Calgary911truth
Thursday July 5, 2007
A Ron Paul meetup group went to a Florida Marlins baseball game and were actually told by security that since their signs read "Ron Paul 2008" they could not show them!! I am not kidding. Watch the video!
John Pilger
Lew Rockwell.com
Thursday July 5, 2007
Just as the London bombs in the summer of 2005 were Blair’s bombs, the inevitable consequence of his government’s lawless attack on Iraq, so the potential bombs in the summer of 2007 are Brown’s bombs. Gordon Brown, Blair's successor as prime minister, has been an unerring supporter of the unprovoked bloodbath whose victims now equal those of the Rwandan genocide, according to the American scientist who led the 2006 Johns Hopkins School of Public Health survey of civilian dead in Iraq. While Tony Blair sought to discredit this study, British government scientists secretly praised it as "tried and tested" and an "underestimation of mortality." The "underestimation" was 655,000 men, women and children. That is now approaching a million. It is the crime of the century.
In his first day’s address outside 10 Downing Street and subsequently to Parliament, Brown paid not even lip service to those who would be alive today had his government – and it was his government as much as Blair’s – not joined Bush in a slaughter justified with demonstrable lies. He said nothing, not a word.
He said nothing about the added thousands of Iraqi children whose deaths from preventable disease have doubled since the invasion, caused by the willful destruction of sanitation and water purification plants. He said nothing about hospital patients who die every day for want of equipment as basic as a syringe. He said nothing about the greatest refugee flight since the Palestinians’ Naqba. He said nothing about his government’s defeat in Afghanistan, and how the British army and its NATO allies are killing civilians, including whole families. Typically, on 29 June, British forces called in air strikes on a village, reportedly bombing to death 45 innocent people – almost as many as the number bombed to death in London in July 2005. Compare the reaction, or rather the silence. They were only Muslims. And Muslims are the world’s most numerous victims of a terrorism whose main sources are Washington, Tel Aviv and London.
And he said nothing about his government’s role in Afghanistan’s restoration as the world’s biggest source of opium, a direct result of the invasion of 2001. Any dealer on the streets of Glasgow will have the stuff, straight from warlords paid off by the CIA and in whose name British soldiers are killing and dying pointlessly.
He said nothing about stopping any of this. Not a word. Not a hint.
Do the dead laugh? In the new Prime Minister’s little list of priorities was "extend[ing] the British way of life."
The paymaster of the greatest British foreign policy disaster of the modern era, Brown could not even speak its name, let alone meet the military families that waited to speak to him. Three British soldiers were killed on his first day.
Has there been anything like the tsunami of unction that has engulfed the departure of Blair and the elevation of Brown? Yes, there has. Think back a decade. Blair, wrote Hugo Young of the Guardian, "wants to create a world none of us has known, where the laws of political gravity are overturned," one where "ideology has surrendered entirely to ‘values’." The new chancellor, effused the Observer, would "announce the most radical welfare Budget since the Second World war."
The "values" were fake and so was the new deal. One media-managed stunt followed another as Brown delighted the stock market and comforted the very rich and celebrated the empire, and ignored the longing of the British electorate for a restoration of public services so badly damaged by Margaret Thatcher. One of the first decisions by Harriet Harman, Blair’s first social security secretary and a declared feminist, was to abolish the single parents’ welfare premium and benefit, in spite of her pledge to the House of Commons that Labour opposed these impoverishing Tory-inspired cuts. Today, Harman is Brown’s deputy party leader and, like all of the "new faces" around the cabinet table with "plans to heal old wounds" (the Guardian), she voted for an invasion that has destroyed the lives of tens of thousands of women.
Some feminism.
And when Blair finally left, those MPs who stood and gave him a standing ovation finally certified parliament as a place of minimal consequence to British democracy. The courtiers who reported this disgrace with Richard Dimbleby royal-occasion reverence are flecked with the blood spilled by the second-rate actor and first-rate criminal. They now scramble for the latest police press release. That the profane absurdity of the going of Blair and the silence and compliance of Brown – political twins regardless of their schoolboy spats – may well have provoked the attacks on London and Glasgow is of no interest. While the crime of the century endures, there almost certainly will be others.
Shame. David Millward
London Telegraph
Thursday July 5, 2007
Sophisticated closed circuit television camera systems is set to be introduced at a number of British airports, it emerged last night.
Negotiations are understood to have started for installation of technology known as Video Analytics - the use of computers to monitor CCTV images.
The Daily Telegraph has learned that a number of airports - both major and smaller regional ones - have been in talks with companies involved in developing the systems.
Manufacturers claim that these systems could either have headed off the attack on Glasgow airport or made it possible to react almost instantly.
While normal CCTV relies on human beings to monitor and deal with potential attacks, Video Analytics can do this automatically.
