2006/06/12
2006/06/11
Is Another 9/11 in the Works?
Saturday, June 10th, 2006
Paul Craig Roberts
If you were President George W. Bush with all available US troops tied down by the Iraqi resistance, and you were unable to control Iraq or political developments in the country, would you also start a War with Iran?
Yes, you would.
Bush’s determination to spread Middle East conflict by striking at Iran does not make sense.
First of all, Bush lacks the troops to do the job. If the US military cannot successfully occupy Iraq, there is no way that the US can occupy Iran, a country approximately three times the size in area and population.
Second, Iran can respond to a conventional air attack with missiles targeted on American ships and bases, and on oil facilities located throughout the Middle East.
Third, Iran has human assets, including the Shi’ite majority population in Iraq, that it can activate to cause chaos throughout the Middle East.
Fourth, polls of US troops in Iraq indicate that a vast majority do not believe in their mission and wish to be withdrawn. Unlike the yellow ribbon folks at home, the troops are unlikely to be enthusiastic about being trapped in an Iranian quagmire in addition to the Iraqi quagmire.
Fifth, Bush’s polls are down to 34 percent, with a majority of Americans believing that Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a mistake.
If you were being whipped in one fight, would you start a second fight with a bigger and stronger person?
That’s what Bush is doing.
Opinion polls indicate that the Bush regime has succeeded in its plan to make Americans fear Iran as the greatest threat America faces.
The Bush regime has created a major dispute with Iran over that country’s nuclear energy program and then blocked every effort to bring the dispute to a peaceful end.
In order to gain a pretext for attacking Iran, the Bush regime is using bribery and coercion in its effort to have Iran referred to the UN Security Council for sanctions.
In recent statements President Bush and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld blamed Iran for the Iraqi resistance, claiming that the roadside bombs used by the resistance are being supplied by Iran.
It is obvious that Bush intends to attack Iran and that he will use every means to bring War about.
Yet, Bush has no conventional means of waging War with Iran. His bloodthirsty neoconservatives have prepared plans for nuking Iran. However, an unprovoked nuclear attack on Iran would leave the US, already regarded as a pariah nation, totally isolated.
Readers, whose thinking runs ahead of that of most of us, tell me that another 9/11 event will prepare the ground for a nuclear attack on Iran. Some readers say that Bush, or Israel as in Israel’s highly provocative attack on the Jericho jail and kidnapping of prisoners with American complicity, will provoke a second attack on the US. Others say that Bush or the neoconservatives working with some “black ops” group will orchestrate the attack.
One of the more extraordinary suggestions is that a low yield, perhaps tactical, nuclear weapon will be exploded some distance out from a US port. Death and destruction will be minimized, but fear and hysteria will be maximized. Americans will be told that the ship bearing the weapon was discovered and intercepted just in time, thanks to Bush’s illegal spying program, and that Iran is to blame. A more powerful wave of fear and outrage will again bind the American people to Bush, and the US Media will not report the rest of the world’s doubts of the explanation.
Reads like a Michael Crichton plot, doesn’t it?
Fantasy? Let’s hope so.
Paul Craig Roberts
If you were President George W. Bush with all available US troops tied down by the Iraqi resistance, and you were unable to control Iraq or political developments in the country, would you also start a War with Iran?
Yes, you would.
Bush’s determination to spread Middle East conflict by striking at Iran does not make sense.
First of all, Bush lacks the troops to do the job. If the US military cannot successfully occupy Iraq, there is no way that the US can occupy Iran, a country approximately three times the size in area and population.
Second, Iran can respond to a conventional air attack with missiles targeted on American ships and bases, and on oil facilities located throughout the Middle East.
Third, Iran has human assets, including the Shi’ite majority population in Iraq, that it can activate to cause chaos throughout the Middle East.
Fourth, polls of US troops in Iraq indicate that a vast majority do not believe in their mission and wish to be withdrawn. Unlike the yellow ribbon folks at home, the troops are unlikely to be enthusiastic about being trapped in an Iranian quagmire in addition to the Iraqi quagmire.
Fifth, Bush’s polls are down to 34 percent, with a majority of Americans believing that Bush’s invasion of Iraq was a mistake.
If you were being whipped in one fight, would you start a second fight with a bigger and stronger person?
That’s what Bush is doing.
Opinion polls indicate that the Bush regime has succeeded in its plan to make Americans fear Iran as the greatest threat America faces.
The Bush regime has created a major dispute with Iran over that country’s nuclear energy program and then blocked every effort to bring the dispute to a peaceful end.
In order to gain a pretext for attacking Iran, the Bush regime is using bribery and coercion in its effort to have Iran referred to the UN Security Council for sanctions.
In recent statements President Bush and Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld blamed Iran for the Iraqi resistance, claiming that the roadside bombs used by the resistance are being supplied by Iran.
It is obvious that Bush intends to attack Iran and that he will use every means to bring War about.
Yet, Bush has no conventional means of waging War with Iran. His bloodthirsty neoconservatives have prepared plans for nuking Iran. However, an unprovoked nuclear attack on Iran would leave the US, already regarded as a pariah nation, totally isolated.
Readers, whose thinking runs ahead of that of most of us, tell me that another 9/11 event will prepare the ground for a nuclear attack on Iran. Some readers say that Bush, or Israel as in Israel’s highly provocative attack on the Jericho jail and kidnapping of prisoners with American complicity, will provoke a second attack on the US. Others say that Bush or the neoconservatives working with some “black ops” group will orchestrate the attack.
One of the more extraordinary suggestions is that a low yield, perhaps tactical, nuclear weapon will be exploded some distance out from a US port. Death and destruction will be minimized, but fear and hysteria will be maximized. Americans will be told that the ship bearing the weapon was discovered and intercepted just in time, thanks to Bush’s illegal spying program, and that Iran is to blame. A more powerful wave of fear and outrage will again bind the American people to Bush, and the US Media will not report the rest of the world’s doubts of the explanation.
Reads like a Michael Crichton plot, doesn’t it?
Fantasy? Let’s hope so.
New law will exempt spies from Privacy Act
Thursday, June 8th, 2006
WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) — A little-noticed proposal from the Senate Intelligence Committee would exempt federal agencies from important provisions of the Privacy Act in the name of the War against Terrorism.
The committee`s annual authorization bill, unanimously reported to the full Senate last month, would initiate a three-year ‘pilot program’ during which U.S. intelligence agencies would be able to access personal information about Americans held by other federal departments or agencies if it is believed relevant to counter-Terrorism or counter-proliferation.
In the wake of recent revelations about the administration`s use of data-mining and warrantless surveillance of telephone and internet communications in pursuit of the nation`s terrorist enemies, the provision seems certain to be controversial.
‘If this is enacted, the Privacy Act will look like Swiss cheese,’ ACLU legislative counsel Tim Sparapani told United Press International.
Sparapani said he was not reassured by the role the law envisages for the president`s Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which would monitor the program and report to congressional intelligence committees as the three year sunset approached.
‘The board is stacked, four (Republicans) to one (Democrat),’ he said. ‘It is not truly independent’ because it is inside President Bush`s executive office, which put it ‘under the thumb of the president and his advisers,’ according to Sparapani.
Responding to a request for comment sent Monday afternoon to board Chairwoman Carol Dinkins, a White House official replied that the board would address the issue ‘if and when the provision becomes law.’
A Democratic committee staffer defended the proposal, telling UPI that the exemptions were ‘narrowly drawn to address the kinds of problems we found during our Sept. 11 inquiry,’ when U.S. agencies failed to pool information about known al-Qaida militants who were thus able to slip into the country.
At the moment, the 1974 Privacy Act broadly prohibits a federal government entity which has collected information about Americans from using it for any purpose other than the one or ones it was collected for. Information typically cannot be passed to other agencies or departments without the permission of the individual.
