Arrests during Gitmo protest inside courthouse

They had federal judge's permission — until they waved signs

The Associated Press
Updated: 3:24 p.m. ET Jan 11, 2007

WASHINGTON - Cindy Sheehan and other peace activists marched to the Cuban military zone wrapping around the U.S. naval base at Guantanamo Bay on Thursday, demanding the United States close its prison for terror suspects five years after the first detainees arrived.

A dozen protesters walked along a lonely highway connecting the Cuban city of Guantanamo to the military zone. The women in the group tied pink and yellow flowers to the barbed-wire fence marking the start of the zone, a Cuban minefield with 4½-mile road leading to the entrance of the U.S. base. The protesters were not allowed past the fence.

“What I’ve read happens in this prison makes me sick to my stomach,” said Sheehan, who became an anti-war activist after her 24-year-old son Casey died in Iraq. “I’m calling for the cycle of violence to stop now, to close this prison.”

Also among the marchers was Asif Iqbal, a British Muslim who spent 2½ years at the prison. He expressed support for those still inside.

“Every day, every minute, they are in our thoughts,” the 25-year-old said. “These are human beings, they have some right to justice, too.”

Abuse allegations fuel outrage
The U.S. military is holding about 395 men on suspicion of links to al-Qaida or the Taliban, including about 85 who have been cleared to be released or transferred to other countries. The military says it wants to charge 60 to 80 detainees and bring them to trial.

Critics say the camp, where most of the prisoners face indefinite incarceration, is an affront to democratic values. Allegations of abuse have fueled worldwide outrage.

The military says the detention center is vital to the fight against terrorism and that instances of abuse have been investigated and the perpetrators disciplined. The detention camp commander, Adm. Harry B. Harris, says aggressive interrogation tactics are no longer used.

U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon called on the United States to close the prison, echoing an appeal made last year by his predecessor, Kofi Annan.

“I understand that today is the fifth anniversary of Guantanamo’s prison,” Ban said a news conference. “Like my predecessor, I believe that prison at Guantanamo should be closed.”

Demonstrations in several cities around the world marked the fifth anniversary of the arrival of the first detainees at Guantanamo.

In Washington, about 100 protesters were arrested inside a federal courthouse. The group — which had a permit for a demonstration outside the courthouse — sang and chanted as they were led away.

About 100 people protested outside the U.S. Embassy in London, wearing orange inmate outfits. Three “guards” wearing green camouflage shouted orders for them to stand up or kneel down. Similar demonstrations took place in Greece, Hungary and Italy.

Woman travels from Mideast for protest
U.S. Army Col. Lora Tucker, a spokeswoman for the detention center, said the military had no plans to acknowledge the Cuban protest Thursday or increase security at the gate, which is located at a distance from the prison camp on the other side of a hill.

“Nothing changes for us based on a demonstration being held somewhere in Cuba,” she said, adding that Thursday was “a normal work day” at the naval base.

Zohra Zewawi, the mother of British detainee Omar Deghayes, traveled from the United Arab Emirates with another son, Taher Deghayes, to join the protest. She says her son had been tortured and blinded in one eye since he was imprisoned in September 2002 and still has not been charged.

Taher Deghayes carried a large color photograph of Omar that said “justice for my brother.” One American protester wore an orange jumpsuit and a black hood.

Adele Welty, whose firefighter son, Timothy, was killed in the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, said she empathized with the prisoners’ mothers. She called on Americans to urge Congress to demand “an end to the unjust incarceration of your fellow human beings.”
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16580352/

Technology giving police more power to spy on us

azstarnet

Tucson police have a new law-enforcement tool: a car-mounted license-plate scanner. Similar to a radar gun, it reads the license plates of moving or parked cars — 250 or more per hour — and links with remote police databases, immediately providing information about the car and owner.

On the face of it, this is nothing new. Police have always been able to run a license plate. The difference is they would do it manually, and that limited its use. It simply wasn't feasible for police to run the plates of every car in a parking garage or every car that passed through an intersection. What's different isn't the police tactic, but the efficiency of the process.

Technology is fundamentally changing the nature of surveillance. Years ago, surveillance meant trench-coated detectives following people down streets. It was laborious and expensive and was used only when there was reasonable suspicion of a crime. Modern surveillance is the policeman with a license-plate scanner, or even a remote license-plate scanner mounted on a traffic light and a policeman sitting at a computer in the station.

It's the same, but it's completely different. It's wholesale surveillance. And it disrupts the balance between the powers of the police and the rights of the people.
Wholesale surveillance is fast becoming the norm. Automatic toll-collection systems record when individual cars pass through toll booths. We can all be tracked by our cell phones. Our purchases are tracked by banks and credit-card companies, our telephone calls by phone companies, our Internet surfing habits by Web site operators.

The effects of wholesale surveillance on privacy and civil liberties are profound; but, unfortunately, the debate often gets mischaracterized as a question about how much privacy we need to give up in order to be secure. This is wrong. It's obvious that we are all safer when the police can use all techniques at their disposal. What we need are corresponding mechanisms to prevent abuse and that don't place an unreasonable burden on the innocent.

Throughout our nation's history, we have maintained a balance between the necessary interests of the police and the civil rights of the people.

The search-warrant process, as prescribed in the Fourth Amendment, is such a balancing method. So is the minimization requirement for telephone eavesdropping: The police must stop listening to a phone line if the suspect under investigation is not talking.

For license-plate scanners, one obvious protection is to require the police to erase data collected on innocent car owners immediately and not save it. The police have no legitimate need to collect data on everyone's driving habits. Another is to allow car owners access to the information about them used in these automated searches and to allow them to challenge inaccuracies.

We need to go further. Criminal penalties are severe in order to create a deterrent, because it is hard to catch wrongdoers. As they become easier to catch, a realignment is necessary. When the police can automate the detection of a wrongdoing, perhaps there should no longer be any criminal penalty attached. For example, both red-light cameras and speed-trap cameras should issue citations without any "points" assessed against the driver.

Wholesale surveillance is not simply a more efficient way for the police to do what they've always done. It's a new police power, one made possible with today's technology and one that will be made easier with tomorrow's.

And with any new police power, we as a society need to take an active role in establishing rules governing its use. To do otherwise is to cede ever more authority to the police.

The Real Agenda Of The Global Elite In Somalia

steve watson infowars.net

Neocons are backing the same warlords that slaughtered US troops in 1993



This week has seen the latest example of the US power elite bombing a broken-backed country in the name of the global 'war on terror'. The phantom menace of 'Al Qaeda' has again provided a pretext for the further destruction and destabilization of struggling state, this time Somalia, in order that the Western elite power-mongers can move in and control its valuable resources.

The Bush Administration is essentially asking us to expect to believe that it is bombing a country in an attempt to kill three terrorists– Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, the alleged mastermind behind the 1998 attacks on the U.S. embassies in Nairobi and Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, that killed 225 people, and accomplices Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan and Abu Talha al-Sudani.

The Somali government has today claimed that four more airstrikes have been carried out, killing more innocent people. The US has denied this. Also today, a senior Somali politician said US troops were needed on the ground to fight a Muslim extremist threat.

Monday's strike reportedly killed around 200 people, including Canadian and British citizens.

Critics of the action have said it could misfire by creating strong Somali resentment and feeding Islamist militancy. Analysts fear that US interfering and backing of one Somali faction against another could ignite an Iraqi-style insurgency across a swath of East Africa.

There is no doubt that this is a part of the escalation of the wider war of aggression planned and executed by the neoconservatives who published their Project For the New American Century before they came to power.

"Before this, it was just tacit support for Ethiopia. Now the U.S. has fingerprints on the intervention and is going to be held more accountable," said Horn of Africa expert Ken Menkhaus. "This has the potential for a backlash both in Somalia and the region."



The truth is that, once again, the terror myth is being promulgated as an excuse to unleash violence against a largely innocent Muslim population, and one that has struggled for a peaceful existence for decades.