Already in place at Schiphol airport in Amsterdam, it relies on a "virtual tripwire" to trigger the reaction of the emergency services. In this case it would be an unauthorized vehicle appearing on a runway.The systems are also capable of spotting an unattended bag in a terminal or in some cases people acting suspiciously - for example, by running against the general flow of passengers.
A computer can be trained to watch out for certain events picked up by digital CCTV cameras. An isolated bag which does not move for a pre-set period of time would be highlighted on the screen.
Although a number of companies are involved in developing the systems, the basic principle underlying the technology is the same.
Luton Airport already has a digital closed circuit television system installed, which would make it easier to bolt on the smart software necessary to make a Video Analytics system work.
The rail industry is also set to test the technology at Clapham Junction, one of the busiest intersections in Britain.
In another development, talks have started which could see the current airport forecourt restrictions being eased. Much will depend on assurances that all the plotters involved in the latest planned terrorist outrages have been identified.
But other security measures will have to be put in place before what is known in the industry as "kiss and fly" is allowed to take place.
These include placing barriers - such as bollards - in front of terminals to make it physically impossible to drive a car bomb into the building.
BAA, which runs seven of the country's main airports, is also reconfiguring its forecourts to widen the distance between any drop off point and the terminal.
Meanwhile a report claimed that passengers are still getting confused by the security arrangements which were introduced last August.
The biggest difficulties are being caused by the rules restricting the amount of liquids and gels which can be taken on board, the consumer magazine, Which, said.
As a result vast amounts are being confiscated at airports across the country, with passengers still trying to take containers larger than the 100 ml limit onto aircraft.
At Birmingham just under a tonne of liquids are seized at security checkpoints every day - enough to fill 18 baths. At Manchester twice as much is being confiscated. JOHN CHRISTOFFERSEN
AP
Thursday July 5, 2007
When the United States invaded Iraq more than four years ago, war opponent David Gross asked his bosses for a radical pay cut, enough so he wouldn't have to pay taxes to support the war.
"I was having a hard time looking at myself in the mirror," Gross said. "I knew the bombs falling were in part paid with my tax dollars. I had to actually do something concrete to remove my complicity."
The San Francisco technical writer was making close to $100,000 a year. He didn't know exactly how big of a pay cut he would need to fall below the federal tax threshold, but later figured out he would have to make less than minimum wage.
In any event, his employer turned him down and he quit. Gross, 38, now works on a contract basis, and last year he refused to pay self-employment taxes.
War tax resistance, popularized by Henry David Thoreau in the 19th century and by singer Joan Baez and others during the Vietnam War, is gaining renewed interest among peace activists upset over the Iraq war.
"Clearly this year we definitely had more people calling, sending e-mails about how they decided to start resisting," said Ruth Benn, coordinator of the National War Tax Resistance Coordinating Committee in New York.
Based on the committee's mailing list and reports from numerous groups it works with around the country, Benn estimates 8,000 to 10,000 Americans refuse to pay some or all of their federal taxes over war objections. Internal Revenue Service officials say they don't have figures for that specific category, but earlier this year reported an overall noncompliance rate of 16.3 percent and estimated the annual tax gap at about $345 billion.
Peace activists are considering a mass tax resistance campaign next April to step up pressure to end the war in Iraq, Benn said.
Many tax protesters say they redirect the money they withhold to charities. Some, like Joanne Sheehan of Norwich, keep their income below taxable levels.
"I don't see the point of working for peace and paying for war," Sheehan said.
Gross said he now manages to live on about $15,000 per year by carefully tracking his spending.
He acknowledged the tax resistance movement is too small to stop the war.
"But I think what we're doing is showing the way for people in the anti-war movement," Gross said. "I can look myself in the mirror and say at least I'm not supporting it, at least I'm not part of the machine."
The IRS said that while taxpayers have a right to express their opinions, they still have an obligation to pay their taxes. Tax resisters place an undue burden on taxpayers who pay their fair share of taxes, IRS spokeswoman Dianne Besunder said.
John Ubaldi, spokesman for Move America Forward, which supports the military and the war on terror, said the government would not be able to function if everyone opposed to a program stopped paying taxes.
"They're showing the terrorists that America is not committed," Ubaldi said.
The IRS considers it a frivolous argument when a taxpayer cites disagreement with the government's use of tax money as the reason for not paying taxes.
A new federal law increases the penalty for frivolous tax returns from $500 to $5,000. The IRS says it investigates promoters of frivolous arguments and refers cases to the Department of Justice for criminal prosecution.
Unlike the days when Thoreau was sent to prison in a tax protest against the Mexican-American War, modern war tax protesters rarely go to prison, according to tax resisters. The IRS may take their money from wages and bank accounts - with penalties and interest - after sending a series of letters.
"They're very polite, which makes it a little boring," said Rosa Packard of Greenwich, a longtime anti-war tax protester.
But Randy Kehler, who has refused to pay federal income taxes since 1976 to protest U.S. military policy, was evicted with his wife from their home in Colrain, Mass., in 1989 for nonpayment of more than $45,000 in taxes, interest and penalties. Kehler was also jailed for nearly three months for contempt of court.