These restrictions ‘could prevent the sharing of intelligence information within the executive branch,’ notes the committee report accompanying the intelligence authorization bill, designated S 3237.
The report goes on to say that an ‘Information Sharing Working Group,’ made up of representatives from U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies and from the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, had recommended changes to the Privacy Act restrictions on personal information sharing in December 2004.
The committee included similar provisions in its authorization bill last year, but that legislation died after an anonymous hold — apparently from one or more GOP Senators angered by Democrat-authored provisions on detention and interrogation — prevented it from reaching the Senate floor.
Though the Privacy Act created 12 exceptions to the restriction on data-sharing, including for information used ‘to support a civil or criminal law enforcement activity under certain proscribed circumstances,’ the committee report says there is no such exemption for intelligence activities.
Section 310 of the committee`s new bill creates one, exempting all U.S. intelligence agencies from data-sharing restrictions where the information ‘is relevant to a lawful and authorized foreign intelligence or counter-intelligence activity.’ If the information does not ‘pertain to an identifiable individual’ then the director of national intelligence or one his deputies has to approve the sharing.
Under the provision, intelligence agencies can also ask for Privacy Act-covered records from non-intelligence agencies — and be entitled to get them — if the information relates to international Terrorism or proliferation, and if the receiving intelligence agency is ‘lawfully authorized to collect or analyze the information.’
If in doubt about whether information is covered, agency heads can consult either the attorney general or the director of national intelligence.
No court order or other judicial instrument is required, but to get records from a non-intelligence agency the director of the agency that wants the records must put the request in writing.
In language that seems calculated to assuage the fears of privacy advocates, the bill states that ‘nothing in the amendments made by this section shall be deemed to constitute authority for the receipt, collection, or retention of information unless’ it is ‘otherwise authorized by the Constitution, laws, or executive orders of the United States.’
The Democratic staffer argued that ‘this is lawfully collected information. What sense does it make not to share it in an appropriately limited fashion,’ as envisaged in the bill?
Another congressional official familiar with the provision said it had been more narrowly drawn this year — in response to concerns raised by critics of last year`s proposal, and to negotiations with other committees of jurisdiction.
But Sparapani contended that in the wake of the revelations about the National Security Agency program of warrantless counter-terrorist surveillance, the time for giving the administration the benefit of the doubt on such issues was past.
‘The Senate committee cannot rewrite history to pretend we didn`t learn what we learned’ when word of the NSA program leaked last year, he said.
WASHINGTON, DC, United States (UPI) — A little-noticed proposal from the Senate Intelligence Committee would exempt federal agencies from important provisions of the Privacy Act in the name of the War against Terrorism.
The committee`s annual authorization bill, unanimously reported to the full Senate last month, would initiate a three-year ‘pilot program’ during which U.S. intelligence agencies would be able to access personal information about Americans held by other federal departments or agencies if it is believed relevant to counter-Terrorism or counter-proliferation.
In the wake of recent revelations about the administration`s use of data-mining and warrantless surveillance of telephone and internet communications in pursuit of the nation`s terrorist enemies, the provision seems certain to be controversial.
‘If this is enacted, the Privacy Act will look like Swiss cheese,’ ACLU legislative counsel Tim Sparapani told United Press International.
Sparapani said he was not reassured by the role the law envisages for the president`s Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, which would monitor the program and report to congressional intelligence committees as the three year sunset approached.
‘The board is stacked, four (Republicans) to one (Democrat),’ he said. ‘It is not truly independent’ because it is inside President Bush`s executive office, which put it ‘under the thumb of the president and his advisers,’ according to Sparapani.
Responding to a request for comment sent Monday afternoon to board Chairwoman Carol Dinkins, a White House official replied that the board would address the issue ‘if and when the provision becomes law.’
A Democratic committee staffer defended the proposal, telling UPI that the exemptions were ‘narrowly drawn to address the kinds of problems we found during our Sept. 11 inquiry,’ when U.S. agencies failed to pool information about known al-Qaida militants who were thus able to slip into the country.
At the moment, the 1974 Privacy Act broadly prohibits a federal government entity which has collected information about Americans from using it for any purpose other than the one or ones it was collected for. Information typically cannot be passed to other agencies or departments without the permission of the individual.
These restrictions ‘could prevent the sharing of intelligence information within the executive branch,’ notes the committee report accompanying the intelligence authorization bill, designated S 3237.
The report goes on to say that an ‘Information Sharing Working Group,’ made up of representatives from U.S. intelligence and law enforcement agencies and from the Departments of Defense and Homeland Security, had recommended changes to the Privacy Act restrictions on personal information sharing in December 2004.
The committee included similar provisions in its authorization bill last year, but that legislation died after an anonymous hold — apparently from one or more GOP Senators angered by Democrat-authored provisions on detention and interrogation — prevented it from reaching the Senate floor.
Though the Privacy Act created 12 exceptions to the restriction on data-sharing, including for information used ‘to support a civil or criminal law enforcement activity under certain proscribed circumstances,’ the committee report says there is no such exemption for intelligence activities.
Section 310 of the committee`s new bill creates one, exempting all U.S. intelligence agencies from data-sharing restrictions where the information ‘is relevant to a lawful and authorized foreign intelligence or counter-intelligence activity.’ If the information does not ‘pertain to an identifiable individual’ then the director of national intelligence or one his deputies has to approve the sharing.
Under the provision, intelligence agencies can also ask for Privacy Act-covered records from non-intelligence agencies — and be entitled to get them — if the information relates to international Terrorism or proliferation, and if the receiving intelligence agency is ‘lawfully authorized to collect or analyze the information.’
If in doubt about whether information is covered, agency heads can consult either the attorney general or the director of national intelligence.
No court order or other judicial instrument is required, but to get records from a non-intelligence agency the director of the agency that wants the records must put the request in writing.
In language that seems calculated to assuage the fears of privacy advocates, the bill states that ‘nothing in the amendments made by this section shall be deemed to constitute authority for the receipt, collection, or retention of information unless’ it is ‘otherwise authorized by the Constitution, laws, or executive orders of the United States.’
The Democratic staffer argued that ‘this is lawfully collected information. What sense does it make not to share it in an appropriately limited fashion,’ as envisaged in the bill?
Another congressional official familiar with the provision said it had been more narrowly drawn this year — in response to concerns raised by critics of last year`s proposal, and to negotiations with other committees of jurisdiction.
But Sparapani contended that in the wake of the revelations about the National Security Agency program of warrantless counter-terrorist surveillance, the time for giving the administration the benefit of the doubt on such issues was past.
‘The Senate committee cannot rewrite history to pretend we didn`t learn what we learned’ when word of the NSA program leaked last year, he said.
2006/06/10
2006 MTV Movie Awards - Gnarls Barkley
I'm not sure what's up with the Star Wars get up, but oh well.
U.S. troops beat him
The mystery of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi's sudden death after surviving a pair of 500-pound bombs dropped on his house became a little clearer today when Iraqi troops said they watched U.S. Marines savagely beat the wounded terror bogeyman.
"The witness said he saw the man lying on the ground, badly wounded but still alive," AP Television News reported today.
"He said U.S. troops arriving on the scene wrapped the man's head in an Arab robe and began beating him. His account cannot be independently verified."
The Pentagon argued that the Marines were there to "provide medical attention," which apparently resulted in the conscious, alert Zarqawi being dead within moments of their arrival at the scene.
"The witness said he saw the man lying on the ground, badly wounded but still alive," AP Television News reported today.
"He said U.S. troops arriving on the scene wrapped the man's head in an Arab robe and began beating him. His account cannot be independently verified."
