Dear Friends of the Cuban Five:
We ask that you read the information below, and then—as soon as possible, for receipt by January 15—write a letter to the UN Human Rights Commission under a special “1503 Procedure” mechanism.
The objective of the letter is to urge a serious investigation and positive resolution by the Human Rights Commission regarding the denial of family visits by the U.S. government to the Cuban Five and their families, especially in the case of Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez.
[We ask that you also send a second letter, on the unjust detention of the Cuban Five, using the “1503 Procedure.” See the left-hand page of www.freethefive.org for details in the “Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions’ Conclusion” about the Cuban Five. Use the 1503 procedure listed below to write a letter for the Cuban Five.]
In addition to unjustly imprisoning Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, René González and Fernando González, the U.S. government has treated the families in an arbitrary and cruel manner. On the average, the wives, mothers and children of the Cuban Five have only been granted one to two visits per year.
Most egregious has been the permanent denial of entry visas to Adriana Pérez, wife of Gerardo Hernández, and to Olga Salanueva, wife of René González. As a result, Ivette González, the seven-year-old daughter of Olga Salanueva and René Gonzalez, is also deprived of the right to see her father. She is a U.S.-born citizen.
What is the “1503 Procedure?”
The 1503 Procedure is the mechanism whereby individuals can write a letter regarding Human Rights violations. These letters are examined by a Working Group that is in turn designated by the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. Called the Working Group on Communications, it meets annually to examine complaints received from individuals and groups alleging human rights violations.
Your action can make a difference! Remember that in May of 2005, the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions made an important finding of unjust detention, unfair trial and imprisonment, and made recommendation to the U.S. government for immediate redress. This important decision was the result of numerous appeals by many individuals around the world on behalf of the Cuban Five.
Your individual letter for the Right to Family Visits is important today!
The deadline for receipt of the letters under “1503 Procedure” is January 15, 2005.
Be sure and write an INDIVIDUAL letter to the U.N., not a petition with multiple signatures. Each person should write their own letter.
You can also read the brochure of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five, on the Family Visits issue. It is available on our website, and is a good background on Olga and Adriana’s situation.
Important facts to note in your letter are:
a. Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez have both been denied an entry visa six times by U.S. authorities.
b. There is no other legal recourse in the U.S. for Perez and Salanueva to appeal the government’s denial of their visas, thus there is no other alternative but an appeal before the Human Rights commission, using 1503 Procedure.
Below are the guidelines for your communication, as described in the UN regulations:
“What are the criteria for a communication to be accepted for examination?
To decide what communications may be accepted for examination, the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights has drawn up rules of procedure (Sub-Commission resolution 1 (XXIV)of 13 August 1971). In general terms, these rules may be summarized as follows:
No communication will be admitted if it runs counter to the principles of the Charter of the United Nations or appears to be politically motivated.
A communication will only be admitted if, on consideration, there are reasonable grounds to believe—also taking into account any replies sent by the Government concerned—that a consistent pattern of gross and reliably attested violations of human rights and fundamental freedoms exists.
Communications may be submitted by individuals or groups who claim to be victims of human rights violations or who have direct, reliable knowledge of violations. Anonymous communications are inadmissible as are those based only on reports in the mass media.
Each communication must describe the facts, the purpose of the petition and the rights that have been violated. As a rule, communications containing abusive language or insulting remarks about the State against which the complaint is directed will not be considered.
Domestic remedies must have been exhausted before a communication is considered—unless it can be shown convincingly that solutions at the national level would be ineffective or that they would extend over an unreasonable length of time.“
For more detailed information, click on:
http://www.ohchr.org/english/bodies/chr/complaints.htm
Where to send communications
Communications intended for handling under the "1503" procedure may be addressed to:
Treaties and Commission Branch
OHCHR-UNOG
1211 Geneva 10, Switzerland
Fax: (41 22) 917 90 11
E-mail: 1503@ohchr.org
Tuesday, December 13, 2005
Saddam Hussein hearings: a show trial orchestrated in Washington
The three days of hearings this week in the trial of Saddam Hussein have demonstrated once again the fraudulent and illicit character of the stage-managed proceedings.
No justice is possible in a court established by the illegal US occupation of Iraq. Every aspect of the trial, from the choice of judges and charges to the court statutes and the contrived media coverage, has been supervised by US officials. A small army of American lawyers operating from the US embassy advises the judges and prosecution on the case.
Lashing out at the legal sham, Hussein exclaimed: "How is it [the court] legitimate if it is set up by the Americans!" He declared that he was not afraid of being executed and refused to take part in proceedings on Wednesday, saying: "I will not be in a court without justice. Go to hell, you and your agents of America!"
No justice is possible in a court established by the illegal US occupation of Iraq. Every aspect of the trial, from the choice of judges and charges to the court statutes and the contrived media coverage, has been supervised by US officials. A small army of American lawyers operating from the US embassy advises the judges and prosecution on the case.
Lashing out at the legal sham, Hussein exclaimed: "How is it [the court] legitimate if it is set up by the Americans!" He declared that he was not afraid of being executed and refused to take part in proceedings on Wednesday, saying: "I will not be in a court without justice. Go to hell, you and your agents of America!"
Your Guess Is as Good as Mine By Kurt Vonnegut
Most of you, if not all of you, like me, feel inadequately educated. That is an ordinary feeling for a member of our species. One of the most brilliant human beings of all times, George Bernard Shaw said on his 75th birthday or so that at last he knew enough to become a mediocre office boy. He died in 1950, by the way, when I was 28. He is the one who said, “Youth is wasted on the young.” I turned 83 a couple weeks ago, and I must say I agree.
Shaw, if he were alive today, would envy us the solid information that we have or can get about the nature of the universe, about time and space and matter, about our own bodies and brains, about the resources and vulnerabilities of our planet, about how all sorts of human beings actually talk and feel and live.
This is the information revolution. We have taken it very badly so far. Information seems to be getting in the way all the time. Human beings have had to guess about almost everything for the past million years or so. Our most enthralling and sometimes terrifying guessers are the leading characters in our history books. I will name two of them: Aristotle and Hitler. One good guesser and one bad one.
The masses of humanity, having no solid information to tell them otherwise, have had little choice but to believe this guesser or that one. Russians who didn’t think much of the guesses of Ivan the Terrible, for example, were likely to have their hats nailed to their heads.
Shaw, if he were alive today, would envy us the solid information that we have or can get about the nature of the universe, about time and space and matter, about our own bodies and brains, about the resources and vulnerabilities of our planet, about how all sorts of human beings actually talk and feel and live.
This is the information revolution. We have taken it very badly so far. Information seems to be getting in the way all the time. Human beings have had to guess about almost everything for the past million years or so. Our most enthralling and sometimes terrifying guessers are the leading characters in our history books. I will name two of them: Aristotle and Hitler. One good guesser and one bad one.
The masses of humanity, having no solid information to tell them otherwise, have had little choice but to believe this guesser or that one. Russians who didn’t think much of the guesses of Ivan the Terrible, for example, were likely to have their hats nailed to their heads.
NATIONAL SECURITY ARCHIVE RELEASES PRE-9/11 WARNING TO SAUDIS THAT OSAMA BIN LADEN MIGHT TARGET CIVILIAN AIRLINERS
Washington, D.C., December 9, 2005 - More than three years before the 9/11 attack on the United States, U.S. officials warned Saudi Arabia that Osama bin Laden "might take the course of least resistance and turn to a civilian [aircraft] target," according to a declassified cable released by the National Security Archive today. The warning was made by the U.S. regional security officer and a civil aviation official in Riyadh based on a public threat bin Laden made against "military passenger aircraft" and his statement that "we do not differentiate between those dressed in military uniforms and civilians."
The State Department cable was not mentioned in the report of the 9/11 Commission, which investigated how U.S. intelligence failed to detect planning for the terrorist attacks, using civilian airliners, on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Archive analyst Barbara Elias.
The National Security Archive released the cable, and a CIA memorandum, "We're at War," written by then director George Tenet, as it prepared to commemorate its 20th anniversary on Friday. Obtaining the declassification of these documents on the war on terrorism epitomized two decades of work to bring transparency and accountability to relevant issues in U.S. foreign policy, said Archive Executive Director Thomas Blanton. "American citizens not only have a right to know, they have a need to know."
In his urgent "We're at War" memo written five days after the 9/11 attacks to his top deputies, CIA Director George Tenet demanded an urgent and "unrelenting focus" on "bringing all of our operational, analytical, and technical capabilities to bear-not only to protect the US both here and abroad from additional terrorist attacks-but also, and more importantly, to neutralize and destroy al-Qa'ida and its partners."
The confidential memo called for "absolute and total dedication as a leadership team" and stated that he and his deputies would "translate the urgency of the difficult tasks ahead to the men and women we lead by our behavior and actions." In waging the war on terrorism, Tenet wrote, "we must lead…. Never has our professionalism and discipline been at a greater premium."
The memo was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by National Security Archive senior fellow, Jeffrey Richelson. It was first identified in Bob Woodward's bestselling book, Bush At War.
The State Department cable was not mentioned in the report of the 9/11 Commission, which investigated how U.S. intelligence failed to detect planning for the terrorist attacks, using civilian airliners, on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. It was obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by Archive analyst Barbara Elias.
The National Security Archive released the cable, and a CIA memorandum, "We're at War," written by then director George Tenet, as it prepared to commemorate its 20th anniversary on Friday. Obtaining the declassification of these documents on the war on terrorism epitomized two decades of work to bring transparency and accountability to relevant issues in U.S. foreign policy, said Archive Executive Director Thomas Blanton. "American citizens not only have a right to know, they have a need to know."
In his urgent "We're at War" memo written five days after the 9/11 attacks to his top deputies, CIA Director George Tenet demanded an urgent and "unrelenting focus" on "bringing all of our operational, analytical, and technical capabilities to bear-not only to protect the US both here and abroad from additional terrorist attacks-but also, and more importantly, to neutralize and destroy al-Qa'ida and its partners."
The confidential memo called for "absolute and total dedication as a leadership team" and stated that he and his deputies would "translate the urgency of the difficult tasks ahead to the men and women we lead by our behavior and actions." In waging the war on terrorism, Tenet wrote, "we must lead…. Never has our professionalism and discipline been at a greater premium."
The memo was obtained through the Freedom of Information Act by National Security Archive senior fellow, Jeffrey Richelson. It was first identified in Bob Woodward's bestselling book, Bush At War.
The government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion.
The Barbary Treaties :
Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796
Treaty of Peace and Friendship, Signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796
Treaty of Peace and Friendship, signed at Tripoli November 4, 1796 (3 Ramada I, A. H. 1211), and at Algiers January 3, 1797 (4 Rajab, A. H. 1211). Original in Arabic. Submitted to the Senate May 29, 1797. (Message of May 26, 1797.) Resolution of advice and consent June 7, 1797. Ratified by the United States [Congress] June 10, 1797. As to the ratification generally, see the notes. Proclaimed Jane 10, 1797.
ARTICLE 11.
As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,-as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen [Muslems],-and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan [Islamic] nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries.
----------
The Treaty of Tripoli
Signed by John Adams
-- Treaty of Tripoli (1797), carried unanimously by the Senate and signed into law by John Adams (the original language is by Joel Barlow, U.S. Consul)
Wilson: Early Presidents Not Religious
"The founders of our nation were nearly all Infidels, and that of the presidents who had thus far been elected [Washington; Adams; Jefferson; Madison; Monroe; Adams; Jackson] not a one had professed a belief in Christianity....
"Among all our presidents from Washington downward, not one was a professor of religion, at least not of more than Unitarianism."
-- The Reverend Doctor Bird Wilson, an Episcopal minister in Albany, New York, in a sermon preached in October, 1831. One might expect a modern defender of the Evangelical to play with the meaning of "Christianity," making it refer only to a specific brand of orthodoxy, first sentence quoted in John E. Remsberg, "Six Historic Americans," second sentence quoted in Paul F. Boller, George Washington & Religion, pp. 14-15
God is an essence that we know nothing of. Until this awful blasphemy is got rid of, there never will be any liberal science in the world.
-- John Adams, "this awful blashpemy" that he refers to is the myth of the Incarnation of Christ, from Ira D. Cardiff, What Great Men Think of Religion, quoted from James A. Haught, ed., 2000 Years of Disbelief
Showdown in the Andes: Bolivian Election Likely to Shift Latin America Further to Left
In Washington he's been referred to as a "narco-terrorist" and a "threat to stability". In Bolivia he's simply called "Evo." For many in the Andean country, Presidential candidate Evo Morales represents a way out of poverty and marginalization. He has pledged to nationalize the country’s natural gas reserves, reject any US-backed free trade agreement and join the growing ranks of Latin America's left-of-center governments. He makes the Bush administration nervous and corporate investors cringe. Yet when Bolivians head to the polls Morales is expected to win a majority. However, the range of scenarios that could result from the election suggests that the show may be far from over by the end of Election Day on December 18th.
Morales is an indigenous, coca grower organizer, and congressman with the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party. More than any other leading candidate, he represents the diverse demands of Bolivia's social movements. He has promised to change current gas exportation contracts with multinational companies so that profits from the sale go to the neediest sectors of society via social programs in areas such as education and health care. His platform includes setting up micro-credit lending programs, cooperatively-run businesses and organizing a constitutional assembly to rewrite the constitution with the participation of diverse social groups. In a move which is unpopular in Washington, Morales opposes the military's forced eradication of coca crops, an activity which is funded by the US and has resulted in bloody conflicts and human rights violations.
Morales is an indigenous, coca grower organizer, and congressman with the Movement Toward Socialism (MAS) party. More than any other leading candidate, he represents the diverse demands of Bolivia's social movements. He has promised to change current gas exportation contracts with multinational companies so that profits from the sale go to the neediest sectors of society via social programs in areas such as education and health care. His platform includes setting up micro-credit lending programs, cooperatively-run businesses and organizing a constitutional assembly to rewrite the constitution with the participation of diverse social groups. In a move which is unpopular in Washington, Morales opposes the military's forced eradication of coca crops, an activity which is funded by the US and has resulted in bloody conflicts and human rights violations.
Media Scandals Across the Arab Western Divide
Dubai, United Arab Emirates: Shock and awe has given way to a shocking media scandal of the week in Iraq.
The latest revelations of pay for play journalism, admitted now to some degree by the Pentagon, is that US government funds are going to pay off or otherwise subsidize journalists.
Blogger Tony Pierce notes that “this week the LA Times broke the story that the U.S. Military had hired several companies to carry out 'strategic communications' in foreign countries with heavy US Military presence, including a company once called Iraqex, but now called Lincoln Group. The Times discovered that it turned out that many of those communications involved paying Iraqi newspapers to run US propaganda, and yesterday the Pentagon admitted the Times was right, that the US was back in the propaganda biz.”
This Lincoln Group is just one part of the information warfare strategy that drives the Bush strategy in Iraq. Bullets and “bullet points,” in Paul Krugman’s phrase, have long been the twin towers of the Bush strategy to engineer perceptions and win support for the Iraq war and its political objectives.
Does anyone remember the ill-fated Office of Strategic Communications run by Iran Contra alumnus John Poindexter with its plan for planting stories favorable to US goals in the press overseas? When it was first announced, and exposed back in 2003, there was a media uproar followed by an announcement that the plan was being shelved and the office closed.
Except Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld made clear he was going to do it anyway - but under a different name. And he did.
The latest revelations of pay for play journalism, admitted now to some degree by the Pentagon, is that US government funds are going to pay off or otherwise subsidize journalists.