Their tax fight was the subject of a 1997 documentary called "An Act of Conscience," narrated by actor Martin Sheen.
War protesters have been pushing for a law called the Religious Freedom Peace Tax Fund that would allow designated conscientious objectors to have their income, estate, or gift taxes used for nonmilitary purposes. After years of efforts, they hope a Congressional hearing will be held on the proposal next year.
"People fear the IRS more than they fear God," said Alan Gamble, executive director of the National Campaign for a Peace Tax Fund. "They're paying under a tremendous burden." T. Christian Miller
Los Angeles Times
Thursday July 5, 2007
The number of U.S.-paid private contractors in Iraq now exceeds that of American combat troops, newly released figures show, raising fresh questions about the privatization of the war effort and the government's capacity to carry out military and rebuilding campaigns.
More than 180,000 civilians -- including Americans, foreigners and Iraqis -- are working in Iraq under U.S. contracts, according to State and Defense Department figures obtained by the Los Angeles Times. Including the recent troop surge, 160,000 soldiers and a few thousand civilian government employees are stationed in Iraq.
The total number of private contractors, far higher than previously reported, shows how heavily the Bush administration has relied on private corporations to carry out the occupation of Iraq -- a mission criticized as being undermanned
"These numbers are big," said Peter Singer, a Brookings Institution scholar who has written on military contracting. "They illustrate better than anything that we went in without enough troops. This is not the coalition of the willing. It's the coalition of the billing."
The numbers include at least 21,000 Americans, 43,000 foreign contractors and about 118,000 Iraqis -- all employed in Iraq by U.S. tax dollars, according to the most recent government data.
The array of private workers promises to be a factor in debates on a range of policy issues, including the privatization of military jobs and the number of Iraqi refugees allowed to resettle in the U.S.
But there also are signs that even those mounting numbers may not capture the full picture. Private security contractors, who are hired to protect government officials and buildings, were not fully counted in the survey, according to industry and government officials.
Continuing uncertainty over the numbers of armed contractors drew special criticism from military experts.
"We don't have control of all the coalition guns in Iraq. That's dangerous for our country," said William Nash, a retired Army general and reconstruction expert. The Pentagon "is hiring guns. You can rationalize it all you want, but that's obscene."
Although private companies have played a role in conflicts since the American revolution, the U.S. has relied more on contractors in Iraq than in any other war in the nation's history, according to military experts. Contractors perform functions including construction work, private security and weapons system maintenance.
Military officials say contractors cut costs while allowing troops to focus on fighting wars rather than on other tasks.
"The only reason we have contractors is to support the war fighter," said Gary Motsek, the assistant deputy undersecretary of Defense who oversees contractors. "Fundamentally, they're supporting the mission as required."
But critics worry that troops and their missions could be jeopardized if contractors, functioning outside the military's command and control, refuse to make deliveries of vital supplies under fire. At one point in 2004, for example, U.S. forces were put on food rations when drivers balked at taking supplies into a combat zone.
There's no official count
Adding an element of potential confusion, no single agency keeps track of the number or location of contractors. In response to demands from Congress, the U.S. Central Command began conducting a census last year of contractors working on U.S. and Iraqi bases in order to determine how much food, water and shelter was needed.
That census, provided to the Times in response to its request under the Freedom of Information Act, shows approximately 130,000 contractors and subcontractors of different nationalities working at U.S. and Iraqi military bases.
However, U.S. military officials acknowledged that the census did not include other government agencies, including the State Department and the U.S. Agency for International Development.
Last month, USAID reported about 53,000 Iraqis employed under U.S. reconstruction contracts, doing jobs such as garbage pickup and helping to teach democracy. In interviews, agency officials said an additional 300 Americans and foreigners worked as contractors for the agency.
State Department officials said they could not provide the department's number of contractors. Of approximately 5,000 people affiliated with the U.S. Embassy in Iraq, about 300 are State Department employees. The remaining several thousand are a mix of other government agency workers and contractors, many of whom are building the new U.S. Embassy.
The companies with the largest number of employees are foreign firms in the Middle East that subcontract to KBR, the Houston-based oil services company, according to the Central Command database. KBR, once a subsidiary of Halliburton Corp., provides logistics support to troops, the single largest contract in Iraq.
The Middle Eastern companies, such as Turkish-based Kulak Construction and Dubai-based Prime Projects International, supply labor from Third World countries to KBR and other U.S. companies for menial work on U.S. bases and rebuilding projects. Foreigners are used instead of Iraqis because of fears that insurgents could infiltrate projects.
KBR is by far the largest employer of Americans, with nearly 14,000 U.S. workers. Other large employers of Americans in Iraq include L3 Communications, which holds a contract to provide translators to troops, and ITT Corp., a New York engineering and technology firm.