As prominent blogger Kurt Nimmo has stated:

"In other words, it was a turkey shoot, and the targets were not necessarily “al-Qaeda” but rather members of the Islamic Courts Union (ICU), Muslims who not long ago ruled Somalia under the Shariah, or Islamic law. CBS does not bother to mention the fact ICU was popular in Somalia, a Muslim nation."

Last December, the popular ICU lost control of the country after a short lived form of peace. The UIC had controlled Mogadishu and other areas of the country after defeating several local warlords who held Somalia in the grip of terror since the collapse of central rule in 1991. The Islamists had succeeded in defeating the warlords primarily through rallying people to their side by creating law and order through the application of Shariah law, which Somalis universally practice.

15,000 Ethiopian troops, with U.S. backing, invaded in an illegal war of aggression and ousted the IUC leaders who fled to the southern-most tip of the country.

Many Somalis in areas controlled by the UIC welcomed the security and order that the Islamists brought to the country. The Bush Administration is playing on reports that the Islamists are 'Taliban like' and is lumping them in with 'Al Qaeda' terrorists.

But the UIC does not appear to be a monolithic organization and seems split between moderates who want peace and dialogue and more right wing Muslims who want to impose Muslim Sharia law. In any case neither have the means or the desire to commit an almighty Jihad against the West, they are simply concerned with creating some kind of law and order within Somalia.

The US response has been to provide major funding to the warlord groupings, via the Ethiopian army, that are opposed to the UIC. Before bombing the hell out of villages on Monday, the Bush Administration has long been providing backing to ruthless killers intent on keeping Somalia in civil strife because it benefits each warlord's plundering rule to keep the nation carved up.

These are the same marauding warlords who drove out American forces in 1993, killing and maiming 18 US troops in the streets then dragging their bodies around in celebration.



Many of these warlords were part of the puppet regime transitional "government" that had been organized in Kenya in 2004. But the "government" was so devoid of internal support that it had to turn to Somalia's arch enemy, Ethiopia, to maintain control.

So why are the US power elite funding sectarian warlords in Somalia and now bombing Islamist areas of the country?

Because the control of Somalia via puppet government, just like in Iraq, is a key factor in the Neocon plan to "shrink the non-integrating gap" of the new world order, as Thomas Barnett's 'New Map' of the world has it.

As with Iraq, the real agenda is to obtain a direct foothold in a highly strategic region. The Horn of Africa is newly oil-rich, and lies just miles from Saudi Arabia, overlooking the daily passage of large numbers of oil tankers and warships through the Red Sea.

link to full map

Not surprising then that multiple US warships and Ticonderoga-class cruisers are now stalking the coastline off Somalia and routinely sending intelligence-gathering flights over the country. The location is also prime in order to be able to instantly mobilize forces for any conflict with Iran at the drop of a hat.

The American oil giants Conoco, Amoco, Chevron and Phillips also hold concession rights in Somalia. According to the Los Angeles Times, “corporate and scientific documents disclosed that the American companies are well positioned to pursue Somalia’s most promising potential oil reserves the moment the nation is pacified,” - i.e. kill the "Islamofascists" and install a weak and pandering government that could never control its own resources well enough to compete with the Western global elite.

“Somalia is of geostrategic interest to the Bush administration, and the focus of operations and policy since 2001,” writes Larry Chin. “This focus is a continuation of long-term policies of both the Clinton administration and the George H.W. Bush administrations. Somalia’s resources have been eyed by Western powers since the days of the British Empire.”

“A new US cleansing of Somalian ‘tyranny’ would open the door for these US oil companies to map and develop the possibly huge oil potential in Somalia,” notes F. William Engdahl. “Yemen and Somalia are two flanks of the same geological configuration, which holds large potential petroleum deposits, as well as being the flanks of the oil chokepoint from the Red Sea.”

Of course the American public will simply be told that we're after 'Al Qaeda' because of 9/11, and they will buy it again. No matter that operatives involved in the African bombings at the embassies in Kenya and Tanzania were admittedly working for the CIA. Nah, that's a side issue, LOOK AMERICA, Al Zawahiri said Somalia is Islamofascist, so we gotta bomb the hell out of it and control it's oil - just get used to it.

Defense Dept. warns about Canadian spy coins

Tiny transmitters found on contractors with classified security clearances

The Associated Press
Updated: 5:45 a.m. ET Jan 11, 2007

WASHINGTON - Money talks, but can it also follow your movements?

In a U.S. government warning high on the creepiness scale, the Defense Department cautioned its American contractors over what it described as a new espionage threat: Canadian coins with tiny radio frequency transmitters hidden inside.

The government said the mysterious coins were found planted on U.S. contractors with classified security clearances on at least three separate occasions between October 2005 and January 2006 as the contractors traveled through Canada.

Intelligence and technology experts said such transmitters, if they exist, could be used to surreptitiously track the movements of people carrying the spy coins.

The U.S. report doesn’t suggest who might be tracking American defense contractors or why. It also doesn’t describe how the Pentagon discovered the ruse, how the transmitters might function or even which Canadian currency contained them.

Further details were secret, according to the U.S. Defense Security Service, which issued the warning to the Pentagon’s classified contractors. The government insists the incidents happened, and the risk was genuine.

“What’s in the report is true,” said Martha Deutscher, a spokeswoman for the security service. “This is indeed a sanitized version, which leaves a lot of questions.”

'A lot of mysterious aspects'
Top suspects, according to outside experts: China, Russia or even France — all said to actively run espionage operations inside Canada with enough sophistication to produce such technology.

The Canadian Security Intelligence Service said it knew nothing about the coins.

“This issue has just come to our attention,” CSIS spokeswoman Barbara Campion said. “At this point, we don’t know of any basis for these claims.” She said Canada’s intelligence service works closely with its U.S. counterparts and will seek more information if necessary.

Experts were astonished about the disclosure and the novel tracking technique, but they rejected suggestions Canada’s government might be spying on American contractors. The intelligence services of the two countries are extraordinarily close and routinely share sensitive secrets.

“It would seem unthinkable,” said David Harris, former chief of strategic planning for the Canadian Security Intelligence Service. “I wouldn’t expect to see any offensive operation against the Americans.”

Harris said likely candidates include foreign spies who targeted Americans abroad or businesses engaged in corporate espionage. “There are certainly a lot of mysterious aspects to this,” Harris said.

'Pretty advanced technology'
Experts said such tiny transmitters would almost certainly have limited range to communicate with sensors no more than a few feet away, such as ones hidden inside a doorway. The metal in the coins also could interfere with any signals emitted.

“I’m not aware of any (transmitter) that would fit inside a coin and broadcast for kilometers,” said Katherine Albrecht, an activist who believes such technology carries serious privacy risks. “Whoever did this obviously has access to some pretty advanced technology.”

Experts said hiding tracking technology inside coins is fraught with risks because the spy’s target might inadvertently give away the coin or spend it buying coffee or a newspaper. They agreed, however, that a coin with a hidden tracking device might not arouse suspicion if it were discovered in a pocket or briefcase.

“It wouldn’t seem to be the best place to put something like that; you’d want to put it in something that wouldn’t be left behind or spent,” said Jeff Richelson, a researcher and author of books about the CIA and its gadgets. “It doesn’t seem to make a whole lot of sense.”

Canada’s largest coins include its $2 “Toonie,” which is more than 1-inch across and thick enough to hide a tiny transmitter. The CIA has acknowledged its own spies have used hollow, U.S. silver-dollar coins to hide messages and film.

The government’s 29-page report was filled with other espionage warnings. It described unrelated hacker attacks, eavesdropping with miniature pen recorders and the case of a female foreign spy who seduced her American boyfriend to steal his computer passwords.

In another case, a film processing company called the FBI after it developed pictures for a contractor that contained classified images of U.S. satellites and their blueprints. The photo was taken from an adjoining office window.
© 2007 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16572783/

Interview with Bush Senior from 30 Sept 2001

War on terrorism

George Bush Snr, former President of the United States
George Bush discussed war on terrorism

BBC Breakfast With Frost Interview with George Bush Snr, former President of the United States, 30 September 2001

Excerpt:

FROST: And in terms of your phrase: "a new world order", now we have a situation where President Putin of Russia is being very helpful, they're even talking about joining Nato, could this be, in fact, the beginning of that new world order?

