Empowering the Developing World (mp3) They also provide schools with clean water; textbooks and supplies; provide teacher trainings, libraries and computer centers; and facilitate cultural exchanges. Currently they serve over 25,000 Afghan students. Here's how we can all help
A3. P R E S I D E N T O B A M A A N D I R A Q / I R A N -- P O L I C I E S, & S T R A T E G I E S Demonizing Iran: US Media Continues Beating War Drums - By Dave Lindorff, Apr 23rd, 2010, The Public Record: "Aside from the fact that there is no hard evidence that Iran is trying to make a nuclear bomb or even to refine uranium to obtain nuclear-grade material, the paper ignored one crucial point: Israel cannot “go it alone” in any strike on Iran, since..."
*The Whites of Their Eyes* by Jill Lapore Listen on KUOW's "The Conversation" (KUOW, Seattle) to Jill Lapore interviewed by Ross Reynolds, 10/25/2010. Harvard History Professor Jill Lapore describes the Tea Party movement leadership/communications as nationally organized, it's nature as far more religious than non-secular, it's followers primarily as emotion-led (evangelical), its perspective on the constitution as originist (sp?), and not as a respecting/acknowledging its development as in keeping with the progress of the American culture (which was very violent and uncivilized in it's early stages, and the laws overall were much farther out of step with the higher values of American society. eg: This radio program provided great context for Thurgood Marshall's powerful statements about the constitution as a "Living Document," that lives and breathes in step with our progress (forwards or backwards). [- Chris Pringer] KUOW: "Tea Party activists and their leaders like Glen Beck claim they follow what the founding fathers intended. Harvard history professor and New Yorker staff writer Jill Lepore says 18th century history is a bit messier than they might realize. She talks about the battle over the meaning of history..." Another Review from History News Network: "Jill Lepore, a historian of the American Revolution and a staff writer at The New Yorker, has written a brief but valuable book..." (http://hnn.us/blogs/52.html) NEW, March 2010: "The Axis of the Obsessed and Deranged", By FRANK RICH, February 28, 2010 in The Times. Important reading (IMO) on the murder-suicide of Andrew Joseph Stack III, who flew the plane into the IRS office (or building housing same), on "the Tea Party hero" Scott Brown, on David Barstow's chilling, months-long investigation of the Tea Party movement published in The Times (2/16/10), on what the Southern Poverty Law Center had found last year, on the distinction between the Tea Party movement and the official G.O.P., on the co-sponsor of CPAC (Conservative Political Action Conference) by the John Birch Society, on Barstow's profile of Pam Stout, who cast her lot with a Tea Party group allied with the 9/12 Project, the Birch Society and the Oath Keepers, "a rising militia group of veterans and former law enforcement officers who champion disregarding laws they oppose [about] “another civil war” [that] may be in the offing."
(Section B: Pre-Obama) I. O N 9/11, E N R O N, I R A Q I O I L, AND B U S H W H I T E H O U S E R E L A T I O N S H I P S A H I S T O R Y O F C R I M E Who said Caspian Sea Basin? (Lots of Maps Here) And Azierbajan? (Ever see an oil company map of this area? Check this. Check out the Caspian basin fuel & energy centers. Controlling this area, We would have Russia by the what? And then an easy deal with Russian Mafia to prevent loose nukes? (And who said, "what's this got to do with Chechnya?" Map of Chechnya 1 and more complex map with relationships... And Afganistan? Yes, on the other side of Iran from Iraq. Oh, and just this side of China? And the NORAD (missle complex) size tunnels in the Afgan mountains. I wonder what good those might be to someone who thinks like Cheney & Rumsfeld ? (What's Rummy up to these days?) Did I say "Caspian Sea Base" ? Well, of course, that's just conspiracy stuff... And there's a special section on Karl Rove, "The King Of Dirt", later down the page. What is "Project for a New American Century" (PNAC)? [Links are provided in the sections below for referencing this, and most all to follow -- backing it up, that is] ... And why do I call them the "DOAPM" (Drugs, Oil, Arms, Power, & M stands for Mercenaries or Mafia)? How did we put these high-rolling international crooks in charge - with contract mercenaries doing their dirtywork (oh, that's "contractors" in the popular news, but I'm NOT talking about truck drivers). How'd we do it with all this documentation available? Their own PNAC documents the whole world dominion plan, that is. Below is just a sampling of the how's (including about the contractors, or "mercs.") Well, I needed to have an explanation because my head just wouldn't stop shaking and my eyes wouldn't stop blinking for a different view. And that's a big part of why I put together the "Overcoming Political Disillusionment" page. The Bush Cabal planned Iraq 'regime change' before becoming President. In "THE FRAUDULENT WAR," Richard W. Behan of Lopez Island provides a great summary of how we got into the Iraq War as well as Afghanistan, and includes some of the more recently revealed Iraq Oil shenanigans. Is possibly a little slow (for some) to substantiate the facts of the story, but an intriguing, illustrated presentation keeps it interesting in the meantime. "This presentation is deliberately not copyrighted: it may be reproduced and circulated without restriction." The detailed pdf file with illustrated slideshow presentation, is available via *http* (opens file in your browser), or by ftp (downloads the 5.5 mb file). A smaller digested article (105kb Word Doc) by Behan is "The So-Called War On Terror" (downloads by ftp).
The BLUEPRINT FOR THE CREATION OF A 'GLOBAL PAX AMERICANA,' uncovered by the Sunday Herald (details next paragraph), was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (former defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), George W Bush's younger brother Jeb and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff), among others. The document, put out in September 2000 by the neo-conservative think-tank Project for the New American Century (PNAC), and entitled "Rebuilding America's Defenses: Strategies, Forces And Resources For A New Century," was a grand re-write of a 46-page document, "Draft Defense Planning Guidance," conceived in 1992, during the first Bush Administration. The 90 page 2000 version was apparently available at New American Century .Org (http://www.newamericancentury.org/iraqmiddleeast.htm) but is reported no longer available there. It was downloaded before it's disappearance however, and IS available (at various sites including here) via pdf for the browser or by ftp (downloads the .85 mb file)
Right after the September 11 attacks the Wall Street Journal's editorial writer, Max Boot, published "The Case for American Empire" in the Weekly Standard (a major conservative rag). "Boot endorsed a return to nineteenth century British imperialism, this time under American hegemony." See A SECRET blueprint for US global domination By Neil Mackay. or see "It's Empire Versus Democracy" at http://www.alternet.org.
Also: "History Repeats Itself Clear and Present Danger, Analysis of CPD and PNAC" by Candi Crider (2/4/07) -- A comparative analysis between four different groups that arose within the US government and had the purpose of influencing foreign policy in this country, incl. Committee on the Present Danger (CPD) and Project for a New American Century (PNAC)
MISSION ACCOMPLISHED: a) PNAC update by W.R. Pitt: "...Ten years on, the Project [PNAC] is doing quite nicely, thank you. Failure is only in the eye of the beholder, and if the beholder is getting everything he wants with a tidy payday to boot, "failure" is not what they are going to see. As far as PNAC is concerned, this has been a decade filled with astonishing achievements. In other words, it's all about priorities and perspective, especially for those who don't give a damn for the dead. ..." Compared to Pitt's earlier assessment, ... well, he's right on. b) "Oil-buying craze tops excess of dot-coms - And the speculator bubble is due to burst, analysts say," By Michael Patterson And Elizabeth Stanton, Bloomberg News, June 15, 2008: "The rally that recently drove oil to a record $139.12 a barrel has surpassed the gains in Internet stocks that preceded the dot-com crash in 2000..."
Sibel Edmonds: The Traitors Among Us A MUST READ, By Brad Friedman. Sibel Edmonds Has Named Names. Why Isn't The Media Reporting The Story? "March 01, 2010 - 'Hustler' – March 2010 -- SIBEL EDMONDS, a former FBI translator, claims that the following government officials have committed what amount to acts of treason. They are lawmakers Dennis Hastert, Bob Livingston, Dan Burton, Roy Blunt, Stephen Solarz and Tom Lantos, as well as at least three members of George W. Bush's inner circle: Douglas Feith, Paul Wolfowitz and Marc Grossman. But is Sibel Edmonds credible? ..." [More than you want to know, but the read is important. -cp]
Scramble to carve up Iraqi oil reserves lies behind US diplomacy, The Observer (London), Sunday October 6, 2002, Ed Vulliamy in New York, Paul Webster in Paris, and Nick Paton Walsh in Moscow. "Manoeuvres shaped by horsetrading between America, Russia and France over control of untapped oilfields. Oil is emerging as the key factor in US attempts to secure the support of Russia and France for military action against Iraq, according to an Observer investigation..."
9-11 and US Global Hegemony by Ed Rippy - Indymedia, 17 July 2002: "...About two months before the attacks former US diplomats put out an unofficial message that the US would attack Afghanistan in mid-October, two days before the attacks US planners finished "contingency plans" for a war on al-Qaeda and Afghanistan, and tens of thousand of US and allied troops (including two aircraft carrier battle groups) were converging in the area around Afghanistan for exercises. Since the rout of the Taliban, oil companies are signing deals for pipelines across Afghanistan and the heroin business is booming as never before (and the US has exempted the provisional Afghan government from penalties for its failure to stop drugs while that government has gutted its drug eradication agency)..."
