-Caveat Lector- also has zimbabwe, bush secrecy, the daily enron
March 13, 2002 ZNet Commentary By John Pilger Venezuela: The Next Chile? by John Pilger New Statesman (London) March 11, 2002 He has won two elections, and he has made a start on relieving poverty. So now the US wants to get rid of Venezuela's president. Almost 30 years after the violent destruction of the reformist government of Salvador Allende in Chile, a repeat performance is being planned in Venezuela. Little of this has been reported in Britain. Indeed, little is known of the achievements of the government of Hugo Chavez, who won presidential elections in 1998 and again in 2000 by the largest majority in 40 years. Following the principles of a movement called BolIvarism, named after the South American independence hero Simon BolIvar, Chavez has implemented reforms that have begun to shift the great wealth of Venezuela, principally from its oil, towards the 80 per cent of his people who live in poverty. In 49 laws adopted by the Venezuelan Congress last November, Chavez began serious land reform, and guaranteed indigenous and women's rights and free healthcare and education up to university level. Chavez faces enemies that Allende would recognise. The "oligarchies", which held power since the 1950s during the corrupt bipartisan reign of the Social Christians and Democratic Action, have declared war on the reforming president, backed by the Catholic Church and a trade union hierarchy and the media, both controlled by the right. What has enraged them is a modest agrarian reform that allows the state to expropriate and redistribute idle land; and a law that limits the exploitation of oil reserves, reinforcing a constitutional ban on the privatisation of the state oil company. http://www.flybynews.com/cgi-local/newspro/viewnews.cgi?newsid1016047396,1820, Earth First! vs the FBI and Oakland Police Department A Historic Lawsuit for Civil Liberties The Earth First! lawsuit against the FBI and Oakland Police Department goes to trial on April 8, 2002 at the Oakland Federal Courthouse in California. On May 24, 1990, Earth First! organizers, Darryl Cherney and Judi Bari, were the victims of a motion triggered car bomb. They were driving through Oakland on a tour to promote Redwood Summer, a nonviolent direct action campaign protesting the logging of the last old growth redwoods. The FBI and Oakland Police showed up at the bomb scene within minutes and quickly arrested the pair for transporting the bomb, despite ample evidence that Judi was the intended target. The Alameda County DA eventually refused to press charges against the pair due to lack of evidence. No real investigation to find the bombers was ever done and the bombers remain at large today. Instead the FBI used the bombing as an opportunity to vilify Earth First! and expand surveillance of nonviolent activists. In 1991, Judi and Darryl filed a civil rights lawsuit against the FBI and Oakland Police Department for false arrest, illegal search and seizure and conspiracy to violate their first amendment rights. The lawsuit is exposing the FBI's continued use of the notorious and now illegal "COINTELPRO" program- the FBI campaign to, in their words, "disrupt and neutralize" political dissidents. Judi died of breast cancer in 1997 but the case survives. This lawsuit is more important than ever! Since September 11th, there has been an alarming roll back in civil liberties. The FBI has been given more powers, without oversight or accountability. The Earth First! lawsuit honors the legacy of Judi Bari and exposes the FBI's misuse of authority to harass and intimidate nonviolent political activists. With your help, the historic trial can reverse the growing power of the FBI to trample on our right to dissent. http://www.ips-dc.org/brownbag/index.htm Tuesday Brownbag Seminars at the Institute for Policy Studies Tuesday March 19: Doublespeak 2002: Propaganda and the Shadow Government In this session, we will screen the film "Faces of the Enemy" (1987), and have a discussion with Christopher Simpson, Associate Professor of Communications at American University and author of Blowback: America's Recruitment of Nazis and Its Effects on the Cold War (1987) and The Science of Coercion (1994). Simpson is an expert on U.S. intelligence agencies and operations and on how public relations campaigns coerce the public to re-write (American) history. Simpson will discuss the recent revelations of the Office of Strategic Information/Information Awareness Office and the Shadow Government, and what this means for our understanding of the war on terror. "Faces of the Enemy" documents how warring countries use propaganda and misinformation to prepare their populations for war. We will compare how this Cold War-era film about demonizing the "other" is particularly relevant to today's demonization of Muslims and Arabs. US sends suspects to face torture Duncan Campbell in Los Angeles Tuesday March 12, 2002 The Guardian The US has been secretly sending prisoners suspected of al-Qaida connections to countries where torture during interrogation is legal, according to US diplomatic and intelligence sources. Prisoners moved to such countries as Egypt and Jordan can be subjected to torture and threats to their families to extract information sought by the US in the wake of the September 11 attacks. The normal extradition procedures have been bypassed in the transportation of dozens of prisoners suspected of terrorist connections, according to a report in the Washington Post. The suspects have been taken to countries where the CIA has close ties with the local intelligence services and where torture is permitted. According to the report, US intelligence agents have been involved in a number of interrogations. A CIA spokesman yesterday said the agency had no comment on the allegations. A state department spokesman said the US had been "working very closely with other countries - It's a global fight against terrorism". 