GEORGE BUSH SNR: Well I think - I think we ought to clarify what new world order is. I think there is a better world without potential superpower conflict and that new order has permitted a lot of countries to begin to make their democracies more effective, indeed you look around instead of one monolithic Soviet Union you have a lot of countries who have free elections and free markets. So I think we're seeing - saw the beginning, after Desert Storm of a new world order. But today that order is being challenged by this scourge of terrorism. And I think that we are saying a new world order, you made the key point on it because Russia is working with us, indeed in Desert Storm they, for the first time, we were together in the United Nations on resolutions but it's hard to say hey things are better, we've got a new world order when you've seen the horrible attack that took place in New York the other day, it affects every single country. And so it's going to take a while to perfect a new world order but I'm very hopeful that 20 years from now we're going to say - look there is a lot more peace, a lot more democracies, a lot more free trade, a lot more market, you know, open markets.

Bush To Try To “Bring The Public Back” To The War

KWTX CBS


(January 10, 2007)--President Bush's overriding goal in his speech to the nation Wednesday night is to "bring the public back" to the war in Iraq, The White House says.

The speech will be carried live at 8 p.m. Wednesday on CBS and News Ten.

The crux of the president’s plan is a fresh infusion of US troops at a time when most Americans want those troops to start coming home.

White House spokesman Tony Snow says the president knows he must overcome widespread doubt and restore public confidence and support for the mission.

The president is expected to call for up to 20,000 additional troops to be sent into Iraq to bolster forces in the still volatile Anbar Province and in Baghdad, where thousands of soldiers from Fort Hood’s 1st Cavalry Division are serving as part of Multinational Division Baghdad.

He'll also call for reconstruction aid, diplomacy and benchmarks for the Iraqi government to meet.

Many Democrats oppose sending in more troops.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi promises a vote on any proposed troop increase, while Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid says he's hoping for a bipartisan measure that would declare, "We don't support this escalation of the war."

Mr. Bush is also expected to acknowledge mistakes in Iraq.

White House counselor Dan Bartlett says the president will say that it was a mistake not to have more US or Iraqi troops fighting the war at the beginning.

The president also will say that the terms under which US troops carried out earlier operations "were flawed."

Bartlett made the rounds of the morning talk shows ahead of Mr. Bush's prime-time address from the White House.

Bartlett says Mr. Bush agrees with the "vast majority" of Americans who are not satisfied with the progress being made in Iraq, so he will spell out what he intends to do about it.

The president's plans include pumping a billion dollars into Iraq's economy.

It's all Iran's fault afterall....

US forces storm Iranian consulate

US forces have stormed an Iranian consulate in the northern Iraqi town of Irbil and seized five members of staff.

The troops raided the building at about 0300 (0001GMT), taking away computers and papers, according to Kurdish media and senior local officials.

The US military had no immediate comment on the raid, which comes amid high tension between Iran and the US.

The Bush administration accuses Iran of helping fuel violence in Iraq, as well as trying to develop nuclear weapons.

Iran strenuously denies both charges, countering that US military involvement in the Middle East endangers the whole region.

A local TV station said Kurdish security forces had taken over the building after the Americans had left.

Irbil lies in Iraq's Kurdish-controlled north, about 350 kilometres (220 miles) from the capital Baghdad.

Reports say the Iranian consulate there was set up last year under an agreement with the Kurdish regional government to facilitate cross-border visits.

Pressure

Iranian media said the country's embassy in Baghdad had sent a letter of protest about the raid to the Iraqi foreign ministry.

One Iranian news agency with a correspondent in Irbil says five US helicopters were used to land troops on the roof of the Iranian consulate.

It reports that a number of vehicles cordoned off the streets around the building, while US soldiers warned the occupants in three different languages that they should surrender or be killed.

In December, US troops detained a number of Iranians in Iraq, including two with diplomatic immunity who were later released.

Thursday's raid came as US President George W Bush unveiled his new strategy in Iraq, which included increasing troop numbers and a commitment to stop Iranian support for "our enemies in Iraq".

BBC Diplomatic Correspondent Jonathan Marcus says the raid could signal a ratcheting-up of pressure on the Iranians, in line with the rhetorical thrust of his speech.

Meanwhile in the Iraqi capital, the five off-duty policemen were killed in an ambush in the western al-Khadra neighbourhood, hospital officials said

Security sources said another man was killed wounded in an attack on a money changer in downtown Baghdad.

In the restive Anbar province, the US military said that one of its troops was killed on Tuesday by a roadside bombing.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/middle_east/6251167.stm

Published: 2007/01/11 11:46:24 GMT

Bangor Makes It Illegal to Smoke in Cars

BANGOR, Maine (AP) -- The Bangor City Council approved a measure Monday that prohibits people from smoking in vehicles when children are present.

When the law goes into effect next week, Bangor will become the first municipality in Maine to have such a law. Similar statewide measures have been adopted in Arkansas and Louisiana and are under consideration in several other states.

People who smoke with children present in the confined space of a car or truck might as well be deliberately trying to kill those children, said City Councilor Patricia Blanchette, who is a smoker.

"Let's step up to the plate and lead; our children are worth the fight," she said.

The ordinance, which was approved by a 6-3 vote, applies to any motor vehicles on any public roads within the city. Violators face fines of up to $50.

An amendment that was added Monday to the original proposal makes the violation a primary offense, rather than a secondary offense. That means police can pull over vehicles if they see somebody smoking with anybody under 18 in the vehicle; if it were a secondary offense, police would have to stop the vehicle for some other reason, such as speeding.

Several residents, doctors and representatives from the Bangor Region Chamber of Commerce and the Fusion Bangor development group spoke in favor of the ordinance.

Pediatrician Robert Holmberg said the evidence is "incontrovertible" that exposure to cigarette smoke causes medical disorders in children, including asthma, bronchitis, ear infections and heart disease.

"Children are the most in need of the protection by public policy, because they can't protect themselves," he said.

But the ordinance also had its critics.

Councilor Susan Hawes, who voted against the law, said the police department should devote its energy to more important issues. There's already too much government intervention in people's lives, she said.

Aaron Prill of Bangor told the council that the ordinance was a "feel- good option" that was not intended to protect children but rather to "moralize" against smokers. Most smokers have enough common sense not to smoke around children, he said.

Fighting Continues in Somalia; Gov't Soldier Killed

washington post

Nairobi, Jan. 10 -- Fighting continued Wednesday in the Somali capital Mogadishu and in the southern part of the country, two days after a U.S. warplane attacked alleged al-Qaeda (the keyword here is alleged) terrorists there.

In Mogadishu, at least one government soldier was killed and several others were wounded after gunmen ambushed military posts manned by Ethiopian troops and forces loyal to the interim Somali government, a local news service reported. In the south, two heavily armed local militias clashed in Bergani. Residents also reported continued airstrikes in the region where the Ethiopian air force has been attacking Islamic militias, and where the American airstrike occurred overnight Sunday.

A Somali official told The Washington Post on Tuesday that the U.S. military had told him the attack killed Fazul Abdullah Mohammed, who is considered the mastermind of the 1998 U.S. embassy bombings in east Africa.

But military officials in Washington declined to provide information about any casualties from the strike. And Abdirizak Hassan, the Somali official who said he received the news in a U.S. military briefing, said Wednesday that he had not received any further updates.

Mohammed, and two other suspects linked to the embassy bombings that killed 225 people, are believed to be among the remnants of the Islamic Courts movement whose leaders fled south from Mogadishu in the face of Ethiopian attacks late last month, taking refuge in into an area of thick forests, swamps and rural villages along the Indian Ocean coastline.

The United States has accused Islamic Courts leaders of sheltering the three embassy bombing suspects, but the degree to which the suspects wielded influence within the Courts has remained sketchy.