Suppressed details of criminal insider trading, lead directly to the Cia's highest ranks, including as related to the 9-11 attacks (!). Understanding the interrelationships between CIA and the banking and brokerage world is critical to grasping the already frightening implications of these revelations. Articles at Mike Ruppert's "From the Wilderness" Site look at the history of CIA, Wall Street and the big banks by looking at some of the key players in CIA's history, including AIG insurance, manager of the third largest capital investment pool in the world, and its connection to CIA drug trafficking and covert operations. Mike Ruppert, who also created the 138 minute video, "The and Lies of 9-11" (which is about much more than 9-11), offers $1000 to anyone who can disprove the authenticity of any of his source materials - which, obvious from this tape, are voluminous. He is a former LAPD narcotics investigator who discovered CIA trafficking in drugs in 1977. After attempting to expose this he was forced out of LAPD in 1978 while earning the highest rating reports possible and having no pending disciplinary actions. In the wake of the September 11th attacks, Ruppert was among the first to be publicly critical of a number of transparent flaws in the official story presented by the US Government. In more than twenty stories since 9-11 he has followed his tested strategy of using only government documents, official statements or verifiable press reports as the basis for his work. As a result he has been openly received by several members of Congress and maintains open lines of communication with congressional and committee staffs. Ruppert is publisher and editor of "From The Wilderness", a newsletter read in 27 countries, by 20 members of the US Congress, professors at 12 Universities in the US and Canada and by the Intelligence committee of both houses. You can also contact "From the Wilderness via phone 818-788-8791.
US bribes and threatens "allies" over Iraq - A MUST READ!
What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA, David Corn, The Nation, 9/6/06. "Valerie Wilson was no analyst or paper-pusher. She was an operations officer working on a top priority of the Bush Administration. Armitage, Rove and Libby had revealed information about a CIA officer who had searched for proof of the President's case." ...she was in the Counterproliferation Division's "modest Iraq branch. But that summer--before 9/11--word came down from the brass: We're ramping up on Iraq. Her unit was expanded and renamed the Joint Task Force on Iraq. Within months of 9/11, [this unit] grew to fifty or so employees. Valerie Wilson was placed in charge of its operations group..."
See about another Intelligence Cover-up in Civil Liberties Section, where Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered that information about the Sibel Edmonds (9/11 attack) case be retroactively classified, to Silence Former FBI Translator.
"What Congress Does Not Know about Enron and 9/11"
As a former federal prosecutor, John Loftus had an insider's knowledge of high level intelligence operations, including obstruction of Congressional investigations. Loftus resigned from the Justice Department in 1981 to expose how the intelligence community had recruited Nazi war criminals and then concealed the files from Congressional subpoena. After appearing on an Emmy Award winning segment of 60 Minutes, Loftus has spent the next two decades writing histories of intelligence cover-ups, and serving as an unpaid lawyer helping other whistleblowers inside US intelligence. |
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The Real Reason $$$ Cheney Pushes for War ??? "When Dick Cheney was CEO of the oilfield supply firm Halliburton, the company did $23.8 million in business with Saddam Hussein ...As the former Secretary of Defense under Bush the Elder, Cheney was in particularly vulnerable position on the hypocrisy of doing business with Iraq....After the Gulf War...Using two subsidiaries, Dresser-Rand and Ingersoll-Dresser, Halliburton helped rebuild Saddam's war-damaged oil fields. The combined value of these contracts for parts and equipment was greater than that of any other American company doing business with Iraq -- companies including Schlumberger, Flowserve, Fisher-Rosemount, General Electric...." From Article by Molly Ivins - Creators Syndicate
See Seattle Times article for a dryer but by the numbers report: "WASHINGTON — Since Dick Cheney became vice president, a subsidiary of his former company was chosen the exclusive contractor for overseas Army troop support and Navy construction despite being under federal investigation for fraud..." The oil companies connections... They ARE the Administration, including the President (Arbusto Energy and Harkin Oil); Vice-President Dick Cheney (Halliburton Oil); Army Secretary Thomas White (Enron); Commerce Secretary Don Evans (Tom Brown Inc., an oil exploration company); and National Security Advisor, Condoleezza Rice (Chevron). "Lest anyone dismiss the oil connection as "cynical," keep the following in mind: According to Cheney's National Energy Policy Development Group, U.S. domestic oil production wi ll decline 12 percent over the next 20 years, while oil consumption will increase by one-third, two-thirds of which must be imported. Since the Middle East has 65 percent of the world's oil reserves, and Iraq might just have as much as-- or more than--Saudi Arabia, is it "cynical" to suggest that oil is a big part of this? As one unnamed U.S. diplomat told the Sunday Herald (Scotland), "the impending U.S. regime change in Baghdad is a strategic necessity."
"The American consumer has been the last gasp for the U.S. economy, "says Stephen Roach, Chief Economist for Morgan Stanley, "If the consumer weakens further, there is not a whole lot left." And, "This is not a good time for the world to be able to absorb the cost of war," says Brian Fabbri, an economist with the French bank BNP Paribas. From "State of the Union's Empty Chairs" By Conn Hallinan, Baltimore Sun, January 31, 2003 [Recommended Reading: "Arrogant Capital", by Kevin Phillips; also interesting: "Resources for Democracy", Special Reports from Larry Chin, and 'Oil as a finite resource: When is Global Production Likely to Peak?' or "The Oil Coup: Bush's Master Oil Plan?". Clerics Response to War: The leadership of The Interfaith Alliance and The Interfaith Alliance Foundation was with regret and concern minutes after President Bush announced that the nation had launched a war with Iraq, in a letter to the White House and a web feature displaying “Statements For a Nation At War” from national civic and religious leaders (the full text). Statements To A Nation At War are displayed at this page in the IFA's Religious Resources Section.
How Did Iraq Get Its Weapons? We Sold Them. See Sunday Herald.com's Sept 16, 2002 article : Recent reports in the U.S. Senate reveal that the successive administrations of Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. sold materials including anthrax, VX nerve gas, West Nile fever germs and botulism to Iraq right up until March 1992. Related Article, "US Role In Creation Of Iraqi Bioweapons Becomes Issue" (October 1)
This one is not just about the Iraq-War, but any War by/with the U.S. Uhmmm, but then most of the above also have broad ramifications, don't they! The Pentagon seems to be generating bigger accounting mistakes than all of Corporate America combined. The GAO and the Defense Department's own Inspector General found that $2.3 trillion in accounting entries were simply not supported by “adequate audit trails” or “sufficient evidence” in the books they audited. That makes Worldcom's recent admissions of 7 billion mis-stated dollars seem like a rounding error. See "Take Action" at http://www.truemajority.com/ The Military Advisory Committee of TrueMajority includes a dozen distinguished military analysts and experts on the subject of excess Pentagon spending, including the Chair, Vice Admiral John J. Shanahan (USN, ret.); Former CIA Director, Admiral Stansfield Turner (USN, ret.); Dr. Lawrence Korb, Former Asst. Sec. Of Defense in the Reagan Administration; Rear Admiral Eugene Carroll (USN, ret.); and Col. David Hackworth (USA, ret.), America's most decorated living combat veteran.
Cynthia McKinney, a five term Democratic Congresswoman, has taken the lead on demanding accountability for the $2.3 trillion "LOST" by Department of Defense, and is demanding a full independent inquiry of what Bush knew and when he knew it about 9-11. She has been targeted by her own party, and by the U.S. corporate media. Donations can now be given online at: http://www.cynthia2002.com. Those who want to volunteer in any other way to Cynthia McKinney's campaign can email: kharabia@khayumbia.com
"100,000 contractors in Iraq" - Renae Merle & Griff Witte, The Washington Post, Dec. 5, 2006. That number is 10 times that in first Gulf War, far more than previous estimates. "There are about 100,000 government contractors operating in Iraq, not counting subcontractors, a total that is approaching the size of the U.S. military force there, according to the military's first census of the growing population of civilians operating in the battlefield. The survey finding, which includes Americans, Iraqis and third-party nationals hired by companies operating under U.S. government contracts, is significantly higher and wider in scope than the Pentagon's only previous estimate, which said there were 25,000 security contractors in the country..."
BLACKWATER'S NOT GOING ANYWHERE By Jeremy Scahill Nation July 30, 2008 : Jeremy Scahill literally wrote the book on Blackwater, but an article posted on the web site of the *Nation* Wednesday about a Jul. 21 piece in which executives of the private military firm “told the AP Blackwater was shifting its focus to its other areas of government contracting, like law enforcement and military training, as well as logistics” was hedged about with ifs, mays, and maybes. -- “At the end of the day, maybe this is just a story, a whole lot of hype and a dash of misdirection from a pretty savvy company,” he wrote.[1] -- Maybe so, but something a bit more definite might have been expected from a journalist who has done more than any other to expose the workings of the company he called “the world's most powerful mercenary army.” Related Articles & discussion at UFPPC.org
"Mercenaries 'R' Us" By Bill Berkowitz, AlterNet, March 24, 2004: "...While Blackwater USA is not nearly as well known as Halliburton or Bechtel - two mega-corporations making a killing off the reconstruction of Iraq - it nevertheless is doing quite well financially thanks to the White House's war on terror. The company specializes in firearm, tactics and security training and in October 2003, according to Mother Jones magazine, the company won a $35.7 million contract to train more than 10,000 sailors from Virginia, Texas, and California each year in 'force protection.' ...The practice of using mercenaries to fight wars is hardly new, but it is becoming increasingly popular in recent years. During the first Gulf War, one out of every 50 soldiers on the battlefield was a mercenary. The number had climbed up to one in ten during the Bosnian conflict. ...Apart from Chile, the other popular source for military recruits is South Africa. The United Nations recently reported that South Africa "is already among the top three suppliers of personnel for private military companies, along with the UK and the US. ...There are more than 1,500 South Africans in Iraq today, most of whom are former members of the South African Defense Force and South African Police." Mercenary casualties do not show up in reported casualty statistics, by the way.
