April 28, 2006 News
¤ At least 58 dead in Baqouba fighting
¤ I Can’t Afford My Gasoline
¤ Bush Rejects Calls for Tax on Oil Profits
‘Hideous kinky: Moral nullity as normality in Pentagon plans’
Imagine growing up in a family where every day, father raped daughter, mother tortured son, brother abused brother, sister stole from sister, and the whole family murdered neighbors, friends and passing strangers. Imagine the underlying assumptions about life that you would adopt without question in such an atmosphere, how normal the most hideous depravity would seem. If some outsider chanced to ask you about your family’s latest activities, you would spew out perversions as calmly and unthinkingly as a man giving directions to the post office.
Who really runs Iraq?
Democracy = power of the people, also referred to as people power.
Democracy = people elect who to run the country and move it forward. This electorate basically “hands over” its trust to the elected body. This is based on an incredible act of faith, trust, and understanding in the contract (usually written in the form of a constitution) between the people and the elected.
The “election” is the enactment of this contract.
The media, also known as the fourth estate, serves the people, to keep them abreast of how their government is carrying out its mandate. Should the elected government fail in its endeavor, it is incumbent upon the media to report such failure.The people entrust their media to fulfill these obligations.
But in Iraq, it is a circus of tragedy quickly making a mockery of the word “democracy”.
Al-Zarqawi Video Is A Pentagon Propaganda Psy-Op
The Pentagon is engaged in a psychological PR propaganda campaign to exaggerate the role of Musab Al-Zarqawi in Iraq and link the war in Iraq to 9/11. How do we know? Because their own leaked documents admit it. How else can we therefore quantify yesterday’s ‘surprise’ release of the Al-Zarqawi video tape as anything other than a cynical ploy on the part of the Pentagon to hoodwink the American public into believing that George W. Bush is leading US troops in a brave turf war against global terrorists?
¤ TERRORISM IS TERRORISM!
¤ Beware the Hypocrisy of International Allegiances
¤ Report: Sonar May Have Caused Whale Stranding
¤ “Diplomacy,” the smokescreen for savagery
¤ When Governments Deceive and Provoke
¤ Five killed in mine blasts as Sri Lanka edges closer to war
¤ Iraq war set to be more expensive than Vietnam
¤ Molly Ivins: The Great Bush Reclassification Project
Mission Accomplished
On May 1, 2003, President Bush landed on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln aboard an S-3B Viking jet, emerged from the aircraft in full flight gear, and proceeded to “press[] flesh,” as The Washington Post put it, as he shook hands and hugged crew members in front of the cameras. Later that day, Bush delivered a nationally televised speech from the deck of the Abraham Lincoln in which he declared that “[m]ajor combat operations in Iraq have ended,” all the while standing under a banner reading: “Mission Accomplished.” Despite lingering questions over the continued violence in Iraq, the failure to locate weapons of mass destruction, and the whereabouts of Saddam Hussein, as well as evidence that Bush may have shirked his responsibilities in the Texas Air National Guard (TANG) during the Vietnam War, the print and televised media fawned over Bush’s “grand entrance” and the image of Bush as the “jet pilot” and the “Fighter Dog.”
¤ Iran rejects UN call to stop enrichment
¤ Gay rights are good business, no matter the politics
¤ A Deadly Duet
Bush’s Hypocrisy: Cuban Terrorists
Like an aging rock star singing a beloved oldie, George W. Bush can count on cheers whenever he delivers a favorite line from the Bush Doctrine enunciated after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks: Any country that harbors a terrorist is equally guilty as the terrorist.
¤ Breaking the Last Taboo
¤ The Case of the Cuban Five
¤ When Nukes Kill, No One Counts the Victims
¤ The questions that “United 93” can’t answer
¤ At Long Last, Iran’s Oil Bourse Has Arrived!
¤ Long Live The 9/11 Conspiracy!
¤ FBI Activities in Hollywood
¤ Turkey tells Rice it opposes military option
¤ Defining Democracy Down
The U.S. nuclear hypocrisy
Although the White House says that diplomacy is its preferred option to solve the Iranian nuclear dispute, President Bush doesn’t rule out a military option, as part of the administration’s plans to force Iran to end its pursuit of nuclear technology.