Blogger Tony Pierce notes that “this week the LA Times broke the story that the U.S. Military had hired several companies to carry out 'strategic communications' in foreign countries with heavy US Military presence, including a company once called Iraqex, but now called Lincoln Group. The Times discovered that it turned out that many of those communications involved paying Iraqi newspapers to run US propaganda, and yesterday the Pentagon admitted the Times was right, that the US was back in the propaganda biz.”
This Lincoln Group is just one part of the information warfare strategy that drives the Bush strategy in Iraq. Bullets and “bullet points,” in Paul Krugman’s phrase, have long been the twin towers of the Bush strategy to engineer perceptions and win support for the Iraq war and its political objectives.
Does anyone remember the ill-fated Office of Strategic Communications run by Iran Contra alumnus John Poindexter with its plan for planting stories favorable to US goals in the press overseas? When it was first announced, and exposed back in 2003, there was a media uproar followed by an announcement that the plan was being shelved and the office closed.
Except Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld made clear he was going to do it anyway - but under a different name. And he did.
Torture victim: 'They would cut me 30 times in two hours'
Benyam Mohammed al-Habashi is accused by the US government of planning a dirty bomb attack in America. He says he was tortured until he admitted the crime.
He was arrested at Karachi airport in April 2002, with a passport under the name of Fouad Zouawi, a friend, and with a ticket to Zurich and then on to London.
In documents compiled by the human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, he describes an encounter with someone he believes to be an MI6 officer and details the horror of his torture. Mr Habashi says the officer told him 'I'll see what we can do with the Americans'. "They gave me a cup of tea with a lot of sugar in it. He said 'Where you're going you need a lot of sugar'."
He was taken to Morocco and questioned, then tortured after refusing to admit links al-Qa'ida links.
"They took the scalpel to my right chest. One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times in maybe two hours. They would do it to me about once a month.
The treatment continued in the so-called "Prison of Darkness" in Kabul, where he was kept from January to May in 2004.
"The US military told us 'Bin Laden had his laugh on 9/11 so it is now our time to have our laugh'," he said. "They would hang me up. I was allowed a few hours' sleep on the second day, then I was hung up, this time for two days. My legs had swollen. My wrists and hands had gone numb.
"Then I was taken off the wall and left in the dark. There was loud music, Slim Shady and Dr Dre, for 20 days. I heard this non-stop over and over, and they changed the sounds to horrible ghost laughter and Hallowe'en sounds. The only light I saw came from guards using flashlights to bring inedible food.
"I lost 20kg in the weeks of my stay. They used to come and weigh us every other day; it seemed like they were making sure we were losing weight."
He was arrested at Karachi airport in April 2002, with a passport under the name of Fouad Zouawi, a friend, and with a ticket to Zurich and then on to London.
In documents compiled by the human rights lawyer Clive Stafford Smith, he describes an encounter with someone he believes to be an MI6 officer and details the horror of his torture. Mr Habashi says the officer told him 'I'll see what we can do with the Americans'. "They gave me a cup of tea with a lot of sugar in it. He said 'Where you're going you need a lot of sugar'."
He was taken to Morocco and questioned, then tortured after refusing to admit links al-Qa'ida links.
"They took the scalpel to my right chest. One of them took my penis in his hand and began to make cuts. I was in agony. They must have done this 20 to 30 times in maybe two hours. They would do it to me about once a month.
The treatment continued in the so-called "Prison of Darkness" in Kabul, where he was kept from January to May in 2004.
"The US military told us 'Bin Laden had his laugh on 9/11 so it is now our time to have our laugh'," he said. "They would hang me up. I was allowed a few hours' sleep on the second day, then I was hung up, this time for two days. My legs had swollen. My wrists and hands had gone numb.
"Then I was taken off the wall and left in the dark. There was loud music, Slim Shady and Dr Dre, for 20 days. I heard this non-stop over and over, and they changed the sounds to horrible ghost laughter and Hallowe'en sounds. The only light I saw came from guards using flashlights to bring inedible food.
"I lost 20kg in the weeks of my stay. They used to come and weigh us every other day; it seemed like they were making sure we were losing weight."
Rewriting history / State media / The coalition: now you see it, now you don't
Rewriting history
Bush again, from today's speech (actually from one of the answers, where it is actually Bush speaking, and not reading something one of his speechwriters wrote):
So when Bush says "knowing what I know today," we can only conclude that he still doesn't know anything. Or, more likely, that he knows very well why the U.S. invaded Iraq, and that it had nothing to do with "disclosing" or "disarming."
State media
Repeating an Amy Goodman quote I've mentioned before: "If we had state media in the United States, how would it be any different?" In the post below this one, I note Bush's inaccurate answer to the question of how many Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. invasion. Bush's answer, that 30,000 figure, is being reported, and even headlined, widely -- The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and on NBC Nightly News that I am currently watching (and no doubt on every other news outlet). Not one of them cast the slightest doubt on that 30,000 figure. Evidently, Bush's credibility has such a strong record that questioning a "fact" asserted by him is beyond the pale. Right.
One reason the news media may hesitate to question Bush's figure of 30,000 is that, prior to this, mentions of the number of Iraqi dead in the media have been few and far between. Which is directly related to this fact, noted in the NY Times:
For real "state media," read NBC news anchor Brian William's day-long interview with Bush. Or save time, and just look up "sycophant" in the dictionary.
The coalition: now you see it, now you don't
George Bush read a speech today. I couldn't bring myself to watch it or even read it, but one thing caught my attention -- this response to a question about how many Iraqis had died:
Of course, Bush doesn't even really care about the 2,140 American dead (and certainly not the tens of thousands of Iraqi dead) either. Here's the very next thing that appears in the transcript:
The thought of being responsible for the death of 30,000+ people couldn't sober Bush up for even a second. Of course that assumes that their was actually a thought in his head to correspond with the words coming out of his mouth, which is doubtful.
Needless to say, the 30,000 number is completely bogus. Even if one doesn't accept the now quite dated 100,000 number from the Lancet study (if the Lancet study's methodology was valid, the number is now much higher than 100,000), Bush was asked about all Iraqis, including military, insurgents, etc. The 30,000 figure, which comes from Iraq Body Count, is the reported (and hence also undoubtedly low) number of civilians killed by the invasion and occupation. As I mentioned the other day, the estimate for Iraqi military killed during the initial invasion is another 30,000, and with a 10:1 ratio as a rough number, we can guess that 20,000 or so insurgents, 90+% of them Iraqi, have also been killed. That makes 80,000, not 30,000, Iraqis who are dead. Not that Bush cares.
Incidentally, earlier in the day I started a post about this same quote, based on Bush's reference to the "incursion" of Iraq. Dictionary.com defines "incursion" as "an aggressive entrance into foreign territory; a raid or invasion," but to me, and I'll bet to Bush, "invasion" is a harsh, pejorative word, while "incursion" is more of a neutral, mechanical term, and would be far more likely to apply to "raids" than to "invasions." I was going to write that I doubt anyone ever refers to the German "incursion" of Poland or the Iraqi "incursion" of Kuwait. However, some Google searching proved that theory wrong; you can indeed find people talking about "incursions" when I would have expected them to be talking about "invasions." Despite all that, I'll stand by my gut feeling, and say that Bush's avoidance of the word "invasion" was quite deliberate, not merely a random choice of words.
Update: According to Wikipedia, a recent Washington Post op-ed estimated the number of insurgents killed as 45-50,000. Putting the total number of Iraqis killed over 100,000.
Bush again, from today's speech (actually from one of the answers, where it is actually Bush speaking, and not reading something one of his speechwriters wrote):
"And so we gave Saddam Hussein the chance to disclose or disarm, and he refused. And I made a tough decision. And knowing what I know today, I'd make the decision again."He refused? "Saddam Hussein", also known as "Iraq", had not only already disarmed a decade before, but it also disclosed in thousands (or was it tens of thousands?) of pages (many of which, we recall, were confiscated by the U.S. before the rest of the world could see what they said).
So when Bush says "knowing what I know today," we can only conclude that he still doesn't know anything. Or, more likely, that he knows very well why the U.S. invaded Iraq, and that it had nothing to do with "disclosing" or "disarming."
State media
Repeating an Amy Goodman quote I've mentioned before: "If we had state media in the United States, how would it be any different?" In the post below this one, I note Bush's inaccurate answer to the question of how many Iraqis have died as a result of the U.S. invasion. Bush's answer, that 30,000 figure, is being reported, and even headlined, widely -- The New York Times, the Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and on NBC Nightly News that I am currently watching (and no doubt on every other news outlet). Not one of them cast the slightest doubt on that 30,000 figure. Evidently, Bush's credibility has such a strong record that questioning a "fact" asserted by him is beyond the pale. Right.
One reason the news media may hesitate to question Bush's figure of 30,000 is that, prior to this, mentions of the number of Iraqi dead in the media have been few and far between. Which is directly related to this fact, noted in the NY Times:
"White House officials said that Mr. Bush based the number on public estimates of the death toll, not on an internal government accounting. The Pentagon does not keep statistics on the numbers of Iraqis killed."And because there is no "official" number, God forbid the media would actually publish the number estimated by Iraq Body Count or anyone else before it was "blessed" by the State, i.e., Bush.
For real "state media," read NBC news anchor Brian William's day-long interview with Bush. Or save time, and just look up "sycophant" in the dictionary.
The coalition: now you see it, now you don't
George Bush read a speech today. I couldn't bring myself to watch it or even read it, but one thing caught my attention -- this response to a question about how many Iraqis had died:
"Q Since the inception of the Iraqi war, I'd like to know the approximate total of Iraqis who have been killed. And by Iraqis I include civilians, military, police, insurgents, translators.During the course of the speech, Bush refers to "the coalition" or "coalition forces" a total of 13 different times. Yet when it comes to referring to the people who have died, those 201 dead coalition forces from other countries are just so much cannon-fodder, not even worth mentioning.
"THE PRESIDENT: How many Iraqi citizens have died in this war? I would say 30,000, more or less, have died as a result of the initial incursion and the ongoing violence against Iraqis. We've lost about 2,140 of our own troops in Iraq."
Of course, Bush doesn't even really care about the 2,140 American dead (and certainly not the tens of thousands of Iraqi dead) either. Here's the very next thing that appears in the transcript:
"Q Mr. President, thank you --
"THE PRESIDENT: I'll repeat the question. If I don't like it, I'll make it up. (Laughter and applause.)"
The thought of being responsible for the death of 30,000+ people couldn't sober Bush up for even a second. Of course that assumes that their was actually a thought in his head to correspond with the words coming out of his mouth, which is doubtful.
Needless to say, the 30,000 number is completely bogus. Even if one doesn't accept the now quite dated 100,000 number from the Lancet study (if the Lancet study's methodology was valid, the number is now much higher than 100,000), Bush was asked about all Iraqis, including military, insurgents, etc. The 30,000 figure, which comes from Iraq Body Count, is the reported (and hence also undoubtedly low) number of civilians killed by the invasion and occupation. As I mentioned the other day, the estimate for Iraqi military killed during the initial invasion is another 30,000, and with a 10:1 ratio as a rough number, we can guess that 20,000 or so insurgents, 90+% of them Iraqi, have also been killed. That makes 80,000, not 30,000, Iraqis who are dead. Not that Bush cares.
Incidentally, earlier in the day I started a post about this same quote, based on Bush's reference to the "incursion" of Iraq. Dictionary.com defines "incursion" as "an aggressive entrance into foreign territory; a raid or invasion," but to me, and I'll bet to Bush, "invasion" is a harsh, pejorative word, while "incursion" is more of a neutral, mechanical term, and would be far more likely to apply to "raids" than to "invasions." I was going to write that I doubt anyone ever refers to the German "incursion" of Poland or the Iraqi "incursion" of Kuwait. However, some Google searching proved that theory wrong; you can indeed find people talking about "incursions" when I would have expected them to be talking about "invasions." Despite all that, I'll stand by my gut feeling, and say that Bush's avoidance of the word "invasion" was quite deliberate, not merely a random choice of words.
Update: According to Wikipedia, a recent Washington Post op-ed estimated the number of insurgents killed as 45-50,000. Putting the total number of Iraqis killed over 100,000.
Bush Threatens to Unleash Terrorists
It's a message customized for dim-witted Americans driving around in 6.5L turbo diesel Hummers with chrome wheels, whip antennas, and "Desert Rat" insignia above multiple "Support Our Troops" magnetic ribbons: if Congress does not renew the Constitution destroying USA Patriot Act, according to our fearless ruler, it "might lead to terrorist violence," Bloomberg reports. "In the war on terror, we cannot afford to be without that vital law for a single moment," said Bush. "By renewing the Patriot Act, we will ensure that our law enforcement and intelligence officers have the tools they need to protect our citizens."
As Rigoberto Alpizar discovered, law enforcement has all the "tools" it needs--for instance, the 357 Sig Sauer handguns used recently to summarily execute the mentally ill Alpizar at the Miami International airport. Rigoberto Alpizar was "a 44-year-old naturalized American citizen from Costa Rica [who] suffered from bipolar disorder and had not taken his prescription medication to control the condition. The Home Depot employee who lived in Maitland, Florida, did not have a bomb and witnesses on the scene dispute the marshals' claim that he shouted he did," reports Capitol Hill Blue.
Of course, Bush wasn't talking about mentally disturbed non-terrorists, but rather CIA-MI6-Mossad terrorists, the sort who fantastically plot complicated and impossible (for goat herders) terror attacks from caves in one of the most backward and poverty-stricken countries in the world. As we know, if we pay attention, all of the Bush era terror attacks--striking New York, Washington, Bali, Madrid, and London--were executed by intelligence "services," using dim bulb Muslim patsies as fall guys in order to kindle World War IV, as envisioned by the Straussian neocons and their Israeli Zionist mentors.
As for Bush's police state legislation and efforts to water it down, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner told Senator Russell Feingold to go fly a kite. Feingold "said last week the agreement [to push through Patriot] doesn't do enough to curb potential abuses of the government's expanded police powers, and vowed to "do anything I can to block the measure," according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Sensenbrenner, one of the most vocal enemies of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in our bought-and-paid-for Congress, said Feingold's effort "would be the most irresponsible thing that could be done" and those of us worried about preserving our constitutional heritage "won’t get a better deal," in other words we’ll get a police state where mentally ill airline passengers are executed with impunity and we'll either like it or shut the hell up (or end up on the Bushcon Terror Watch List--an aggressive project, according to research conducted by the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, the list "had just 16 names prior to September 11 attacks, reached a thousand at the end of 2001, 40,000 in 2002 and 80,000 this year," reports Zaman Online).
Meanwhile, if we are to believe corporate polls, Bush is riding a modest uptick in his popularity, demonstrating that Americans either have no idea what the Straussian-Zionist clique of fascists behind our appointed cardboard cut-out ruler is up to, or they don't care and may even approve. "More adults in the United States are expressing satisfaction with the performance of their president, according to a poll by Ipsos-Public Affairs released by the Associated Press. 42 per cent of respondents approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job, up five points since November," notes Angus Reid Consultants.
As Rigoberto Alpizar discovered, law enforcement has all the "tools" it needs--for instance, the 357 Sig Sauer handguns used recently to summarily execute the mentally ill Alpizar at the Miami International airport. Rigoberto Alpizar was "a 44-year-old naturalized American citizen from Costa Rica [who] suffered from bipolar disorder and had not taken his prescription medication to control the condition. The Home Depot employee who lived in Maitland, Florida, did not have a bomb and witnesses on the scene dispute the marshals' claim that he shouted he did," reports Capitol Hill Blue.