"Clean separation with effective delegation": Our government employs "military contractors," see (a) extracts from a NY Times article, (b) remarks on a recent book by Philip Bobbitt entitled *The Shield of Achilles*, and © the latest update from Debka on what's going on militarily in Iraq. Mark Jensen has assembled a review for "The Military, the State, and the War" (at this site) Some key links there include "America's For-Profit Secret Army: Military Contractors Are Hired To
Do the Pentagon's Bidding Far From Washington's View." and http://www.debka.com
Yes, we have a 'businesses' named MPRI, formerly known as Military Professionals Resources Inc., its revenue exceeding $100 million a year, mainly from Pentagon and State Department contracts. And we have the IPOA, International Peace Operations Association, to promote industry standards. I say "we" because they exist thanks to our tax dollars. Note that in both the corporate and government world, providers of services and administration are responsible to abide by reams of rules and regulations related to their contractors remaining in complieance with those regulations, and bow, not to the IPOA, but to the Office of Inspector General in their checks for Fraud and Abuse.  Rove's Record & Other Der-Election References
KARL ROVE: THE KING OF DIRT, The Turd Blossom's Chickens May Come To Roost, © Copyright 2003, From The Wilderness Publications, www.copvcia.com. All Rights Reserved. A history of this low-life's known backstabbings. "...This evil practitioner of political chicanery earned his stripes first as an apprentice of Richard Nixon's dirty trickster, Donald Segretti. Rove then went on to hone and refine his duplicitous craft under Republican National Committee chairmen George H. W. Bush, Lee Atwater, and, finally, George W. Bush (who affectionately and alternately calls Rove his 'boy genius' and 'turd blossom')..."
By Wayne Madsen, Special to 'From The Wilderness' and a Washington, DC-based investigative journalist and syndicated columnist. He is the author of "Jaded Tasks: Big Oil, Black Ops & Brass Plates." Madsen served as a U.S. Naval Officer from 1975 to 1985, his last duty station being the National Security Agency (NSA). He was awarded the Navy Achievement Medal, Meritorious Unit Commendation, and Navy Unit Commendation. The Karl Rove Ascension (washingtonpost.com) - "... Karl Rove is now, officially, in charge of pretty much everything at the White House. But it's mostly just a title change. ..."
"Vote Switching" Software Paid For by White House-linked clandestine operation from Texas to Florida ... and Tom Feeney soliciting Clint Curtis to write a program to "control the vote". Article by Wayne Madsen (see above reference) Velvet Revolution on Voting, and much on Karl Rove's "re-engineering" of the process.
Karl Rove promised media moguls that, if elected, Bush would carry out a major deregulation of the broadcast industry. He was instrumental in getting Michael Powell, son of US Secretary of State Colin Powell, to head the Federal Communications Commission. M. Powell then announced a comprehensive review of media ownership rules to allow an even greater concentration of outlets in the hands of a few giants, including overturning the current prohibition against mergers among the four major television networks-ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. -Jeremy Johnson, 9/17/02. [Note that Rush Limbaugh and Karl Rove have been writing in the Wall Street Journal since Rupert Murdock took it over.]
"CBS' Cowardice and Conflicts Behind Purge - Network's Craven Back-Down on Bush Draft Dodge Report Sure to Get a Standing Rove-ation at White House," by Greg Palast, Published 1/12/05 by CommonDreams.org - remember Oliver North, the Ayatollah Khomeini, John Poindexter, and the Iran-Contra scandal in 1986? "And who are the journalists whom CBS has burned at the corporate stake? ... '60 Minutes' producer Mary Mapes. Besides the Bush draft dodge story, Mapes produced the exposé of the torture at Abu Ghraib when other networks had the same material and buried it." Yup, Dan Rather out-Roved...
Justice Department firings: In a Saturday column, Scott Horton called attention on his "No Comment" blog on the *Harper's* magazine web site to a recent article in the *Seattle University Law Review* (formerly known as the *University of Puget Sound Law Review*) by John McKay, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_McKay_%28attorney%29) one of at least eight U.S. attorneys who were ordered to resign on Dec. 7, 2006, as part of "a political plan which had been formulated in the White House, largely under the guidance of Karl Rove." -- There is also evidence, Horton writes, of "an elaborate scheme [that] had been concocted to circumvent the process through which candidates are reviewed and confirmed by the Senate using a secret amendment to the USA PATRIOT Act." -- A link to the full text of McKay's law review article is posted below.[2] --Thanks to Joe Thompson for sending Scott Horton's piece. -- Mark Jensen (3/15/2008)
The Unexplained Exit Poll Discrepancy of 2004 Der-Election: Dr. Steven F. Freeman says: "As much as we can say in social science that something is impossible, it is impossible that the discrepancies between predicted and actual vote counts in the three critical battleground states [Ohio, Florida, and Pennsylvania] of the 2004 election could have been due to chance or random error. The odds of those exit poll statistical anomalies occurring by chance are "250,000,000 to one."
That's 250 MILLION to ONE. "Closing in on Rove" (! <grin>) via the Gonzalez Case... [annotated links]" A collection of Ref/Links May'07) Posted at the PolyPsy List Archives - also includes some newer and background links on the Plame/Wilson (CIA agent outing) case.
"Caught! PartII: The Rap on Rove & Gonzales' Lies (WA Post, Common Dreams, Think Progress)" 3rd of 3 postings in a row on Rove
What Valerie Plame Really Did at the CIA, David Corn, The Nation, 9/6/06. "Valerie Wilson was no analyst or paper-pusher. She was an operations officer working on a top priority of the Bush Administration. Armitage, Rove and Libby had revealed information about a CIA officer who had searched for proof of the President's case." ...she was in the Counterproliferation Division's "modest Iraq branch. But that summer--before 9/11--word came down from the brass: We're ramping up on Iraq. Her unit was expanded and renamed the Joint Task Force on Iraq. Within months of 9/11, [this unit] grew to fifty or so employees. Valerie Wilson was placed in charge of its operations group..."
News Fronts for the Rove'nBushies White House Press - Jeff Gannon, Bobby Eberle, Talon News' Service, GOPUSA.com, Peter Hannaford, Committee on the Present Danger, Team B, & Donald H. Rumsfeld (family ballyhoos for family values?)
dick_mcmanus has put together a set of links at News You Don't Have to Lose; see "N&V Another disinformation operations Asking loaded pro-Republican questions" (use title for keywords in site search if link to this posting not visible when get there)
"Mark Crispin Miller Examines Mainstream Media's Blind Eye Towards the Gannongate Sex Scandal," in A BUZZFLASH INTERVIEW, BuzzFlash.com February 23, 2005
exerpts from that: "Mark Crispin Miller: ...The point of [Leftists] going after Gannon/Guckert for his day job--and outing all his rightist clients--is not an anti-gay move. Rather, it's a way to demonstrate the bad faith of the homophobes, and, still more important, the psychological impossibility of their position. To note that this whole gay-baiting movement is itself the work of closet cases is to illuminate the pathological dimension of that movement." "...BuzzFlash: If the Gannon/Guckert affair--which touches upon so many of the threats that the Bush White House poses to America and its utter moral corruption--doesn't force the mainstream press to forsake corporate profit concerns and fear of getting Karl Rove upset, what would? Mark Crispin Miller: That's the question we keep asking ourselves, isn't it? It assumes that they can get fed up, that there will be the straw that breaks the camel's back. That may not be the proper way to think about it. They may be so corrupt and so deluded that they simply cannot see what's right before their eyes. In which case we will have to find some way to force the story out. In any case, it's up to us, the people, to take care of this mess, isn't it? The Framers saw the press as crucial to American democracy, but it is still the people who make all the difference ultimately. What we may need to do is reconceive "the press" so that it includes the blogosphere, books, independent documentaries. Until we start to manage thorough media reform, we're on our own. Let me add, though, that the mainstream press will be that much likelier to come around if/when they can no longer fail to see the Busheviks' disastrous impact on the economy. That's the one line that no US regime can cross for long. Remember Pat Buchanan? The press winked at his fascism until he started going populist on "free trade." It was only then that his Falangist world-view, his racism and antisemitism, started getting any ink..." "... BuzzFlash: Now, Rove and company are advising Gannon/Guckert to claim that he has been saved by Christianity. Isn't that "get out of jail" card becoming a bit tired? Mark Crispin Miller: Rove's cynicism is unbounded. That doesn't mean that it will work. We tend by now to see Rove as all-powerful, invulnerable, which is exactly how he wants us all to see him. But he's fallible, and getting more so as he grows more power-crazed. He's capable of desperation measures, and this may well be one of them." --------- More Pointedly On the Hypocracy (and Homophobia) Element (same article) ---------
"...Mark Crispin Miller: Inept and hypocritical they are indeed, but what this scandal tells us is way more profound. As I've argued both in Cruel and Unusual and "A Patriot Act," there's a big difference between hypocrisy and projectivity. Hypocrisy means "dissimulation" pure and simple. A hypocrite does one thing privately while playing a very different role in public. Insofar as he's capable of happiness, he's happy just to live such a divided life. What he does not need is to have some demon-figure(s) onto whom he can relentlessly project those aspects of himself that he unconsciously detests. This is the animus that drives the Bushevik movement--more than greed, more than oil, more than imperialism. The movement is, ultimately, pathological. Which explains its compulsive hatefulness. Every time the Bushevik vents his spleen against "the liberals," he's actually referring to himself. "The liberals," he insists, are lying, bitter diehards, who would do anything to stay in power; they steal elections; they are "a coalition of the wild-eyed"; and on it goes forever. If the movement weren't relentlessly projective, it would just disappear. They have to stay on the attack against the demon, which they can never finally kill, because that demon is inside them. So this episode is not anomalous. Guckert/Gannon is no oddity, but just another fine example of projective nastiness. He's by no means the only gay homophobe in this movement, which appears to be the work primarily of closet cases. There are others who have not been outed, but should be. The rest of us should be taking this quite seriously, not just because it might enable a political advantage, but because it cuts right to the heart of what this Christo-fascist movement's all about." Karl Rove Hates the New York Times
NewsMax.com: Inside Cover Story... "White House deputy chief of staff Karl Rove doesn't like the liberal New York Times, and he's certainly justified. ..." Clarke's Public Service, By Tom Maertens, Star Tribune Sunday 28 March 2004 - About administration's role in revealing the name of an undercover CIA officer, but saying it has no evidence of wrongdoing by Bush adviser Karl Rove and therefore no reason to begin an internal investigation (Washington Post 9/30/03) One Day You're Gonna Wake Up, America, By David Michael Green, International clearing House May 4, 2007. This is a modern prophecy, one that is only too realistic and with accurate detail for the everyday person, unless of course, our society corrects it's current course. Says Mark Jensen, "Green touches on most of the features of contemporary American political life, but it is the scandal of the firing of U.S. attorneys by the Department of Justice that seems to have caused him to choose this moment to deliver his dire, passionate warning." [End, Rove Section]
one of the first major newspaper reports on the role played by George Bush and soon to be CIA chief Casey in the arming of Iran, Published in The Age, in Australia, 18 May 1991 By Jani Roberts with John Kelly ©96JR outside Australia. About How some of the world's most shadowy characters say they helped George Bush trade arms to delay the release of American hostages.