The Pentagon argued that the Marines were there to "provide medical attention," which apparently resulted in the conscious, alert Zarqawi being dead within moments of their arrival at the scene.
NSA now spying on MySpace
Not content to illegally collect the telephone records of American citizens, the government's National Security Agency is now targeting "social network" computer users -- wildly popular sites like MySpace with its 80 million registered users.
Parents have been outraged to learn that kiddie-sex freaks have been collecting data on youngsters from public online sources such as MySpace or Friendster. But the new NSA efforts are aimed at everybody, a police-state scheme to track your every move, your every thought, your every comment left on some dumb blog.
The evil plot was first called "Total Information Awareness" in the immediate aftermath of the 9/11 attacks, when scores of long-planned surveillance and police-state operations suddenly appeared before a punch-drunk America.
While most of those elaborate schemes were passed without opposition, the TIA plan by the newly created Information Awareness Office was too much even for an injured, bewildered America.
The IAO's logo was the Masonic all-seeing eye symbol, glaring down from the heavens not at our alleged Middle East enemies, but upon America itself.
Worse, the new spook office was run by convicted felon and traitor John Poindexter.
So the creepy new logo was disappeared, and then the TIA program itself was allegedly closed down -- but it was only shifted to another program and hidden under that flimsy cover.
Today, the all-seeing eye is focused on the information you willingly provide to websites. If you use real names, real addresses, real ages, real interests or real photos in connection with your online activities, you are leaving a trail of personal and financial information the government is collecting to use against all Americans.
"I am continually shocked and appalled at the details people voluntarily post online about themselves." encryption expert Jon Callas told New Scientist this week.
Long-dead bogeyman killed AGAIN
Washington's No. 1 terror bogeyman was reportedly killed again in Iraq last night, the White House claimed today.
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was allegedly killed this time by massive U.S. bombing of a little house 30 miles north of Baghdad. Amazingly, Zarqawi was said to be still clinging to life even after 1,000 pounds of bombs rained down upon him.
Even more amazingly, he had grown back the leg he lost years ago.
Some "terror website" nobody's ever heard of "confirmed" the mysterious Zarqawi's death.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said at a press conference that Zarqawi was killed along with seven others, including his spiritual adviser Sheik Al Rahman, by a U.S. air strike while meeting in a safe house 30 miles northeast of Baghdad.
U.S. forces, reportedly acting on tips from traitors within Zarqawi's little gang, had been watching him for three days. On Wednesday afternoon they tracked Al Rahman for two hours as he worked his way to the meeting place, Washington claimed today.
At approximately 6:15 p.m. local time, two 500-pound bombs were dropped on the house (video available at CNN). As the dust settled, troops from the 101st airborne and Iraqi police moved in. Reports are that the terrorist leader was still alive when the soldiers entered the smoldering ruins of the house and later "died from his injuries."
Shockingly, his body was then handed over to Iraqi police for identification by his fingerprints, facial features and known scars. These are the same clowns who had reportedly captured Zarqawi two years ago -- and then released him because they didn't know who he was.
George W. Bush, in desperate need of some political "good news," rushed to the TV cameras and said, predictably, that Zarqawi's latest death was "a severe blow to Al Qaeda and it is a significant victory in the war on terror."
Perhaps having been told not to make more premature declarations, Bush said, "We have tough days ahead of us in Iraq that will require the continuing patience of the American people."
To hear pro-Jihadi pundits like Abdelbari Atwan, the editor of al Quds al Arabi speaking on Al Jazeera tell it, the "death of Zarqawi won't weaken Al Qaeda but will actually unify the organization ... Jihadists will increase their operations in Iraq. For the more the organization is repressed the more it will produce Jihadists."
His family, no doubt like his followers, now see Zarqawi as a martyr.
"We expected that he would be martyred," said his older brother, Sayel al-Khalayleh. "We hope that he will join other martyrs in heaven."
Zarqawi has proved a useful rallying cry for an administration that could never be bothered to actually hunt and kill America's true enemy, Osama bin Laden.
Ever since December 27, 2004, when Zarqawi was supposedly tapped by Bin Laden to run "Al Qaeda operations in Iraq," he has been the Arab the administration loves to hate.
Going back to 2002, the litany of crimes Zarqawi claimed responsibility for was appalling. Countless be headings, kidnappings and bombings left a trail of blood all across the Middle East.
Even before Zarqawi was anointed by Bin Laden, Colin Powell faked a bogus connection between the two men during a February 5, 2003, briefing before the U.N. Security Council.
The Jordanian-born madman has been "killed" before; the last time was reported on November 20, 2005. Then it was alleged that he and seven others had blown themselves up. Before that, the Associated Press in March of 2004 claimed that he had died "some time ago."
Abu Musab al-Zarqawi was allegedly killed this time by massive U.S. bombing of a little house 30 miles north of Baghdad. Amazingly, Zarqawi was said to be still clinging to life even after 1,000 pounds of bombs rained down upon him.
Even more amazingly, he had grown back the leg he lost years ago.
Some "terror website" nobody's ever heard of "confirmed" the mysterious Zarqawi's death.
Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said at a press conference that Zarqawi was killed along with seven others, including his spiritual adviser Sheik Al Rahman, by a U.S. air strike while meeting in a safe house 30 miles northeast of Baghdad.
U.S. forces, reportedly acting on tips from traitors within Zarqawi's little gang, had been watching him for three days. On Wednesday afternoon they tracked Al Rahman for two hours as he worked his way to the meeting place, Washington claimed today.
At approximately 6:15 p.m. local time, two 500-pound bombs were dropped on the house (video available at CNN). As the dust settled, troops from the 101st airborne and Iraqi police moved in. Reports are that the terrorist leader was still alive when the soldiers entered the smoldering ruins of the house and later "died from his injuries."
Shockingly, his body was then handed over to Iraqi police for identification by his fingerprints, facial features and known scars. These are the same clowns who had reportedly captured Zarqawi two years ago -- and then released him because they didn't know who he was.
George W. Bush, in desperate need of some political "good news," rushed to the TV cameras and said, predictably, that Zarqawi's latest death was "a severe blow to Al Qaeda and it is a significant victory in the war on terror."
Perhaps having been told not to make more premature declarations, Bush said, "We have tough days ahead of us in Iraq that will require the continuing patience of the American people."
To hear pro-Jihadi pundits like Abdelbari Atwan, the editor of al Quds al Arabi speaking on Al Jazeera tell it, the "death of Zarqawi won't weaken Al Qaeda but will actually unify the organization ... Jihadists will increase their operations in Iraq. For the more the organization is repressed the more it will produce Jihadists."
His family, no doubt like his followers, now see Zarqawi as a martyr.
"We expected that he would be martyred," said his older brother, Sayel al-Khalayleh. "We hope that he will join other martyrs in heaven."
Zarqawi has proved a useful rallying cry for an administration that could never be bothered to actually hunt and kill America's true enemy, Osama bin Laden.
Ever since December 27, 2004, when Zarqawi was supposedly tapped by Bin Laden to run "Al Qaeda operations in Iraq," he has been the Arab the administration loves to hate.
Going back to 2002, the litany of crimes Zarqawi claimed responsibility for was appalling. Countless be headings, kidnappings and bombings left a trail of blood all across the Middle East.
Even before Zarqawi was anointed by Bin Laden, Colin Powell faked a bogus connection between the two men during a February 5, 2003, briefing before the U.N. Security Council.
The Jordanian-born madman has been "killed" before; the last time was reported on November 20, 2005. Then it was alleged that he and seven others had blown themselves up. Before that, the Associated Press in March of 2004 claimed that he had died "some time ago."