Of course, Bush wasn't talking about mentally disturbed non-terrorists, but rather CIA-MI6-Mossad terrorists, the sort who fantastically plot complicated and impossible (for goat herders) terror attacks from caves in one of the most backward and poverty-stricken countries in the world. As we know, if we pay attention, all of the Bush era terror attacks--striking New York, Washington, Bali, Madrid, and London--were executed by intelligence "services," using dim bulb Muslim patsies as fall guys in order to kindle World War IV, as envisioned by the Straussian neocons and their Israeli Zionist mentors.
As for Bush's police state legislation and efforts to water it down, House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jim Sensenbrenner told Senator Russell Feingold to go fly a kite. Feingold "said last week the agreement [to push through Patriot] doesn't do enough to curb potential abuses of the government's expanded police powers, and vowed to "do anything I can to block the measure," according to the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Sensenbrenner, one of the most vocal enemies of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights in our bought-and-paid-for Congress, said Feingold's effort "would be the most irresponsible thing that could be done" and those of us worried about preserving our constitutional heritage "won’t get a better deal," in other words we’ll get a police state where mentally ill airline passengers are executed with impunity and we'll either like it or shut the hell up (or end up on the Bushcon Terror Watch List--an aggressive project, according to research conducted by the Swedish newspaper Svenska Dagbladet, the list "had just 16 names prior to September 11 attacks, reached a thousand at the end of 2001, 40,000 in 2002 and 80,000 this year," reports Zaman Online).
Meanwhile, if we are to believe corporate polls, Bush is riding a modest uptick in his popularity, demonstrating that Americans either have no idea what the Straussian-Zionist clique of fascists behind our appointed cardboard cut-out ruler is up to, or they don't care and may even approve. "More adults in the United States are expressing satisfaction with the performance of their president, according to a poll by Ipsos-Public Affairs released by the Associated Press. 42 per cent of respondents approve of the way George W. Bush is handling his job, up five points since November," notes Angus Reid Consultants.
Monday, December 12, 2005
Instances of Use of United States Forces Abroad, 1798 - 1993
Summary
This report lists 234 instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes. It brings up to date a 1989 list that was compiled in part from various older lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough sketch survey of past U.S. military ventures abroad. A detailed description and analysis are not undertaken here.
The instances differ greatly in number of forces, purpose, extent of hostilities, and legal authorization. Five of the instances are declared wars: the War of 1812, the Mexican War of 1846, the Spanish American War of 1898, World War I declared in 1917, and World War II declared in 1941.
Some of the instances were extended military engagements that might be considered undeclared wars. These include the Undeclared Naval War with France from 1798 to 1800; the First Barbary War from 1801 to 1805; the Second Barbary War of 1815; the Korean War of 1950-53; the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1973; and the Persian Gulf War of 1991. In some cases, such as the Persian Gulf War against Iraq, Congress authorized the military action although it did not declare war.
The majority of the instances listed were brief Marine or Navy actions prior to World War II to protect U.S. citizens or promote U.S. interests. A number were actions against pirates or bandits. Some were events, such as the stationing of Marines at an Embassy or legation, which later were considered normal peacetime practice. Covert actions, disaster relief, and routine alliance stationing and training exercises are not included here, nor are the Civil and Revolutionary Wars and the continual use of U.S. military units in the exploration, settlement, and pacification of the West.
This report lists 234 instances in which the United States has used its armed forces abroad in situations of conflict or potential conflict or for other than normal peacetime purposes. It brings up to date a 1989 list that was compiled in part from various older lists and is intended primarily to provide a rough sketch survey of past U.S. military ventures abroad. A detailed description and analysis are not undertaken here.
The instances differ greatly in number of forces, purpose, extent of hostilities, and legal authorization. Five of the instances are declared wars: the War of 1812, the Mexican War of 1846, the Spanish American War of 1898, World War I declared in 1917, and World War II declared in 1941.
Some of the instances were extended military engagements that might be considered undeclared wars. These include the Undeclared Naval War with France from 1798 to 1800; the First Barbary War from 1801 to 1805; the Second Barbary War of 1815; the Korean War of 1950-53; the Vietnam War from 1964 to 1973; and the Persian Gulf War of 1991. In some cases, such as the Persian Gulf War against Iraq, Congress authorized the military action although it did not declare war.
The majority of the instances listed were brief Marine or Navy actions prior to World War II to protect U.S. citizens or promote U.S. interests. A number were actions against pirates or bandits. Some were events, such as the stationing of Marines at an Embassy or legation, which later were considered normal peacetime practice. Covert actions, disaster relief, and routine alliance stationing and training exercises are not included here, nor are the Civil and Revolutionary Wars and the continual use of U.S. military units in the exploration, settlement, and pacification of the West.
Department of Homeland Security report admits air marshals 'overreacted' in airport shooting
Although the department claims otherwise publicly, a confidential internal report within the Department of Homeland Security admits air marshals "overreacted" when they gunned down a Florida man at Miami International Airport last week.
The report, which may never be released publicly, confirms that preliminary interviews with witnesses conflict the statements of air marshals who claim Rigoberto Alpizar shouted he had a bomb as he stormed off a plane and up a jetway at the airport.
"Although witness statements contain conflicting information, none of those interrogated following the incident collaborate any utterance by the suspect that he either possessed, or intended to detonate, an explosive device," the report says.
A Department of Homeland Security source, unhappy with what he calls the agency's "blatant attempt to whitewash this incident," disclosed the contents of the report to Capitol Hill Blue.
Publicly, DHS and the Air Marshal Service claim the two agents who brought down Alpizar in a hail of bullets from their 357 Sig Sauer handguns acted "within guidelines" for handling potential terrorist activities.
"He was belligerent. He threatened that he had a bomb in his backpack," claimed Brian Doyle, DHS spokesman. "The officers clearly identified themselves and yelled at him to 'get down, get down.' Instead, he made a move toward the backpack."
But Alpizar, a 44-year-old naturalized American citizen from Costa Rica, suffered from bipolar disorder and had not taken his prescription medication to control the condition. The Home Depot employee who lived in Maitland, Florida, did not have a bomb and witnesses on the scene dispute the marshals’ claim that he shouted he did.
"I can tell you, he never said a thing in that airplane; he never called out he had a bomb," says fellow passenger Jorge Borelli, an Orlando architect.
"He just wanted to get off the plane," says passenger John McAlhany, He adds that Alpizar was "clearly agitated" but said nothing about a bomb. "I never heard the word 'bomb' until the FBI asked me: 'Did you hear the word bomb?'"
The report, which may never be released publicly, confirms that preliminary interviews with witnesses conflict the statements of air marshals who claim Rigoberto Alpizar shouted he had a bomb as he stormed off a plane and up a jetway at the airport.
"Although witness statements contain conflicting information, none of those interrogated following the incident collaborate any utterance by the suspect that he either possessed, or intended to detonate, an explosive device," the report says.
A Department of Homeland Security source, unhappy with what he calls the agency's "blatant attempt to whitewash this incident," disclosed the contents of the report to Capitol Hill Blue.
Publicly, DHS and the Air Marshal Service claim the two agents who brought down Alpizar in a hail of bullets from their 357 Sig Sauer handguns acted "within guidelines" for handling potential terrorist activities.
"He was belligerent. He threatened that he had a bomb in his backpack," claimed Brian Doyle, DHS spokesman. "The officers clearly identified themselves and yelled at him to 'get down, get down.' Instead, he made a move toward the backpack."
But Alpizar, a 44-year-old naturalized American citizen from Costa Rica, suffered from bipolar disorder and had not taken his prescription medication to control the condition. The Home Depot employee who lived in Maitland, Florida, did not have a bomb and witnesses on the scene dispute the marshals’ claim that he shouted he did.
"I can tell you, he never said a thing in that airplane; he never called out he had a bomb," says fellow passenger Jorge Borelli, an Orlando architect.
"He just wanted to get off the plane," says passenger John McAlhany, He adds that Alpizar was "clearly agitated" but said nothing about a bomb. "I never heard the word 'bomb' until the FBI asked me: 'Did you hear the word bomb?'"
Sunday, December 11, 2005
The Decline Of Democracy And Rise Of Plutocracy And Corporate Rule
It’s difficult to comprehend how the political leadership in the United States of America has degenerated from the brilliant leadership of Franklin Roosevelt and the inspiration of John Kennedy to the dreadful leadership of recent years. The U.S. has sadly declined from the noble democratic ideals so eloquently expressed by President Roosevelt on the role of government: "The pace of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much, it is whether we provide enough to those who have too little."
This ideal has degraded to a "greed is good" philosophy and the Ronald Reagan drivel that "government is the problem." Add the many politicians that are bought by corporate America through campaign donations and the result is legislation that is transforming the U.S. from a democracy to a plutocracy where the rich rule.
Moreover, it’s getting worse under the woeful leadership of the Bush Administration. Last year, for example, another one million Americans were added to the poverty role that now totals 37 million of our citizens. As the number of people in poverty rises, so does the number of billionaires in this country, over 225 and increasing.
The 2005 Human Development Report (HDR) that is issued annually by the United Nations and covers all 191 Member States shows the U.S. ranks 10th among the world’s nations in the category that combines health quality, education, and standard of living. In the category of life expectancy the U.S. ranks 29th. In the poverty index involving the richest 18 countries, the U.S. ranks at the bottom in 17th place. This is a disgraceful condition in the world’s richest country and a betrayal of the hard-fought struggles for democracy and equality waged in past decades by American workers.
The globalization free-market policy led by the U.S. has also produced gross inequality in many parts of the world. The HDR states: "Large parts of the Developing World are being left behind.” and further, “human development gaps between rich and poor countries, already large, are widening."
The HDR states: "For all of the highly visible achievements, the reach of globalization and scientific advance falls far short of ending the unnecessary suffering, debilitating diseases and death from preventable illness that blight the lives of the world’s poor people."
On the global level, 20 percent of the population holds over 75 percent of the wealth. A few hundred billionaires have compiled as much wealth as half of humanity. This inequality is the source of great unrest and protest with the most recent example at the Fourth Summit of the Americas held in Argentina with most of the hostility directed at Bush the Second.
Globalization should mean working together to create a just world community for the 21st century and not waging a kind of economic warfare to hoard the world’s wealth and resources for a minority that also has no consideration for leaving precious resources for future generations.
What we have is not globalization for the many, but corporate globalization to serve the interests of a few rich governments, the multinationals, and in the process making the rich fabulously richer.
Corporate globalization is undemocratic and destructive. It is also an environmental nightmare due to its dependency on mass consumption and waste, along with turning our planet into a giant marketplace where everything is for sale to the highest bidder.
We must achieve globalization that is democratic and serves all the people with new economic models, and where it would be unthinkable for a few billionaires to possess as much wealth a billion poor people.
In addition to education and peaceful protests against unjust free- market policies and the mind-numbing "let the market rule" mentality, we need to find, support, and elect a new kind of political leadership with idealism and a democratic vision of the future. Senator William Fulbright described this kind of leadership in his book, The Price of Power: "The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership—a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition...The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and understanding between cultures."
Such a change would bring people back to the voting booth and help rescue our democracy here and the world community. It’s a non-violent imperative revolution, and it’s time to begin.
This ideal has degraded to a "greed is good" philosophy and the Ronald Reagan drivel that "government is the problem." Add the many politicians that are bought by corporate America through campaign donations and the result is legislation that is transforming the U.S. from a democracy to a plutocracy where the rich rule.
And today we do not have both. The richest 1 percent of Americans now have more income that the bottom 96 million. The richest 1 percent owns nearly half the country's wealth. The top 10 percent owns 80 percent of the wealth. The Census Bureau reports the gap between rich and poor is the largest in 75 years, just before the Great Depression.
We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great
wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both
- Supreme Court Justice Louis B. Brandeis
Moreover, it’s getting worse under the woeful leadership of the Bush Administration. Last year, for example, another one million Americans were added to the poverty role that now totals 37 million of our citizens. As the number of people in poverty rises, so does the number of billionaires in this country, over 225 and increasing.
The 2005 Human Development Report (HDR) that is issued annually by the United Nations and covers all 191 Member States shows the U.S. ranks 10th among the world’s nations in the category that combines health quality, education, and standard of living. In the category of life expectancy the U.S. ranks 29th. In the poverty index involving the richest 18 countries, the U.S. ranks at the bottom in 17th place. This is a disgraceful condition in the world’s richest country and a betrayal of the hard-fought struggles for democracy and equality waged in past decades by American workers.
The globalization free-market policy led by the U.S. has also produced gross inequality in many parts of the world. The HDR states: "Large parts of the Developing World are being left behind.” and further, “human development gaps between rich and poor countries, already large, are widening."
The HDR states: "For all of the highly visible achievements, the reach of globalization and scientific advance falls far short of ending the unnecessary suffering, debilitating diseases and death from preventable illness that blight the lives of the world’s poor people."
On the global level, 20 percent of the population holds over 75 percent of the wealth. A few hundred billionaires have compiled as much wealth as half of humanity. This inequality is the source of great unrest and protest with the most recent example at the Fourth Summit of the Americas held in Argentina with most of the hostility directed at Bush the Second.
Poverty is the parent of revolution and crimeAcademician Bernard Poirot-Delpech wrote in the French newspaper Le Monde a few years ago: "The temptation is to shut ourselves off,cover our eyes and applaud the use of force, but the tide of the poor keeps coming, wave after wave, each time stronger and stronger. The Third World War has begun, waged by the rich against all others."
- Aristotle
Globalization should mean working together to create a just world community for the 21st century and not waging a kind of economic warfare to hoard the world’s wealth and resources for a minority that also has no consideration for leaving precious resources for future generations.
What we have is not globalization for the many, but corporate globalization to serve the interests of a few rich governments, the multinationals, and in the process making the rich fabulously richer.
Corporate globalization is undemocratic and destructive. It is also an environmental nightmare due to its dependency on mass consumption and waste, along with turning our planet into a giant marketplace where everything is for sale to the highest bidder.
We must achieve globalization that is democratic and serves all the people with new economic models, and where it would be unthinkable for a few billionaires to possess as much wealth a billion poor people.
In addition to education and peaceful protests against unjust free- market policies and the mind-numbing "let the market rule" mentality, we need to find, support, and elect a new kind of political leadership with idealism and a democratic vision of the future. Senator William Fulbright described this kind of leadership in his book, The Price of Power: "The age of warrior kings and of warrior presidents has passed. The nuclear age calls for a different kind of leadership—a leadership of intellect, judgment, tolerance and rationality, a leadership committed to human values, to world peace, and to the improvement of the human condition...The attributes upon which we must draw are the human attributes of compassion and understanding between cultures."
Such a change would bring people back to the voting booth and help rescue our democracy here and the world community. It’s a non-violent imperative revolution, and it’s time to begin.
Advertisements, Infomercials and Stacatto News - The Widening Wasteland of the American Media By RALPH NADER
http://www.counterpunch.com/nader12102005.html
There are times when unchallenged commercial greed morphs into institutional insanity. I am referring to the overall advertising-saturated, trivialized performance of the media conglomerates' utilization of our public airwaves 24 hours a day and their dominance of the ever-expanding scores of cable channels.
Take a test. If you are an average consumer of TV or radio broadcasts or newspapers and magazines, you are ready for your exam. Have you ever seen coverage of the following three long-standing civic organizations working on very important aspects of our society's needs and failures?