More George Bush and the CIA "The Man Who Wasn't There, 'George Bush,' C.I.A. Operative" By Joseph McBride THE NATION, July 16/23, 1988: "The F.B.I. memorandum, dated November 29, 1963, is from Director J. Edgar Hoover to the State Department and is subject-headed "Assassination of President John F. Kennedy November 22, 1963." In it, Hoover reports that the Bureau had briefed "Mr. George Bush of the Central Intelligence Agency" shortly after the assassination on the reaction of Cuban exiles in Miami. A source with close connections to the intelligence community confirms that Bush started working for the agency in 1960 or 1961, using his oil business as a cover for clandestine activities...That memo also provides insight as to the qualifications for why George Bush was selected Director for Central Intelligence in 1976, during a period when the CIA was washing its dirty linen and allegedly reforming itself... George Bush lied through his teeth about being "out of the loop" on Iran/contra."
On the uncontrolled US arms market to terrorists and mercenaries, the National Liberation Army (ELN) in Colombia, on the State Department's foreign terror watch list: For the full story, read "The Guns of Opa-Locka" by Jake Bergman and Julia Reynolds from the December 2, 2002 issue of The Nation.
Understanding Special Operations And Their Impact on The Vietnam War Era
[or, go to http://www.ratical.org , then click on "Understanding Special Operations" beneath the picture of the rat]. "If you really want the truth about American governmental activities during the 1950's & 60's (as opposed to what we were brainwashed into believing in "history" classes), you can read (& copy/download) an entire 500-page book (at this site) written by a high-ranking American military officer (rank of colonel & offered the rank of general at one point) who was directly in the midst of all the key political leaders & who decided to retire & provide public documentation of all the covered-up activities perpetrated by your government & military. This is one of the most truthful, revealing, & informative sources of governmental operatons on the internet."
There does exist most credible documentation with the Christic Institute that clearly indicates, that since the 1960's, there have been some most interesting connections, brought out primarily through court proceedings in suites against various government entities, between many of the White House Administrations, the CIA, worldwide drug and arms sales, foreign governments initiated and deposed, and much more. Most of the operations, since they were primarily funded by international drug sales, are more obviously about personal gain of money and power. [Note: The Christic Institute was "legally" destroyed by the government, but it is quite alive as a search key word phrase]
The above reference about "military contractors" provides a powerful clue to the nature and capacities, and the types of connections existing between our government. The management policy might be called "clean separation with effective delegation," except that it has so much to do with so much "dirty work" taking place around the planet. A chronological history of People, events, operations, have been named and their relationships noted, reading like a family history. I've been calling it "the Bush Company Oil and Drug Syndicate," or maybe we could call it "pulling out the Arms-OileD rug." The complexity of the interwoven causes and effects implicate many people that we have believed were beyond such acts. Until I get the web page for one organized document, you may email and ask me for a copy of the related document (about 100KB long, plain text, and/or a list of dozens of links to the documents that it was probably drawn from, including *George Bush: The Unauthorized Biography* Parts 1 to 8 (each part very long, ave. 160KB each) in plain text web pages, as obtained via FTP in ZIP format from www.kmf.org/williams/bushbook.html. Another source might be http://www.halcyon.com/blackbox/hw/cryptocracy.html. This is an interview of Daniel Sheehan, General counsel for the U.S. Jesuit Headquarters Social Ministry Office in Washington (and former attorney for the New York Times, NBC, and former attorney in the offices of F. Lee Bailey). The investigation that developed this document was initiated (in Spring of '84) when it was found that two different ministers were given exact same story (related to claims of plans for organized communist terrorism against U.S. bases in the U.S. - by those illegals being smuggled in by these ministers in the santuary movement) by two different FBI agents. Another source for starters: http://www.parallaxresearch.com/dataclips/pub/research/irancontra/ The Christic Institute, whom Sheehan worked for at the time, had to find out just where the stories were coming from because if the Justice Department, "against whom we were defending in this case, really believed those stories, we were obviously going to be confronted with a much higher degree of militancy than we had any justifiable right to expect." The story of the investigation becomes quite interesting from the time it looks into the maze of curiously led (California National Guard based) operations for Martial Law, and involving FEMA, related to supposed S.American-born activities. One resource in this regard would be http://www.icdc.com/~paulwolf/cointelpro/ The point being: the Bush administration were comprised of the surving fathers (and their favorite children) of the S.E.Asian Opium Cartel, Watergate, Iran-Contra, the Mid-East arms trade and dictatorship installations (incl. Sadam Hussein and small fry Ben Ladin of the ruling Saudia Arabian family with extremely close ties to the Bush family and related businesses), the endless now not very surprizing litany of crime that continues today as listed and detailed in/via the links in this reference section. EG: We've elected and funded a bunch of crooks, and there's just too much proof to even begin to doubt it.
(B)II. L I A R S W A R S (Iraq, Iran, Palestine, Lebonon, Caspian Basin (or Base), Etc)
See SNOW-news List Archives] and The Resource Page at SNOW (Sound Non-violent Opposition to War) for Lists of some most illuminating questions asked on the Iraq-War / Mid-East Conflicts -- in session by U.S.Congresspersons. In fact, this is a great page for Anti-War Resources in general (Is it strange that pacifists tend to be some of the least punchy and most intelligent people around? - Nah, I didn't think so either <grin>)
THE LANCET STUDY posted at the web site of the West Point Graduates Against The War .Org: Mortality before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey: The conclusions of the 'Lancet' study: 100 Thousand Innocent Iraqis Killed since beginning of the Iraq War. Also see "Halloween Tidings from the 'War on Terror' by Jim Lobe. [Lancet, 2007 update: approximately 1 million Iraqis Killed] And how do our vets feel about this? At least two vet groups feel obligated to answer that question: IVAW: Iraq Veterans Against The War and Veterans Against The Iraq War and then there's the J-curve (highly accelerated rate of) increase in the 'Brass Resistance' of Military Field Officers, Hi-Level Intelligence Officials, diplomats, etc to future plans for expanded Mid-East warfare, care for veterans, not to mention (their repeated communication of) frustration-become-anger at the Administration's "achievements" including de-stabilizing the US Military capacity (and related National Security) for years to come As of Fall '04, innocent Iraqi's killed number between 40 ("official" guestimate) and 100 thousand (per Lancet '04 study; 2007 update: approximately 1 million Iraqi civilians killed) since the beginning of the current Iraqi War, are mostly women and children, and were killed primarily by helicopter gunships. Considering the administration's attitude towards this and the Abu Graib prison revelations, this Armageddon production tries to justify raping and pillaging whole nations and populations. Could even an "American" neo-nazi be so boldly honest as to make a sign saying "Rape & Pillage for Jesus!" ? Surely, the Neo-Cons might as well - if they were not such stout hypocrits. the Collateral Repair Project "is a grassroots movement, created to address the catastrophic displacement of the five million Iraqis who had to leave behind their homes and communities because of the violence and instability that is the result of the invasion and occupation of their country. As such, we work in partnership with an Iraqi team who determines how we can best help improve the stability of some of the millions of Iraqis whose lives have been devastated by the US led invasion. We bring together the small, overlooked, incidental persons on both sides of the conflict who grieve and ask: What can we do?"
This well-organized site includes Facts and Resources, Micro-projects for one-time purchases of equipment and supplies that enable Iraqi refugees to work for themselves, in the safety of their homes so that they can help provide for their families. However, often when we visit families to interview them for Micro-projects we find them in crisis situations. The Amman Team also gets calls from families we know, telling them of their needs and asking for assistance. Thus the Emergency Assistance budget. And... "CRP is pleased to partner with Iraq Hope Network in our work in Amman with Iraqi refugees. Iraq Hope Network contributed a generous sum to assist with Micro-Projects and Emergency Assistance for Iraqi refugees in Amman. The Iraq Hope Network is 'a Japan-based network of NGOs, aid workers, journalists, lawyers, university professors and volunteers who together sponsor projects in Iraq focused on humanitarian aid, reconstruction and human rights'"
Google Group for Collateral Repair Project is for supporters & others interested in our work & the Iraqi displacement crisis to network.
IS WAR WITH IRAN INEVITABLE? By Geoffrey Millard and Scott Galindez October 18, 2006 [Truthout video]: On Wednesday, October 11, Congressman Dennis Kucinich hosted a briefing on the march to war with Iran. Former chief nuclear weapons inspector David Kay testified that Iran currently does not pose an imminent threat to the United States or the region. Retired Air Force Colonel Sam Gardner, who was assigned to the War Planning College, presented his analysis of current preparations for war with Iran.
-- A Truthout video team was there and on Wedneday posted this report.[1] -- David Kay said he believes that the Iran is not on the verge of obtaining nuclear weapons, and rejected the view that U.S faced a stark choice between accepting a nuclear-armed Iran and acting militarily. -- Gardiner said he has come to believe that a U.S. attack on Iran is not likely before the November 2006 elections, but that he considers the period between January 2007 and September 2007 to be a "window of high probability" for such an attack. --Mark Jensen [http://www.ufppc.org/content/view/5210/] The Iraq Journal .Org website, featuring the reporting of independent journalists Jeremy Scahill and Jacqueline Soohen has reached thousands of people and groups across the globe. The material, which is uncensored by any government, provides a rare and different glimpse into the situation on the ground in Iraq. Neither Iraqi nor U.S. corporate journalists are able to deliver this kind of grassroots reporting. The site also includes links to other information sources and background material.