The U.S. attack was greeted with rage in Mogadishu, where many Somalis see the transitional government as a pawn of the Ethiopians and the United States, and where many fighters loyal to the Islamic Courts are thought to have gone underground.

The Islamic Courts movement was widely popular for the security it brought to the capital, even if ordinary Somalis, who tend to adhere to a moderate version of Islam, were uncomfortable with the harsh social restrictions that the Courts imposed --the Courts frowned upon singing, for instance.

"I am angry," Ahmed Weli Mohamed, 37, a biology teacher, said on Tuesday. "I am very, very angry . . . Even if there are terrorists, there are maybe two or three people, but hundreds of people are killed. Is this logical? It's inhumanity. We feel we are not considered human beings. Americans don't respect us as humans."

Several European diplomats have expressed concern that the U.S. airstrikes will only destabilize Somalia further, and in a statement on Wednesday, African Union Chairman Alpha Oumar Konare joined in the criticism, saying he is "concerned" and urging "all actors to refrain from any action likely to complicate the current situation."

U.S. military officials say they have not conducted additional strikes since the attack that occurred late Sunday (early Monday, Somali time). Air activity since then, they say, likely comes from the Ethiopian military.

But Hassan, chief of staff to Somali Prime Minister Ali Mohamed Gedi, said he believed the United States was still involved, and some local residents interviewed Wednesday said they thought the planes flying over the area were American.

In Mogadishu, reports circulated that as many as 50 people, many of them civilians, were killed in the attack by a U.S. Air Force AC-130 gunship. U.S. officials said they are fairly certain that at least one targeted individual was hit; they said they had no information about civilian deaths in the strike along the Kenyan border.

Several officials suggested that stories reaching Mogadishu of many deaths and continuing U.S. attacks had confused the airstrike with ongoing operations in the area by Ethiopia's military, including helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. But it was impossible to confirm independently any of the widely differing accounts in Mogadishu or in Washington.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman confirmed Tuesday that a single airstrike occurred on Sunday, targeting "what we believe to be principal al-Qaeda leadership." Officials said that no further information would be released until U.S. personnel could assess directly the results of the strike and identify any dead.

Direct U.S. access to the area, where fleeing Islamic fundamentalist forces are being pursued on the ground and from the air by the Ethiopians, is viewed as problematic but necessary.

A principal target of the airstrike was Abu Talha al-Sudani, a Sudanese who U.S. officials have said is a longtime associate of Osama bin Laden and a key figure in an East African al-Qaeda cell based in Somalia. He is considered the financier behind the 1998 U.S. Embassy bombings in Kenya and Tanzania.

Other targets included Mohammed and Saleh Ali Saleh Nabhan, two other al-Qaeda operatives said to be responsible for the embassy bombings; Somali fundamentalist leader Sheikh Hassan Dahir Aweys, the former head of a militant group accused of links to al-Qaeda in the 1990s; and several other Somali Islamic leaders described as terrorists.

"I don't think anybody has packed up and gone home," another official said of U.S. operations in the area.

The aircraft carrier USS Dwight D. Eisenhower was moved into the Indian Ocean near the Somali coast to provide assistance, if needed, to the AC-130 on Sunday, and to use its aircraft to pinpoint the location of targets on land or sea. Four other U.S. naval vessels from the Bahrain-based Fifth Fleet are in the area.

News of the airstrike made shop owner and retired Somali soldier Hussein Farah Guley, 56, recall the early 1990s, when U.S. troops were part of a U.N. force that monitored a cease-fire in the country. Among the many foreigners killed by warring Somali clans during that period were 18 U.S. Army Rangers and Delta Force soldiers, who were attacked in Mogadishu after a Black Hawk helicopter was shot down in 1993.

"The Somalis, they will get angry," Guley said, "and if they see anyone from the outside, they will kill them."

Gedi's transitional government, which U.S. officials said gave permission for the airstrike, is perceived by many Somalis as having interrupted a months-long period of unusual calm. The government is also seen as being too closely aligned with its leadership's clan and with outsiders, particularly Ethiopia and the United States.

Somalis have already begun to express anger toward Ethiopian troops. Tuesday night, a former police building in the capital, now occupied by the Ethiopians, was hit by a rocket-propelled grenade fired from a speeding car. One Ethiopian and one Somali soldier were killed, and three civilians were injured.

The United States is leading an effort to deploy an African peacekeeping force to replace the Ethiopians, and it is pressing Gedi's government to open talks with Islamic leaders who are seen as moderates. No progress was reported on either front yesterday. State Department spokesman Sean McCormack said a possible U.N. force is also being "actively discussed."

Democrats Beef Police State With 9/11 Commission Bill

Political "opposition" also helping Bush gain traction for Iran military strike.

prisonplanet



House Democrats have passed a piece of legislation that was crafted on the back of recommendations made by the 9/11 Commission in their 2004 final report. The bill is a tonic for big government, increased federalization of America, and mandates expansion of no fly lists, terror watch lists and further government surveillance of American citizens.

While the HR 1 bill contains some welcome provisions, including a redress of grievance process for passengers unfairly delayed or refused boarding for flights and a re-commitment to the Geneva conventions, it's largely a nightmare for opponents of big government in that it vastly increases funding and scope for Homeland Security, FEMA and further federalizes law enforcement.

The legislation takes its cue directly from the recommendations of the 9/11 Commission report, which has been widely debunked by researchers and whistleblowers as a self-appointed whitewash that was harnessed to bury important questions about the impossibility of the official story behind 9/11. Hyping the threat of terror beyond its reasonable capacity, ignoring the reality that peanut allergies and lightning strikes kill more Americans than terrorists, Commission leaders Kean and Hamilton encouraged a broad range of measures that only accelerate the authoritarian surge towards a police state in America. They include;

- Homeland Security identity checkpoints on American roads and highways;

- Mandated biometric iris and finger scanning systems for all Americans at airports;

- Creation of a biometric national ID card for all American citizens;

- Expansion of "no-fly" and "watch lists" to prevent more Americans from traveling (even though such lists have been ridiculed time and time again for flagging completely innocent people including Senators and children);

- Increased special screening of all passengers at airports (greasing the skids for invasive body scanners that capture a naked image of the passenger to be implemented as standard);

- Federal takeover of publicly owned communication systems such as radio;

- Increased government surveillance of Americans' financial records and activities;

- Domesticating the CIA to watch American citizens;

- Government-wide sharing of information and centralization of databases containing information about American citizens.

All of these recommendations were embraced by the 9/11 Commission and many of them are contained within the bill introduced by the Democrats that has already passed the House.

Meanwhile, on the geopolitical front Israel has resolved to use its powerful lobbying network to arm twist recalcitrant Democrats and media moguls into supporting military action against Iran. Retired Gen. Oded Tira recently admonished, "As an American air strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help (Bush) pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and U.S. newspaper editors. We need to do this in order to turn the Iranian issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure."

He continues, "Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran." Thus, Israel and its U.S. lobbying arm "must turn to Hillary Clinton and other potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party so that they publicly support immediate action by Bush against Iran."

Former prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu has also called upon Israel to "immediately launch an intense, international public relations front" aimed at the U.S. to sell the necessity of war.

Noted author and former presidential candidate Pat Buchanan warns us that "A propaganda campaign, using Israeli agents and their neocon auxiliaries and sympathizers, who stampeded us into war in Iraq, is being prepared to stampede us into war on Iran."

However, it doesn't appear that leading Democrats will take much convincing before pledging their loyal support for the next chapter of imperial suicide.

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer recently assured readers of the Jerusalem Post in Israel that the Democrats were fully prepared to back the use of force against Iran and this sentiment is shared by a cadre of leading luminaries including Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Hillary Clinton, Bilderberg endorsed 2008 presidential candidate John Edwards and even darling of the left Barack Obama.