¤ ‘Still no mission accomplished’
¤ 28 killed in Iraq
¤ Chirac calls for fund to aid Palestinians
¤ Katrina: Eight Months Later
¤ Say No to the US-India Nuclear Deal
¤ The 9/11 Conspiracy: A Skeptic’s View
¤ Neil Young joins the hate Bush bandwagon
April 27, 2006 News
Iraqi vice-president’s sister assassinated
A sister of Iraq’s new Sunni vice-president has been killed in a drive-by shooting in Baghdad today, two weeks after another of her brothers was murdered. Mayson Ahmed Bakir al-Hashimi was shot a day after her brother Tariq al-Hashimi, the Iraqi vice-president, called for the predominantly Sunni insurgency to be crushed by force.
¤ Bomb Blast at Italian Base in Iraq Kills 3
¤ Israeli Airstrike Kills Palestinian
¤ Nothing up my sleeve
¤ Guantanamo Bay prisoner ‘tried to commit suicide a dozen times’
¤ Clashes in Athens as Rice visits
Texas Training Pamphlet
A Texas Department of Public Safety Criminal Law Enforcement pamphlet gives the public characteristics to identify terrorists that include buying baby formula, beer, wearing Levi jeans, carrying identifying documents like a drivers license and traveling with women or children.
¤ CIA Kidnapped Suspects in EU: Parliament
¤ Is Price Gouging the New WMD?
¤ Why Do So Many Americans Hate America?
¤ US approves tighter Iran sanctions
¤ “The Secret Cabal Got What It Wanted: No Negotiations.”
Government Fraud, Despair and Hope
On Monday, April 17, 2006, two bodies were found buried beneath what used to be a home in the Lower 9th Ward. Their discovery raised to 17 the number of Hurricane Katrina fatalities that have been discovered in New Orleans in the past month and a half. Katrina is now directly blamed for the deaths of 1,282 Louisiana residents. Eight months after Katrina, the state reports 987 people are still missing. Chief Steve Glynn, who oversees the New Orleans Fire Department search effort that found the latest two bodies told CNN: “You want to put it to rest at some point. You want to feel like it’s over and it’s just not yet.”
Eight months after Katrina, there are still nearly 300,000 people who have not returned to New Orleans. While we can hope that our community is nearing the end of finding bodies, the struggle for justice for the hundreds of thousands of displaced people continues.
¤ Bush Says He Tried to Avoid War ‘To The Max,
¤ Iran, US in tug of war over Middle East
¤ Arabs stake a claim in Iraq
¤ ‘Twisted science’
¤ ‘Is our democracy sleepwalking into a nightmare?’
‘Who gets the blame for dirty tactics in Iraq?’
The newest fall guy for the brass is U. S. Army dog handler Sgt. Michael J. Smith, 24, of Fort Lauderdale, Fla. Found guilty by a court martial, the young sergeant will spend six months in jail, be demoted and then thrown out of the service with a dishonorable discharge. According to the Associated Press, “Smith let his unmuzzled Belgian shepherd threaten three detainees at the prison, conspired with another dog handler to try to frighten prisoners into soiling themselves and directed his dog to lick peanut butter off other soldiers’ bodies.”
¤ Projected Iraq War Costs Soar
¤ Supreme Leader: Iranians ‘Peace-Seekers’
¤ Turkey Masses Troops on Iraqi Border
War Crimes and Consequences
This weekend I received an e-mail from a friend in Iraq. It read,
“Salam Dahr, I was in Ramadi today to ask about the situation. I was stunned for the news of a father and his three sons executed in cold blood by U.S. soldiers, then they blasted the house. The poor mother couldn’t stand the shock, so she died of a heart attack.”
Sounds unbelievable, until you consider this short clip from CNN, which shows a war crime being committed by U.S. troops in Iraq. In this clip, shot on Oct. 26, 2003, Marines are seen killing a wounded Iraqi who was writhing on the ground, and cheering. One of the murderers then told CNN, “These guys are dead now you know, but it was a good feeling … and afterwards you’re like, hell yeah, that was awesome, let’s do it again.”
¤ Is the War Party Really Reduced to This?