"The most inside view yet of Iraq war planning" by Karen Kwiatkowski, who teaches an American foreign policy class at James Madison University, and writes regularly for militaryweek.com on security and defense issues. excerpt: "...Neoconservatives are fairly easy to study, mainly because they are few in number, and they show up at all the same parties. Examining them as individuals, it became clear that almost all have worked together, in and out of government, on national security issues for several decades. The Project for the New American Century and its now famous 1998 manifesto to President Clinton on Iraq is a recent example. But this statement was preceded by one written for Benyamin Netanyahu's Likud Party campaign in Israel in 1996 by neoconservatives Richard Perle, David Wurmser and Douglas Feith titled 'A Clean Break: Strategy for Securing the Realm. David Wurmser is the least known of that trio and an interesting example of the tangled neoconservative web. In 2001, the research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute was assigned to the Pentagon, then moved to the Department of State to work as deputy for the hard-line conservative undersecretary John Bolton, then to the National Security Council, and now is lodged in the office of the vice president. His wife, the prolific Meyrav Wurmser, executive director of the Middle East Media Research Institute, is also a neoconservative team player...'" In email, ggersmehl@hotmail.com introduced this long article with "I received this from a friend under the title 'The New Pentagon Papers' -- not the author's title, and one that offended me at first. Yet for the Iraq war, it may be the closest thing to what the Pentagon Papers offered: the facts, from the inside."
Bush Sr., Clinton, Bush Jr. and the War Crimes Left Behind by Heather Wokusch, From the Baltimore Chronicle& Sentintel, June 4, 2004. On the use of DU weaponry, electrical attacks, and the pre-war sanctions. "Given repercussions over Abu Ghraib, it isn't surprising that Washington recently asked the UN Security Council for another one-year extension on its war crimes exemption for peace-keepers. The prison abuse scandal is just the iceberg's tip of Geneva Convention violations by the United States, and closer inspection could send Bush Jr. and Bush Sr., not to mention Bill Clinton, straight to the courtroom docks... A second US Defense Intelligence Agency document, 1991's 'Iraq Water Treatment Vulnerabilities,' predicted how sanctions would then be used to prevent Iraq from getting the equipment and chemicals necessary for water purification, which would result in "a shortage of pure drinking water for much of the population" leading to 'increased incidences, if not epidemics, of disease.'" This article is also posted on the Veterans For Peace talking points under Battlefield Exposure and War Crimes page
Congress Overwhelmed With Anti-War Calls (AND MORE!) at Voice4change.Org
Democratic Congressman Jim McDermott Asserts Bush Would Mislead U.S. on Iraq[This is from before the war, and he's been very accurate... He's very on top of things in D.C. - I'm sure there are McDermott updates at this and/or other sites. Don't forget how to use your search engine :-) ]
Senator Byrd saw Iraq-Vietnam analogy. Senate debates how much authority to give Bush in using force against Saddam. Sen. Robert Byrd, D-W.Va., has been leading Senate Democratic opposition to the resolution authorizing President Bush to use force against Iraq. WASHINGTON, Oct. 4 - As the Senate debated a resolution that would authorize President Bush to use military force against Iraq, one senior Democrat compared the measure to the 1964 Tonkin Gulf Resolution, which authorized President Lyndon Johnson to escalate the Vietnam War - and, some said later, gave him too much power to wage war. (...) "Things that I think should have been in there are all classified, they declassified some for release but not others," said Sen. Richard Durbin, D-Ill. "It is frustrating on this to have classified information which contradicts popularly held views. It is troubling to have classified information which contradicts statements made by the administration. It is maddening to have classified information which contradicts classified information leaked by the administration," Durbin said.
I haven't even read this one, would bet it's pretty radical - I just think the title says it all: The White House On Iraq: We Don't Need No Stinkin' Proof (Sept 30)
Daniel Ellsberg: "It's possible to tell the truth" re: Iraq War: Here's a link to what Daniel Ellsberg, the man who leaked the Pentagon Papers (published in the New York Times in June 1971 and revealing US duplicity to the public about Vietnam), had to say on Saturday [Oct 19, 2002] on CNN about US Iraq policy. At www.ellsberg.net there is a link to a chapter from his new book, "Secrets, a Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers" which is available online. Iraq-related excerpts from Daniel Ellsberg's speech is in honor of Mordechai Vanunu (the man who blew the whistle on Israel's nuclear arms program. An excerpt from the interview:
"It's possible to tell the truth. The message I would like to get to people inside right now: if they feel that what the President and the Vice President and the Secretary of Defense are saying is deceptive of the public, is not founded on the evidence that they know passing across their desks or they know, by expertise, I would like them to consider doing what I wish I'd done in 1964 and 1965, rather than waiting five years, as I did until 1969. They should consider going to Congress and the press and telling the truth with documents. They shouldn't do what I did, wait until the bombs are falling. That's why I think the message in my book is urgent. So urgent, in fact, that I decided to put the first chapter on the internet tonight on Ellsberg.net. You don't have to buy the book to read that. That tells us what is happening right now. It's about the week that Congress passed the first Tonkin Gulf Resolution, having now—this is the time to read it, when they've just passed the second one." Nagy Visit on Iraq Sanctions Takes Denmark by Storm (July 15) Nagy presented unshakeable documentation for how the sanctions have been applied to ban the import of water purification equipment and chemicals, thus provoking epidemics of diseases such as cholera, hepatitis and typhoid fever. See article at CommonDreams.Org
OOPS, MORE UNEXPECTED CASUALTIES Before we commit to another Gulf War, our government must come clean on what happened to our Desert Storm heroes.
THE DAY AFTER THE ATTACK Experts on Iran and the Kurds dread the aftermath of a U.S. invasion of Iraq, which they say would destabilize the entire region.
Anatol Lieven has an excellent analysis of the current U.S.-Mid-East political situation in his article in the Oct. 3 *London Review of Books*
T H E C A S E F O R I M P E A C H M E N T
After Downing Street .Org Impeachment Center ...working to expose the lies that launched the war and to hold accountable its architects, including through censure and impeachment.
After Downing Street Impeachment FAQ or what we've been calling "Impeachment Myths" and "Myth Busters"
Washington for Impeachment .Org/ a one-stop shop (at least for WA state, but useful in anycase) for basic to specific info, Neighborhood Starter Kits, Resource Links, etc.
And what I added to the petition for impeachment at www.democrats.com: "Why bother with impeachment if they will be out of office in January 2008?": What most folks haven't stopped to realize, simply by taking stock of the wrecking crew's history, is that these guys are not done now, nor do they intend to let go of power - in 2008 or ever. Why else all the recent "stacking": stacking the nation's chain of command under emergincy conditions with no time limits, the martial law related authorities, the courts, the state judiciaries and voting authorities (Thank you Gonzalez, unpresidented in his silence in such a position), not to mention stacking the 911 commission panel, the presenters of the case for attacking iraq, the decision makers on Iraqi oil & profits, and now the insult to justice via the Libby sentence commutation. It's critical time to regain the Balance of Power in government.
"Why Impeach Bush and Cheney?" Editorials and Information on How to Impeach Bush & Cheney. Includes a Summary of Impeachable Offenses commited by Bush and Cheney, and tells why Congress should impeach them. Has a "How to Impeach" section among many others. And there's a special section on Karl Rove, "The King Of Dirt", above on this page.
Much of US favors Bush impeachment: poll WASHINGTON (AFP): Nearly half of the US public wants President George W. Bush to face impeachment, and even more favor that fate for Vice President Dick Cheney, according to a poll out Friday. The survey by the American Research Group found that 45 percent support the US House of Representatives beginning impeachment proceedings against Bush, with 46 percent opposed, and a 54-40 split in favor when it comes to Cheney. 07/06/07
Please sign this petition (of July '07) urging Congress to force Vice President Cheney to respond to its subpoenas. If he doesn't, Congress has to begin impeachment proceedings against him. ANGLER: THE CHENEY VICE PRESIDENCY, PART I: 'A DIFFERENT UNDERSTANDING WITH THE PRESIDENT' By Barton Gellman and Jo Becker, Washington Post June 24, 2007 Page A01
Impeachment Related Issues, Supporting Documents for H Res 333 (Articles illuminating reasons for impeachment, incl. more Sy Hersh articles):http://kucinich.house.gov/SpotlightIssues/documents.htm
"Resign, Mr. President" This is one of the most impassioned and complete encapsulations of reasons why; might also be called the most accurate summary execution. On YouTube, Wed, 04 Jul 2007 00:14:19 -0700
D E P L E T E D U R A N I U M W E A P O N R Y (often referred to as "DU," more correctly called "Uranium Munitions") . The most recent (Fall 2010) are listed below. (Also useful: the search engine at PolyPsyArts Mailing List Archives)
There is a very lengthy and detailed resume of US weapons for the war created by serious experts and focusing on the predominance of depleted uranium among the cruise missiles, bunker busters, etc. But the truth is, the DU is all over Iraq now, really. The URL is: http://www.eoslifework.co.uk/u231.htm That's a big part of the hundreds of thousands of Gulf War Sickness causualties and tens of thousands of deaths since then. One future question concerns *undepleted* uranium - currently a very very classified topic. An Index Page Link with more references at same site.