Informed Consent Waived in Public Crisis
By ANDREW BRIDGES, Associated Press Writer
Wednesday, June 7, 2006
(06-07) 17:11 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --
In a public health emergency, suspected victims would no longer have to give permission before experimental tests could be run to determine why they're sick, under a federal rule published Wednesday. Privacy experts called the exception unnecessary, ripe for abuse and an override of state informed-consent laws.
Health care workers will be free to run experimental tests on blood and other samples taken from people who have fallen sick as a result of a bioterrorist attack, bird flu outbreak, detonation of a dirty bomb or any other life-threatening public health emergency, according to the rule issued by the Food and Drug Administration.
In all other cases, the use of an experimental test still requires the informed consent of a patient, as well as the review and approval of an outside panel.
"To be candid, I hope it is a hypothetical problem. I hope we spent a lot of time creating a rule we never have to invoke," said Dr. Steve Gutman, director of the FDA's in-vitro diagnostics office.
Determining what constitutes a life-threatening public health emergency would be left up to the laboratories doing the testing. That creates the potential for conflicts of interest and other abuses, critics said.
"I don't like a rule like this because its most likely use is likely to be a form of abuse. The emergency exception it creates will be stretched to encompass non-emergency situations," said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute.
The FDA said it published the rule to ensure the ability to identify quickly whatever chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear agent is involved in a terrorist attack or natural outbreak of disease. Doing so could save the lives of those being tested as well as of others exposed, the FDA said.
"Baloney," said Dr. Deborah Peel, chairwoman of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation, a watchdog group. "This sounds like they're taking for themselves the right to test individuals every time they declare a public health emergency. There is no way getting consent would delay testing."
The FDA said that obtaining informed consent in those cases would be impracticable or unfeasible.
The rule lays out a scenario where a laboratory discovers what appears to be an unusual bug in a sample taken from a patient before a public health emergency was even suspected. With the apparent bug in the lab but the patient gone, going back for permission to use a confirmatory but experimental test — often the only type of test available — would introduce "unacceptable delays," the FDA said.
"They're basically overriding state informed-consent laws," said Sue Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom. Blevins said her group advocates for informed consent but that in emergencies it could be sought after the fact.
"If they don't have the time to get it, at least inform them retroactively what's been done, so people can keep track of what information has been collected from them," Blevins said.
The rule took effect Wednesday but remains subject to public comment until Aug. 7. The FDA said it published the rule without first seeking comments because it would hinder the response to an outbreak of bird flu or other public health emergency.
"Nobody said two airplanes would fly into the World Trade Center, did they? We wouldn't have written the rule unless we thought it was a possibility," Gutman said.
The FDA said the lack of such an exemption impeded the public health response to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, epidemic of 2003.
Wednesday, June 7, 2006
(06-07) 17:11 PDT WASHINGTON, (AP) --
In a public health emergency, suspected victims would no longer have to give permission before experimental tests could be run to determine why they're sick, under a federal rule published Wednesday. Privacy experts called the exception unnecessary, ripe for abuse and an override of state informed-consent laws.
Health care workers will be free to run experimental tests on blood and other samples taken from people who have fallen sick as a result of a bioterrorist attack, bird flu outbreak, detonation of a dirty bomb or any other life-threatening public health emergency, according to the rule issued by the Food and Drug Administration.
In all other cases, the use of an experimental test still requires the informed consent of a patient, as well as the review and approval of an outside panel.
"To be candid, I hope it is a hypothetical problem. I hope we spent a lot of time creating a rule we never have to invoke," said Dr. Steve Gutman, director of the FDA's in-vitro diagnostics office.
Determining what constitutes a life-threatening public health emergency would be left up to the laboratories doing the testing. That creates the potential for conflicts of interest and other abuses, critics said.
"I don't like a rule like this because its most likely use is likely to be a form of abuse. The emergency exception it creates will be stretched to encompass non-emergency situations," said Jim Harper, director of information policy studies at the Cato Institute.
The FDA said it published the rule to ensure the ability to identify quickly whatever chemical, biological, radiological or nuclear agent is involved in a terrorist attack or natural outbreak of disease. Doing so could save the lives of those being tested as well as of others exposed, the FDA said.
"Baloney," said Dr. Deborah Peel, chairwoman of the Patient Privacy Rights Foundation, a watchdog group. "This sounds like they're taking for themselves the right to test individuals every time they declare a public health emergency. There is no way getting consent would delay testing."
The FDA said that obtaining informed consent in those cases would be impracticable or unfeasible.
The rule lays out a scenario where a laboratory discovers what appears to be an unusual bug in a sample taken from a patient before a public health emergency was even suspected. With the apparent bug in the lab but the patient gone, going back for permission to use a confirmatory but experimental test — often the only type of test available — would introduce "unacceptable delays," the FDA said.
"They're basically overriding state informed-consent laws," said Sue Blevins, president of the Institute for Health Freedom. Blevins said her group advocates for informed consent but that in emergencies it could be sought after the fact.
"If they don't have the time to get it, at least inform them retroactively what's been done, so people can keep track of what information has been collected from them," Blevins said.
The rule took effect Wednesday but remains subject to public comment until Aug. 7. The FDA said it published the rule without first seeking comments because it would hinder the response to an outbreak of bird flu or other public health emergency.
"Nobody said two airplanes would fly into the World Trade Center, did they? We wouldn't have written the rule unless we thought it was a possibility," Gutman said.
The FDA said the lack of such an exemption impeded the public health response to the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome, or SARS, epidemic of 2003.
The other lost war
With all the horror in Iraq, most Americans have forgotten about that other U.S. failure in the wake of 9/11: the war in Afghanistan.
Not only are the Taliban undefeated, U.S. forces in Afghanistan are now flying far more combat missions there than in Iraq.
According to Fox News and Associated Press, the United States made 750 air strikes in the month of May alone -- that's 24 bombing missions per day.
The commander of U.S. air operations in Afghanistan, Lt. Gen. Gary L. North, told reporters this week that "insurgents" are stronger than ever.
"We have seen more direct support in Afghanistan that is of a kinetic effect than in Iraq of late," North said, using military code for "we're screwed."
Rebel forces in the provinces of Helmand and Kandahar have been especially effective against the U.S. and NATO troops who have been trying to stabilize the war-torn country for five bloody years without success.
Many Afghans hated the Taliban and longed for the less-fanatical Northern Alliance to win the long civil war that began when U.S.-backed rebels led by Osama bin Laden fought off the Soviet occupiers.
But with the list of civilian casualties and U.S. war atrocities growing weekly -- on May 21 alone, at least 34 innocent Afghans were killed by American bombs -- Afghans are increasingly rooting for the Taliban to rule again.
At least 248 U.S. troops have been killed during the Afghanistan War so far.
Abramoff tried to remake Nazi feel-good flick
The word is out that America's favorite lobbyist failed in his efforts to remake the greatest movie ever about a clown who leads laughing children into the ovens of Auschwitz.
In 1972, funnyman Jerry Lewis directed and starred in "The Day the Clown Cried," the story of circus clown Helmut Doork, who entertains children to their deaths. Filming stopped after the story got caught up in a copyright fight, so only a rough cut was ever finished.
In this month's issue of Harper's magazine, there are excerpts of unsigned letters written by Jack Abramoff's friends to Judge Paul Huck of Federal District Court in Miami in the hopes of getting the judge to go easy on the lobbyist/criminal. Huck would later sentence Abramoff to six years and $21.7 million in fines.
Jack made every effort possible to secure funding for a film entitled The Day the Clown Cried, a movie about the importance of taking care of children, set in a WWII concentration camp.