Lois Gibbs came out of the struggle over Love Canal's toxified residential neighborhoods to start and lead the nationwide Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ) in Falls Church, Virginia. Over the years the Center has organized thousands of small but vigorous community groups who are challenging or stopping the presence of toxic chemical particulates and gases in largely lower-income neighborhoods. Lois and her associates have trained thousands of ordinary people, committed to protecting their families, and educated scores of communities about the nature of these toxics and what can be done about them with law, action and exposure.
They have victory after victory to show for their efforts, but so intense and widespread has been the poisoning of America over the decades by corporations that there is always more to discover and do.
Right now, the Center has its community associations "fighting to block local schools from being built on contaminated land in Alabama, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island." CHEJ's new report--Building Safe Schools: Invisible Threats, Visible Actions--covers the laws and situations in 250 states. Here is one example of many:
"In Birmingham, Alabama, Wenonah High School is being constructed on contaminated soil. The site is also across the street from the largest gasoline storage facility in the state and is adjacent to a railroad track and a junkyard. The site was further contaminated this past July by a gas spill when a train and gas truck collided right in front of the site of the future school."
For more information, see www.childproofing.org.
For an astoundingly-optimistic demonstration of what science can do for the people, consider the Appalachia Science in the Public Interest (ASPI) out of Livingston, Kentucky. Founded in the '70s by one of our former public interest scientists, Dr. Albert Fritsch, ASPI has shown what can be done for peoples' houses, cars, and larger buildings with "proven energy conservation, healthy home and renewable energy solutions." It connects "consumers with marketers of related products and services".
It is the moving force, with state agencies, renewable-energy companies and college institutions, behind the annual Bluegrass Energy Expo. The 2005 event featured, among others, the University of Kentucky College of Engineering Solar Car. The Expo has taught many people in what one writer called "a rich land with poor people" about sustainable forests, water purification and conservation. It is a very hands-on organization that makes you want to obtain its recommended products pronto. See its web site: www.a-spi.org. And send for its wonderfully-engrossing Simple Lifestyle Calendar 2006 for $7.50 (to ASPI Calendar, 50 Lair Street, Mt. Vernon, KY 40456).
In Washington, D.C. another unsung group of Americans is working hard at the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH). END TWO There are hundreds of thousands of homeless people in our wealthy country. According to the Homeless Coalition, "60% are living in emergency shelter or transitional housing, and 40% are living on the streets. The majority, 53% are single adults, 42% are families and 5% are homeless/runaway youth."
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, says NCH, "multiplied the homeless population along the Gulf Coast by as much as a hundred fold." All this is in the face of the Bush regime's proposed slicing of federal subsidies for housing by 40%. That proposal, sent to Congress, does not cut the burgeoning budget for the number one occupant of public housing--George W. Bush in the White House.
NCH reports, organizes and lobbies all over the country. They are supporting legislation, introduced by Rep. Julia Carson, of federal homeless policies that "tackle the root causes of homelessness and poverty in this nation." For more on NCH, see its web page: www.nationalhomeless.org.
Now back to the mostly maniacal mass media's priorities. 90% of radio and television are devoted to advertisements and entertainment. Often the rest is staccato news, weather and sports repeated throughout the day. There are, of course, he sterling exceptions such as weekly sections of 60 Minutes or the two and a half minute investigations on the network nightly TV news.
Cable is a widening wasteland. With infomercials (bracelets and necklaces, etc.), re-run movies, sports and comedy shows, and endless silly drivel, it does not matter how many new cable channels are added. There will not be any devoted to the wholesome activities and successes of groups such as the aforementioned to life up people, get them more active and introduce the young to practical citizenship that solves serious problems.
That is, not until enough people around America become serious about the need for serious media and reassert some control over the public airwaves they own and the no-rent licenses given out to radio and television companies by the Federal Communications Commission. Communities that license cable companies also need to feel the enlightened heat of local residents and neighborhood groups. It is ours for the demanding.
Let's start demanding.
There are times when unchallenged commercial greed morphs into institutional insanity. I am referring to the overall advertising-saturated, trivialized performance of the media conglomerates' utilization of our public airwaves 24 hours a day and their dominance of the ever-expanding scores of cable channels.
Take a test. If you are an average consumer of TV or radio broadcasts or newspapers and magazines, you are ready for your exam. Have you ever seen coverage of the following three long-standing civic organizations working on very important aspects of our society's needs and failures?
Lois Gibbs came out of the struggle over Love Canal's toxified residential neighborhoods to start and lead the nationwide Center for Health, Environment and Justice (CHEJ) in Falls Church, Virginia. Over the years the Center has organized thousands of small but vigorous community groups who are challenging or stopping the presence of toxic chemical particulates and gases in largely lower-income neighborhoods. Lois and her associates have trained thousands of ordinary people, committed to protecting their families, and educated scores of communities about the nature of these toxics and what can be done about them with law, action and exposure.
They have victory after victory to show for their efforts, but so intense and widespread has been the poisoning of America over the decades by corporations that there is always more to discover and do.
Right now, the Center has its community associations "fighting to block local schools from being built on contaminated land in Alabama, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island." CHEJ's new report--Building Safe Schools: Invisible Threats, Visible Actions--covers the laws and situations in 250 states. Here is one example of many:
"In Birmingham, Alabama, Wenonah High School is being constructed on contaminated soil. The site is also across the street from the largest gasoline storage facility in the state and is adjacent to a railroad track and a junkyard. The site was further contaminated this past July by a gas spill when a train and gas truck collided right in front of the site of the future school."
For more information, see www.childproofing.org.
For an astoundingly-optimistic demonstration of what science can do for the people, consider the Appalachia Science in the Public Interest (ASPI) out of Livingston, Kentucky. Founded in the '70s by one of our former public interest scientists, Dr. Albert Fritsch, ASPI has shown what can be done for peoples' houses, cars, and larger buildings with "proven energy conservation, healthy home and renewable energy solutions." It connects "consumers with marketers of related products and services".
It is the moving force, with state agencies, renewable-energy companies and college institutions, behind the annual Bluegrass Energy Expo. The 2005 event featured, among others, the University of Kentucky College of Engineering Solar Car. The Expo has taught many people in what one writer called "a rich land with poor people" about sustainable forests, water purification and conservation. It is a very hands-on organization that makes you want to obtain its recommended products pronto. See its web site: www.a-spi.org. And send for its wonderfully-engrossing Simple Lifestyle Calendar 2006 for $7.50 (to ASPI Calendar, 50 Lair Street, Mt. Vernon, KY 40456).
In Washington, D.C. another unsung group of Americans is working hard at the National Coalition for the Homeless (NCH). END TWO There are hundreds of thousands of homeless people in our wealthy country. According to the Homeless Coalition, "60% are living in emergency shelter or transitional housing, and 40% are living on the streets. The majority, 53% are single adults, 42% are families and 5% are homeless/runaway youth."
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, says NCH, "multiplied the homeless population along the Gulf Coast by as much as a hundred fold." All this is in the face of the Bush regime's proposed slicing of federal subsidies for housing by 40%. That proposal, sent to Congress, does not cut the burgeoning budget for the number one occupant of public housing--George W. Bush in the White House.
NCH reports, organizes and lobbies all over the country. They are supporting legislation, introduced by Rep. Julia Carson, of federal homeless policies that "tackle the root causes of homelessness and poverty in this nation." For more on NCH, see its web page: www.nationalhomeless.org.
Now back to the mostly maniacal mass media's priorities. 90% of radio and television are devoted to advertisements and entertainment. Often the rest is staccato news, weather and sports repeated throughout the day. There are, of course, he sterling exceptions such as weekly sections of 60 Minutes or the two and a half minute investigations on the network nightly TV news.
Cable is a widening wasteland. With infomercials (bracelets and necklaces, etc.), re-run movies, sports and comedy shows, and endless silly drivel, it does not matter how many new cable channels are added. There will not be any devoted to the wholesome activities and successes of groups such as the aforementioned to life up people, get them more active and introduce the young to practical citizenship that solves serious problems.
That is, not until enough people around America become serious about the need for serious media and reassert some control over the public airwaves they own and the no-rent licenses given out to radio and television companies by the Federal Communications Commission. Communities that license cable companies also need to feel the enlightened heat of local residents and neighborhood groups. It is ours for the demanding.
Let's start demanding.
Israel readies forces for strike Iran
Israel readies forces for strike on nuclear Iran
Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv, and Sarah Baxter, Washington
Uzi Mahnaimi, Tel Aviv, and Sarah Baxter, Washington
ISRAEL'S armed forces have been ordered by Ariel Sharon, the prime minister, to be ready by the end of March for possible strikes on secret uranium enrichment sites in Iran, military sources have revealed.
The order came after Israeli intelligence warned the government that Iran was operating enrichment facilities, believed to be small and concealed in civilian locations.
Iran’s stand-off with the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) over nuclear inspections and aggressive rhetoric from Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the Iranian president, who said last week that Israel should be moved to Europe, are causing mounting concern.
The crisis is set to come to a head in early March, when Mohamed El-Baradei, the head of the IAEA, will present his next report on Iran. El-Baradei, who received the Nobel peace prize yesterday, warned that the world was “losing patience” with Iran.
A senior White House source said the threat of a nuclear Iran was moving to the top of the international agenda and the issue now was: “What next?” That question would have to be answered in the next few months, he said.
Defence sources in Israel believe the end of March to be the “point of no return” after which Iran will have the technical expertise to enrich uranium in sufficient quantities to build a nuclear warhead in two to four years.
Pigs at the Trough of War
The Bush Administration's reign of error and terror has left a pile of corruption, waste, and destruction that rivals the muck of the Augean stable. Jeffrey St. Clair’s new book, Grand Theft Pentagon, accomplishes the Herculean task of exposing these abuses with brilliant investigative journalism carried off with unmatched sarcasm.
After the Cold War, the military industrial complex was desperate for a new conflict to legitimize profligate spending on war, weapons systems, and their associated services. St. Clair chronicles how Bush’s so-called War on Terror has enabled our rulers to rekindle the incestuous relationship between politicians, the pentagon, and military contractors.
The marriage councilor of this foul union is none other than George Bush himself. In perhaps the funniest expose of the Bushes yet written, St. Clair tells the story of this company masquerading as a family.
The portrait is not very flattering, politically or personally. Demonstrating their congenital penchant for putting profit before all else, the dynasty’s founder Prescott Bush barely escaped charges of treason for wheeling and dealing with the Nazis during WWII.
But the Bush clan does not find a haven from such heartlessness at home; matriarch Barbara Bush lost so little sleep over her daughter’s death from leukemia that she was out golfing the next day.
The unlikely hero of family saga is “W.” St. Clair shows how he spent his youth boozing, snorting coke, womanizing, failing classes, securing draft deferments, dodging national guard duty, and starting and wrecking corporations for which other people paid the price.
But this loser found himself reincarnated as a caring conservative. With the help of corporate money, lessons at the foot of Karl Rove, lots of dirty tricks, and apparently direct conversations with the deity, he found himself selected by the Supreme Court as ruler of the United States on the eve of 9/11.
Bush and the military industrial complex used the tragedy to fulfill their imperial fantasies and line their pockets. With Bush threatening war on the planet, the Pentagon asked for and got the useless and dangerous Star Wars Missile Defense, the unneeded B-767 tanker plane, the practically untested F-22 fighter, and the Stryker armored personnel carrier that is almost useless in Iraq since it is vulnerable to improvised explosive devices.
After the Cold War, the military industrial complex was desperate for a new conflict to legitimize profligate spending on war, weapons systems, and their associated services. St. Clair chronicles how Bush’s so-called War on Terror has enabled our rulers to rekindle the incestuous relationship between politicians, the pentagon, and military contractors.
The marriage councilor of this foul union is none other than George Bush himself. In perhaps the funniest expose of the Bushes yet written, St. Clair tells the story of this company masquerading as a family.
The portrait is not very flattering, politically or personally. Demonstrating their congenital penchant for putting profit before all else, the dynasty’s founder Prescott Bush barely escaped charges of treason for wheeling and dealing with the Nazis during WWII.
But the Bush clan does not find a haven from such heartlessness at home; matriarch Barbara Bush lost so little sleep over her daughter’s death from leukemia that she was out golfing the next day.
The unlikely hero of family saga is “W.” St. Clair shows how he spent his youth boozing, snorting coke, womanizing, failing classes, securing draft deferments, dodging national guard duty, and starting and wrecking corporations for which other people paid the price.
But this loser found himself reincarnated as a caring conservative. With the help of corporate money, lessons at the foot of Karl Rove, lots of dirty tricks, and apparently direct conversations with the deity, he found himself selected by the Supreme Court as ruler of the United States on the eve of 9/11.
Bush and the military industrial complex used the tragedy to fulfill their imperial fantasies and line their pockets. With Bush threatening war on the planet, the Pentagon asked for and got the useless and dangerous Star Wars Missile Defense, the unneeded B-767 tanker plane, the practically untested F-22 fighter, and the Stryker armored personnel carrier that is almost useless in Iraq since it is vulnerable to improvised explosive devices.
American Council on Middle East Policy (ACME)
American Council on Middle East Policy (ACME)
ANNOUNCEMENT We are pleased to announce the formation of a new national group, the American Council on Middle East Policy (ACME).Our first project, a petition against a presidential candidacy by Senator Hillary Clinton, preceded this announcement by a few days. A description of our aims and membership follows:
MISSION STATEMENT: While the Middle East has been an important area in American foreign policy at least since WWII, representing large economic and political stakes for our country, it has never been more central than in the current era. Yet our policy has failed to set appropriate goals or launch productive initiatives. The strategic petroleum resources of the Middle East make it highly desirable for the region to remain stable and for our relations with it to be cordial, for instance. On the other hand, that stability and cordiality has been threatened by American military adventurism and, above all, its support for Israel's policies vis-a-vis the Palestinians, which has evolved into a key grievance throughout the entire Muslim and Arab world.
Notwithstanding the complexity and importance of the geopolitical issues involved, debate on Middle Eastern issues has been conspicuously absent in Congress. There are a number of reasons for this, not least the uninspired journalism of the American media on those issues, and the fact that the Middle East is often treated less as a foreign policy question than as part of internal electoral politics. This has not proven to be the optimum condition for the national interest, nor for achieving the human rights standards and democratic ideals that are a traditional part of American political culture.
The aim of the American Council on Middle Eastern Policy is to provide legislators and others involved in policy formulation with information and critical analyses that are not readily available in the mass media, and to provide viewpoints that are not readily heard, but that promote both the national interest and American commitments to international human rights standards.
Steering Committee
Kathy and Bill Christison
Hassan Fouda
Basem Khader
Mike Odetalla
Miriam Reik
Advisory Board
Kate Daher
Stephen Green
Janice Hayden
Christopher Leadbeater
Mazin Qumsiyeh
Alison Weir
STATEMENT OF CONSCIENCE AT THE WORLD TRIBUNAL ON IRAQ: "The Most Cowardly War in History" by Arundhati Roy
This is the culminating session of the World Tribunal on Iraq. It is of particular significance that it is being held here in Turkey where the United States used Turkish air bases to launch numerous bombing missions to degrade Iraq's defenses before the March 2003 invasion and has sought and continues to seek political support from the Turkish government, which it regards as an ally. All this was done in the face of enormous popular opposition by the Turkish people. As a spokesperson for the jury of conscience, it would make me uneasy if I did not mention that the government of India is also, like the government of Turkey, positioning itself as a ally of the United States in its economic policies and the so-called War on Terror.