To verify the Afghan contamination, and the statement that it was undepleted not depleted Uranium, see the UMRC website (Dr Durakovic and Tedd Weyman). On Jan. 10, the News Tribune (Tacoma) reported that the U.S. Navy has been firing DU off the Washington coast, apparently since 1977. "Lowry Unrealistic About Depleted Uranium," by Roger Longley, Seattle Post-Intelligencer, February 6, 2003 (Roger Longley of Friday Harbor was a senior nuclear engineer for nine years at General Dynamics/Fort Worth.) Testimony of Dr. Siegwart-Horst Gunther from the 1990s
More collected References on DU are available thanks to Mark Jensen. and still Another DU Ref "thanks again to Dr. David Sparling of Steilacoom, WA".
DU Links from the Canadian Military are linked to the VFP92 website.
The National Gulf War Resource Center, Inc. provides information to Gulf War veterans concerned with exposure to DU during our service in the Gulf War. This is a very comprehensive resource. Mushrooming depleted uranium (DU) scandal By Bob Nichols Jan 22, 2006: “...Out of the 580,400 soldiers who served in GW1 (the first Gulf War), of them, 11,000 are now dead! By the year 2000, there were 325,000 on Permanent Medical Disability. This astounding number of ‘Disabled Vets' means that a decade later, 56% of those soldiers who served have some form of permanent medical problems!” The disability rate for the wars of the last century was 5 percent; it was higher, 10 percent, in Viet Nam.
At the VETERANS FOR PEACE web site, in the "Iraq Special Section" (a Chronology of Reports), see articles listed, including "US Forces' Use of Depleted Uranium Weapons is 'Illegal' - Mar 30, 2003" (links to a "DU_use_illegal_033003.htm" at the VFP site)
Related Links: Pandora DU Research Project .Org, at www.downwinders.org, on Dave Berrian's trip to Iraq and pictures Becoming one of the hottest reasons for concern during and AFTER the Iraqi War, for both Iraqi peoples' and our own soldiers' healthUranium Blitz Facts from Dai Williams, independent weapons researcher, Chartered Psychologist, Eos, Woking, Surrey, UK, eosuk@btinternet.com, Community projects (3/23/03). Article also posted at
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=302602&group=webcast
"Remember Poindexter? Brilliant man, first in his class at the Naval Academy, later earned a doctorate in physics, rose to national security adviser under President Ronald Reagan. He had this brilliant idea of secretly selling missiles to Iran to pay ransom for hostages, and with the illicit proceeds to illegally support contras in Nicaragua. A jury convicted Poindexter in 1990 on five felony counts of misleading Congress and making false statements, but an appeals court overturned the verdict because Congress had given him immunity for his testimony. He ... is back again with a plan even more scandalous than Iran-contra. He heads the 'Information Awareness Office' in the otherwise excellent Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which spawned the Internet and stealth aircraft technology. Poindexter is now realizing his 20-year dream: getting the "data-mining" power to snoop on every public and private act of every American..." -- words of conservative columnist and former Nixon administration official William Safire, in his famous NYTimes article, "You Are a Suspect," about the "Homeland Security Act." As written in the last weeks of November '02, it would create a single database to round up personal information on every American. Click Here to read the text of the Bill (it's official address in Congress). If the Senate passes this bill, the government will bring together in one grand database all the public and private information they can get their hands on including your credit history, the magazines you subscribe to, your banking, travel information, etc. It contains language to protect big drug companies from liability when they produce vaccines that hurt children. They've included a provision to ensure that our government can do business with the companies that avoid paying their fair share of taxes by renting a post office box in Bermuda or another tax haven. Click Here to tell Congress to Stop this legislation. or Here to see the bill's status (links to Cong. Record pages, votes)
Bush Moves Toward Martial Law (August-October '06): In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush is seeking to undo those prohibitions. Sources:
(1) http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/091906a.html and http://leahy.senate.gov/press/200609/092906b.html See also, Congressional Research Service Report for Congress, "The Use of Federal Troops for Disaster Assistance: Legal Issues," by Jennifer K. Elsea, Legislative Attorney, August 14, 2006 (2) http://www.govtrack.us/congress/bill.xpd?bill+h109-5122 (3) Journal of Counterterrorism & Homeland Security International, "Recent Contract Awards", Summer 2006, Vol.12, No.2, pg.8; See also, Peter Dale Scott, "Homeland Security Contracts for Vast New Detention Camps," New American Media, January 31, 2006. (4) "Technology Transfer from defense: Concealed Weapons Detection", National Institute of Justice Journal, No 229, August, 1995, pp.42-43. US's approval of torture related to 'collective numbness and apathy': "A Soul-Defying, Tacit Approval Of Torture: How Did We Come To This?" By Phil Rockstroh, Dissident Voice 9/28/06; According to this analysis, it's American culture as a whole that is indicted by collective endorsement of torture that the legislative branch of the U.S. government has just conferred upon the the executive, at its urgent request. Phil Rockstroh argues that the embrace of a "false self" underlies the death of soul perceptible in so many of our fellow "corporate/consumer citizens", as Rockstroh calls them. As a result, he maintains, "a collective numbness and apathy levels upon the land and ultimately our desensitization to genocide and torture." -- Commentary by Mark Jensen
"WHEN LAWYERS ARE WAR CRIMINALS" By Scott Horton, 10/8/06; Military Commissions Act passed to protect Yoo, Bybee, Gonzales, Addington, Haynes, et al. In announcing the Military Commissions Act, President Bush insisted that he needed the legislation to lay to rest the concerns of 400-500 professional interrogators... [ 1 ] First, he suggested that the interrogators faced the prospect of prosecution under the War Crimes Act... [ 2 ] Bush revealed that there was a new "Program," of "extraordinary procedures" that he, personally, had been advised of and had approved... But the facts here are different: the Program was always against the law, and the U.S. Army's own interrogation manuals stated just that. [ 3 ] Bush stated that the reach for highly coercive new techniques came at the instance of the interrogators themselves. But in fact, we now know from an array of leaked documents that these techniques were rammed down their throats, often over courageous opposition, both within the CIA and the uniformed services...
...The Military Commissions Act seeks to accomplish its objective of granting impunity through three tools. First, it redefines "war crimes" into a series of specifically chargeable offenses, of which two, "torture" and "cruel treatment" are most important for these purposes. Second, it makes the restatement of these crimes retroactive to September 11, 2001. Consequently, a series of criminal offenses under the War Crimes Act will disappear retroactively when the Act goes into force. Third, it strips courts of jurisdiction over habeas corpus petitions and forbids litigants to cite the Geneva Conventions and related international and foreign law in those courts, in an effort to blind the courts to the law which the Constitution obligates them to enforce. ..." How the Anti-Terrorism Bill Affects Civil Liberties: 9 Updated Fact Sheets at ACLU
In a rare maneuver, Attorney General John Ashcroft has ordered that information about the Sibel Edmonds (9/11 attack) case be retroactively classified, to Silence Former FBI Translator. Read "Translator in Eye of Storm on Retroactive Classification" By Anne E. Kornblut, Boston Globe: "Sifting through old classified materials in the days after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, FBI translator Sibel Edmonds said, she made an alarming discovery: Intercepts relevant to the terrorist plot, including references to skyscrapers, had been overlooked because they were badly translated into English. Edmonds, 34, who is fluent in Turkish and Farsi, said she quickly reported the mistake to an FBI superior. Five months later, after flagging what she said were several other security lapses in her division, she was fired. Now, after more than two years of investigations and congressional inquiries, Edmonds is at the center of an extraordinary storm over US classification rules that sheds new light on the secrecy imperative supported by members of the Bush administration." Another piece on que: AN INTERVIEW WITH SIBEL EDMONDS By Christopher DeLiso. More quotes and paraphrases at Common Dreams .Org: (recent story), (original story),
and via Search at Commondreams.Org.
How the anti-terrorism bill puts the CIA back in the business, article From www.ACLU.org of spying on Americans
A not-so-minor detail you may have missed in the reporting on the new Department of Homeland Security: the entire department, and all information generated by or through it, will be exempt from the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA). Mr Cheney has been a key figure through three administrations in the history of the FOIA - since President Ford! And remember Iran-Contra? See Attack On The FOIA from the Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press.
"James Baker's firm is already a top player in the Great Game of seizing Caspian Sea oil. (An executive of Exxon-Mobil, one of Baker Botts's clients, has been charged with evading taxes on bribes paid in Kazakhstan.)" -Greg Palast "President's business partner slices up Iraq." In the same article: "All year the elves at his law firm, Baker Botts of Texas, have been working day and night to prevent the families of the victims of the September 11 attack from seeking information from Saudi Arabia on the Kingdom's funding of Al Qaeda fronts."
Bush's war at home: government censorship, secrecy, and lies, From www.wsws.org
Americans Demand Freedoms Be Kept During Bush's Terror War - Article from www.NewsMax.Com WASHINGTON - More than 150 organizations on the left and right, and hundreds of computer scientists and law professors are circulating a petition urging that personal freedoms not be sacrificed in the fight against terrorism. At a news conference organized by the Free Congress Foundation's Coalition for Constitutional Liberties, the broad coalition recalled that in every conflict since the Civil War, the long-range pressures in the crisis of the moment have been aimed at greatly expanding the powers of the federal government to restrict our freedoms. Among the groups in the coalition are the American Association of Physicians and Surgeons (AAPS) and the Rutherford Institute, generally considered conservative, and the American Civil Liberties Union and Common Cause, often in the forefront of liberal causes. All signed on to the statement entitled "In Defense of Freedom at a Time of Crisis."