Lawrence Levi claims to have obtained a copy of the letter which reveals that it was written by film producer Michael Barclay, who was to be one of Abramoff's partners in the venture. It was to be Abramoff's bid for respectability after the failure of the Dolph Lundgren epic "Red Scorpion," which he penned and produced
Legend has it that Lewis is so ashamed of the film that he keeps it locked in a briefcase in his office. In this age of You Tube and Bit Torrent, it is one of the few pieces of video not readily available.
Harry Shearer is among the luck few who have witnesses the debacle.
"This movie is so drastically wrong, its pathos and its comedy are so wildly misplaced, that you could not, in your fantasy of what it might be like, improve on what it really is," said Shearer.
2006/06/07
Crazy pills for all American kids!
Since 1993, the number of American children forced to take dangerous "antipsychotic" drugs has risen by fivefold, according to a grim new study published by the Archives of General Psychiatry.
The real effects of the crazy pills on kids haven't been studied -- none of the "commonly prescribed antipsychotics" are even approved for use on children.
But that hasn't stopped America's reckless and corrupt doctors from writing prescriptions for any child who shows the slightest sign of bad behavior.
What little is known about the long-term effects is all bad: The drugs turn kids into obese diabetics with ruined minds.
In the early 1990s, only 275 of every 100,000 kids were put on the deadly brain drugs. By 2002, that figure had risen to a shocking 1,438 per 100,000.
While prescription sales of Ritalin and antidepressants have finally dropped a bit after a decade of horror stories, suicides and mass murders committed by America's addled youth, more and more kids are being forced to take powerful antipsychotic medicine for the most mundane "behavioral problems."
"The explosion in the use of drugs, some experts said, can be traced in part to the growing number of children and adolescents whose problems are given psychiatric labels once reserved for adults and to doctors' increasing comfort with a newer generation of drugs for psychosis," the New York Times reported today.
But in the years since, the rate has risen even more dramatically.
Between 2001 and 2004, doctors prescribed antipsychotics to a staggering 80% more kids.
The results have been truly awful.
A grim yet common example is provided by a newspaper columnist in Halifax who tells the horrifying story of "Erin," a normal little girl whose teen years became a nightmare all because of crazed doctors who literally made her insane with their fiendish prescriptions.
By the time she was an institutionalized teenager, "Erin" was convinced Hitler was stalking her in the hospital, that an invisible boy named "Timmy" was always with here and that she couldn't cross a line drawn on the floor of her room.
"Erin" attacked nurses, spent hours writing tiny numbers all over the walls of her hospital cell, convulsed in fear over nothing apparent to anyone else and would go into eye-rolling seizures or collapse into her plate of food.
Bush's Big Government
According to the Homeland Stupidity website, much of the recent surge in child antipsychotic prescriptions comes from foster homes encouraged to get their charges on the crazy pills.
The federal government wants to perform mental health screening on infants and get them started on drugs which they will take for their entire lives, if the drugs don’t kill them first. And you’re going to pay for it, whether you want to or not.
Already, children as young as 3, who wind up in the foster care system, are receiving psychiatric drugs for such disorders as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or depression, with over 60% of foster children in Texas, nearly two-thirds in Massachusetts, and 55% of foster children in Florida on as many as 16 different psychiatric drugs.
The federal program's roots are in Texas.
The real effects of the crazy pills on kids haven't been studied -- none of the "commonly prescribed antipsychotics" are even approved for use on children.
But that hasn't stopped America's reckless and corrupt doctors from writing prescriptions for any child who shows the slightest sign of bad behavior.
What little is known about the long-term effects is all bad: The drugs turn kids into obese diabetics with ruined minds.
In the early 1990s, only 275 of every 100,000 kids were put on the deadly brain drugs. By 2002, that figure had risen to a shocking 1,438 per 100,000.
While prescription sales of Ritalin and antidepressants have finally dropped a bit after a decade of horror stories, suicides and mass murders committed by America's addled youth, more and more kids are being forced to take powerful antipsychotic medicine for the most mundane "behavioral problems."
"The explosion in the use of drugs, some experts said, can be traced in part to the growing number of children and adolescents whose problems are given psychiatric labels once reserved for adults and to doctors' increasing comfort with a newer generation of drugs for psychosis," the New York Times reported today.
But in the years since, the rate has risen even more dramatically.
Between 2001 and 2004, doctors prescribed antipsychotics to a staggering 80% more kids.
The results have been truly awful.
A grim yet common example is provided by a newspaper columnist in Halifax who tells the horrifying story of "Erin," a normal little girl whose teen years became a nightmare all because of crazed doctors who literally made her insane with their fiendish prescriptions.
By the time she was an institutionalized teenager, "Erin" was convinced Hitler was stalking her in the hospital, that an invisible boy named "Timmy" was always with here and that she couldn't cross a line drawn on the floor of her room.
"Erin" attacked nurses, spent hours writing tiny numbers all over the walls of her hospital cell, convulsed in fear over nothing apparent to anyone else and would go into eye-rolling seizures or collapse into her plate of food.
Bush's Big Government
According to the Homeland Stupidity website, much of the recent surge in child antipsychotic prescriptions comes from foster homes encouraged to get their charges on the crazy pills.
The federal government wants to perform mental health screening on infants and get them started on drugs which they will take for their entire lives, if the drugs don’t kill them first. And you’re going to pay for it, whether you want to or not.
Already, children as young as 3, who wind up in the foster care system, are receiving psychiatric drugs for such disorders as schizophrenia, bipolar disorder or depression, with over 60% of foster children in Texas, nearly two-thirds in Massachusetts, and 55% of foster children in Florida on as many as 16 different psychiatric drugs.
The federal program's roots are in Texas.
pardoned
A foul-mouthed parrot's life has been spared thanks to an injunction against an Israeli psychic who offered Washington his supernatural help in the hunt for Osama bin Laden.
Oren Zarif practices alternative medicine in Tel Aviv. In his spare time he's also a psychic who's eager to join the hunt for Bin Laden, the now-forgotten enemy of America.
"I do not err; I pinpoint exactly. I do not want money. I want to negotiate with the Americans: Providing that I locate Bin Laden, as a quid pro quo they must free Jonathan Pollard. I am willing to foot all related expenses, and I am willing to post a one million dollar bond which I will forfeit if I err."
Pollard was sentenced in 1986 to life in a U.S. prison for spying on behalf of Israel.
"I am outfitted with maps and ready to go to Afghanistan to find Bin Laden. I am certain -- unequivocally certain -- that I can do this."
Among Zarif's patients is an Orthodox man who had an unusual problem. The parrot he bought for his children was cursing like a sailor.
"The parrot would shriek out 'maniac,' 'son of a bitch,' 'homo,'" Zarif said.
"My patient consulted a rabbi, and the rabbi ruled that the parrot should be slaughtered because he sins and causes others to sin."
Not wanting to see the foul fowl hurt, Zarif bought the blue bird from his patient and consulted another rabbi, Meir Mazuz.
"The parrot must be muted with the minimum of suffering," Mazuz ruled. "If that doesn't help, he must be slaughtered."
The cruel rabbi added, "It is very harmful for children to learn swear words -- in a secular household, as well."
Zarif refused to go through with either sentence. In fact, his wife threatened him with divorce if he killed the parrot.
"I'm ready to donate the parrot to a safari or any other body that takes care of animals. At most, they can keep him away from children," Zarif says.
The parrot's story grabbed headlines across Israel, causing an outpouring of support. Dozens of people came forward offering the bird shelter. Protesters gathered outside Zarif's home, urging him not to harm the bird.
The Let Animals Live foundation took the bird's case to the courts, where they won an injunction. Judge Tzvi Kaspi has ruled that no harm is to come to the bird. Zarif and the bird will be heading to court soon in hopes of determining the bird's fate once and for all.
Oren Zarif practices alternative medicine in Tel Aviv. In his spare time he's also a psychic who's eager to join the hunt for Bin Laden, the now-forgotten enemy of America.