The testimonies at the previous sessions of the World Tribunal on Iraq in Brussels and New York have demonstrated that even those of us who have tried to follow the war in Iraq closely are not aware of a fraction of the horrors that have been unleashed in Iraq.
The Jury of Conscience at this tribunal is not here to deliver a simple verdict of guilty or not guilty against the United States and its allies. We are here to examine a vast spectrum of evidence about the motivations and consequences of the US invasion and occupation, evidence that has been deliberately marginalized or suppressed. Every aspect of the war will be examined--its legality, the role of international institutions and major corporations in the occupation, the role of the media, the impact of weapons such as depleted uranium munitions, napalm, and cluster bombs, the use of and legitimation of torture, the ecological impacts of the war, the responsibility of Arab governments, the impact of Iraq's occupation on Palestine, and the history of US and British military interventions in Iraq. This tribunal is an attempt to correct the record. To document the history of the war not from the point of view of the victors but of the temporarily--and I repeat the word temporarily--anguished.
Before the testimonies begin, I would like to briefly address as straightforwardly as I can a few questions that have been raised about this tribunal.
Now this view seems to suggest a touching concern that in this harsh world, the views of the US government and the so-called Coalition of the Willing headed by President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have somehow gone unrepresented. That the World Tribunal on Iraq isn't aware of the arguments in support of the war and is unwilling to consider the point of view of the invaders. If in the era of the multinational corporate media and embedded journalism anybody can seriously hold this view, then we truly do live in the Age of Irony, in an age when satire has become meaningless because real life is more satirical than satire can ever be.
Let me say categorically that this tribunal is the defense. It is an act of resistance in itself. It is a defense mounted against one of the most cowardly wars ever fought in history, a war in which international institutions were used to force a country to disarm and then stood by while it was attacked with a greater array of weapons than has ever been used in the history of war.
Second, this tribunal is not in any way a defense of Saddam Hussein. His crimes against Iraqis, Kurds, Iranians, Kuwaitis, and others cannot be written off in the process of bringing to light Iraq's more recent and still unfolding tragedy. However, we must not forget that when Saddam Hussein was committing his worst crimes, the US government was supporting him politically and materially. When he was gassing Kurdish people, the US government financed him, armed him, and stood by silently.
There are remarkable people gathered here who in the face of this relentless and brutal aggression and propaganda have doggedly worked to compile a comprehensive spectrum of evidence and information that should serve as a weapon in the hands of those who wish to participate in the resistance against the occupation of Iraq. It should become a weapon in the hands of soldiers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, and elsewhere who do not wish to fight, who do not wish to lay down their lives--or to take the lives of others--for a pack of lies. It should become a weapon in the hands of journalists, writers, poets, singers, teachers, plumbers, taxi drivers, car mechanics, painters, lawyers--anybody who wishes to participate in the resistance.
The evidence collated in this tribunal should, for instance, be used by the International Criminal Court (whose jurisdiction the United States does not recognize) to try as war criminals George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard, Silvio Berlusconi, and all those government officials, army generals, and corporate CEOs who participated in this war and now profit from it.
The assault on Iraq is an assault on all of us: on our dignity, our intelligence, and our future.
We recognize that the judgment of the World Tribunal on Iraq is not binding in international law. However, our ambitions far surpass that. The World Tribunal on Iraq places its faith in the consciences of millions of people across the world who do not wish to stand by and watch while the people of Iraq are being slaughtered, subjugated, and humiliated.
Arundhati Roy was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004 and the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize in 2002. She received the Booker Prize for literature in 1997.
The testimonies at the previous sessions of the World Tribunal on Iraq in Brussels and New York have demonstrated that even those of us who have tried to follow the war in Iraq closely are not aware of a fraction of the horrors that have been unleashed in Iraq.
The Jury of Conscience at this tribunal is not here to deliver a simple verdict of guilty or not guilty against the United States and its allies. We are here to examine a vast spectrum of evidence about the motivations and consequences of the US invasion and occupation, evidence that has been deliberately marginalized or suppressed. Every aspect of the war will be examined--its legality, the role of international institutions and major corporations in the occupation, the role of the media, the impact of weapons such as depleted uranium munitions, napalm, and cluster bombs, the use of and legitimation of torture, the ecological impacts of the war, the responsibility of Arab governments, the impact of Iraq's occupation on Palestine, and the history of US and British military interventions in Iraq. This tribunal is an attempt to correct the record. To document the history of the war not from the point of view of the victors but of the temporarily--and I repeat the word temporarily--anguished.
Before the testimonies begin, I would like to briefly address as straightforwardly as I can a few questions that have been raised about this tribunal.
"We are here to examine a vast spectrum of evidence about the motivations and consequences of the US invasion and occupation, evidence that has been deliberately marginalized or suppressed."The first is that this tribunal is a Kangaroo Court. That it represents only one point of view. That it is a prosecution without a defense. That the verdict is a foregone conclusion.
Now this view seems to suggest a touching concern that in this harsh world, the views of the US government and the so-called Coalition of the Willing headed by President George Bush and Prime Minister Tony Blair have somehow gone unrepresented. That the World Tribunal on Iraq isn't aware of the arguments in support of the war and is unwilling to consider the point of view of the invaders. If in the era of the multinational corporate media and embedded journalism anybody can seriously hold this view, then we truly do live in the Age of Irony, in an age when satire has become meaningless because real life is more satirical than satire can ever be.
Let me say categorically that this tribunal is the defense. It is an act of resistance in itself. It is a defense mounted against one of the most cowardly wars ever fought in history, a war in which international institutions were used to force a country to disarm and then stood by while it was attacked with a greater array of weapons than has ever been used in the history of war.
Second, this tribunal is not in any way a defense of Saddam Hussein. His crimes against Iraqis, Kurds, Iranians, Kuwaitis, and others cannot be written off in the process of bringing to light Iraq's more recent and still unfolding tragedy. However, we must not forget that when Saddam Hussein was committing his worst crimes, the US government was supporting him politically and materially. When he was gassing Kurdish people, the US government financed him, armed him, and stood by silently.
"...We truly do live in the Age of Irony, in an age when satire has become meaningless because real life is more satirical than satire can ever be."Saddam Hussein is being tried as a war criminal even as we speak. But what about those who helped to install him in power, who armed him, who supported him--and who are now setting up a tribunal to try him and absolve themselves completely? And what about other friends of the United States in the region that have suppressed Kurdish peoples and other peoples rights, including the government of Turkey?
There are remarkable people gathered here who in the face of this relentless and brutal aggression and propaganda have doggedly worked to compile a comprehensive spectrum of evidence and information that should serve as a weapon in the hands of those who wish to participate in the resistance against the occupation of Iraq. It should become a weapon in the hands of soldiers in the United States, the United Kingdom, Italy, Australia, and elsewhere who do not wish to fight, who do not wish to lay down their lives--or to take the lives of others--for a pack of lies. It should become a weapon in the hands of journalists, writers, poets, singers, teachers, plumbers, taxi drivers, car mechanics, painters, lawyers--anybody who wishes to participate in the resistance.
The evidence collated in this tribunal should, for instance, be used by the International Criminal Court (whose jurisdiction the United States does not recognize) to try as war criminals George Bush, Tony Blair, John Howard, Silvio Berlusconi, and all those government officials, army generals, and corporate CEOs who participated in this war and now profit from it.
The assault on Iraq is an assault on all of us: on our dignity, our intelligence, and our future.
We recognize that the judgment of the World Tribunal on Iraq is not binding in international law. However, our ambitions far surpass that. The World Tribunal on Iraq places its faith in the consciences of millions of people across the world who do not wish to stand by and watch while the people of Iraq are being slaughtered, subjugated, and humiliated.
Arundhati Roy was awarded the Sydney Peace Prize in 2004 and the Lannan Cultural Freedom Prize in 2002. She received the Booker Prize for literature in 1997.
How the CIA Paid for Judy Miller's Stories - All the News That's Fit to Buy
The Bush era has brought a robust simplicity to the business of news management: where possible, buy journalists to turn out favorable stories and, as far as hostiles are concerned, if you think you can get away with it, shoot them or blow them up.
As with much else in the Bush era, the novelty lies in the openness with which these strategies have been conducted. Regarding the strategies themselves, there's nothing fundamentally new, both in terms of paid coverage, and murder, as the killing in 1948 of CBS reporter George Polk suggests. Polk, found floating in the Bay of Salonika after being shot in the head, had become a serious inconvenience to a prime concern of US covert operations at the time, namely the onslaught on Communists in Greece.
Today we have the comical saga of the Pentagon turning to a Washington DC-based subcontractor, the Lincoln Group, to write and translate for distribution to Iraqi news outlets booster stories about the US military's successes in Iraq. I bet the Iraqi newspaper reading public was stunned to learn the truth at last.
More or less simultaneously comes news of Bush's plan, mooted to Tony Blair in April of 2004, to bomb the hq of Al Jazeera in Qatar. Blair argued against the plan, not, it seems, on moral grounds but because the assault might prompt revenge attacks.
Earlier assaults on Al Jazeera came in the form of a 2001 strike on the channel's office in Kabul. In November, 2002 the US Air Force had another crack at the target and this time managed to blow it up. The US military claimed that they didn't know the target was an Al Jazeera office, merely "a terrorist site".
In April 2003 a US fighter plane targeted and killed Tariq Ayub, an Al Jazeera reporter on the roof of Al Jazeera's Baghdad office. The Arab network had earlier attempted to head off any "accidental" attack by giving the Pentagon the precise location of its Baghdad premises. That same day in Iraq US forces killed two other journalists, from Reuter's and a Spanish tv station, and bombed an office of Abu Dhabi tv.
As with much else in the Bush era, the novelty lies in the openness with which these strategies have been conducted. Regarding the strategies themselves, there's nothing fundamentally new, both in terms of paid coverage, and murder, as the killing in 1948 of CBS reporter George Polk suggests. Polk, found floating in the Bay of Salonika after being shot in the head, had become a serious inconvenience to a prime concern of US covert operations at the time, namely the onslaught on Communists in Greece.
Today we have the comical saga of the Pentagon turning to a Washington DC-based subcontractor, the Lincoln Group, to write and translate for distribution to Iraqi news outlets booster stories about the US military's successes in Iraq. I bet the Iraqi newspaper reading public was stunned to learn the truth at last.
More or less simultaneously comes news of Bush's plan, mooted to Tony Blair in April of 2004, to bomb the hq of Al Jazeera in Qatar. Blair argued against the plan, not, it seems, on moral grounds but because the assault might prompt revenge attacks.
Earlier assaults on Al Jazeera came in the form of a 2001 strike on the channel's office in Kabul. In November, 2002 the US Air Force had another crack at the target and this time managed to blow it up. The US military claimed that they didn't know the target was an Al Jazeera office, merely "a terrorist site".
In April 2003 a US fighter plane targeted and killed Tariq Ayub, an Al Jazeera reporter on the roof of Al Jazeera's Baghdad office. The Arab network had earlier attempted to head off any "accidental" attack by giving the Pentagon the precise location of its Baghdad premises. That same day in Iraq US forces killed two other journalists, from Reuter's and a Spanish tv station, and bombed an office of Abu Dhabi tv.
We'll Miss Saddam by Charley Reese
When they finally hang Saddam Hussein, we'll probably miss him. He has, after all, been an obsession of American politicians since 1991. Since the Washington media obsess over whatever the politicians obsess over, Saddam's face has adorned our television screens for 14 years. He bears a strong resemblance, by the way, to the late actor Walter Matthau.
Saddam, without a doubt, has gotten more air time and more ink than any dictator in the post-World War II world. Never before has so much attention been lavished on a man who, on the world stage, has always been so insignificant.
Iraq, being a relatively small country, with a population of about 25 million people divided into three quarreling groups, never in its history posed a threat to the world. The demonization of Saddam has always been political bull. The only country Iraq ever conquered was Kuwait, which is a postage stamp of a country.
The Kuwaiti leadership fled in their Mercedes, Rolls-Royces and Cadillacs at the sound of the first shot. I've never forgotten an anonymous quote in a Wall Street Journal story. The reporter had asked someone, apparently a Kuwaiti leader, why he was not fighting for his country. "That is what we have our American slaves for," he is quoted as saying.
Saddam, without a doubt, has gotten more air time and more ink than any dictator in the post-World War II world. Never before has so much attention been lavished on a man who, on the world stage, has always been so insignificant.
Iraq, being a relatively small country, with a population of about 25 million people divided into three quarreling groups, never in its history posed a threat to the world. The demonization of Saddam has always been political bull. The only country Iraq ever conquered was Kuwait, which is a postage stamp of a country.
The Kuwaiti leadership fled in their Mercedes, Rolls-Royces and Cadillacs at the sound of the first shot. I've never forgotten an anonymous quote in a Wall Street Journal story. The reporter had asked someone, apparently a Kuwaiti leader, why he was not fighting for his country. "That is what we have our American slaves for," he is quoted as saying.
TERRORISM: TORTURE IS AN INSTRUMENT OF TERROR, SAYS ANNAN
New York, 9 Dec. (AKI) - Torture can never be an instrument to fight terror because it is an instrument of terror, United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan has said, in his annual Human Rights Day message. He decried the recent trend of countries claiming exceptions to the international prohibition against the practice and called for all states to honour the legally established ban on torture and to vigorously combat the impunity of those who perpetrate it.
He also urged all countries that have not yet done so to ratify the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
The message also urges all states to give "independent access to detainees within their control," to the UN expert on torture.
Last month, five independent United Nations human rights experts, including the Special Rapporteur on torture, rejected a United States invitation to visit its detention base in Guantanamo, Cuba, because Washington did not accept standard terms for a “credible, objective and fair assessment,” including their ability to conduct private interviews with detainees.
The Secretary-General, in his message on Human Rights Day, observed annually on 10 December, says unlimited access is an essential protection for individuals in detention because their isolation makes them especially vulnerable to abuse. “Together, we must give voice, and redress, to abused detainees as well as to all victims and survivors of torture,” he says.
Acknowledging that the threat of terror is “real and immediate,” he nevertheless points out that fear of terrorists can never justify adopting their methods. “Let us be clear: torture can never be an instrument to fight terror, for torture is an instrument of terror,” he declares.
Broadening this argument, the Secretary-General warned against complacency over cruel and inhuman punishment, which tends to disproportionately affect imprisoned, politically powerless and economically deprived people. “Instead, we must respond to this evil wherever we find it by reaffirming humanity’s most basic values,” Annan said in the message.
His Human Rights Day message also coincides with growing pressure on the US government over reports of secret CIA-run prisons in Eastern Europe and hundreds of 'ghost' flights flying in and out of European airports, thought to have been transporting terror suspects to countries where they may suffer torture. US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has spent most of her European tour this week defending the US administration against such claims.
He also urged all countries that have not yet done so to ratify the Convention Against Torture and Other Cruel, Inhuman or Degrading Treatment or Punishment.
The message also urges all states to give "independent access to detainees within their control," to the UN expert on torture.
Last month, five independent United Nations human rights experts, including the Special Rapporteur on torture, rejected a United States invitation to visit its detention base in Guantanamo, Cuba, because Washington did not accept standard terms for a “credible, objective and fair assessment,” including their ability to conduct private interviews with detainees.
The Secretary-General, in his message on Human Rights Day, observed annually on 10 December, says unlimited access is an essential protection for individuals in detention because their isolation makes them especially vulnerable to abuse. “Together, we must give voice, and redress, to abused detainees as well as to all victims and survivors of torture,” he says.