While Americans are placated by promises that Democrats will "symbolically" oppose President Bush's insane troop surge for Iraq, while they actively fund the entire venture through the power of the Congressional purse, the roadmap to Iran is being dutifully upheld by those who came to power vowing change yet are showing all the signs of reverting to type and lining up to salute the continued frog march towards world war three, while ensuring the further downfall of America into a police state at home.

Public Opposes Troop Surge by 61% to 36% Margin

POLL

On the eve of a major speech by President Bush, in which he is expected to announce an escalation of reportedly 20,000 to 30,000 troops to be sent to Iraq, a new poll finds that a majority of the US are against the so-called “surge.”

According to the USA Today/Gallup poll, the American public opposes Bush’s expected plan by 61 percent to 36 percent, with the president’s support primarily within his GOP base.



“A number of polls have shown that when given a choice between a set of alternative ways of handling the troop situation in Iraq, only about 10% of Americans opt for the alternative of increasing troops,” Frank Newport writes for Gallup News Service. “The rest opt for withdrawal of troops either immediately, within a 12-month timeframe, or by taking as much time as needed.”

Full Steam Ahead For "The Invasion" & The American Union

Government funded drug running cartels, secret illegal social security programs and Pesos for Pizzas. What happened to the United States of America?

infowars.com

Recent disturbing incidents on the US/Mexico border, coupled with mainstream news reports concerning government aiding of illegal immigration serves to once again remind US citizens that the sovereign borders are systematically being broken down and the country is being quietly amalgamated into a Pan American Union.

Last week it was reported that a U.S. Border Patrol entry Identification Team site was overrun by a team of armed Mexicans Wednesday night along Arizona's border with Mexico, somewhere along the 120 mile section of the border between Nogales and Lukeville, an area known for being a drug corridor.

The guard were forced to flee as troops are not allowed to apprehend illegal entrants and do not carry armed weapons.

"We don't know if this was a matter of somebody coming up accidentally on the individuals, coming up intentionally on the individuals, or some sort of a diversion?" said Rob Daniels, Border Patrol Tucson Sector spokesman. "We just don't know and that's why everything's got to be looked into."

Imagine if muslims or Arabs were caught shooting at national guard and overrunning them, we would never hear the end of it. This incident however, is the latest in a long line of stories that barely reach the footnotes of the local nightly news.

In late 2005 there were dozens of American citizens kidnapped over the Texas border and taken down to Mexico and held. This was kept very quiet. There was a huge stand off, some were killed. 800+ US citizens were killed on the Texas border in 2005, hundreds more were killed in 2006.

There are over a million illegal aliens, conservatively, in Houston alone. There have been multiple car bombings there, and in Dallas, which have quietly been attributed to illegals and forgotten about.

We have previously covered multiple instances of armed Mexican troops straying over the borders and even firing at and killing federal officers .

Last month CNS news reported that Texas sheriffs and lawmakers are routinely threatened, fired upon and overrun by US TRAINED gun-toting members of the Mexican military, crossing regularly into U.S. territory, where they are partnering with drug cartels and criminal gangs to protect sophisticated smuggling operations.

We have also exposed how illegal immigration is being used by drug commando organizations such as Los Zetas (pictured) to gain unrestricted passage into the US.

Former DEA agents have come forth declaring that such groups, admittedly trained by the US Government are being used as front groups for CIA and government controlled narcotics operations. To shut down illegal immigration and strengthen the borders would go some way to prevent such lucrative activities, therefore it's a government no-no.

The open plan to merge the US with Mexico and Canada and create a Pan American Union has long been a Globalist brainchild but its very real and prescient implementation on behalf of the Council on Foreign Relations has finally also been reported on by mainstream news outlets.

The Union is the globalist cabal's meal ticket towards raping an entire continent of its resources and sovereign capabilities. Strengthening the borders is not on the Agenda here, the American Union is all about DISSOLVING the borders.

The framework on which the American Union is being pegged is the NAFTA Super Highway, a four football-fields-wide leviathan that stretches from southern Mexico through the US up to Montreal Canada. Toll roads are to be placed upon existing roads in Security Prosperity Partnership agreements that bypasses Congress, agreements between the bureaucracies of the US and Mexican governments, to raise capital to build the Super highway that will go South of Texas and into Mexico.

Coupled with Bush's blanket amnesty program , which the Democrats in congress are set to approve this week as their first order of business, the Pan American Union is the final jigsaw piece for the total dismantling of America as we know it.

We have also seen in the past how "immigration control efforts" such as Real ID , boosting troops on the borders and building fences are simply smoke and mirrors behind which lie methods of control, outrageous elitist profiteering and the destruction of freedom.

The truth is that immigration is too profitable for the elite, both in the US and in Mexico, to put a stop to it. In late December 2005, Mexican President Vicente Fox hired a GOP lobbying firm to sweeten political sentiment in the US towards Mexicans and the immigration issue.

The Mexican government is now even giving illegals hand-held satellite navigation devices in order to facilitate their safe journey across the desert.

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In light of all this it is also disturbing to read that the US government has been SECRETLY paving the way for the funneling of billions of Social Security funds to illegal Mexican immigrants. As a result of lawsuits, the U.S. government last week released the actual U.S.-Mexico Social Security Totalization Agreement , an understanding signed between the Bush administration and the Mexican government in 2004.

This is not the first time the Bush administration has moved to aid the benefits of Mexicans illegally working working in the US. In 2005, the New York Times reported that the Bush administration had initiated a program to start paying hospitals and doctors for providing emergency care to illegal immigrants. Members of Congress from border states had sought the money, totaling $1 Billion. They said treatment of illegal immigrants imposed a huge financial burden on many hospitals, which are required to provide emergency care to patients who need it, regardless of their immigration status or ability to pay. The administration had previously abandoned a proposal that would have required many hospitals to ask patients if they were U.S. citizens or legal immigrants.

Add to this previous mainstream reports of banks and lenders opening their doors to illegal immigrants, facilitated by government agencies, such as the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. As reported in the Wall Street Journal , the FDIC is encouraging banks to lend and invest in undeserved markets regardless of customers' immigration status.

The US armed forces has also seen an influx of foreign troops, an average of 20% of ground troops in Iraq are now non citizens, this is set to rise to 50% over the next year with foreign recruitment stations facilitating the supply.

Think about this, non-US citizens wearing the uniform of American soldiers, stationed at home and abroad.

Today the Dallas Morning News reported that patrons of the Dallas-based Pizza Patrón chain, which caters heavily to Latinos, will be able to purchase American pizzas with Mexican pesos. What kind of twilight zone have we entered here? Yeah forget the dollar, it's basically dead now anyway - lets just use the Peso as the national currency.

Social Security, roads, military, intelligence gathering, regulations, federal agencies - all within the US, Canada and Mexico are being merged into one system at the cost of national sovereignty and the common law.

We are talking about an advanced empire state with a class based multicultural chowder bowl for a population, something has to give somewhere. The Soviet Union and The former Yugoslavia are telling examples of what happens when many cultures are played off against one another and asked to coexist within one country. Most recently this cultural phenomenon has been evident in France which seems to be on the same track of self-destruction with its massive non-assimilating 2nd generation Muslim population.

This cultural rift is already overwhelmingly evident in the US. We have previously covered the Nightmare Racism and Open Call for Revolution from groups such as the Atzlan reconquista movement, MEChA and La Raza who call their American based radio stations "the Invasion". Such groups have no desire to respect US culture and wish for nothing more than the US to be broken up . Of course these groups are minority movements, yet their reach evidently becomes increasingly appealing to proud Mexicans when the President tells them they can come to the US and do awful jobs because they are less worthy than Americans.

Social, political and economic forces are pulling America apart and driving her toward a bloody conflict that may fracture the nation into several different countries. Bush's rhetoric of allowing a legal force of underling workers that will do the dirty work for America sounds like a direct avocation of a creation of a massive underclass of illegal, Third World, uneducated and poor slaves.

This only serves to benefit one section of society, the elite.

Lets come together!

This is my attempt at bringing us together. This isn't me trying to show people I'm a smarty pants (im not, Im a human being who does not know everything and makes mistakes. also please bear with my spelling and punctuation errors). This is me trying to help you, and get you to help me. We're in this together!