"I do not err; I pinpoint exactly. I do not want money. I want to negotiate with the Americans: Providing that I locate Bin Laden, as a quid pro quo they must free Jonathan Pollard. I am willing to foot all related expenses, and I am willing to post a one million dollar bond which I will forfeit if I err."
Pollard was sentenced in 1986 to life in a U.S. prison for spying on behalf of Israel.
"I am outfitted with maps and ready to go to Afghanistan to find Bin Laden. I am certain -- unequivocally certain -- that I can do this."
Among Zarif's patients is an Orthodox man who had an unusual problem. The parrot he bought for his children was cursing like a sailor.
"The parrot would shriek out 'maniac,' 'son of a bitch,' 'homo,'" Zarif said.
"My patient consulted a rabbi, and the rabbi ruled that the parrot should be slaughtered because he sins and causes others to sin."
Not wanting to see the foul fowl hurt, Zarif bought the blue bird from his patient and consulted another rabbi, Meir Mazuz.
"The parrot must be muted with the minimum of suffering," Mazuz ruled. "If that doesn't help, he must be slaughtered."
The cruel rabbi added, "It is very harmful for children to learn swear words -- in a secular household, as well."
Zarif refused to go through with either sentence. In fact, his wife threatened him with divorce if he killed the parrot.
"I'm ready to donate the parrot to a safari or any other body that takes care of animals. At most, they can keep him away from children," Zarif says.
The parrot's story grabbed headlines across Israel, causing an outpouring of support. Dozens of people came forward offering the bird shelter. Protesters gathered outside Zarif's home, urging him not to harm the bird.
The Let Animals Live foundation took the bird's case to the courts, where they won an injunction. Judge Tzvi Kaspi has ruled that no harm is to come to the bird. Zarif and the bird will be heading to court soon in hopes of determining the bird's fate once and for all.
'Let's just give Iran nukes!'
Unique problems call for unique solutions, so today the White House decided to give nuclear technology to Iran.
Yes, Iran. The same Iran the White House has been planning to bomb for months ... because Iran is developing nuclear-power technology.
The offer comes from the United States and the other five world powers involved in the diplomatic talks.
The Bush Administration suddenly began negotiations with Iran last week after 26 years without official contact.
But the old hands in the White House have never cared too much about what's official or legal.
The Reagan Administration -- which included Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Elliot Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, "Scooter" Libby, Paul Wolfowitz and many others hired by the current administration -- had regular dirty deals with America's alleged enemy Iran.
Bush's father and Reagan's vice-president elect, George H. W. Bush, was alleged to have cut a deal with the Iranians to delay the release of U.S. hostages during the 1980 presidential election campaign. Once Reagan had safely beaten Jimmy Carter, the hostages were released ... on the day Reagan was inaugurated.
In exchange, the Reagan Administration began providing Iran -- once again, an alleged fundamentalist-Islamic enemy of the United States -- with constant shipments of weapons.
Because that just wasn't evil enough, the Reagan Administration used the illegal profits from these illegal arm sales to fund right-wing death squads in Central America, specifically the phony "Contras" of Nicaragua.
Up is Down
News analysts and policy experts are in slack-jawed shock over the latest funhouse-mirror action by the Bush Administration, but they shouldn't be surprised.
Again and again, the White House has taken the mind-numbingly bizarre route, causing heartbreak and confusion amongst those who desperately try to "take sides" and assign certain actions or beliefs to the "Democrat" or 'Republican" political machines.
But the renegade Bush Administration has never been tied down by political considerations.
As Republican voters go insane over the sudden appearance of 12 million undocumented Mexican workers in the United States, Bush repeatedly says he wants to give the criminal laborers "amnesty."
When fear and hatred of Arabs is about all that holds the shrunken GOP base together, the Bush Administration tries to give control of U.S. ports to the Muslim monarchy of Dubai.
And as a handful of actual fiscal-conservatives shed tears of rage over massive federal deficits and total federal control over every aspect of American life, the White House just keeps on spending and keeps on expanding the police state.
Yes, Iran. The same Iran the White House has been planning to bomb for months ... because Iran is developing nuclear-power technology.
The offer comes from the United States and the other five world powers involved in the diplomatic talks.
The Bush Administration suddenly began negotiations with Iran last week after 26 years without official contact.
But the old hands in the White House have never cared too much about what's official or legal.
The Reagan Administration -- which included Donald Rumsfeld, Dick Cheney, John Bolton, Elliot Abrams, Zalmay Khalilzad, "Scooter" Libby, Paul Wolfowitz and many others hired by the current administration -- had regular dirty deals with America's alleged enemy Iran.
Bush's father and Reagan's vice-president elect, George H. W. Bush, was alleged to have cut a deal with the Iranians to delay the release of U.S. hostages during the 1980 presidential election campaign. Once Reagan had safely beaten Jimmy Carter, the hostages were released ... on the day Reagan was inaugurated.
In exchange, the Reagan Administration began providing Iran -- once again, an alleged fundamentalist-Islamic enemy of the United States -- with constant shipments of weapons.
Because that just wasn't evil enough, the Reagan Administration used the illegal profits from these illegal arm sales to fund right-wing death squads in Central America, specifically the phony "Contras" of Nicaragua.
Up is Down
News analysts and policy experts are in slack-jawed shock over the latest funhouse-mirror action by the Bush Administration, but they shouldn't be surprised.
Again and again, the White House has taken the mind-numbingly bizarre route, causing heartbreak and confusion amongst those who desperately try to "take sides" and assign certain actions or beliefs to the "Democrat" or 'Republican" political machines.
But the renegade Bush Administration has never been tied down by political considerations.
As Republican voters go insane over the sudden appearance of 12 million undocumented Mexican workers in the United States, Bush repeatedly says he wants to give the criminal laborers "amnesty."
When fear and hatred of Arabs is about all that holds the shrunken GOP base together, the Bush Administration tries to give control of U.S. ports to the Muslim monarchy of Dubai.
And as a handful of actual fiscal-conservatives shed tears of rage over massive federal deficits and total federal control over every aspect of American life, the White House just keeps on spending and keeps on expanding the police state.
2006/06/06
The New World Order, the military minions
Tuesday, June 6th, 2006
Full implementation of a one world government requires the annihilation of all defiant governments in conjunction with the establishment of central banks controlled by the international banking elite. Proponent Madeleine Albright, while Secretary of State, said: “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation.” [1] While sounding arrogant and ego-driven, the enforced establishment of the New World Order depends on our duplicitous military involvement for we are the military minions of the powerful elite. To garner popular acceptance for offensive invasions, those nations that resist the globalist agenda automatically become America’s enemies and are labeled Communists, Marxists or whatever.
“When certain obstructionists become too irritating, label them, after suitable build-ups, as Fascist or Nazi or anti-Semitic; and use the prestige of anti-Fascist and tolerance organizations to discredit them. In the public mind constantly associate those who oppose us with those names which already have a bad smell” (Communist Party to its U.S. members, 1943).
If political infiltration fails, with properly installed puppets, then military intervention for contrived explanations must suffice. Various subversive tactics include “shock and awe” invasion, armed occupation, economic sanctions or collapse, and cultural, social and religious decimation perpetuated overtly by our super power military or covertly by our super secret CIA. The major function of secrecy in Washington is to keep the U.S. citizens ignorant, to keep them from knowing what their leaders are doing. “Secrecy is power. Secrecy is license. Secrecy covers up mistakes. Secrecy covers up corruption.” [2]
“Extrapolating the figures as best we can, there have been about 3,000 major covert operations and over 10,000 minor operations, all illegal, and all designed to disrupt, destabilize, or modify the activities of other countries.” [3] The targets of CIA destabilization have included, but are not limited to, the following countries: Grenada, Jamaica, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Iraq and Vietnam. [4] Would they still be third world without our subversive economic destabilization efforts?