The most controversial contractors are those working for private security companies, including North Carolina-based Blackwater, Triple Canopy and Erinys. They provide protection to U.S. and Iraqi government officials and businessmen, and guard sensitive sites.
Security contractors draw some of the sharpest criticism, much of it from military policy experts who say their jobs should be done by the military. On several occasions, heavily armed private contractors have engaged in firefights when attacked by Iraqi insurgents.
About accountability
Others worry that the private security contractors lack accountability. While scores of troops have been prosecuted for serious crimes, only a handful of private security contractors have faced legal charges.
The number of private security contractors in Iraq remains unclear, despite Central Command's latest census. The Times identified 21 security companies in the Central Command database, deploying 10,800 men. However, the Defense Department's Motsek, who monitors contractors, said the Pentagon estimated the total was 6,000.
Both figures are far below the private security industry's own estimate of about 30,000 private security contractors working for government agencies, nonprofit organizations, media outlets and businesses.
Industry officials said that private security companies helped reduce the number of troops needed in Iraq and provided jobs to Iraqis -- a benefit in a country with high unemployment.
"A guy who is working for a [private security company] is not out on the street doing something inimical to our interests," said Lawrence Peter, director of the Private Security Company Association of Iraq.
Employing Iraqis
Not surprisingly, Iraqis make up the largest number of civilian employees under U.S. contracts. Typically, the government contracts with an American firm, which then subcontracts with an Iraqi firm to do the job.
The Iraqis have been the most difficult to track. As recently as May, the Pentagon told Congress that 22,000 Iraqis were employed by its contractors. But the Pentagon number recently jumped to 65,000 -- a result of closer inspection of contracts, an official said.
The total number of Iraqis employed under U.S. contracts is important, in part because it may influence debate in Congress regarding how many Iraqis will be allowed to come to the U.S. to escape violence in their homeland.
This year, the U.S. planned to cap that number at 7,000 Iraqis per year. To date, however, only a few dozen have been admitted, according to State Department figures.
Kirk Johnson, head of the List Project, which seeks to increase the admission of Iraqis, said that the U.S. needed to provide a haven to those who worked most closely with American officials.
"We all say we are grateful to these Iraqis," Johnson said. "How can we be the only superpower in the world that can't implement what we recognize as a moral imperative?"
| ABC News Accused Of Aiding Terrorists Furious readers call for dismissals after article discussed why UK car bombs didn't detonate |
| Paul Joseph Watson | |
ABC News has been accused of aiding potential terrorists after a news article that discussed why the attempted terror attacks on the UK were unsuccessful led to many angry readers claiming the the company was educating future car bombers on how to better hone their techniques.
In a story entitled, Exclusive: U.K. Terror Plot -- Why the Bombs Failed, writers Richard Esposito and Jim Sciutto attempt to explain why the car bombs discovered in two Mercedes in London last week failed to ignite, citing a "medical syringe used as part of the firing mechanism," that "caused a malfunction."
This provoked dozens of furious responses from those who commented on the article who accused ABC of directly educating terrorists on how to perfect the construction of a car bomb for the next attack.
"Are you so stupid that you want to earn a few dollars and help train terrorists on how to avoid their mistakes next time?" wrote one.
"I find it absolutely incredible that you provided technical data as to why the bombs did not go off, guaranteeing the enemy a better shot next time at either civilians or troops," exclaimed another.
Others called for the writers to be "fired unceremoniously," as ABC's advertisers were urged to abandon the company.
ABC News are aiding terrorists but not for the reasons cited above - the real outrage comes in the shape of the following paragraph.
"Had the fuel-air bombs successfully ignited into a superhot fireball filled with roofing nails, casualties were almost a certainty among the 500 or so patrons who partied late at the 1,700-person occupancy nightclub that perhaps best symbolizes London's vital nightlife scene."
In view of the almost ridiculously crude nature of the devices, had the so-called bombs ignited, casualties would not have been a certainty, they would have been restricted to a few minor injuries at worst. ABC is bolstering the magnitude of the terrorist's efforts and by doing so encouraging more copy-cat attempts.
As former Scotland Yard detective John O'Connor stated, the botched attacks were "hopeless", "incompetent" and "almost laughable" and the result of them amounted to nothing more than a bonfire.
"I mean when you see the ludicrous situation when none of the bombs were able to be detonated and these guys are then trying to set fire to petrol," O'Connor told CNN.
His assessment is backed up by former British Army bomb-disposal operator Lewis Page, who characterized the attempted attack as "difficult to distinguish from minor accidents," adding that the perpetrators failed to even conduct a test that would have "told these idiots what every bomb-disposal operator and Hollywood effects guy already knows: that petrol, gas etc make for an excellent, photogenic fireball which you can normally be quite close to without ill effects."
Page writes that teenage joyriders routinely have more success in igniting vehicles than these "terrorists", who didn't even bother to steal some Semtex or any other real explosive from a landfill or quarry.