First lets talk about what we can agree on. There are two political parties here in America that run the government. The Democrats and the Republicans. I know there are other parties, but lets face it. These are the two who are steering the ship right now. Agreed?

Now we can assume that the individual Democrats and Republicans(politicians) political agenda is close if not the same as the political party that got them elected.(democrat agenda, republican agenda) Agreed?

So how do the political parties come up with their agenda? Well it would stand to reason that lobbyist groups who flip the bill for the political parties heavily influence their agenda. Agreed?

Now if we are all still in agreement, it should be clear that this is a problem. The corporate big business international banking Lobbyist groups are creating the agenda for the political parties, who in turn fund the politicians election campaigns and fill their bank accounts. So it shouldn't be much of a surprise that the interests of these Lobbyist groups are steering the agenda of our politicians. Agreed?

These lobbyist groups fund both political parties. Do you think Microsoft only donated to the republican party in the 2000 presidential election? No, they donated money to both the Democrat and the Republican party. This is standard procedure for lobbyist groups. The reason being is that most corporate big businesses and international banks don't really care which party is in control, as long as they have their voice in that parties agenda. Granted, I am sure some lobbyists have a preference. That doesn't mean the lobbyists have total loyalty to either political party. Agreed?

Now I think we can agree that the power of the government in a democratic republic lies with the people. "We the people", right? Did we the people ask for the North American Security and Prosperity Partnership? Did we the people ask for a War on Drugs, or a War on Terror? Did we the people ask for the Military Industrial Complex that Eisenhower warned us about? Did we the people ask for the Federal Reserve? Did we the people ask for Homeland Security, or the Patriot Act? Did we the people ask for programs like MK-Ultra, Tuskegee Experiments, Operation Ajax? How about the Military Commisions act, or all the FEMA Martial Law Executive Orders? The government is supposed to work for the people. However, it is clear, that power has slowly been shifted away from the people. The Constitution is in shreds right now and you don't have to be a "crazy conspiracy wacko lunatic" to understand this, agreed?

Well, if we are still in agreement. This leaves us with still more questions. If you don't agree with whats stated above, and think that our politicians(and political parties) represent the desires of the people. Then stop reading this, and research what is stated above. If enough research is done on this subject, without naive willful denial. You will be able to see that what is stated above is pretty accurate.

Ok, so where does this leave us. Well it leaves us with both political parties under the control of Corporate Big Businesses and International Bankers. Which corrupt our politicians and steers them in the direction of the money flow.

Now I will attempt to lift the curtain on some of these forces, and really get into the grim of this situation. I will do this by example. Recently,The Council on Foreign Relations (CFR) released a report called Building a North American Community.

Watch this Lou Dobbs CNN report about this subject.(its only 4 minutes of your time)



Did you watch all that? Notice Frank Gaffney from the Center for Security Policy said in this report about erasing/merging the borders "thats what would happen if anybody serious were to embrace this strategy" developed by the CFR. I wonder if Vice President CFR member Dick Cheney is someone serious? Oh you didnt know Dick Cheney was a member of the CFR?

Watch this report about Cheney and his CFR membership. (its only 2 minutes of your time)



This is only the tip of the iceberg. If you are not familiar with the Council on Foreign Relations, this may come as a surprise. You would most likely be amazed at its membership list of elites. Which includes Bill Clinton, Condoleeza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Alan Greenspan, Dan Rather, David Rockefeller, Barbara Walters, Joseph I. Lieberman, John D. Rockefeller, Newton L. Gingrich, Richard A. Gephardt, Tom Brokaw... This list goes on for days. Just spend a few moments searching through that list, and you will begin to realize that the CFR and Trilateral Commision have their hands in everything. They're in the Treasury Department, White House, State Department, Congress, Federal Reserve System, Banking Institutions, Labor Unions, U.S. Military, the Media, Energy Companies, Big Business Industry, Education... you name it.

We need to do some serious honest evaluating of these groups agendas. We have already gone over and should be in agreement at this point that the Big Business Corporate Banking agenda filters down into our politicians. Which directly influences the motion of our government. We need to be honest with ourselves and others. Friends, we need to tell the truth right now. We can still take our country back from these Corporate Banking forces that have taken away the power from we the people. Its not the Democrats vs. the Republicans. I really wish it was that simple! Unfortunately, we know its not. Its the Corporate Big Business forces vs. the people. We need to realize that, and we need to realize how they have organized against we the people.

If you stuck with me all the way through this. Thank you for taking the time. I'm doing this because I love you, and I need your help. I'm not doing this because I want to prove anybody wrong. My point with this, is that YOUR RIGHT! Our nation is in trouble! Its time to do some serious evaluation of the situation. Thats what I am attempting to do, and to share the information that I have come across in my(and thousands of others) research. Sure I may be opinionated, but this is an opinion based on facts, not theory.

I will finish with words from I King.

Man may, at the onset, control the direction which events take, but once his choice is made, events soon escape his control and history proceeds by its own force and momentum.
-HIM Haile Selassie I

Still Don't Believe In The New World Order?

New Lou Dobbs video exposes the NWO and the NAU

are you listening?

National Guard Attacked Near Mexico Border

Judicial Watch

Armed Mexican drug smugglers ransacked a National Guard unit in the Arizona desert this week, contradicting immigrant advocates’ portrait of a U.S.-Mexico border crossed only by humble and desperate migrants in pursuit of the American dream.

The attack took place late at night in a portion of the Arizona-Mexico border near Nogales that is well known as a drug corridor. In fact, the 120-mile stretch of desert is the U.S. Border Patrol Tucson sector’s busiest for drug seizures. Last year alone, 124,000 pounds of narcotics were confiscated in the area.

Evidently aware that the U.S. National Guard is helping the overwhelmed Border Patrol man these remote portions of the border, the violent Mexican drug smugglers used force to assure their cargo made it safely into the country. The National Guardsmen were forced to retreat and eventually, the attackers scrambled back into Mexico.

This is not the first time these sophisticated Mexican drug cartels use force to penetrate the United States. In fact, they often team up with members of the Mexican military and criminal gangs to assure their valuable goods make it into the country. Sometimes they get individuals, supposedly pursuing a better life in America, to carry smaller loads in backpacks.

Hundreds of incursions by the Mexican military have been documented in the southern border since the late 1990s, with Border Patrol agents and local law enforcement officers regularly coming under gunfire attack. For years federal government officials denied the invasions, but fed up law enforcement officials in Texas took photos and provided other evidence.

ETA suspects arrested in France

cnn

MADRID, Spain (CNN) -- Police arrested two suspected members of the Basque separatist group ETA in southern France Tuesday, the Spanish Interior Ministry said in a statement.

The arrests were the first such detentions since a car bomb exploded at a Madrid airport parking garage on December 30, killing two people and ending a nine-month ETA cease-fire.

One of the suspects, Asier Larrinaga Rodriguez, had been sought in connection with a car bomb seized in Spain's northern Basque country last week, as well as a nearby ETA weapons hideout discovered December 23, the statement said.

French and Spanish police were working to identity the second suspect.

Both suspects were arrested near the southern French town of Ascain, the statement said.

The separatist group had promised its cease-fire -- declared March 22 -- would be "permanent," raising hopes for an end to nearly 40 years of ETA violence blamed for more than 800 deaths and thousands of injuries. ETA wants an independent Basque homeland.

The car bombing at Madrid's airport killed two Ecuadorean immigrants, caused slight injuries to about 20 others and severely damaged the parking garage.

Following the attack, the government said the fledgling peace process was finished.

Bush unlikely to face showdown over 'surge'

san francisco chronicle

(01-09) 04:00 PST Washington -- President Bush will face the first stiff resistance from Congress to his Iraq war plans since the U.S. invasion nearly four years ago as more Republicans question his policy and newly empowered Democrats overwhelmingly oppose his expected call for 20,000 more troops.