So please, despite cheerleader Laura Ingraham’s assertions, and other Propaganda parrots, WE ARE NOT FIGHTING FOR OUR FREEDOM IN IRAQ!!!! We won our freedom over two hundred years ago. Since that time we have fought in sixteen acknowledged wars. Our military has entered other countries for the purpose of influencing foreign governments about 200 times. It has never been about our freedom. The only entity attempting to deprive us of that hard won freedom appears to be our own government with monstrosities like the Patriot Act which defines the innovative crime of “domestic Terrorism.” New laws will further criminalize political protest and dissent, impacting our freedom of speech. Many, including ex-military men are hesitant to speak for fear of the certain negative consequences to their reputations and pensions. “We are living in a world in which nobody is free, in which hardly anybody is secure, in which it is almost impossible to be honest and to remain alive.” George Orwell
It is the presidents, the kings and other leaders, driven by the international bankers and their goals, abetted by the press, who inflame the compliant citizens to go into battle against people who allegedly have harmed us or who might harm us. Since our wars with Great Britain, the battles waged by America have been offensive. Even our retaliation against Japan was the result of the contrived and provoked attack on Pearl Harbor. Our wars, police actions, deposing dictators and concealed CIA interventions have always been for economic reasons — to enrich the bankers who typically fund both sides of the conflict.
“Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of War to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums have reached fever pitch, and the blood boils with hate and the mind is closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry, rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar — Gaius.”
Acquiescent Americans have been seduced by pro War Propaganda. Our super power status has metastasized into a “police the world” super ego mentality that we apparently applaud with our voices and our tax dollars. Our pride precludes any premonitions about our own demise. Previous empires fell because of decadence and corruption — do we claim immunity to a similar collapse? Wake up people! Close the TV Guide and read.
“In their day to day lives, in their immediate physical environment, most Americans have no discernable enemies. It is always possible that there could be governments and other organizations that pose a genuine physical threat to the American people. However, it is virtually impossible for the people to know this for themselves. They must depend almost entirely upon information provided by government and the mainstream Media.” [5]
“In all of human behavior, what can be more serious than supporting acts of violence against people in faraway places? Or for that matter, at home! Is there not a profound, moral responsibility to be absolutely sure of both the accuracy and urgency of the situation before perpetrating acts of death and destruction upon other human beings? How difficult does this become when one is at the mercy of sources of information that cannot be verified? What if those sources have lied to you at other times and on other issues, and you know it? What if both intuition and available facts tell you that your government has not only been lying to you, but may have been involved in creating the very danger it now says will require the use of violence? Is it morally justifiable to support your government’s acts of violence against people anywhere when:
You are not in immediate physical danger
You feel strongly that you cannot trust your government
You have no way to verify the information the government is providing as its excuse for violence?” [6]
From infancy, Americans are Media conditioned to glorify War as a patriotic obligation. After years of viewing desensitizing violent multi Media marketing disseminated as entertainment, naïve Americans are ready and willing to “fight for their country.” By graduation, seniors, who lack experience and real world awareness, are prime enlistment targets. After all the “good guys” should do everything possible to defeat the “bad guys” even if goes against individual, family, religious and moral values, right?
The government will proficiently train enthusiastic recruits, after instilling strict discipline, to use guns, knives, land mines, bombs, napalm, cruise missiles, smart bombs, cluster bombs and white phosphorous in order to kill or maim strangers — men, women and children, often referred to as collateral damage. After utilizing their expert killing skills during active duty they are supposed to compartmentalize their horrific experiences and proceed psychologically and emotionally as if nothing had ever happened.
-continued-
Full implementation of a one world government requires the annihilation of all defiant governments in conjunction with the establishment of central banks controlled by the international banking elite. Proponent Madeleine Albright, while Secretary of State, said: “If we have to use force, it is because we are America. We are the indispensable nation.” [1] While sounding arrogant and ego-driven, the enforced establishment of the New World Order depends on our duplicitous military involvement for we are the military minions of the powerful elite. To garner popular acceptance for offensive invasions, those nations that resist the globalist agenda automatically become America’s enemies and are labeled Communists, Marxists or whatever.
“When certain obstructionists become too irritating, label them, after suitable build-ups, as Fascist or Nazi or anti-Semitic; and use the prestige of anti-Fascist and tolerance organizations to discredit them. In the public mind constantly associate those who oppose us with those names which already have a bad smell” (Communist Party to its U.S. members, 1943).
If political infiltration fails, with properly installed puppets, then military intervention for contrived explanations must suffice. Various subversive tactics include “shock and awe” invasion, armed occupation, economic sanctions or collapse, and cultural, social and religious decimation perpetuated overtly by our super power military or covertly by our super secret CIA. The major function of secrecy in Washington is to keep the U.S. citizens ignorant, to keep them from knowing what their leaders are doing. “Secrecy is power. Secrecy is license. Secrecy covers up mistakes. Secrecy covers up corruption.” [2]
“Extrapolating the figures as best we can, there have been about 3,000 major covert operations and over 10,000 minor operations, all illegal, and all designed to disrupt, destabilize, or modify the activities of other countries.” [3] The targets of CIA destabilization have included, but are not limited to, the following countries: Grenada, Jamaica, Cuba, Nicaragua, El Salvador, Honduras, Panama, Iraq and Vietnam. [4] Would they still be third world without our subversive economic destabilization efforts?
So please, despite cheerleader Laura Ingraham’s assertions, and other Propaganda parrots, WE ARE NOT FIGHTING FOR OUR FREEDOM IN IRAQ!!!! We won our freedom over two hundred years ago. Since that time we have fought in sixteen acknowledged wars. Our military has entered other countries for the purpose of influencing foreign governments about 200 times. It has never been about our freedom. The only entity attempting to deprive us of that hard won freedom appears to be our own government with monstrosities like the Patriot Act which defines the innovative crime of “domestic Terrorism.” New laws will further criminalize political protest and dissent, impacting our freedom of speech. Many, including ex-military men are hesitant to speak for fear of the certain negative consequences to their reputations and pensions. “We are living in a world in which nobody is free, in which hardly anybody is secure, in which it is almost impossible to be honest and to remain alive.” George Orwell
It is the presidents, the kings and other leaders, driven by the international bankers and their goals, abetted by the press, who inflame the compliant citizens to go into battle against people who allegedly have harmed us or who might harm us. Since our wars with Great Britain, the battles waged by America have been offensive. Even our retaliation against Japan was the result of the contrived and provoked attack on Pearl Harbor. Our wars, police actions, deposing dictators and concealed CIA interventions have always been for economic reasons — to enrich the bankers who typically fund both sides of the conflict.
“Beware of the leader who bangs the drums of War to whip the citizenry into patriotic fervor, for patriotism is indeed a double-edged sword. It both emboldens the blood, just as it narrows the mind. And when the drums have reached fever pitch, and the blood boils with hate and the mind is closed, the leader will have no need in seizing the rights of the citizenry, rather, the citizenry, infused with fear and blinded by patriotism, will offer up all of their rights unto the leader, and gladly so. How do I know? For this is what I have done. And I am Caesar — Gaius.”
Acquiescent Americans have been seduced by pro War Propaganda. Our super power status has metastasized into a “police the world” super ego mentality that we apparently applaud with our voices and our tax dollars. Our pride precludes any premonitions about our own demise. Previous empires fell because of decadence and corruption — do we claim immunity to a similar collapse? Wake up people! Close the TV Guide and read.