Other mainstream news outlets that carried screaming phrases and headlines like "car bomb carnage" (BBC) and "explosive-packed cars" (Washington Post) are also complicit in beefing up the profile of the terrorists and eliciting the kind of fear that their amateurish attempted attacks could not generate alone.
Along with ABC's contention that the lives of 500 people were in danger from what in essence was a failed Hollywood stunt fireball, the media are guilty in handing the bad guys a propaganda victory by inflaming the kind of fearmongering that achieves the terrorists' goal - fundamentally changing society and the way we go about our daily business.
The objective of the terrorist is to jolt the existing political landscape by influencing enough to believe that their influence and danger is big enough to cripple the status quo. By adding to the fear and facilitating this agenda in overblowing the scope of the terrorist's accomplishments, the media itself is actively engaging in rhetorical terrorism.Long term agenda to divide and conquer presented as final solution |
Steve Watson |
A plan gaining traction in the Congress to separate Iraq into three autonomous territories directly mirrors long term globalist plans to "divide and conquer" in Iraq, an ongoing semi-covert project which has involved the intentional stoking of sectarian violence by occupying forces.
The authors, Edward P. Joseph of Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies and Michael O'Hanlon, senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, are hoping to draw the attention of George W. Bush administration policymakers, reports Iranian news wire Press TV.
The three main spheres proposed in the report would be Shia, Sunni and Kurdistan. Iraqi Kurds already control Kurdistan. The report also acknowledges that the plan also echoes long term Council on Foreign Relations balkanization mantra.
Such a plan is not new and has been ongoing as part of the 'Salvador Option' by the US in Iraq, which has been reported on and discussed from at least the beginning of 2005 onwards.
Newsweek reported that this Pentagon or CIA handled operation "would even extend across the border into Syria, according to military insiders familiar with the discussions... The current thinking is that while U.S. Special Forces would lead operations in, say, Syria, activities inside Iraq itself would be carried out by Iraqi paramilitaries."
Veteran journalist John Pilger wrote further about the Salvador Option in the New Statesman last year, shedding light on the origins of the plot:
"The real news, which is not reported in the CNN "mainstream", is that the Salvador Option has been invoked in Iraq. This is the campaign of terror by death squads armed and trained by the US, which attack Sunnis and Shias alike. The goal is the incitement of a real civil war and the break-up of Iraq, the original war aim of Bush's administration. The ministry of the interior in Baghdad, which is run by the CIA, directs the principal death squads. Their members are not exclusively Shia, as the myth goes. The most brutal are the Sunni-led Special Police Commandos, headed by former senior officers in Saddam's Ba'ath Party. This unit was formed and trained by CIA "counter-insurgency" experts, including veterans of the CIA's terror operations in central America in the 1980s, notably El Salvador."
Former British Ambassador to the Central Asian Republic of Uzbekistan, Craig Murray, has also made clear that he suspects the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq has been intentionally provoked and continued by US and UK special forces in occupation of the country.
Murray has stated:
"As the catastrophe in Iraq continues to unfold, an unresolved question remains on the role of Bush, Blair, and the US/UK military. To what extent were they passively incompetent in facilitating the decline into civil war, and to what extent were they actively pursuing policies that promoted that outcome?"
Murray suspects that as part of a "divide and conquer" strategy, the same strategy used by British forces in Iraq 85 years ago, Special forces are being used to intentionally foment civil war by training and equipping Kurdish Peshmerga fighters and Shiite militiamen, to target Sunni insurgents and their sympathizers.
"The evidence that the US directly contributed to the creation of the current civil war in Iraq by its own secretive security strategy is compelling." Murray continues.
He goes on to point out that US Congressman Denis Kucinich took up the issue in April of this year in a letter to Donald Rumsfeld requesting all records pertaining to the plan.
Kucinich weighed in on the matter, providing further evidence that the Salvador Option was being implemented, he wrote:
"About one year before the Newsweek report on the "Salvador Option," it was reported in the American Prospect magazine on January 1, 2004 that part of $3 billion of the $87 billion Emergency Supplemental Appropriations bill to fund operations in Iraq, signed into law on November 6, 2003, was designated for the creation of a paramilitary unit manned by militiamen associated with former Iraqi exile groups. According to the Prospect article, experts predicted that creation of this paramilitary unit would "lead to a wave of extrajudicial killings, not only of armed rebels but of nationalists, other opponents of the U.S. occupation and thousands of civilian Baathists."
There have been a number of instances that have provided evidence pointing to the fact that the Salvador Option has been invoked in Iraq. In September 2005 British SAS were caught dressed in Arab garb and attempting to stage a terror attacks on Iraqi police. The soldiers were "rescued" by British troops using extreme force and a media blackout ensued.
The 2006 bombing that shattered the famous Golden Dome of the al-Askari shrine in Samarra, one of the holiest Shia religious sites, unleashed a wave of retaliatory sectarian violence that still bloodies Iraq. Last year former CIA analyst and presidential advisor Ray McGovern went on record to state that he believed Western intelligence could have been behind the bombing of the shrine.