Acknowledging that the threat of terror is “real and immediate,” he nevertheless points out that fear of terrorists can never justify adopting their methods. “Let us be clear: torture can never be an instrument to fight terror, for torture is an instrument of terror,” he declares.
Broadening this argument, the Secretary-General warned against complacency over cruel and inhuman punishment, which tends to disproportionately affect imprisoned, politically powerless and economically deprived people. “Instead, we must respond to this evil wherever we find it by reaffirming humanity’s most basic values,” Annan said in the message.
His Human Rights Day message also coincides with growing pressure on the US government over reports of secret CIA-run prisons in Eastern Europe and hundreds of 'ghost' flights flying in and out of European airports, thought to have been transporting terror suspects to countries where they may suffer torture. US secretary of state Condoleezza Rice has spent most of her European tour this week defending the US administration against such claims.
Additional ties between southern Christian fundamentalists, Texas oil interests, and Russian-Israeli mobsters and weapons smugglers uncovered.
December 11, 2005 -- SPECIAL REPORT. Additional ties between southern Christian fundamentalists, Texas oil interests, and Russian-Israeli mobsters and weapons smugglers uncovered. According to informed Washington insiders, there is increasing evidence of financial links between key "Christian Right" GOP notables and an international ring of Russian-Ukrainian-Israeli mobsters tied to notorious Russian weapons smuggler Viktor Vasilevich (aka Anatoliyevich) Bout.
Bout, whose U.S. assets were frozen by the Treasury Department, continues to provide various contractor services in Iraq and is considered by Condoleezza Rice to be out-of-bounds for U.S. law enforcement authorities. When she was National Security Adviser, Rice pre-empted an attempt by Sharjah, United Arab Emirates authorities to arrest Bout. To U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies, Rice was very clear when it comes to Bout: "Look, but don't touch" was her direct order to the CIA and FBI. It appears that Bout has gone from arms smuggler for Al Qaeda and the Taliban to arms runner for the Bush administration. Bout's British Gulf International Airline, registered in Sao Tome and Principe and Kyrgyzstan and based in Sharjah, is a regular visitor to Baghdad International and airports in the north of Iraq. Bout also made a financial windfall from contracts let to his airline companies by the former Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority led by L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer. Bout also benefited from contracts let to his Dubai-based Falcon Express Cargo by Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton.
Bout's British Gulf International contracted to U.S. occupation forces in Iraq. Bout once provided arms to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Federal prosecutors are already examining links between indicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Italian Mafia hit men who have been charged with murdering Florida businessman Gus Boulis, former Christian Coalition director and Georgia Republican Lt. Governor candidate Ralph Reed, and indicted Texas GOP Representative Tom DeLay. Abramoff associate Adam Kidan has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation of Abramoff, especially deals involving the shake down of various Indian tribes in shady casino deals.
There is also now interest in the activities of Richard T. Hines, the head of the powerful Republican lobbying firm RTH Consulting, Inc. Hines, a South Carolina native and a protege of the late GOP dirty trickmeister Lee Atwater, was one of the architects of the dirty tricks campaign by Bush against John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary. A confederate of Abramoff in the 1980s Reagan administration's covert support network for the Nicaraguan contras, Angolan UNITA guerrillas, and Afghan mujaheddin, Hines is active in various Confederacy resurgence organizations, many of which have clear racist agendas. However, that has not prevented Hines from becoming the lobbyist for Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh, a military officer who overthrew Gambia's democratically-elected President Sir Dawda K. Jawara in a 1994 military coup supported by the United States Navy.
Hines inherited the lobbying contract for Gambia from the eclectic Washington lobbyist Edward von Kloberg III, an individual who represented Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Liberia's Samuel K. Doe, Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, Congolese leader Laurent Kabila, the exiled King Kigeli V of Rwanda, and Saddam Hussein. Last May, von Kloberg took a swan dive off of a castle in Rome, allegedly committing suicide after a spat with a gay partner.
The connections between Hines and Gambia are important since the small narrow West African country is also a major base of operations for notorious Russian international arms smuggler Viktor Bout. The Gambia is the headquarters for one of many of Bout's front companies -- companies that are used to smuggle everything from weapons to diamonds and mercenaries to international relief supplies. In fact, Bout was the character on whom fictional arms smuggler Yuri Orlov, played by Nicolas Cage in the movie Lord of War, was largely based.
Bout's connections with the Christian Right do not end with Gambia. Bout was Liberian dictator Charles Taylor's primary arms and diamond smuggler. Bout and his associates were given Liberian diplomatic passports and, with Taylor's blessing and protection, they registered a number of their front companies in Monrovia, the Liberian capital. Taylor, who is now in exile in Nigeria, was a business partner with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson. Robertson's organization mentored both Ralph Reed and Richard Hines. According to British and Israeli intelligence sources, Taylor also enabled Al Qaeda to launder blood diamonds for cash through Liberia. Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone were where Israeli mobsters engaged in business with Israeli gangsters who operated under the full protection of the Israeli Likud government.
Before Likud began purging Mossad of experienced intelligence officers with ties to the Israeli Labor Party, the Israeli-Al Qaeda diamond financial connection in West Africa was being pointed out by those officers as suicidal for Israeli interests. However, Taylor and Bout had powerful interests in the United States: a combination of the Christian Right and pro-Likud organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), both of which ignored and continue to ignore Israeli organized crime connections to Al Qaeda and terrorism.
Robertson and Taylor were business partners in a Cayman Islands front company called Freedom Gold, Ltd. In fact, Freedom Gold bas headquartered at Robertson's CBN offices in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Robertson's African interests also crossed paths with Bout's in another country -- the former Zaire. Robertson's African Development Company used the cover of Robertson's tax-exempt "Operation Blessing" to ferry conflict diamonds out of civil war-ravaged Zaire (now Congo).
*
A rare photo of Viktor Bout, aka Butt, Bont, Butte, Boutov, and Vitali Sergitov, born January 13, 1967 and January 13, 1970. Passports: various Liberian diplomatic, two Russian, one Ukrainian.
A UN Security Council report dated November 30, 2005, lists Bout's Gambia New Millennium Air Company as having its address at the residence of Hines' client Jammeh: State House, Banjul, Gambia. The UN report states, "The Director of this firm is Baba Jobe, who is already listed on the Liberia Sanctions Committee’s assets freeze list. According to a commercial aviation database, the firm acted as a cover for Victor Bout’s operations. Its one aircraft, a Russian-made passenger jet, was acquired from Centrafrican Airlines."
It is noteworthy that Hines's client, President Jammeh, just took possession of the Russian-made VIP presidential passenger jet, an Ilyushin IL-62 (C5-GNM) [Gambia] (formerly CCCP-86511 [USSR], RA-86511 [Russia], 3D-RTI [Swaziland], TL-ACL [Central African Republic]). And also of interest is the owner of the presidential aircraft: it is none other than Gambia New Millennium Air, the Bout-owned company listed on the UN Security Council freeze list and which is headquartered at Jammeh's State House in Banjul, the Gambian capital. In fact, the plane had been previously registered to Bout front companies in Swaziland and the Central African Republic.
The Gambia: Joins Gabon and Swaziland as another African playground for the GOP Mafia
Bout, who flew arms and passengers from Dubai and other locations to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan prior to 9-11, is now providing air services in post-Taliban Afghanistan as well as U.S.-occupied Iraq. Bout's transactions with the Taliban were handled by Vial, Inc., a firm based in Delaware. One of Bout's closest associates is the Russian-Israeli Odessa-born crime boss Leonid Minin, an Israeli national who, according to the UN Security Council, travels on forged German passports as well as legal Israeli, Russian, Greek, and Bolivian passports under at least ten aliases.
It is also noteworthy that many of Bout's operations are based in Eastern European countries that have been mentioned in association with the rendition and transporting of CIA prisoners. Bout's numerous Russian-built cargo and passenger planes have been seen at the same airports used by CIA flights. For example, Bright Aviation, a suspected Bout front, is based at Sofia Airport in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is believed to be one of the countries used by the CIA to house secret prisoners. Another Bout front, Moldtransavia SRL, is based in Chisinau, Moldova, another suspected stopover point for CIA flights.
One Chisinau, Moldova-based Bout front company, Aerocom, which also does business as Air Mero, is contracted to fly for Kellogg, Brown & Root in Iraq and elsewhere. Aerocom has also been cited in UN and DEA reports for being involved in drug smuggling in Belize. Some law enforcement officials in the United States and Europe believe that the covert flights being operated by CIA contractors and Bout's companies in support of secret prisoner movement are also involved in smuggling drugs. After being subjected to news reports, Aerocom quickly changed its name last year.
More ties that bind Bush cartel to Russian-Ukrainian-Israeli Mafia: Bush with Yahya Jammeh, dictator of the Gambia, the client of both GOP lobbyist and neo-Confederate Richard Hines and international arms smuggler Viktor Bout.
Bright's Antonov AN-12 planes were also sighted in Western European airports frequented by CIA aircraft suspected of transporting prisoners. One of the most interesting connections was the presence of Bright Aviation's AN-12V (LZ-BRP) on October 5, 2004 at Helsinki's Vantaa Airport. Just two days before, U.S. private military contractor Blackwater's CASA C212-CC Aviocar (N960BW) also landed at Vantaa.
Bright's LZ-BRP was also spotted at Budapest Ferihegy on October 26, April 30, and March 30, 2005; Marseilles on October 27, 2005; Toulouse in April 2005; Vigo, Spain on October 16, 2005; Amsterdam Schipol on September 17, 2005; Zurich on June 3, 2005; Plovdiv, Bulgaria on June 11, 2005; Lyons on January 24, 2005; Madrid on January 27, 2005 and July 16, 2004; Recife, Brazil on November 20, 2004, Zagreb, Croatia on September 9, 2004; Tenerife (Canary Islands) on June 13, 2004; Ostend, Belgium on June 2, 2004; and Geneva on May 11 and 12, 2004 (first visit for this aircraft to Geneva). Another Bright AN-12 (LZ-BRC) was spotted in Glasgow Prestwick on October 14, 2004; Tenerife (Canary Islands), where AN-12 visits are extremely rare; Maastricht/Aachen on December 22, 2003; Lisbon on June 7, 2004; Ostend on September 6, 2002; Stockholm Arlanda on November 5, 2002; Helsinki Vantaa (with the name Heli Air painted on its fuselage) on October 18, 2005; Budapest Ferihagy on November 19, 2005 (as Heli Air); and St. John's, Newfoundland on November 15, 2005 (as Heli Air). Bright's LZ-BRV AN12 was seen at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion on May 25, 2005; Zurich, May 24, 2005; and Palma de Mallorca on February 18, 2005.
Bout's Air Bas and Irbis Air Russian-made transport aircraft were spotted throughout 2004 at Bilad airbase in northern Iraq. Bilad is the airfield near Camp Anaconda, one of the first detention camps set up by U.S. forces and the site of the first reported cases of U.S. prisoner torture. A Belgrade-based airline, Kosmas Air, also linked to Bout, is reportedly transporting weapons from Serbia to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
*Bright Aviation AN-12 at Zurich airport in May 2005. Bout's aircraft crossed paths at numerous airports with CIA prisoner flights.
The firm and documented connections between Bout (the smuggler for Al Qaeda and the Taliban) and Christian fundamentalists and Russian-Israeli mob interests provide yet more proof that the forces behind 9-11 and other terrorist attacks represented far more than a bunch of cave dwelling Islamist insurgents in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. As 9-11 co-chair Thomas Kean recently said, if there was a wider conspiracy behind 9-11 it would be a "monstrous" act. Other than Wahhabi mosques and madrassas around the world, the monsters behind 9-11 and other attacks can also be found in mega-churches in the South, oil company board rooms in Houston, airfields in the emirates of the Persian Gulf, Hasidic-run "blood diamond" centers in Europe and New York, GOP lobbying firms on K Street, and dank and dark arms warehouses in Ukraine and Moldova.
The Wayne Madsen Report
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
Bout, whose U.S. assets were frozen by the Treasury Department, continues to provide various contractor services in Iraq and is considered by Condoleezza Rice to be out-of-bounds for U.S. law enforcement authorities. When she was National Security Adviser, Rice pre-empted an attempt by Sharjah, United Arab Emirates authorities to arrest Bout. To U.S. law enforcement and intelligence agencies, Rice was very clear when it comes to Bout: "Look, but don't touch" was her direct order to the CIA and FBI. It appears that Bout has gone from arms smuggler for Al Qaeda and the Taliban to arms runner for the Bush administration. Bout's British Gulf International Airline, registered in Sao Tome and Principe and Kyrgyzstan and based in Sharjah, is a regular visitor to Baghdad International and airports in the north of Iraq. Bout also made a financial windfall from contracts let to his airline companies by the former Iraqi Coalition Provisional Authority led by L. Paul "Jerry" Bremer. Bout also benefited from contracts let to his Dubai-based Falcon Express Cargo by Kellogg, Brown & Root, a subsidiary of Halliburton.
Bout's British Gulf International contracted to U.S. occupation forces in Iraq. Bout once provided arms to the Taliban and Al Qaeda.
Federal prosecutors are already examining links between indicted GOP lobbyist Jack Abramoff, Italian Mafia hit men who have been charged with murdering Florida businessman Gus Boulis, former Christian Coalition director and Georgia Republican Lt. Governor candidate Ralph Reed, and indicted Texas GOP Representative Tom DeLay. Abramoff associate Adam Kidan has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors in their investigation of Abramoff, especially deals involving the shake down of various Indian tribes in shady casino deals.
There is also now interest in the activities of Richard T. Hines, the head of the powerful Republican lobbying firm RTH Consulting, Inc. Hines, a South Carolina native and a protege of the late GOP dirty trickmeister Lee Atwater, was one of the architects of the dirty tricks campaign by Bush against John McCain in the 2000 South Carolina primary. A confederate of Abramoff in the 1980s Reagan administration's covert support network for the Nicaraguan contras, Angolan UNITA guerrillas, and Afghan mujaheddin, Hines is active in various Confederacy resurgence organizations, many of which have clear racist agendas. However, that has not prevented Hines from becoming the lobbyist for Gambian dictator Yahya Jammeh, a military officer who overthrew Gambia's democratically-elected President Sir Dawda K. Jawara in a 1994 military coup supported by the United States Navy.
Hines inherited the lobbying contract for Gambia from the eclectic Washington lobbyist Edward von Kloberg III, an individual who represented Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire, Liberia's Samuel K. Doe, Nicolae Ceausescu of Romania, Congolese leader Laurent Kabila, the exiled King Kigeli V of Rwanda, and Saddam Hussein. Last May, von Kloberg took a swan dive off of a castle in Rome, allegedly committing suicide after a spat with a gay partner.
The connections between Hines and Gambia are important since the small narrow West African country is also a major base of operations for notorious Russian international arms smuggler Viktor Bout. The Gambia is the headquarters for one of many of Bout's front companies -- companies that are used to smuggle everything from weapons to diamonds and mercenaries to international relief supplies. In fact, Bout was the character on whom fictional arms smuggler Yuri Orlov, played by Nicolas Cage in the movie Lord of War, was largely based.
Bout's connections with the Christian Right do not end with Gambia. Bout was Liberian dictator Charles Taylor's primary arms and diamond smuggler. Bout and his associates were given Liberian diplomatic passports and, with Taylor's blessing and protection, they registered a number of their front companies in Monrovia, the Liberian capital. Taylor, who is now in exile in Nigeria, was a business partner with Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson. Robertson's organization mentored both Ralph Reed and Richard Hines. According to British and Israeli intelligence sources, Taylor also enabled Al Qaeda to launder blood diamonds for cash through Liberia. Liberia and neighboring Sierra Leone were where Israeli mobsters engaged in business with Israeli gangsters who operated under the full protection of the Israeli Likud government.