Yet given the powers of the commander in chief, and the manifold risks of a U.S. defeat, Bush appears to have the authority -- despite congressional unease -- to make one last stab at stabilizing Iraq.

As the Republican president prepares to lay out his new war plan in a speech Wednesday night, Democrats considered Monday withholding funding for what they're calling an escalation of the war.

Still, congressional opposition, especially among Republicans vital to Bush's support, has not yet reached the tipping point that would force the president to back down.

Sen. Gordon Smith, R-Ore., who declared last month that he was at the end of his rope on Iraq, said Bush told him and other GOP senators Monday at the White House that the new war plan was devised chiefly by Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki, who presented it to Bush last month.

Smith said Bush appeared confident that al-Maliki would follow through on promises to commit Iraqi troops to quelling the violence in Baghdad and take aim at the Shiite militias led by radical cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, on whom al-Maliki relies for political support.

"It is that belief that the president has, and the faith he has in Prime Minister Maliki, that leads him to tack into the winds of American public opinion," Smith said. "What this sets up is a classic war powers confrontation between the White House and the Congress.

"My dilemma, as for every member of Congress, is that we have only one commander in chief at a time, and he is ordering our troops into a certain posture that puts them in harm's way. Do we budget away their bullets?"

Bush has been meeting with members of Congress in preparation for his speech, now weeks in the making. Smith said the Cabinet-room meeting Monday was attended by Bush's top war counselors: Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, national security adviser Stephen Hadley and White House Chief of Staff Josh Bolten.

Democrats now in the majority in the House and Senate are discussing the possibility of withholding funds for added troops as well as other limits, such as a cap on troop levels or a new resolution authorizing the use of force.

"This is an escalation, and we ought to have a chance to have our say," said Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif. "We ought to be able to vote on it before that occurs."

Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., acknowledged, however, that it would be difficult to separate money for more troops from general funding for the war, especially if the so-called troop "surge" comes by extending the duty of troops already in Iraq or speeding up rotations of troops scheduled to go in. "So whether you can carve out and say, 'We're going to fund this, but not additional troops,' that's not clear," Obama said. "But those are the kinds of questions that I think are being asked right now."

Republicans also said they want to examine any new plan. Sen. John Warner, R-Va., who last fall called for a new war strategy while chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee, said, "The administration will state its case, and then I'll state mine."

Asked if Bush can expect full Republican support for his plan, Sen. John Cornyn, R-Texas, replied bluntly, "No."

"I just think it's one of those subjects that's going to divide the Congress just as it's divided the country," Cornyn said. But he said the division is unlikely to affect Bush's ability to conduct the war as he sees fit.

"The only real effective tool that Congress has is the power of the purse, and I can't imagine we would cut off money to fund the troops," Cornyn said. Even cutting off money for additional troops, he said, would be a mistake because "it would guarantee failure" and risk creating a power vacuum in Iraq that could be exploited by terrorists, as in the case of Afghanistan before the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks. Bush's plan, he said, is "our last, best chance at success."

Bush has money for now. The military spending bill was one of only two of the 11 required appropriations measures that Congress passed last year while still under Republican control. The administration is expected to make a large new request for more money soon to finance the war in separate legislation, called a supplemental appropriation. Estimates are that the new request could be about $100 billion -- on top of the estimated $450 billion already spent for the war in Iraq.

As commander in chief, the president has broad authority to conduct war, and Congress has only the blunt tool of withdrawing funding. Democrats have only a one-vote majority in the Senate, making it difficult to thwart the president.

Politically and legislatively, support from his fellow Republicans remains vital for Bush's Iraq policy. But it is rapidly weakening under Iraq's relentless disintegration despite every change in administration tactics, and the November midterm election that knocked Republicans from power on Capitol Hill.

The U.S. military has about 140,000 troops in Iraq. Several Republicans already have announced their opposition to increasing troop levels, including Sen. Susan Collins of Maine and Rep. Heather Wilson, a New Mexico Republican and former National Security Council official who barely clung to her seat in November.

Wilson made a major speech in Washington Friday criticizing Bush for "mushy rhetoric" about the U.S. stake in a democratic Iraq.

Bush is getting strong support, however from several leading Republicans, including Sens. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina and John McCain of Arizona. Joining them is independent former Democrat Joe Lieberman of Connecticut. They sharply warned their colleagues that failing to back Bush's effort would ensure failure in Iraq and all its consequences.

"Let's not compound the mistakes of the past by advocating withdrawal or redeployment," Graham said. "Because what would happen then? It would be, in my opinion, a declaration of losing a war not yet lost, that we can't afford to lose."

China's Massive Port Grab

Communists Positioning China To Dominate Trade in Americas

american free press

American Free Press has confirmed that the huge Chinese shipping conglomerate Hutchison Whampoa Ltd. has a significant presence at the Lazaro Cardenas seaport in Mexico, as well as other Mexican ports. The company has had effective control of both ends of the Panama Canal for the last seven years.

The Mexican ports link to the budding Trans Texas Corridor (TTC) toll road network by way of railroad cargo lines that head from the ports across Mexico to the United States border, providing a conduit to bypass U.S. West Coast seaports and haul ever-more massive quantities of imports into the United States.

The TTC is part of a planned vast network of tollways that, unless derailed by a growing number of concerned citizens, will ripple through many parts of the United States, functioning as a delivery network for goods flooding into the United States from foreign factories, although it appears U.S.-made goods would be exported via the same system.

Hutchison Whampoa’s Pacific Port at Lazaro Cardenas, located in the Mexican state of Michoacan, is especially significant. As reported by AFP on Dec. 18, 2006, officials from Lazaro Cardenas met in March 2006 with Kansas City, Mo., officials to sign “an historic cooperative trade agreement to establish a new trans-Pacific trade corridor that will alleviate delays and congestion at [U.S.] West Coast ports.”

This is another way of saying that at least part of the stream of imported merchandise flowing into those West Coast ports such as the one in Long Beach, Calif., could be redirected to the Cardenas port so these goods can be hauled into the United States with even greater efficiency.

Kansas City, located about 1,000 miles from the U.S.- Mexican border, has been slated as a major trade hub and U.S. Customs inspection location. As noted by Kansas City SmartPort Inc. President Chris Gutierrez, who was interviewed in early December by AFP, Kansas City has the infrastructure, location and overall assets to serve this function well.

Critics charge that having a major U.S. inspection point so far inland may create huge gaps in monitoring exactly what kinds of things are being shipped into the United States—which doesn’t sit well with American trucker-support groups such as Owner-Operated Independent Drivers Association (OOIDA).

OOIDA warns that under-trained Mexican truck drivers, in their poorly inspected trucks, pose a danger on the highways and could help bring terrorist elements into the United States.

According to Hutchison Whampoa’s own web site, this shipping conglomerate has a single-berth terminal situated in the highly industrial, deep-water Lazaro Cardenas port and plans a second phase there, which “includes the development of an 85-hectare deep-water, green field site with 1,350 meters of berth.”

Hutchison Whampoa, which controls 12% of all container port capacity in the world and employs 200,000 people, has long been alleged to be either an arm of the Chinese military or beholden to the communist regime—which considers the United States an adversary. This situation has troubled prominent Americans, such as the now deceased Adm. Thomas H Moorer, a former Joint Chiefs of Staff chairman who pointed out some years ago that Hutchison Whampoa already controls the Atlantic and Pacific seaports of the Panama Canal—that century-old American-made commercial waterway connecting the Atlantic with the Pacific that has a military function and is arguably one of the most strategic chokepoints on the globe.

So, against the backdrop of China’s current massive military build-up, the communist nation’s presence in various Western Hemisphere ports should be watched very carefully. This buildup, as repeatedly emphasized by Gus Stelzer, a retired General Motors executive, author and trade analyst, is funded to a large extent by the huge profits China makes selling goods tariff-free in the United States.

Meanwhile, the United States continues to run gargantuan trade deficits with China. As a proposed remedy, Stelzer advocates levying tariffs against China and other nations whose merchandise floods America while American industries, undercut by the onslaught, are forced to downsize, close or go offshore in order to survive.