In a repeat of this incident just last month the shrine was bombed again, destroying its two minarets. Both Sunni and Shia Iraqis, as well as muslim clerics in other countries, accused the U.S. and the Iraqi government of being behind the bombing in order to further incite sectarian violence between the two rival Islamic groups and provide a justification for the American surge.
CNN reported that authorities had evidence that the bombing was an "inside job", and 15 members of the Iraqi security forces were arrested.
Other mosques that have suffered the same fate have also been described as inside job attacks with analysts concluding that occupying forces are behind such acts in Iraq, doing their utmost to pit Sunnis against Shias under the guise of a war against terror.
It has also been revealed that the US is arming its own cadre of Sunni insurgents in Iraq, in addition to British special forces also training and equipping the very insurgents they are supposed to be fighting.
In addition to the Salvador option, we have also exposed other US and Israeli policy documents stating that it would be beneficial to the overall strategy to engender strife in the region.
In 1982, Oded Yinon, an official from the Israeli Foreign Affairs office, wrote: "To dissolve Iraq is even more important for us than dissolving Syria. In the short term, it's Iraqi power that constitutes the greatest threat to Israel. The Iran-Iraq war tore Iraq apart and provoked its downfall. All manner of inter-Arab conflict help us and accelerate our goal of breaking up Iraq into small, diverse pieces."
Ethnic cleansing, maimed children and thousands of dead American soldiers are a small price to pay because for the Globalists the end always justifies the means and untold bloodshed and misery and bloodshed won't stand in their way.
That agenda was again underscored recently when Daniel Pipes, a highly influential Straussian Neo-Con media darling, who told the New York Sun that a civil war would aid the US and Israel because it would entangle Iran and Syria and enable those countries to be picked off by the new world empire without the need to sell a direct invasion to the public.
Stephen Zunes, professor of Politics and chair of the Peace & Justice Studies Program at the University of San Francisco, recently wrote,
"Top analysts in the CIA and State Department, as well as large numbers of Middle East experts, warned that a U.S. invasion of Iraq could result in a violent ethnic and sectarian conflict. Even some of the war's intellectual architects acknowledged as much: In a 1997 paper, prior to becoming major figures in the Bush foreign policy team, David Wurmser, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feith predicted that a post-Saddam Iraq would likely be "ripped apart" by sectarianism and other cleavages but called on the United States to "expedite" such a collapse anyway.
One of the long-standing goals of such neoconservative intellectuals has been to see the Middle East broken up into smaller ethnic or sectarian mini-states, which would include not only large stateless nationalities like the Kurds, but Maronite Christians, Druze, Arab Shi'ites, and others. Such a policy comes not out of respect for the right of self-determination – indeed, the neocons have been steadfast opponents of the Palestinians' desire for statehood, even alongside a secure Israel – but out of an imperial quest for divide-and-rule. The division of the Middle East has long been seen as a means of countering the threat of pan-Arab nationalism and, more recently, pan-Islamist movements."
The machinations of the Machiavellian Neocons are unfolding according to plan. In a classic example of "problem, reaction, solution", the occupiers have allowed Iraq to cascade into chaos, diluted the insurgency by manipulating it to become fractious, watched violent in-fighting ensue and are now presenting official division as the final resolution.
Balkanization of the middle east into easily controllable regions assures that there can be no strong enough state, independent of the new world order, to exert influence in the region, all part of the insane drive to use America as the spearhead for globalist domination over the planet.Libby pardon latest snub to course of justice
Infowars.net | July 3, 2007
Steve Watson
George W Bush has decided that if you happen to work in the White House a two-and-a-half year jail sentence for intentional obstruction of a federal investigation and four counts of perjury is "too harsh". As a result the President has commuted the sentence of convicted felon Scooter Libby and sent him home with a pat on the back and orders to put his feet up.
Amid all the frothing media terror hype, the fact that the Bush administration has once again declared itself above the law has been relegated to the "and also in the news" sections.
The decision came after a federal appeals court refused on Monday to step in and delay sending Libby to prison.
"My decision to commute his prison sentence leaves in place a harsh punishment for Mr Libby," the president said . "The reputation he gained through his years of public service and professional work in the legal community is forever damaged. His wife and young children have also suffered immensely ... The consequences of his felony conviction on his former life as a lawyer, public servant and private citizen will be long-lasting."
Someone should tell Bush exactly how justice is supposed to work, if you willingly attempt to pervert its course and are discovered you do tend to end up with a bad reputation, this is not a punishment, it is merely a by product of your criminal actions.
In addition Bush has not ruled out a total pardon for Libby.
Harry Reid, the Democratic leader in the Senate, described Mr Bush's action as "disgraceful". Charles Schumer, a Democratic senator, echoed this: "As independence day nears, we're reminded that one of the principles our forefathers fought for was equal justice under the law. This commutation completely tramples on that principle.