Before Likud began purging Mossad of experienced intelligence officers with ties to the Israeli Labor Party, the Israeli-Al Qaeda diamond financial connection in West Africa was being pointed out by those officers as suicidal for Israeli interests. However, Taylor and Bout had powerful interests in the United States: a combination of the Christian Right and pro-Likud organizations like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), both of which ignored and continue to ignore Israeli organized crime connections to Al Qaeda and terrorism.
Robertson and Taylor were business partners in a Cayman Islands front company called Freedom Gold, Ltd. In fact, Freedom Gold bas headquartered at Robertson's CBN offices in Virginia Beach, Virginia. Robertson's African interests also crossed paths with Bout's in another country -- the former Zaire. Robertson's African Development Company used the cover of Robertson's tax-exempt "Operation Blessing" to ferry conflict diamonds out of civil war-ravaged Zaire (now Congo).
*
A rare photo of Viktor Bout, aka Butt, Bont, Butte, Boutov, and Vitali Sergitov, born January 13, 1967 and January 13, 1970. Passports: various Liberian diplomatic, two Russian, one Ukrainian.
A UN Security Council report dated November 30, 2005, lists Bout's Gambia New Millennium Air Company as having its address at the residence of Hines' client Jammeh: State House, Banjul, Gambia. The UN report states, "The Director of this firm is Baba Jobe, who is already listed on the Liberia Sanctions Committee’s assets freeze list. According to a commercial aviation database, the firm acted as a cover for Victor Bout’s operations. Its one aircraft, a Russian-made passenger jet, was acquired from Centrafrican Airlines."
It is noteworthy that Hines's client, President Jammeh, just took possession of the Russian-made VIP presidential passenger jet, an Ilyushin IL-62 (C5-GNM) [Gambia] (formerly CCCP-86511 [USSR], RA-86511 [Russia], 3D-RTI [Swaziland], TL-ACL [Central African Republic]). And also of interest is the owner of the presidential aircraft: it is none other than Gambia New Millennium Air, the Bout-owned company listed on the UN Security Council freeze list and which is headquartered at Jammeh's State House in Banjul, the Gambian capital. In fact, the plane had been previously registered to Bout front companies in Swaziland and the Central African Republic.
The Gambia: Joins Gabon and Swaziland as another African playground for the GOP Mafia
Bout, who flew arms and passengers from Dubai and other locations to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan prior to 9-11, is now providing air services in post-Taliban Afghanistan as well as U.S.-occupied Iraq. Bout's transactions with the Taliban were handled by Vial, Inc., a firm based in Delaware. One of Bout's closest associates is the Russian-Israeli Odessa-born crime boss Leonid Minin, an Israeli national who, according to the UN Security Council, travels on forged German passports as well as legal Israeli, Russian, Greek, and Bolivian passports under at least ten aliases.
It is also noteworthy that many of Bout's operations are based in Eastern European countries that have been mentioned in association with the rendition and transporting of CIA prisoners. Bout's numerous Russian-built cargo and passenger planes have been seen at the same airports used by CIA flights. For example, Bright Aviation, a suspected Bout front, is based at Sofia Airport in Bulgaria. Bulgaria is believed to be one of the countries used by the CIA to house secret prisoners. Another Bout front, Moldtransavia SRL, is based in Chisinau, Moldova, another suspected stopover point for CIA flights.
One Chisinau, Moldova-based Bout front company, Aerocom, which also does business as Air Mero, is contracted to fly for Kellogg, Brown & Root in Iraq and elsewhere. Aerocom has also been cited in UN and DEA reports for being involved in drug smuggling in Belize. Some law enforcement officials in the United States and Europe believe that the covert flights being operated by CIA contractors and Bout's companies in support of secret prisoner movement are also involved in smuggling drugs. After being subjected to news reports, Aerocom quickly changed its name last year.
More ties that bind Bush cartel to Russian-Ukrainian-Israeli Mafia: Bush with Yahya Jammeh, dictator of the Gambia, the client of both GOP lobbyist and neo-Confederate Richard Hines and international arms smuggler Viktor Bout.
Bright's Antonov AN-12 planes were also sighted in Western European airports frequented by CIA aircraft suspected of transporting prisoners. One of the most interesting connections was the presence of Bright Aviation's AN-12V (LZ-BRP) on October 5, 2004 at Helsinki's Vantaa Airport. Just two days before, U.S. private military contractor Blackwater's CASA C212-CC Aviocar (N960BW) also landed at Vantaa.
Bright's LZ-BRP was also spotted at Budapest Ferihegy on October 26, April 30, and March 30, 2005; Marseilles on October 27, 2005; Toulouse in April 2005; Vigo, Spain on October 16, 2005; Amsterdam Schipol on September 17, 2005; Zurich on June 3, 2005; Plovdiv, Bulgaria on June 11, 2005; Lyons on January 24, 2005; Madrid on January 27, 2005 and July 16, 2004; Recife, Brazil on November 20, 2004, Zagreb, Croatia on September 9, 2004; Tenerife (Canary Islands) on June 13, 2004; Ostend, Belgium on June 2, 2004; and Geneva on May 11 and 12, 2004 (first visit for this aircraft to Geneva). Another Bright AN-12 (LZ-BRC) was spotted in Glasgow Prestwick on October 14, 2004; Tenerife (Canary Islands), where AN-12 visits are extremely rare; Maastricht/Aachen on December 22, 2003; Lisbon on June 7, 2004; Ostend on September 6, 2002; Stockholm Arlanda on November 5, 2002; Helsinki Vantaa (with the name Heli Air painted on its fuselage) on October 18, 2005; Budapest Ferihagy on November 19, 2005 (as Heli Air); and St. John's, Newfoundland on November 15, 2005 (as Heli Air). Bright's LZ-BRV AN12 was seen at Tel Aviv Ben Gurion on May 25, 2005; Zurich, May 24, 2005; and Palma de Mallorca on February 18, 2005.
Bout's Air Bas and Irbis Air Russian-made transport aircraft were spotted throughout 2004 at Bilad airbase in northern Iraq. Bilad is the airfield near Camp Anaconda, one of the first detention camps set up by U.S. forces and the site of the first reported cases of U.S. prisoner torture. A Belgrade-based airline, Kosmas Air, also linked to Bout, is reportedly transporting weapons from Serbia to both Iraq and Afghanistan.
*Bright Aviation AN-12 at Zurich airport in May 2005. Bout's aircraft crossed paths at numerous airports with CIA prisoner flights.
The firm and documented connections between Bout (the smuggler for Al Qaeda and the Taliban) and Christian fundamentalists and Russian-Israeli mob interests provide yet more proof that the forces behind 9-11 and other terrorist attacks represented far more than a bunch of cave dwelling Islamist insurgents in the mountains of Afghanistan and Pakistan. As 9-11 co-chair Thomas Kean recently said, if there was a wider conspiracy behind 9-11 it would be a "monstrous" act. Other than Wahhabi mosques and madrassas around the world, the monsters behind 9-11 and other attacks can also be found in mega-churches in the South, oil company board rooms in Houston, airfields in the emirates of the Persian Gulf, Hasidic-run "blood diamond" centers in Europe and New York, GOP lobbying firms on K Street, and dank and dark arms warehouses in Ukraine and Moldova.
The Wayne Madsen Report
http://www.waynemadsenreport.com/
Margaret Kimberley: 'Evil racist children and the media who love them'
Americans need to know more about white supremacist organizations. Too often the corporate media either deny their existence or diminish the danger they pose. Even when they gather a cache of bombs and machine guns, we get little if any information about their activities.
In 2003 a group of white supremacists near Tyler, Texas were discovered with 500,000 rounds of ammunition, bomb making equipment, canisters of cyanide and a KKK calling card. There was little if any media coverage of this terror plot in the making. The same journalists who saw no need to tell us about plots involving deadly poisons think that we need to know about white supremacists who are cute, at least according to European beauty standards.
Lamb and Lynx Gaede fit that description. The 13 year old twins, always described as blonde and blue eyed, come from a family who unleashed them on the public singing paeans to Adolf Hitler and Rudolph Hess. They spend their time vicariously killing black people via video games and raising money for white hurricane Katrina victims.
Their mother regrets her divorce because it deprived her of the opportunity to make more Aryan babies. " … I could have produced four to six more children with that ideal eugenic quality that [Lynx and Lamb] possess."
The Gaede twins perform under the stage name Prussian Blue. The name honors their family history, eye color, and holocaust denial.
"Part of our heritage is Prussian German," the deadly twins say. "Also our eyes are blue, and Prussian Blue is just a really pretty color. There is also the discussion of the lack of "Prussian Blue" coloring (Zyklon B residue) in the so-called gas chambers in the concentration camps. We think it might make people question some of the inaccuracies of the ‘Holocaust' myth."
The Gaedes were unknown to the general public until ABC gave them free publicity and compared them to the over exposed but harmless Olsen twins. Recently Teen People magazine came under fire for a planned article on Lamb and Lynx.
Teen People made an agreement with their mother to water down the family's white supremacist, Nazi loving message. April Gaede asked the magazine not to mention the words Hitler, hate or supremacist in the article. Teen People capitulated and posted a sanitized story on their web site. There was also an interview scheduled for publication in the February 2006 issue, but when the appeasement came to light, Time Inc. blamed a "junior employee" for the fiasco, and ultimately pulled the Prussian Blue story.
Teen People may have been stupid, but the Gaede family certainly isn't. Nazi worship is very problematic but the public relations dilemma can be solved very simply. Leave out any mention of hate, racism, Hitler and holocaust denial and the blondeness will win out.
In 2003 a group of white supremacists near Tyler, Texas were discovered with 500,000 rounds of ammunition, bomb making equipment, canisters of cyanide and a KKK calling card. There was little if any media coverage of this terror plot in the making. The same journalists who saw no need to tell us about plots involving deadly poisons think that we need to know about white supremacists who are cute, at least according to European beauty standards.
Lamb and Lynx Gaede fit that description. The 13 year old twins, always described as blonde and blue eyed, come from a family who unleashed them on the public singing paeans to Adolf Hitler and Rudolph Hess. They spend their time vicariously killing black people via video games and raising money for white hurricane Katrina victims.
Their mother regrets her divorce because it deprived her of the opportunity to make more Aryan babies. " … I could have produced four to six more children with that ideal eugenic quality that [Lynx and Lamb] possess."
The Gaede twins perform under the stage name Prussian Blue. The name honors their family history, eye color, and holocaust denial.
"Part of our heritage is Prussian German," the deadly twins say. "Also our eyes are blue, and Prussian Blue is just a really pretty color. There is also the discussion of the lack of "Prussian Blue" coloring (Zyklon B residue) in the so-called gas chambers in the concentration camps. We think it might make people question some of the inaccuracies of the ‘Holocaust' myth."
The Gaedes were unknown to the general public until ABC gave them free publicity and compared them to the over exposed but harmless Olsen twins. Recently Teen People magazine came under fire for a planned article on Lamb and Lynx.
Teen People made an agreement with their mother to water down the family's white supremacist, Nazi loving message. April Gaede asked the magazine not to mention the words Hitler, hate or supremacist in the article. Teen People capitulated and posted a sanitized story on their web site. There was also an interview scheduled for publication in the February 2006 issue, but when the appeasement came to light, Time Inc. blamed a "junior employee" for the fiasco, and ultimately pulled the Prussian Blue story.
Teen People may have been stupid, but the Gaede family certainly isn't. Nazi worship is very problematic but the public relations dilemma can be solved very simply. Leave out any mention of hate, racism, Hitler and holocaust denial and the blondeness will win out.
'Christmas for Dummies'
Are you beginning to get the picture? Are you starting to understand better just why 15th century Europeans chased fundamentalist Christians off their continent centuries ago? Because they can they are never satisfied, never know when enough is enough, because it's NEVER enough. They have taken the art of being annoying to levels that make it impossible to just ignore them. They simply will NOT practice their faith quietly. They will NOT be ignored. Instead they keep getting up everyone else's nose until everyone else says, "enough!" Leave. Just leave!
Yeah, I know, that's not how today's Christians tell the story. They say they had to flee to the New World because they were being "oppressed." They always say that when people refuse to buy into what ever nonsense they happen to be peddling at the time. I'm sure 16th century Europeans had plenty of more interesting and profitable things to do back then than waste their time harassing a few thousand nut-fringe Christians.
Whether fundamentalist ("Puritan") Christians were indeed oppressed or tossed out of Europe for cause, I suspect they brought it upon themselves. And, the minute they landed in the New World, they've been working overtime to wear their welcome out here as well.
Yeah, I know, that's not how today's Christians tell the story. They say they had to flee to the New World because they were being "oppressed." They always say that when people refuse to buy into what ever nonsense they happen to be peddling at the time. I'm sure 16th century Europeans had plenty of more interesting and profitable things to do back then than waste their time harassing a few thousand nut-fringe Christians.
Whether fundamentalist ("Puritan") Christians were indeed oppressed or tossed out of Europe for cause, I suspect they brought it upon themselves. And, the minute they landed in the New World, they've been working overtime to wear their welcome out here as well.
(Moments in History: Did you know that the Puritans actually outlawed the celebration of Christmas for the first quarter century the spent in the New World? Yep. People started having too much fun, enjoying food, drink and engaging in general merriment. They put a stop to it. Meanwhile, back in Europe folks were finally amble to enjoy Christmas without having a people with big hats and small minds grousing about it.)
Does Apathy Make Human Rights Day Meaningless to Most Americans? US Seen as the Great Violator of Global Human Rights - By BILL CHRISTISON (former CIA
Does Apathy Make Human Rights Day Meaningless to Most Americans?
US Seen as the Great Violator of Global Human Rights
By BILL CHRISTISON
former CIA analyst
The task was to talk for three minutes -- not one second more -- on the grounds of the New Mexico State Capitol building (commonly known as the Roundhouse) on December 10, 2005. The occasion was a Peace-with-Justice Rally celebrating the anniversary of the U.N. General Assembly's adoption on December 10, 1948 of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights. Challenged by the thought that people who would never listen for ten minutes might indeed listen for three, the author of this piece spoke the following. And he fervently believes every word of it.
We need to WAKE UP! The policies of the United States are a human rights disaster. Here we are, in December 2005, engaged in an orgy of shopping and consumerism, blatantly glorifying our wealth and utterly unconcerned with the picture this orgy presents to the world's poor. The global policies of the U.S. are seen -- and justly so -- as greedy and immoral, policies that violate the human rights of the poor and the powerless everywhere.
At the same time we also glorify our military, and fight wars in which we kill and torture many people, wars that most of the world believes are designed to enlarge our own and our closest allies' wealth and power. In the process, the military-industrial complex that runs the U.S. government rakes in obscene profits.
Outside the United States it is widely understood that the true motives of the Bush administration for invading Iraq in 2003 were threefold: (1) the U.S. drive for global empire, (2) oil, and (3) the desire of the neocons in Washington to conquer Iraq in order to benefit Israel. Inside the U.S., the last of these reasons -- the pressure of the neocons for war on Israel's behalf -- is hardly ever mentioned.
This taboo on even discussing the Israeli link to the war in Iraq introduces major distortions into practically every effort to examine and change the policies that are causing massive hatred of the U.S. We should beware the "clash of civilizations" that the neocons, their rightwing Israeli allies, and the Christian fundamentalists are promoting nowadays against Islam. We should instead think seriously about what kind of future relationship the United States should have with the state of Israel.