Facts on Secret Evidence FROM SECRET EVIDENCE TO NO EVIDENCE: Why is the Attorney General Asking Congress for the Power to Jail and Deport Immigrants Without a Trial or Any Other Way to Establish Their Innocence? article From www.ACLU.org
Widespread violations of civil liberties in US dragnet - Nearly 600 detained, From http://www.wsws.org
 V O T I N G & R E L A T E D C R I S E S FIXING ELECTRONIC FRAUD & USING ABSENTEE VOTING & INSTANT RUNNOFF VOTING Diebold and ES&S, makers of voting machines and systems, have been involved in countless election irregularities over the years, involving both ballot scanners and touchscreens. Karl Rove has added his genius to other voting fraud methodologies, which have been innundating the U.S. since the 2000 election, if it wasn't bad enough in selected areas before (Florida & Texas would be the more notorius examples). I VERY strongly believe that It is Vital now that we generate *the citizen's means* of citizen's empowerment. If citizens can't believe their vote doesn't count, how can they possibly believe a democracy effectively exists for them to speak for, or speak IN ? ! ! ! And we wonder: Why there is disillusionment, thence apathy? ...Why the name "Sheople" came about? ...How the current fascist administration came about? ...Why elected officials are too fearful, ashamed, and/or complicit to demand accountability? Well, here's another opportunity to change all that. Thank you for doing what you can. Details in the annotated links below. WHAT WE CAN DO: Insure your city & state government(s) use a voting system that leaves a paper trail record. That it does not use Diebold machines which are too easily manipulated. AND, perhaps most easily. After that, shoot for the Instant Runnoff Voting system (now being termed 'rank-order voting' - see below). If nothing else, Please USE THE ABSENTEE VOTE OPTION (and if/where necessary, do the grassroots work necessary to make sure you can use this) and it has been found that it might be very wise to use two stamps - there have been some interesting developments related to the weight of these mailers. Safer still: take them to the polls and deposit them there. Also, I cannot emphesise enough: Along with fixing the voting machines and other vote fraud (links below), Instant Runnoff Voting is one of the most important innovations to incorporate in order to make our democracy work. It's different, but the following links make it easy to understand. PLEASE go there, then get active (write elected officials, create/join groups, etc) -cp, 10'06 or "Ranked Order" voting - [updated Jan'12] where every candidate of ANY party (eg: multiple parties can be running candidates) can each have a shot at the presidency, and any other office where this system is in effect. (More on Why after the links):  Consider Instant Runoff Voting System (or "rank-order voting" or "Proportional Representation") A good resource list at FairVote Minnesota And their Press Articles page is not just about Minnisota :-) "Success for Instant Runoff Voting in San Francisco" by Steven Hill and Rob Richie, Published 1/12/05 by CommonDreams.org Demo Flash makes it easy to understand via http://www.chrisgates.net/irv/
Related Promotional Video by BBC: at Better Ballot Campaign .Org
More on "Ranked Order" voting (IRV) via: Trust Voters .Com and Fair Vote .Org
Various Related Articles
Why Instant Runoff Voting? Quick Answer: for the "99%" For those who've lost faith in the two-party system (updated Oct. 2011) Perhaps the perfect dream would be the Green Party and the Natural Law Party (see below) joining up and replacing the Democratic Party. Add to that the party of the Occupy Wall Street (OWS) "99%'ers". And since that won't happen, if even one '3rd' Party won't being taken seriously by the voting public... So, HOW can we get the platforms of these parties taken seriously? By putting in the "conscientious" 'spoiler vote' -- under circumstances where the result would be more fascism in the White House? And then we'd be REALLY motivated for a bottom-up action, Right? Sorry, yes, that was sarcasm. But why encourage 3rd parties to strategize badly? IMO, when '3rd' parties become truly egalitarian -I'm thinking now of the "99%'ers" - they will join forces to establish instant runnoff voting systems (now being termed 'rank-order voting'), locally, then nationally.) ANY truly "safe states"? Because Karl Rove is still roving the states?. YES, that could be why. Check out Colorado (Oct'08). NoMoreStolenElections.org
Uncounted - The New Math of American Elections
The above two sites also have an abundance of links to Black Box Voting and related sites That includes all the horror stories you can stand. But let those MOTIVATE your being PRO-ACTIVE. Spreading horror stories (or conspiracy theories) w/o solutions doesn't always motivate. Constructive release of anger can initiate the healing of the planet. Then the love can bloom w/o passive agression, let alone purposeful infliction of pain. There will always be disagreement and conflict because there will always be ego. But conflict is a vehicle for growth when used with that intention. Stop, Drop and Poll - What to Do if You Have Problems Voting - This is a great, highly referenced and comprehensive list for any state. Exception to this page: unlike other states, it is reportedly safe in Washington State to use the absentee ballot. But you still might include a copy of your registration (you probably keep it in your wallet or purse), and use an extra stamp. Velvet Revolution on Voting, and much on Karl Rove's "re-engineering" of the process.
Vanishing Votes by GREGORY PALAST, 5'04 - Civil Rights time bomb: will blacks be disenfranchised yet again?
Willie Nelson on Voting: I was at a concert this weekend in California to raise money for the National Veterans Foundation. I'm an Air Force veteran, and I have great respect for the military. I like to support the soldiers whenever I can. But I don't support this war in Iraq. I was against the war before it started. I always thought it was a terrible decision, badly thought out, badly planned, and then horribly executed. I want to see our troops come home right away, and so do most Americans. Unfortunately, too many politicians in both parties refuse to listen. So when will the troops come home? When we won't put up with it anymore-when we change our government. And how will we do that? By voting the bastards out! On November 7, you should vote for anyone who's against the war and vote against anyone who's for the war. It's that simple.
"Diebold Added Secret Patch to Georgia E-Voting Systems in 2002, Whistleblowers Say" By Matthew Cardinale The Atlanta Progressive News. And Princeton Scientists Create Vote-Stealing Program for Diebold AccuVote-TS: A group of Princeton computer scientists said they created demonstration vote-stealing software that can be installed within a minute on a common electronic voting machine. The software can fraudulently change vote counts without being detected.
Kucinich Introduces Paper-Only Voting Bill Oct 5, 2006 http://www.kucinich.us/
Just Try Voting Here 11 of Americas Worst Places to Cast a Ballot (or Try) By Sasha Abramsky, Mother Jones, September/October 2006 Issue: Machines that count backward, slice-and-dice districts, felon baiting, phone jamming, and plenty of dirty tricks.
Brennan Center Report - one page summary (PDF)
US League of Women Voters' New Official Position on U.S. Voting Systems (PDF)
There are Virtually NO Federal Voting System Guidelines (PDF)
Oldies but goodies: Also, Greg Palast in "President's business partner slices up Iraq." quoted James Baker as having said, "I fixed the election in Florida for George Bush." That was the gravamen of his remarks to an audience of Russian big wigs as reported to me by my somewhat astonished colleagues with BBC television. It was Baker, as consiglieri to the Bush family, who came up with the strategy of maneuvering the 2000 Florida vote count into a Supreme Court packed with politicos. Baker's claim to have fixed the election was not a confession. It was a boast. He meant to dazzle current and potential clients in the former Soviet states about his Big In with the Big Boy in the White House. Baker's firm is already a top player in the Great Game of seizing Caspian Sea oil. (An executive of Exxon-Mobil, one of Baker Botts's clients, has been charged with evading taxes on bribes paid in Kazakhstan.)
Also, Greg Palast's book "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" thoroughly documents the fraudulent removal of thousands of black voters' names from the state's registration list. It also seems that servicemen abroad were "urged" to cast late ballots which then did get counted. (You might also note Greg Palast's web site at http://www.gregpalast.com.)
"Johns Hopkins researchers at the Information Security Institute issued a report declaring that Diebold's electronic voting software contained "stunning flaws." The researchers concluded that vote totals could be altered at the voting machines and by remote access. Diebold vigorously refuted the Johns Hopkins report, claiming the researchers came to "a multitude of false conclusions." Find out more on "Blackbox Voting," Diebold Election Systems, the ES&S (software) system, and Bev Harris - who needs our support as she works tirelessly for the critically needed reform: Blackbox Voting .Com, Ecotalk .Org, Vote-Smart .Org and What Really Happened .Com. Worthy of Your Attention: Did you know that "The winner of past (U.S.) elections has been "nobody"-- more people have chosen not to vote than to support anybody. President Bush was elected by 17% of the public." according to an Utne .Com article.
Are you going to be out of town or busy on Election Day? What if you could check "vote" off your to-do list ahead of time? You may be able to accomplish both these things by voting early, using an absentee ballot. To learn how to get one, go to: Votes For Students.
"In the last election, we knew the election was stolen; in this election, we may not even know." --By John Greeley in "Protect Your Vote: Get A Receipt!"
* Find out more about Instant Run-Off voting (or 'rank-order voting') at Fair Vote .Com - a ranking system where votes for lower-ranked candidates (that don't win) get moved up to a candidate higher on the list - read about the advantages and where it's caught on already.
Jim Hightower helps at Rock the Vote .Com in "Thieves In High Places - They've Stolen Our Country And It's Time To Take It Back!" and so do the Dixie Chicks.
Home page: http://www.rockthevote.org/
(B)IV. O N M E D I A A B U S E * Dan Rather's $70 Million Lawsuit Likely to Deal Bush Legacy a New Blow by Christopher Goodwin, The Observer UK, Sunday 28 December 2008: Dan Rather's lawsuit could impact Bush's legacy. "Eight weeks before the 2004 presidential poll, Rather broadcast a story based on newly discovered documents which appeared to show that Bush, whose service in the Texas Air National Guard ensured that he did not have to fight in Vietnam, had barely turned up even for basic duty. After an outcry from the White House and conservative bloggers who claimed that the report had been based on falsified documents, CBS retracted the story, saying that the documents' authenticity could not be verified. Rather, who had been with CBS for decades and was one of the most familiar faces in American journalism, was fired by the network the day after the 2004 election.