Perhaps the real reason behind the Libby decision is that fact that the Bush administration knows full well that Libby took the rap for his criminal masters.
Back in March a spokesman for the jury that convicted Libby told reporters immediately afterward that many felt sympathy for him and believed he was only the "fall guy."
Denis Collins said that "a number of times" they asked themselves, "what is HE doing here? Where is Rove and all these other guys....I'm not saying we didn't think Mr. Libby was guilty of the things we found him guilty of. It seemed like he was, as Mr. Wells [his lawyer] put it, he was the fall guy."
He said they believed that Vice President Cheney did "task him to talk to reporters" and out Valerie Plame as a CIA agent.
At Libby's trial it was revealed that he lied about leaking undercover CIA officer Valerie Plame's identity in 2003 because Cheney's office wanted to discredit Plame's husband, former Ambassador Joseph C. Wilson IV, who was a strong public critic of the administration's decision to go to war in Iraq.
Wilson had traveled to Niger in February 2002 on a CIA-sponsored mission to investigate allegations that Saddam Hussein's regime had attempted to procure weapons-grade uranium from the African nation. Wilson reported to the CIA that from what he could learn the allegations were almost certainly untrue. In a July 6, 2003, op-ed in The New York Times, Wilson charged that the Bush administration had "twisted" intelligence information when it cited the alleged Niger-Iraq connection in the president's State of Union address earlier that year.
As one part of an effort to counter Wilson's allegations and to discredit him, Libby and other Bush administration officials told reporters that Wilson's wife selected him to go on the CIA mission, suggesting nepotism.
Libby's trial has also brought Cheney's role to center stage. According to evidence and testimony, Cheney selectively leaked and declassified intelligence information to bolster the administration's case for war and later to defend against charges that he had misrepresented prewar intelligence.
Even former Senate Intelligence Committee Chairman Bob Graham has stated:
"It's hard to believe that the chief of staff to the vice president was acting as a rogue agent. What we have learned from the trial validates the suspicion that Libby was not just operating as a lone ranger. He was carrying out what the vice president wanted him to do, which was to besmirch Joe Wilson. I think Libby has been a conspirator in one of the most reprehensible and damaging breaches of American security in modern history."
However this will all seemingly go down the memory hole. Libby will skip jail and Cheney will face no recrimination.
And what of Bush? While Libby takes the fall over the Wilson/Plame affair, will anyone remember that at the very core of it was the speech that Bush gave to the nation in 2003 whereupon he announced that Iraq had sought to buy uranium from Niger , a claim the CIA had informed the administration was based on falsified documents ten months before it was included in the speech.
This is just one of the many instances where Bush has committed an impeachable offense by knowingly lying to the American people.
In recent weeks we have been reminded time and time again by the criminals in office that they consider themselves subject to no law or oversight.
Last week the Vice President and the President casually declared their offices to be independent of the executive branch and completely autonomous, with revelations also emerging that Dick Cheney has attempted to abolish agencies his office is supposed to be accountable to.
Previous to this Dick Cheney declared both himself and Bush unaccountable to Congress , stating last year that "vice president and president and constitutional officers don't appear before the Congress.”
It is also now clear that Bush and Cheney have broken literally hundreds of laws because they see themselves as outside of their reach.
The Constitution assigns power to Congress to write the laws and asserts that the president has an obligation ''to take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Bush, however, has repeatedly declared that he does not need to ''execute" a law he believes is unconstitutional.
Bush and Cheney are vastly expanding Presidential power and creating provisions that set their offices up as dictatorial bodies .
It has now become chillingly clear that the President and the Vice President believe that they have absolute power over the Government of the United States and cannot be held accountable to anybody.
Associated Press | July 4, 2007
ALAN FRAM
Like twin Jacques Cousteaus of the political world, President Bush and Congress are probing the depths of public opinion polling as voters exasperated over Iraq, immigration and other issues give them strikingly low grades.
In a remarkable span, the approval that people voice for the job Bush is doing has sunk to record lows for his presidency in the AP-Ipsos and other polls in recent weeks, dipping within sight of President Nixon's levels during Watergate. Ominously for Republicans hoping to hold the White House and recapture Congress next year, Bush's support has plunged among core GOP groups like evangelicals, and pivotal independent swing voters.
Congress is doing about the same. Like Bush, lawmakers are winning approval by roughly three in 10. Such levels are significantly low for a president, and poor but less unusual for Congress.
"The big thing would be the war," said independent Richard MacDonald, 56, a retired printer from Redding, Calif. "I don't think he knew what he got into when he got into it." As for Congress, MacDonald said, "It's just the same old same old with me. A lot of promises they don't keep."
Bush was risking more unpopularity by commuting I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby's prison term in the CIA leak case, and his refusal to rule out a full pardon. Polls in March after the former White House aide's conviction showed two in three opposed to a pardon.