Cheney and Rice in Hot Water - Lies, Torture and the Six Blind Mice By RAY McGOVERN (former CIA analyst)
European reaction to visiting Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice's statements on torture can be summed up in lead commentary Wednesday in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung, among the most widely respected German newspapers. Under the title "Justice à la Rice," the editor "translated" her message into these words: "The end justifies the means and terrorism can be fought with borderline methods on the outer edges of legality." He added: "Rice came to Germany to begin a new era. She has resoundingly failed to do so. Injustice remains injustice, and a wrong policy remains a wrong policy. On this basis you cannot re-launch the trans-Atlantic relationship."
There was no mushroom cloud, but Rice is radioactive nonetheless. No matter how much she and the embedded reporters traveling with her tried to spin her words, they are falling on deaf ears in Europe. Even here at home, the administration is encountering unusual skepticism in the heretofore-domesticated media. The normally sleepy editorial side of the Washington Post, for example, found it possible to lead its first editorial yesterday by reminding readers that Rice broke no new ground in claiming Wednesday that US personnel - "wherever they are" - are prohibited from using cruel or inhuman interrogation techniques. This is hardly a profile in courage for the Post: The president's spokesman, Scott McClellan, had already told reporters that Rice was merely expressing existing policy.
Trouble on the Home Front
There was no mushroom cloud, but Rice is radioactive nonetheless. No matter how much she and the embedded reporters traveling with her tried to spin her words, they are falling on deaf ears in Europe. Even here at home, the administration is encountering unusual skepticism in the heretofore-domesticated media. The normally sleepy editorial side of the Washington Post, for example, found it possible to lead its first editorial yesterday by reminding readers that Rice broke no new ground in claiming Wednesday that US personnel - "wherever they are" - are prohibited from using cruel or inhuman interrogation techniques. This is hardly a profile in courage for the Post: The president's spokesman, Scott McClellan, had already told reporters that Rice was merely expressing existing policy.
Trouble on the Home Front
The Moral Hell of Condoleezza Rice - Torture and White Phosphorous
"The captured terrorists of the 21st century do not fit easily into traditional systems of criminal or military justice, which were designed for different needs. We have to adapt."I've previously charged Condoleezza Rice with having an appalling ignorance of history. I don't mean the kind of knowledge--dates of battles, names and terms of treaties, etc.-- that earns a good grade on an exam. We know Condoleezza got good grades in school. No, I mean a deeper understanding of the economic, social, and moral forces of history and of the irrepressible role of truth despite the countless attempts to silence it.
Condoleezza Rice
Guerilla warfare, terrorism, and fanatical causes are not new to the 21st century, they are as old as human society, and governments have had many ways of dealing with them. This goes so far as governments changing around those regarded as terrorists and heroes, according to the needs of the time, much the way victors in a war define who were the good guys and bad guys.
One thing history surely does tell us is that nothing is more dangerous than Condeleezza's tendency to speak in sweeping, virtually meaningless generalizations about the people she regards as foes. Every war of aggression, every wave of state terror, every deadly fanatical cause has used just such terms. People are described with de-humanized slogans, making them easy to hate and abuse. We should all go on a personal terror alert when powerful figures talk this way.
The assertion of a special case or status in the current situation is utterly dishonest. It is more than dishonest: it is a deliberately constructed logical fallacy calculated to elicit the idea of special measures from listeners. It is America's special measures that Condoleezza went to Europe to defend.
The Torture Administration
When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933 and proceeded to carry out their savagery, many in the outside world asked how this could have happened in the land of Goethe and Beethoven. Would the people of other societies as readily accept tyranny? Sinclair Lewis, in 1935, imagined Americans turning to dictatorship under the pressures of economic distress in the Depression. He called his novel, ironically, It Can't Happen Here.
Hannah Arendt and many others have stripped us, since then, of confidence that people will resist evil in times of fear. When Serbs and Rwandan Hutus were told that they were threatened, they slaughtered their neighbors. Lately Philip Roth was plausible enough when he imagined anti-Semitism surging after an isolationist America elected Charles Lindbergh as President in 1940.
But it still comes as a shock to discover that American leaders will open the way for the torture of prisoners, that lawyers will invent justifications for it, that the President of the United States will strenuously resist legislation prohibiting cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners--and that much of the American public will be indifferent to what is being done in its name.
The pictures from Abu Ghraib, first shown to the public on April 28, 2004, evoked a powerful reaction. Americans were outraged when they saw grinning US soldiers tormenting Iraqi prisoners. But it was seeing the mistreatment that produced the outrage, or so we must now conclude. Since then the Bush Administration and its lawyers have prevented the release of any more photographs or videotapes. And the public has not reacted similarly to the disclosure, without pictures, of worse actions, including murder.
Hannah Arendt and many others have stripped us, since then, of confidence that people will resist evil in times of fear. When Serbs and Rwandan Hutus were told that they were threatened, they slaughtered their neighbors. Lately Philip Roth was plausible enough when he imagined anti-Semitism surging after an isolationist America elected Charles Lindbergh as President in 1940.
But it still comes as a shock to discover that American leaders will open the way for the torture of prisoners, that lawyers will invent justifications for it, that the President of the United States will strenuously resist legislation prohibiting cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment of prisoners--and that much of the American public will be indifferent to what is being done in its name.
The pictures from Abu Ghraib, first shown to the public on April 28, 2004, evoked a powerful reaction. Americans were outraged when they saw grinning US soldiers tormenting Iraqi prisoners. But it was seeing the mistreatment that produced the outrage, or so we must now conclude. Since then the Bush Administration and its lawyers have prevented the release of any more photographs or videotapes. And the public has not reacted similarly to the disclosure, without pictures, of worse actions, including murder.
Evangelical politics and the Gospel According to George
"Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we.”"--George W. Bush, August 5, 2004America likes to believe it believes that all citizens are equal, but that's as delusional as Young Earth Creationists' belief that T. rex was a passenger on Noah's ark. The Bush administration owes its existence to the evangelical Christian Right. Their common ideology and tactics derive from the worst that politicized religion has to offer.
In Western history, religious dogma expressed politically has been a wellspring of lies, bigotry, hate, torture, and death. Even among the faithful, some were deemed inherently inferior. For example, in the Christian tradition women were seen as the root of all evil, as was noted by St. Paul in First Timothy when he ordered Christians “suffer not a woman to teach, nor to usurp authority over the man, but to be in silence" because “Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, was in the transgression." And some people had to be eliminated ad majorem gloriam Dei. The Cathars were the first to be exterminated by Christendom's Holy Inquisition. Cathars were heretics, theologically and politically. They believed all men and women were equal, theologically and politically.
In 2004, four landlords in Allentown, Pa., refused to rent to gays, thereby violating a city anti-discrimination ordinance. They were sued. But a section of Pennsylvania's Home Rule Act, which includes Allentown, prevented the city from requiring businesses and employers not to discriminate based on sexual orientation or gender, so the landlords won the case. Their crusader attorney commented after the decision: “It's a complete victory. . . . It allows them to exercise their religious conscience in the way that they see fit. "Exercising their “religious conscience" as they saw fit was exactly what the alleged 9/11 terrorists did.
Bush's main supporters are the politicized Christian Right and their leaders who wrap themselves in the flag as they preach hate and discrimination. Rev. Lou Sheldon and his Traditional Values Coalition (TVC) come immediately to mind.
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9/11 Special - Dutch Television Documentary
"Was 9/11 more than just an attack? Could the Bush administration have had anything to gain from the attack? Two prominent European politicians, Michael Meacher and Andreas von Bulow, express their serious doubts about the official version of the 9/11 story."
Two former Government Ministers have grave doubts about what Americans call "the war on terrorism"
Two former Government Ministers have grave doubts about what Americans call "the war on terrorism"
Michael Meacher - MP - Former UK Government Minister. "The war on terror is bogus"
Andreas Von Bulow, Former German Secretary Of Defense "The official story is so inadequate and far fetched that there must be a different one"
The US has used torture for decades. All that's new is the openness about it. by Naomi Klein
By ignoring past abuses, opponents of torture are in danger of pushing it back into the shadows instead of abolishing it
It was the "Mission Accomplished" of George Bush's second term, and an announcement of that magnitude called for a suitably dramatic location. But what was the right backdrop for the infamous "We do not torture" declaration? With characteristic audacity, the Bush team settled on downtown Panama City.
It was certainly bold. An hour and a half's drive from where Bush stood, the US military ran the notorious School of the Americas from 1946 to 1984, a sinister educational institution that, if it had a motto, might have been "We do torture". It is here in Panama, and later at the school's new location in Fort Benning, Georgia, where the roots of the current torture scandals can be found.
According to declassified training manuals, SOA students - military and police officers from across the hemisphere - were instructed in many of the same "coercive interrogation" techniques that have since gone to Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib: early morning capture to maximise shock, immediate hooding and blindfolding, forced nudity, sensory deprivation, sensory overload, sleep and food "manipulation", humiliation, extreme temperatures, isolation, stress positions - and worse. In 1996 President Clinton's Intelligence Oversight Board admitted that US-produced training materials condoned "execution of guerrillas, extortion, physical abuse, coercion and false imprisonment".
Some Panama school graduates went on to commit the continent's greatest war crimes of the past half-century: the murders of Archbishop Oscar Romero and six Jesuit priests in El Salvador; the systematic theft of babies from Argentina's "disappeared" prisoners; the massacre of 900 civilians in El Mozote in El Salvador; and military coups too numerous to list here.
Yet when covering the Bush announcement, not a single mainstream news outlet mentioned the location's sordid history. How could they? That would require something totally absent from the debate: an admission that the embrace of torture by US officials has been integral to US foreign policy since the Vietnam war.
White House holds bird flu drill with military leaders
10 Dec 2005 Warning an outbreak may be inevitable, the White House on Saturday conducted a test of its readiness for a feared bird flu pandemic and said federal agencies fared "quite well" [Yes, they did so well with Hurricane Katrina, I can hardly wait for their response to a bird flu pandemic.] without offering any details. Cabinet secretaries, military leaders and other top officials took part in the four-hour tabletop drill, which officials said was designed to assess the level of federal preparedness for a possible outbreak of bird flu or another deadly virus. "This is about being ready for what inevitably will come," Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said. [How does Leavitt know that a pandemic is 'inevitable?' Apparently, the Bush bioterror team is ready to attack, and a full-blown police state is surely on the way.]
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Warning an outbreak may be inevitable, the White House on Saturday conducted a test of its readiness for a feared bird flu pandemic and said federal agencies fared "quite well" without offering any details.
Cabinet secretaries, military leaders and other top officials took part in the four-hour tabletop drill, which officials said was designed to assess the level of federal preparedness for a possible outbreak of bird flu or another deadly virus.
"This is about being ready for what inevitably will come," Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said.
But the White House refused to divulge details about the exercise and the test results, and officials said afterward that it was clear that state and local governments would have to assume a leading role.
"Quite frankly, I think we did quite well," White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend said of the federal agencies that took part in the exercise.
The White House test came one day after a Thai boy became the 70th person to die of bird flu, which usually strikes those in close contact with infected fowl or their droppings.
Experts fear the deadly virus, known as H5N1, will mutate into a form that can easily infect and pass between people, causing a pandemic.
"We're quite concerned now about this H5N1 virus as scientists suggest that it could, in fact, mutate into a virus of major concern. So we need to be ready," Leavitt said.
HHS has projected that in a pandemic 92 million Americans will become sick and that as many as 2 million will die. Schools will close, businesses will be disrupted and essential services may break down.
"We currently have no evidence that a pandemic flu in this country is imminent. That said, we are fairly warned, and the time to prepare for that pandemic is now," Townsend said.
The preparedness drill was conducted in offices next to the White House.
Approximately 20 officials took part, including Townsend, Leavitt, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.
U.S. President George W. Bush did not participate.
"The exercises are just that. It's a drill, it's meant to test, it's meant to push federal resources to the breaking point and to ensure that we're prepared, that we identify gaps and then we plan to fill them. We accomplished that this morning," Townsend said.
She said the biggest lesson from the test was the leading role that state and local governments would have to play in responding to a pandemic.
"This is not going to be a federal answer to the problem," she said. "The federal government has got a support role to play. But frankly, I think, really very important is the state and local efforts."
Leavitt said officials discussed at length how they would deal with limited U.S. supplies of antiviral and vaccines.
"We lack the capacity in this country to manufacture the number of courses needed to give everyone a vaccine," Leavitt said, adding that the United States also needed a surveillance system to detect the virus before it spreads.
Bush, who went for a bike ride in Maryland during the preparedness drill, has proposed a $7.1 billion bird flu plan, but Congress has yet to fund it.
The plan calls for building stockpiles of influenza drugs, which would not provide a cure but which might help make the most vulnerable patients less ill.
"We urge Congress to fully fund the president's strategy," Townsend said.
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Warning an outbreak may be inevitable, the White House on Saturday conducted a test of its readiness for a feared bird flu pandemic and said federal agencies fared "quite well" without offering any details.
Cabinet secretaries, military leaders and other top officials took part in the four-hour tabletop drill, which officials said was designed to assess the level of federal preparedness for a possible outbreak of bird flu or another deadly virus.
"This is about being ready for what inevitably will come," Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt said.
But the White House refused to divulge details about the exercise and the test results, and officials said afterward that it was clear that state and local governments would have to assume a leading role.
"Quite frankly, I think we did quite well," White House homeland security adviser Fran Townsend said of the federal agencies that took part in the exercise.
The White House test came one day after a Thai boy became the 70th person to die of bird flu, which usually strikes those in close contact with infected fowl or their droppings.
Experts fear the deadly virus, known as H5N1, will mutate into a form that can easily infect and pass between people, causing a pandemic.
"We're quite concerned now about this H5N1 virus as scientists suggest that it could, in fact, mutate into a virus of major concern. So we need to be ready," Leavitt said.
HHS has projected that in a pandemic 92 million Americans will become sick and that as many as 2 million will die. Schools will close, businesses will be disrupted and essential services may break down.
"We currently have no evidence that a pandemic flu in this country is imminent. That said, we are fairly warned, and the time to prepare for that pandemic is now," Townsend said.
The preparedness drill was conducted in offices next to the White House.
Approximately 20 officials took part, including Townsend, Leavitt, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and Marine Corps Gen. Peter Pace, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, White House spokesman Trent Duffy said.
U.S. President George W. Bush did not participate.
"The exercises are just that. It's a drill, it's meant to test, it's meant to push federal resources to the breaking point and to ensure that we're prepared, that we identify gaps and then we plan to fill them. We accomplished that this morning," Townsend said.
She said the biggest lesson from the test was the leading role that state and local governments would have to play in responding to a pandemic.
"This is not going to be a federal answer to the problem," she said. "The federal government has got a support role to play. But frankly, I think, really very important is the state and local efforts."
Leavitt said officials discussed at length how they would deal with limited U.S. supplies of antiviral and vaccines.
"We lack the capacity in this country to manufacture the number of courses needed to give everyone a vaccine," Leavitt said, adding that the United States also needed a surveillance system to detect the virus before it spreads.
Bush, who went for a bike ride in Maryland during the preparedness drill, has proposed a $7.1 billion bird flu plan, but Congress has yet to fund it.
The plan calls for building stockpiles of influenza drugs, which would not provide a cure but which might help make the most vulnerable patients less ill.
"We urge Congress to fully fund the president's strategy," Townsend said.
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