Rarely, if ever, are American goods allowed to be sold in these nations anywhere near the extent that their goods are sold in the United States, says Stelzer.

OTHER VENTURES

Notably, Hutchison Whampoa—a company whose affiliates delve into the cruise ship business, telecommunications, real estate, hotels, PARKnSHOP grocery stores, Fortress electronics and housewares, along with energy, infrastructure, etc.—has a number of other Western Hemisphere port operations.

Hutchison Whampoa has the Ensenada International Terminal (EIT), “strategically situated 110 kilometers south of the U.S.-Mexico border along the Pacific Ocean,” Hutchison Whampoa literature states. It adds that EIT has undergone extensive redevelopment involving construction, dredging and new equipment purchases.

Another port maintained by Hutchison Whampoa is the Terminal Internacional de Manzanillo (TIMSA), which started its operations in 1999 and is “aimed at developing the container market on Mexico’s Pacific coast. Located at the Mexican port of Manzanillo, TIMSA is ideally situated for Asian trade with Mexico City and Guadalajara, as well as nearby industrialized states,” according to Hutchison Whampoa’s web site.

Hutchison Whampoa’s Panama Ports Company (PPC) operates the ports of Cristobal and Balboa located at each end of the Panama Canal (large expansion projects are proceeding at both ports).

The shipping company—which has 15 mainland China operations—also runs a Western Hemisphere port in Buenos Aires, consisting of a state-of-the-art terminal with two ship berths, a container freight station and a logistics center; as well as in the Bahamas, where Hutchison Whampoa’s Freeport Container Port, a deepwater operation, provides “a transhipment center for the eastern seaboard of the Americas and the principal East/West line haul routes throughout the region,” according to company literature.

COMMUNIST CONNECTIONS

Hutchison Whampoa’s top executives include Li Tzar Kuoi, aged 41, who has been an executive director since 1995 and deputy chairman since 1999. Kuoi also sits on what is called the “Standing Committee of the 10th National Committee of the Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference of the People’s Republic of China.”

The top Hutchison Whampoa executive, Li Ka Shing, is considered the wealthiest Chinese individual in the world. Kuoi, named above, is Li Ka Shing’s eldest son.

According to the Internet encyclopedia, Wikipedia, “Li was invited by Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping to become a member of the board of directors of the China International Trust and Investment Corp. (CITIC) to support the economic reform initiatives that Deng was attempting to develop.

CITIC is China’s largest conglomerate and is 42% owned by the government of China. It serves as the chief investment arm of China’s central government and holds ministry status on the Chinese State Council. Li served only one year on CITIC’s board before resigning his directorship. For many years, he served as vice chairman of the Hong Kong Shanghai Bank (HSBC).”

Various reports over the last few years, including a NewsMax.com report of June 13, 2001, note that Hutchison Whampoa’s subsidiary, HIT, has “business ventures with the China Ocean Shipping Company (COSCO) which is owned by the People’s Liberation Army.” HIT stands for Hutchison International Terminals.

COSCO, which failed in a notorious Clinton administration- backed attempt to lease the former U.S. naval base in Long Beach, Calif., has been criticized for shipping Chinese missiles, missile components, jet fighters and other weapons technologies to nations such as Libya, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan, NewsMax reported in 2001.

Mysterious gas odor in NYC and Jersey City

abc

PATH train service suspended btn. 33rd Street and Journal Square and 33rd Street and Hoboken; Bergen Co. schools shuts all doors & windows

New York-WABC, January 8, 2007) - The odor of natural gas was reported across Midtown Manhattan, prompting hundreds of calls to emergency workers.

Eyewitness News is told the smell was first reported in the vicinity of Fifth Avenue and 34th Street around 9:00 a.m.
Hundreds of calls poured into city emergency officials. Apparently the calls are coming from Chelsea, Battery Park west, Madison Square Park, and there are also reports of the gas smell outside of our studio on 66th Street and Columbus Avenue on the Upper West Side. A very similar smell was also reported in Downtown Jersey City.

Con Edison officials said they are investigating the source of the leak. PSE&G and Con Edison says all systems are normal.

The NYPD says there is no gas main break in the city. The NYPD has taken air quality tests and determined that the air is not hazardous.

The NYPD says Con Ed has told them that there has been no drop in pressure in the City.

Eyewitness News has also learned that some eastern Bergen County schools were closing for the day..

A report from Jersey City's mayor says they have pinpointed the smell to West 10th and Bleeker Street in Manhattan. Apparently, at the address of 191 West 10th Street at the corner of Bleeker, there is construction going on and firefighters have apparently been in that area at least twice today to check things out. They have not pinpointed any problem at that site.

"The smell was very strong. It was very scary," said Yolanda Van Gemd, an administrator at ASA, a business school near the Empire State Building that was evacuated as a precaution. In August, seven people were treated at hospitals after a gaseous smell in the boroughs of Queens and Staten Island.

No injuries were immediately reported as a result of the leak. The office of emergency management was investigating.

This smell of gas seems to have permeated the city due to the winds. Bill Evans says there are two factors involved:


The Southwest Wind: The wind is light and out of the south but it is out of the southwest at about 6 to 10 mph. So you've got a wind pattern that is running from the southwest and across the northeast and the city. The wind pattern is running right up the west side and right across Central Park.

The Low Ceiling: The ceiling of the clouds is right at the top of the buildings and so that is capping that gas as it comes out of the ground and up. That's why the smell is permeating so widely across the area because the southwest wind is blowing it into the cloud cover and is really catching the particles of gas and holding it. As the ceiling continues to let up the gas smell will continue to dissipate.
Transportation Affected:



The NYC Transit Authority is telling us the F station at W. 23rd St and 6th Ave has been evacuated as a precaution. This station is shared with the PATH line  and as we've reported, PATH train service has been temporarily suspended between 33rd Street and Journal Square and 33rd Street and Hoboken due to emergency activity.

NJ TRANSIT is cross honoring PATH tickets until further notice and will continue service into New York City.

There is normal service from New Jersey to the World Trade Center station.
Schools:

Bergen County schools will not close. OEM tells Eyewitness News that the schools are going to a "shelter in place" policy. This means that all windows and doors must be shut and no outside activities are to take place.

Officials: Air quality OK after dozens of dead birds found in Austin

usatoday

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) — Police shut down 10 blocks of businesses in the heart of downtown early Monday after dozens of birds were found dead in the streets, but officials said preliminary tests showed no dangerous chemicals in the air.

As many as 60 dead pigeons, sparrows and grackles were found overnight along Congress Avenue, a main route through downtown. No human injuries or illnesses were reported.

"We do not feel there is a threat to the public health," said Adolfo Valadez, the medical director for Austin and Travis County Health and Human Services. He said preliminary air-quality tests showed no dangerous chemicals and the area should reopen around noon.

U.S. Department of Homeland Security spokesman Russ Knocke said officials had no credible information to suggest any imminent threat to the city.

On Congress Avenue, just outside the state Capitol, emergency workers donned yellow hazardous-material suits Monday morning, and dozens of fire trucks and ambulances were parked nearby.

Workers were testing for any sort of environmental contaminant or gas or chlorine leaks that might have cause the bird deaths, said police spokeswoman Toni Chovanetz. At least one bird carcass was being tested locally for other possible causes, and other carcasses were shipped to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and Texas A&M University.

Valadez said the tests on the dead birds would likely take several days and look for signs of poisoning or viral infections, though he said officials do not think bird flu is involved.

A 10-block stretch of Congress Avenue, several side streets and all buildings in the area were shut down and declared off-limits as a precaution, Chovanetz said.

The street closure stretched from just outside the Capitol to a section of the Colorado River known as Town Lake. The Capitol opened on schedule Monday, the day before the legislative session was to begin.

On the East Coast, New York City also had a scare Monday morning when a mysterious gas odor moved across Manhattan. It wasn't immediately clear what had caused the odor, and it dissipated fairly quickly. No injuries or damage to wildlife was immediately reported.