¤ A War on Iran is a War on America
¤ No, It’s Not Anti-Semitic
¤ The Long War Posture
¤ Top spy’s story on pre-war intel finally told
¤ The passion of George W. Bush
The $2-Trillion War
War is messy, and putting a price tag on a war that stretches over years, with consequences lasting decades longer, is a staggering task. Yet in a democratic society whose citizens expect to know what they are paying for, someone has to do it. Linda Bilmes, lecturer in public policy, began the task of toting up the fiscal outlay on the Iraq war when students in her class at the Kennedy School of Government asked about its cost and Bilmes could not find any meaningful data. “I did this because I just wanted to know,” says Bilmes, a public-finance specialist who served as assistant secretary of commerce under President Clinton. “It is very distressing that nobody came up with a good estimate. How can you weigh the benefits against costs if you don’t know what the costs are?”
¤ U.S.: More Than 600 Implicated in Detainee Abuse
¤ Prisoner torture numbers fuzzy
¤ Bolivia, Cuba and Venezuela to ink People’s Trade Treaty
¤ U.S. seeks to keep evidence from 9/11 families
¤ Report: U.S. Unprepared for Major Disaster
¤ America’s rags-to-riches dream an illusion
Bush, Cheney, Rice Were Personally Told Iraq Had No WMD in Fall 2002
Tonight on 60 Minutes, Tyler Drumheller, the former chief of the CIA’s Europe division, revealed that in the fall of 2002, President Bush, Vice President Cheney, then-National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and others were told by CIA Director George Tenet that Iraq’s foreign minister — who agreed to act as a spy for the United States — had reported that Iraq had no active weapons of mass destruction program.
¤ Stop Bush
¤ Tony Snow On President Bush
¤ Media largely ignore ex-CIA official’s disclosure
April 30, 2006 News
The Security Council deadline myth
Under a Safeguards Agreement concluded with the International Atomic Energy Agency – as required by the Treaty on Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons – Iran agreed to allow IAEA inspectors to “verify” that no “source or special nuclear materials” are being used in furtherance of a nuclear weapons program. During the past three years, every report Director-General Mohamed ElBaradei has made to the IAEA Board concluded that – as best he can determine – no proscribed materials have been so used.
¤ Violence Uproots 100,000 Iraq Families
¤ Thousands in New York march against war
¤ Six killed; 12 bodies found tortured in Iraq
Break Up the Big Oil Cartel
What a week it has been for the giant oil companies! Billions in record quarterly profits rushing into their coffers. An even bigger round of quarterly profits coming up. Gargantuan executive pay bonanzas. And a pile of “forces beyond our control” excuses to publicize in response to the empty outrage of Washington politicians and the real squeeze on consumers and small businesses.
¤ Praying for Peace or Preying on Peace?
¤ Bloggers Take Internet Fight to the Hill
¤ The United States, Israel, and the Possible Attack on Iran
¤ In El Salvador, An Invasion of American Agriculture
¤ Ashamed of the Stars and Stripes? It Could Happen
The Untold Story of Israel’s Bomb
On Sept. 9, 1969, a big brown envelope was delivered to the Oval Office on behalf of CIA Director Richard M. Helms. On it he had written, “For and to be opened only by: The President, The White House.” The precise contents of the envelope are still unknown, but it was the latest intelligence on one of Washington’s most secretive foreign policy matters: Israel’s nuclear program. The material was so sensitive that the nation’s spymaster was unwilling to share it with anybody but President Richard M. Nixon himself.
¤ The Fabrication of the Flight 93 Myth
¤ IAEA Finds no Proof of Iranian Nuclear Weapons Program
¤ Voting Fraud in the 2004 Presidential Election
¤ Death Made In America Graphic Photos
¤ China, Opec agree to boost energy tie-up in a big way
The Columbine Massacre Unravels
Columbine has never made any sense. On a close examination of eyewitnesses, and events, one can easily see that there were at least seven people involved, and maybe a third shooter.
Basically, there were 100 bombs found that day, and Klebold and Harris didnt’ bring them in alone. And the fact that an eyewitness said he saw two cars, with seven kids, at the school early that morning confirms there were accessories to the massacre.
¤ U.S. Ambassador John Bolton Lies
¤ Canadian dollar soars to 28-year high
¤ ‘Going to war with the morons you have’
¤ ‘Strike Iran, watch Pakistan and Turkey fall’
¤ 27 Miners Killed in Gas Explosion in China
¤ How safe are Indians in Afghanistan?
Israel to speed building of barrier
Israel is moving to speed up the building of its controversial West Bank barrier after the government approved amendments to its route.
Ehud Olmert, the Israeli prime minister-designate, said at a cabinet meeting on Sunday: “We must go forward as quickly as possible.
¤ Seven killed in Iraq, Bush hails efforts to form government