"He claims breach of contract against CBS. He has already spent $2m on his case, which is likely to go to court early next year. Rather contends not only that his report was true - "What the documents stated has never been denied, by the president or anyone around him," he says - but that CBS succumbed to political pressure from conservatives to get the report discredited and to have him fired. He also claims that a panel set up by CBS to investigate the story was packed with conservatives in an effort to placate the White House. Part of the reason for that, he suggests, was that Viacom, a sister company of CBS, knew that it would have important broadcasting regulatory issues to deal with during Bush's second term. ..." [One of the earlier reports on the above noted Dan Rather case:] "CBS' Cowardice and Conflicts Behind Purge - Network's Craven Back-Down on Bush Draft Dodge Report Sure to Get a Standing Rove-ation at White House," by Greg Palast, Published 1/12/05 by CommonDreams.org - remember Oliver North, the Ayatollah Khomeini, John Poindexter, and the Iran-Contra scandal in 1986? "And who are the journalists whom CBS has burned at the corporate stake? ... '60 Minutes' producer Mary Mapes. Besides the Bush draft dodge story, Mapes produced the exposé of the torture at Abu Ghraib when other networks had the same material and buried it." Yup, Dan Rather out-Roved... DO POLLS REFLECT MEDIA DISTORTION? The vast majority of Americans are reported to support a war with Iraq, but a new organization is asking, "can we trust the polls?" After doing its own survey, Retro Poll calls into question the accuracy of major media polls. "The Retro Poll attempts to show that public opinion is molded by media misinformation and disinformation (propaganda). It addresses the question: does the public opinion reported in the usual major media polls reflect the true values and beliefs of those Americans polled, or not?" Retro Poll writes in a press release. Based on Retro Poll's own survey data, they suggest that "by continually highlighting Washington's viewpoint unchallenged, the news bureaus in the U.S. can change the facts in the minds of many Americans. The opinions formed from those unsubstantiated facts are then used by polling organizations to report back the values, ideas, and thinking of the public." SOURCE: Retro Poll Press Release, October 17, 2002 To discuss this story in the PR Watch Forum, visit:http://www.prwatch.org/forum/discuss.php?id=1034827200. PR Watch, a quarterly publication of the Center for Media & Democracy, is dedicated to investigative reporting on the public relations industry. It serves citizens, journalists and researchers seeking to recognize and combat manipulative and misleading PR practices. It specializes in blowing the lid off today's multi-billion dollar propaganda-for-hire industry, naming names and revealing how public relations wizards concoct and spin the news, organize phony 'grassroots' front groups, spy on citizens, and conspire with lobbyists and politicians to thwart democracy. We expose the hidden activities of secretive, little-known mega-firms such as Hill & Knowlton, Burson-Marsteller and Ketchum PR--the "invisible men" who control our political debates and public opinion, twisting reality and protecting the powerful from scrutiny.
Preparatory Note: In 1941 the atomic bomb was born in secrecy. In a few years more than a half-million Americans were involved in the project. Dr. Carl Jensen, professor emeritus of communication studies at Sonoma State University, says 'Successful information-control practices employed by the Manhattan Project paved the way for the news management, manipulation and obfuscation'... ... President Dwight Eisenhower warned about the 'military-industrial complex.' Today, an entity within that multi-billion-taxdollar complex runs 'black op'. 'Black' means even the US Congress is kept ignorant of the amounts of taxpayer money that go to certain operations, and of what's developed with that money. Black ops are formally called Unacknowledged Special Access Projects (USAPs).” --Jeane Manning
Bill Moyers Keynote Address to the National Conference on Media Reform (December 2004)
From Reclaim The Media .Org:
"FREEDOM TO BE HEARD," by Norman Solomon, and MoveOn.org in the MoveOn Bulletin for Wednesday, November 6, 2002 - a great compilation on the Concentration of Media at Moveon.Org... That is, IF want to be amazed, perhaps disheartened, but definitely made aware of where you CAN get an accurate picture of world events, as well as where to go when just want to keep up with what everyone else is told. (stats, documentation, and commentary). AND...Take Back the Media .Com is on the forefront of this issue as well.
FRENCH NEWS Journal Articles Translations - Great for Comparison, Current Reviews by Mark Jensen at "The Military, the State, and the War - and Related FRENCH NEWS...
Wellstone and Most Interesting Contradictions in News Reporting Regarding the Death of Senator Paul Wellstone, Selected & Annotated Article Briefs & Links (separate page at this site)
"Media Are Out of Step With Democracy Acting as a Branch of Government" at www.commondreams.org
Common Dreams .Org is Just a great site, by the way, for information on most every topic related to abuse of power, money, and influence. Karl Rove promised media moguls that, if elected, Bush would carry out a major deregulation of the broadcast industry. He was instrumental in getting Michael Powell, son of US Secretary of State Colin Powell, to head the Federal Communications Commission. M. Powell then announced a comprehensive review of media ownership rules to allow an even greater concentration of outlets in the hands of a few giants, including overturning the current prohibition against mergers among the four major television networks-ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox. -Jeremy Johnson, 9/17/02. And there's a special section on Karl Rove, "The King Of Dirt", above on this page.
Mistranslated Osama bin Laden Video the German Press Investigates: On 20 December 2001, German TV channel "Das Erste" broadcast its analysis of the White House's translation of the OBL video that George Bush has called a "confession of guilt". On the show "Monitor", two independent translators and an expert on oriental studies found the White House's translation not only to be inaccurate, but "manipulative". "The American translators who listened to the tapes and transcribed them apparently wrote a lot of things in that they wanted to hear but that cannot be heard on the tape no matter how many times you listen to it."
Gross manipulation Re 9/11: The footage being shown constantly the week after 9/11 on corporate media of Palestinian women and children dancing seemingly celebrating the death of the United States -- was STOCK FOOTAGE FROM 1991.
DO POLLS REFLECT MEDIA DISTORTION? The vast majority of Americans are reported to support a war with Iraq, but a new organization is asking, "can we trust the polls?" After doing its own survey, Retro Poll calls into question the accuracy of major media polls. "The Retro Poll attempts to show that public opinion is molded by media misinformation and disinformation (propaganda). It addresses the question: does the public opinion reported in the usual major media polls reflect the true values and beliefs of those Americans polled, or not?" Retro Poll writes in a press release. Based on Retro Poll's own survey data, they suggest that "by continually highlighting Washington's viewpoint unchallenged, the news bureaus in the U.S. can change the facts in the minds of many Americans. The opinions formed from those unsubstantiated facts are then used by polling organizations to report back the values, ideas, and thinking of the public." SOURCE: Retro Poll Press Release, October 17, 2002 To discuss this story check out the PR Watch Forum.
ARMY PSY-OPS PEOPLE AT CNN LAST YEAR, (from a testimonial in GlobalVisionary Newsletter): Nexus magazine, published in NSW, listed as one of the most important under-reported stories of the past few months was that a whole bevy of Army psychological warfare personnel from Fort Bragg worked at the CNN headquarters in Atlanta for several weeks a few months ago. -Jeff Phillips, Melbourne, Australia. NOTE from ListManager: Other people also sent info confirming this above. The whole U.S. news media seems indeed to be very cunningly "controlled" in many respects - especially CNN - and are very vulnerable to being used as mouthpieces for the Administration's warmongering messages. But so are most other national news media anyway around the world...
My Turn by Robert Paul Reyes
See More References on Monopolisation of the Media on my political page
On Gulf War lies: Lucrative Parroting for Patriot Missiles After the Gulf War there were accounts and parroting of government claims that Patriot missiles hit almost every Scud they aimed at - led to a public celebration ... That November, Congress boosted the budget for the "Star Wars" anti-missile shield from $3.1 billion to $4.15 billion. The following year, as Columbia Journalism Review would report ("Patriot Games," July/August 1992), that film clip showed up at a Congressional hearing concerning inflated military claims. Pointing to the same clip Donaldson had narrated, a former nuclear weapons analyst pointed out that the Scud passed through whatever explosion appeared on the screen -- and that Patriots were a "total failure" in the Gulf War.
After the war, The New York Times retracted a story, repeated by other major news outlets, that Iraqi soldiers had killed 300 premature babies by removing them from incubators. 60 Minutes featured an interview with "Captain Karim," a supposed former Saddam bodyguard, spinning fearful tales about the Iraqi dictator. Karim turned out to be a fraud. The Times, CNN, Time and others supported then-President Bush's attacks on Iraqi radio by reporting that a broadcaster named "Baghdad Betty" had told U.S. troops to return home because "Robert Redford is dating your girlfriend ... Bart Simpson is making love to your wife." In fact, the media was repeating a Johnny Carson Tonight Show gag. (Or misquoting. Johnny said Homer, not Bart.)
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 Personal Notes or Quotes on Body-Mind Awareness [ cp, 12'07 ] BODY-MIND AWARENESS, at the core of preventive health awareness, is one of the most simple, efficacious, & cost-effective forms of HEALTH INSURANCE there can be. Hence, massage is far from just "a luxury item," and bodywork therapies can be indispensable for the healing of certain conditions. MUSCLES RELATE TO ATTACHMENTS - to what we use to take our stance, to hold our place, to perceive and respond to our environment, and to extend who we are and/or want to be. Or used to be (in too many cases, perhaps). That speaks not only to the body's condition and function, but to how it communicates awareness of where one is along one's path (of becoming who one truly is). THE BODY IS . . . among other amazing things, a unique communications system -- intimately linked with one's TOTALITY. Establishing rapport with one's body can be a PATH to self realization. ONE OF MY DREAMS is a society where/in all children are taught how to feel/see/read their own body-mind communications such that preventive health maintenance eventually becomes second nature. And actually, for the most part, they would be encouraged to re-awaken and build upon what I believe to be a NATURAL INCLINATION - conscious self-healing and continuous expansion of awareness. And the above goes FOR ALL OTHER ALTERNATIVE THERAPIES, to the degree that one utilizes them to improve such awareness and causative/pro-active connection with one's body-mind, and to employ the most effective tools for maintaining/improving one's health under any given condition or circumstance. WHY DOES BODY AWARENESS = OPTIMUM HEALTH INSURANCE ? And How does "Body-Parenting" relate to that in Body-Mind Integration ? |
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How DU Might Enter The Body 
Schematic representation of intake, uptake and excretion (DU)
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