The public's dissatisfaction may be more serious for Republicans because even though Bush cannot run again, he is the face of the GOP. He will remain that until his party picks its 2008 presidential nominee — and through the campaign if Democrats can keep him front and center.
"Everything about this race will be about George Bush and the mess he left," Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., a member of the House Democratic leadership, said about 2008. "He'll be on the ballot."
Congress' numbers could signal danger for majority Democrats, since they echo the low ratings just before the GOP 1994 takeover of the House and Senate, and the Democratic capture of both chambers last November.
But unlike the president, Congress usually has low approval ratings no matter which party is in control, and poor poll numbers have not always meant the majority party suffered on Election Day. Voters usually show more disdain for Congress as an institution than for their own representative — whom they pick.
A majority in a CNN-Opinion Research Corp. survey in late June said Democratic control of Congress was good for the country. Yet only 42 percent approved of what Democratic leaders have done this year — when Democrats failed to force Bush to change policy on Iraq.
Republican strategists hope the dim mood will help the GOP in congressional elections.
"The voters voted for change and they expected change, and they see an institution still incapable of getting anything done," said GOP pollster Linda DiVall.
The abysmal numbers are already affecting how Bush and Congress are governing and candidates' positioning for 2008.
Last Thursday's Senate collapse of Bush's immigration bill showed anew how lawmakers feel free to ignore his agenda. Republican senators like Richard Lugar of Indiana and George Voinovich of Ohio have joined increasingly bipartisan calls for an Iraq troop withdrawal.
This year's GOP presidential debates have seen former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain and others criticize Bush or his administration for mishandling the war and other issues. Some Republican congressional candidates have not hesitated to distance themselves from Bush.
"President Bush is my friend, and I don't always agree with my friends," said Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., facing a tough re-election fight next year. "And on the issues of Iraq and immigration, I simply disagree with his approach."
Bush's doleful numbers speak for themselves.
In an early June AP-Ipsos poll, 32 percent approved of his work, tying his low in that survey. Other June polls in which he set or tied his personal worst included 27 percent by CBS News, 31 percent by Fox News-Opinion Dynamics, 32 percent by CNN-Opinion Research Corp. and 26 percent by Newsweek.
The Gallup poll's lowest presidential approval rating was President Truman's 23 percent in 1951 and 1952 during the Korean war, compared with Nixon's 24 percent days before he resigned in August 1974. Bush notched the best ever, 90 percent days after the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001.
The AP's June survey showed that compared with an AP exit poll of voters in November 2004, Bush's approval was down among swing voters. His support dropped from about half of independents to a fifth; from half to a third of Catholics; and from nearly half to a fifth of moderates.
Among usually loyal GOP voters, his approval was down from about eight in 10 to roughly half of both conservatives and white evangelicals.
Congress had a 35 percent approval rating in a May AP-Ipsos survey. Polls in June found 27 percent approval by CBS News, 25 percent by Newsweek and 24 percent by Gallup-USA Today.
Congress' all-time Gallup low was 18 percent during a 1992 scandal over House post office transactions; its high was 84 percent just after Sept. 11.
In the AP poll, lawmakers won approval from only about three in 10 midwesterners, independents and married people with children — pivotal groups both parties court aggressively.
press tv
Thu, 05 Jul 2007 10:51:43
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By James Gerstenzang
Chicago Tribune
Published July 5, 2007
MARTINSBURG, W.Va. -- President Bush on Wednesday equated the war in Iraq with the U.S. war for independence. Like those revolutionaries who "dropped their pitchforks and picked up their muskets to fight for liberty," Bush said that American soldiers were also fighting "a new and unprecedented war" to protect U.S. freedom.
In a reprise of speeches he delivered during the 2006 congressional campaign, the president said that the threat that emerged Sept. 11, 2001, remains and that "a major enemy in Iraq is the same enemy that dared attack the United States on that fateful day."
Bush delivered his July 4 speech to the 167th Airlift Wing of the West Virginia Air National Guard, a unit that has sent some troops to Afghanistan and Iraq for second and third deployments. The president spent as much time shaking hands as he did delivering his address to an audience that included Guard family members and other residents in the northeastern corner of the state.
The president was adamant in his message that he would stand up to calls to end the war before he believes it has been won. When Congress returns next week, Democrats plan to renew their legislative push to bring home troops.
"Withdrawing our troops prematurely based on politics, not on the advice and recommendation of our military commanders, would not be in our national interest. It would hand the enemy a victory and put America's security at risk -- and that's something we're not going to do," he said.
West Virginia is a once-reliably Democratic state that was central to Bush's victories in the past two presidential elections. Wednesday marked the fourth Independence Day he has visited the state since taking office.
In an echo of his own warnings that the fight against terrorism will last years, Bush said that, at the start of the fight for independence, "America's victory was far from certain."
Copyright © 2007, Chicago Tribune