“In their day to day lives, in their immediate physical environment, most Americans have no discernable enemies. It is always possible that there could be governments and other organizations that pose a genuine physical threat to the American people. However, it is virtually impossible for the people to know this for themselves. They must depend almost entirely upon information provided by government and the mainstream Media.” [5]
“In all of human behavior, what can be more serious than supporting acts of violence against people in faraway places? Or for that matter, at home! Is there not a profound, moral responsibility to be absolutely sure of both the accuracy and urgency of the situation before perpetrating acts of death and destruction upon other human beings? How difficult does this become when one is at the mercy of sources of information that cannot be verified? What if those sources have lied to you at other times and on other issues, and you know it? What if both intuition and available facts tell you that your government has not only been lying to you, but may have been involved in creating the very danger it now says will require the use of violence? Is it morally justifiable to support your government’s acts of violence against people anywhere when:
You are not in immediate physical danger
You feel strongly that you cannot trust your government
You have no way to verify the information the government is providing as its excuse for violence?” [6]
From infancy, Americans are Media conditioned to glorify War as a patriotic obligation. After years of viewing desensitizing violent multi Media marketing disseminated as entertainment, naïve Americans are ready and willing to “fight for their country.” By graduation, seniors, who lack experience and real world awareness, are prime enlistment targets. After all the “good guys” should do everything possible to defeat the “bad guys” even if goes against individual, family, religious and moral values, right?
The government will proficiently train enthusiastic recruits, after instilling strict discipline, to use guns, knives, land mines, bombs, napalm, cruise missiles, smart bombs, cluster bombs and white phosphorous in order to kill or maim strangers — men, women and children, often referred to as collateral damage. After utilizing their expert killing skills during active duty they are supposed to compartmentalize their horrific experiences and proceed psychologically and emotionally as if nothing had ever happened.
-continued-
2006/06/05
Bush - Most Hated President Ever Stole Both Elections
The latest polls say Americans now dislike Bush more than any other president including even Tricky Dick. It only took the public five and half year to see through him.
That said, I wonder how long it will take people to accept the news that Bush never won either election and the country is in such a mess that it will take 50 years to get back to how it was when Bush took office.
According to Robert Kennedy Jr’s article in the June issue of Rolling Stone, “Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush’s victory as nut cases in “tinfoil hats.”
Well Republicans can call me whatever they like because this nut-case is finally going to weigh in on this subject.
Bush needed Ohio. He could not win the election without Ohio and he knew it.
So just as you might expect with the Bush gang, voter fraud was rampant in Ohio, described as “the critical battleground state that clinched Bush’s victory in the Electoral College,” by Mr Kennedy.
I can certainly verify that allegation. I lived in Ohio at the time and I went to vote plenty early before going to work and was there when the polls were supposed to open at 6:30 am. I ended up standing out in the rain for an hour and 45 minutes and when I got inside, voters had to track people down to explain what room or voting machine to go to.
I lived in a Democratic precinct by the way. But it was worse than that in other Democratic precincts in other parts of the state.
Some people ended up standing in line for up to 12 hours. But only those people who could miss work and go without pay for a whole day and not get fired for not showing up. And as we all know those people who could not wait in line were certainly not Republicans.
I had never seen anything like it in my life.
I knew Bush stole the election by the time the polls closed in Ohio. I knew it because in working for a major Media outlet, by late afternoon I knew that all the exit polls had Kerry winning. But by the time I left work to go home, the news channels were saying “all the exit polls” are wrong. Yea right, all the exit polls were wrong.
Don’t people realize how impossible that would be?
-continued-
That said, I wonder how long it will take people to accept the news that Bush never won either election and the country is in such a mess that it will take 50 years to get back to how it was when Bush took office.
According to Robert Kennedy Jr’s article in the June issue of Rolling Stone, “Republicans derided anyone who expressed doubts about Bush’s victory as nut cases in “tinfoil hats.”
Well Republicans can call me whatever they like because this nut-case is finally going to weigh in on this subject.
Bush needed Ohio. He could not win the election without Ohio and he knew it.
So just as you might expect with the Bush gang, voter fraud was rampant in Ohio, described as “the critical battleground state that clinched Bush’s victory in the Electoral College,” by Mr Kennedy.
I can certainly verify that allegation. I lived in Ohio at the time and I went to vote plenty early before going to work and was there when the polls were supposed to open at 6:30 am. I ended up standing out in the rain for an hour and 45 minutes and when I got inside, voters had to track people down to explain what room or voting machine to go to.
I lived in a Democratic precinct by the way. But it was worse than that in other Democratic precincts in other parts of the state.
Some people ended up standing in line for up to 12 hours. But only those people who could miss work and go without pay for a whole day and not get fired for not showing up. And as we all know those people who could not wait in line were certainly not Republicans.
I had never seen anything like it in my life.
I knew Bush stole the election by the time the polls closed in Ohio. I knew it because in working for a major Media outlet, by late afternoon I knew that all the exit polls had Kerry winning. But by the time I left work to go home, the news channels were saying “all the exit polls” are wrong. Yea right, all the exit polls were wrong.
Don’t people realize how impossible that would be?
-continued-
Bar group will review Bush’s legal challenges
WASHINGTON — The board of governors of the American Bar Association voted unanimously yesterday to investigate whether President Bush has exceeded his constitutional authority in reserving the right to ignore more than 750 laws that have been enacted since he took office.
Meeting in New Orleans, the board of governors for the world’s largest association of legal professionals approved the creation of an all-star legal panel with a number of members from both political parties.
They include a former federal appeals court chief judge, a former FBI director, and several prominent scholars — to evaluate Bush’s assertions that he has the power to ignore laws that conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Bush has appended statements to new laws when he signs them, noting which provisions he believes interfere with his powers.
Among the laws Bush has challenged are the ban on torturing detainees, oversight provisions in the USA Patriot Act, and “whistle-blower” protections for federal employees.
The challenges also have included safeguards against political interference in taxpayer-funded research.
Bush has challenged more laws than all previous presidents combined.
The ABA’s president, Michael Greco, said in an interview that he proposed the task force because he believes the scope and aggressiveness of Bush’s signing statements may raise serious constitutional concerns. He said the ABA, which has more than 400,000 members, has a duty to speak out about such legal issues to the public, the courts, and Congress.
“The American Bar Association feels a very serious obligation to ensure that when there are legal issues that affect the American people, the ABA adopts a policy regarding such issues and then speaks out about it,” Greco said. “In this instance, the president’s practice of attaching signing statements to laws squarely presents a constitutional issue about the separation of powers among the three branches.”
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Meeting in New Orleans, the board of governors for the world’s largest association of legal professionals approved the creation of an all-star legal panel with a number of members from both political parties.
They include a former federal appeals court chief judge, a former FBI director, and several prominent scholars — to evaluate Bush’s assertions that he has the power to ignore laws that conflict with his interpretation of the Constitution.
Bush has appended statements to new laws when he signs them, noting which provisions he believes interfere with his powers.
Among the laws Bush has challenged are the ban on torturing detainees, oversight provisions in the USA Patriot Act, and “whistle-blower” protections for federal employees.
The challenges also have included safeguards against political interference in taxpayer-funded research.
Bush has challenged more laws than all previous presidents combined.
The ABA’s president, Michael Greco, said in an interview that he proposed the task force because he believes the scope and aggressiveness of Bush’s signing statements may raise serious constitutional concerns. He said the ABA, which has more than 400,000 members, has a duty to speak out about such legal issues to the public, the courts, and Congress.
“The American Bar Association feels a very serious obligation to ensure that when there are legal issues that affect the American people, the ABA adopts a policy regarding such issues and then speaks out about it,” Greco said. “In this instance, the president’s practice of attaching signing statements to laws squarely presents a constitutional issue about the separation of powers among the three branches.”
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