'Inadequate' US troops pulled out of battleground >From Catherine Philp in Leg Diwawl, Afghanistan March 12, 2002 The Times (UK) HUNDREDS of American troops were pulled out of the ground battle with al-Qaeda forces because they failed to adapt to the guerrilla tactics required for fighting in the mountains, according to their Afghan allies. More than 1,000 Afghan troops rushed to the front line yesterday to take up the slack after the withdrawal of 400 US troops from the mountains of eastern Afghanistan. The American military has described the withdrawal as a tactical reappraisal of their battleplan, but Afghan commanders told a different story of inexperienced American soldiers unable to advance through the unfamiliar mountains to track down al-Qaeda and Taleban foes. "They were not trained for the kind of fighting we do in the mountains and, in these conditions, their kind of fighting is useless," Commander Allah Mohammed said. "They were weakening our morale, it was better for them to go" ....Afghan commanders believe that the US has exaggerated the number of casualties in the bombing campaign, saying that at least several hundred al-Qaeda forces are up in mountain caves ready to fight back. http://www.globalresearch.ca/articles/PAL203A.html IMF/World Bank/Enron/Bush - Grand Theft Larceny Transcript of Interview of Greg Palast, Journalist for BBC and Observer, London, by Alex Jones Alex Jones Radio Show, Monday (PM), March 4, 2002 Centre for Research on Globalisation (CRG), globalresearch.ca , 8 March 2002 GP: So what's happening is - this is just one of them. And by the way, it's not just anyone who gets a piece of the action. The water system of Buenos Aires was sold off for a song to a company called Enron. A pipeline was sold off, that runs between Argentina and Chile, was sold off to a company called Enron. AJ: And then the globalists blow out the Enron after transferring the assets to another dummy corporation and then they just roll the theft items off. GP: You've got it. And by the way, you know why they moved the pipeline to Enron is that they got a call from somebody named George W. Bush in 1988. http://www.nytimes.com/reuters/news/news-attack-detained.html March 13, 2002 Hundreds of Arabs Still Detained in U.S. Jails By REUTERS MIAMI (Reuters) - Six months after the attack on the World Trade Center, hundreds of Arabs remain detained in U.S. prisons and the net has widened to include asylum seekers, some women and children who fled persecution in the Middle East, human rights advocates say. The Justice Department has refused to issue a list of those detained or give a full accounting of the number. In its most recent statement on Feb. 15, it said there were 327 individuals detained on immigration violations or being investigated for ''possible terrorist connections.'' But that did not include those being held under sealed indictments or as material witnesses, a number which the Justice Department will not divulge, or the asylum seekers. ``We have absolutely no idea how many they have behind bars and neither does anybody else because the government simply will not tell us,'' said Hussein Ibish of the Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A25751-2002Mar14.html Zimbabwe Faces Stronger Sanctions By Ravi Nessman Associated Press Writer Thursday, March 14, 2002; 7:37 AM HARARE, Zimbabwe –– Zimbabwe's government faced the prospect of stronger international sanctions Thursday following the re-election of President Robert Mugabe in a vote condemned by the international community and election observers as deeply flawed. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai, who had posed the most significant challenge to Mugabe's 22 years of autocratic rule, promptly rejected the results. "It is the biggest electoral fraud I have ever witnessed in my life," he said Wednesday. The election, widely criticized as being tainted by violence and intimidation, prompted the United States and Britain to threaten increased sanctions against Mugabe and his allies. Disapproval from African nations was muted, however, and South African observers said the vote should be considered legitimate. For Bush, secrecy is a matter of loyalty http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/usatoday/20020314/ts_usatoday/3 939807 For Bush, secrecy is a matter of loyalty Thu Mar 14, 6:13 AM ET Laurence McQuillan USA TODAY WASHINGTON -- The Bush administration has refused to tell Congress the names of business executives and others who met with Vice President Cheney's energy task force before it proposed a new energy policy. It has encouraged agencies to reject public requests for documents under the Freedom of Information Act and is providing Justice Department (news - web sites) lawyers to defend rejections. It kept nearly all members of Congress in the dark about a ''shadow government'' of 75 to 150 executive branch officials living in underground bunkers at secret sites outside Washington in case terrorists strike the nation's capital. Even House Speaker Dennis Hastert, next in line to the presidency after Cheney, was only vaguely aware of the emergency plan, aides say. http://www.thedailyenron.com/documents/20020307061926-97282.asp Bush Does Not Measure Up to Own Standards As part of its ongoing strategy to paint Enron as simply a business scandal, the White House leaked news yesterday of President Bush's plans to release a new set of standards for executives and accountants. It's a move not without risk for Bush since it invites journalists to compare Bush's own actions as a Texas oil company executive against his freshly minted standards. As apparently weak as Bush's new rules are, a comparison will show that oil executive George W. Bush would not have passed muster himself. Back in 1986 Bush's oil company, Spectrum, was teetering on the brink of bankruptcy. As tends to happen in the Bush clan, a group of businessmen close to his father absorbed Spectrum into their company, Harken Energy. George W. Bush was facing bankruptcy one day and the next day he had $600,000 worth of Harken stock in hand, a $80,000-a-year salary and a stock option arrangement that allowed him to buy Harken stock at 40% below market value. In all, the deal put well over $1 million in his pocket over the next few years -- even though Harken itself lost millions. Bush also borrowed $180,375 from the company - a loan that was later "forgiven." (In 1989 and 1990 alone - according to the company's Securities and Exchange Commission filing - Harken's board "forgave" $341,000 in loans to its executives.) <A HREF="http://www.ctrl.org/";>www.ctrl.org</A> DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER ========== CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance�not soap-boxing�please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'�with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds�is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. 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