[CTRL] CIA 'sabotaged inspections and hid weapons details'
-Caveat Lector- CIA 'sabotaged inspections and hid weapons details' http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=378163 By Andrew Buncombe in Washington 14 February 2003 Senior democrats have accused the CIA of sabotaging weapons inspections in Iraq by refusing to co-operate fully with the UN and withholding crucial information about Saddam Hussein's arsenal. Led by Senator Carl Levin, the Democrats accused the CIA of making an assessment that the inspections were unlikely to be a success and then ensuring they would not be. They have accused the CIA director of lying about what information on the suspected location of weapons of mass destruction had been passed on. The row is of heightened significance given the Bush administration's preparations to argue later today before the UN Security Council that the inspections have run their course and it is now time to move to military action. France, Russia, Germany and other members of the Security Council are likely to back a counter- proposal to increase the number of inspectors, providing them, if necessary, with the support of armed UN soldiers, as a means of avoiding a military strike. The accusation of US sabotage emerged from a series of Senate hearings on Capitol Hill. On Tuesday, George Tenet, the CIA director, told the armed services committee panel that the agency had provided the UN inspectors with all the information it had on high and moderate interest locations inside Iraq those sites where there was a possibility of finding banned weapons. But Mr Tenet later told a different panel that he had been mistaken and that there were in fact a handful of locations the UN inspectors may not have known about. Senator Levin, from Michigan, responded by saying the CIA director had not been telling the truth. Citing a number of classified letters he had obtained from the agency, he said it was clear the CIA had not shared information with the inspectors about a large number of sites of significant value. He said the CIA had told him additional information would be passed to the inspectors within the next few days. Mr Levin pushed Mr Tenet on whether he thought the inspections had any value. The CIA director replied: Unless [President Saddam] provides the data to build on, provides the access, provides the unfettered access that he's supposed to, provides us with surveillance capability, there is little chance you're going to find weapons of mass destruction under the rubric he's created inside the country ... The inspectors have been put in a very difficult position by his behaviour. Mr Levin said later he believed the CIA had, in effect, taken the decision to undermine the inspections. When they've taken the position that inspections are useless, they are bound to fail, he told The Washington Post. We have undermined the inspectors. Mr Levin has raised his concerns with the White House. In a letter to President Bush, the senator asked that America provide the inspectors with as much information as available. He wrote: The American people want the inspections to proceed, want the United States to share the information we have with the UN inspectors and want us to obtain United Nations support before military action is used against Iraq. 14 February 2003 04:50 Search this site: Printable Story Legal | Contact us | Using our Content | Advertise in print | Subscribe to the print edition | Sign up for our free daily news update | Other Digital sites © 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it. The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sut A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being
[CTRL] Do the Crime, Do the Time
-Caveat Lector- Israel scorns 'anti-semitic little Belgium' http://www.guardian.co.uk/israel/Story/0,2763,895288,00.html Furious backlash after court rules against Sharon Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem Friday February 14, 2003 The Guardian Israel accused Belgium of anti-semitism yesterday following a court decision which could lead to the prosecution of Ariel Sharon, the Israeli prime minister. The Belgian supreme court ruled on Wednesday that Israeli military commanders could be prosecuted for complicity in the massacre of 800 Palestinians in Lebanon in 1982. Binyamin Netanyahu, Israel's foreign minister, summoned the Belgian ambassador yesterday and told him that the action of the court was equivalent to a blood libel against the Jewish people. He also asked the Israeli ambassador to Belgium to return for consultations. The Israeli justice minister described Belgium as a small and insignificant country while one of the country's leading rabbis accused Belgium of standing by and watching, when Jewish blood was spilt like water and ignored victims' cries. The blood libel accused Jews in medieval Europe of murdering Christian children and using their blood to bake unleavened bread. There is no evidence that it ever happened although the rumour led to the massacres of Jews in several European cities. Israel's attack on Belgium is the latest dispute between Israel and Europe. In January, Mr Sharon said the EU had no relevance in proposed peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians. He also undermined a conference organised by the UK government on reform in the Palestinian Authority. Mr Netanyahu told the ambassador: Israel will not accept another blood libel against the Jewish nation. It's an outrageous decision and it reminds us of 'Old Europe', and all its sicknesses. The Palestinians were massacred by a Christian militia following the retreat of the PLO's forces from Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps, outside Beirut. Reports at the time said the Israeli army allowed the militia into the camps which they guarded while the massacre continued. The Israeli government carried out an inquiry into the massacre and Mr Sharon was forced to resign as defence minister. The Belgian decision means that Mr Sharon could be prosecuted when he steps down as prime minister, and other commanders could be prosecuted immediately if they are extradited to Belgium. A spokesman for the Belgian embassy in Tel Aviv said it would not comment on what was a judicial matter. Belgium is Israel's biggest trade partner after the United States mainly as a result of the diamond trade. In 2000 it exported £854m of goods and services to Israel and imported £2.2bn. Meir Sheetrit, Israel's minister of justice, said Belgium was a small and insignificant country, adding, it is a disgrace for the legal system in that country. It has the clear scent of a personal hunt for Prime Minister Sharon, which originated from a deliberate Palestinian initiative. Legally, this is practically a world precedent, a law which allows for the prosecution of a person for alleged actions in the past. It has a clear retroactive nature to it and is, therefore, unprecedented. The Ashkenazi chief rabbi, Yisrael Meir Lau, said he was outraged that Belgium was taking on the role of world policeman. It is regretful that a state which remained quiet at a time when it should have been screaming out in the name of humanity, is now expressing itself with such a pretentious and hypocritical voice, he said. Other countries, including Britain, have legislation to try foreign nationals for crimes that have been committed outside their territory. Israel has tried a foreign national for crimes committed in the past in another country. In 1960 Israeli agents abducted Adolf Eichmann, the Austrian chief of the Jewish office in the Gestapo and an important implementer of the Final Solution, from Argentina. The next year he was found guilty of crimes against the Jewish people and humanity and subsequently executed. Senior Israeli sources said the minister's reaction and the decision to recall the ambassador was an overreaction. A former director-general of the foreign ministry Alon Liel told Army Radio: Recalling an ambassador is a very serious step. We have to remember that we are talking about a decision from a court, not from the Belgian government. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply
[CTRL] Fabricated Information
-Caveat Lector- False Alarm? Terror Alert Partly Based on Fabricated Information By Brian Ross, Len Tepper and Jill Rackmill http://abcnews.go.com/sections/wnt/US/terror030213_falsealarm.html Feb. 13 A key piece of the information leading to recent terror alerts was fabricated, according to two senior law enforcement officials in Washington and New York. Print This Page Email This Page The officials said that a claim made by a captured al Qaeda member that Washington, New York or Florida would be hit by a dirty bomb sometime this week had proven to be a product of his imagination. The informant described a detailed plan that an al Qaeda cell operating in either Virginia or Detroit had developed a way to slip past airport scanners with dirty bombs encased in shoes, suitcases, or laptops, sources told ABCNEWS. The informant reportedly cited specific targets of government buildings and Christian or clerical centers. This piece of that puzzle turns out to be fabricated and therefore the reason for a lot of the alarm, particularly in Washington this week, has been dissipated after they found out that this information was not true, said Vince Cannistraro, former CIA counter-terrorism chief and ABCNEWS consultant. It was only after the threat level was elevated to orange meaning high last week, that the informant was subjected to a polygraph test by the FBI, officials told ABCNEWS. This person did not pass, said Cannistraro. According to officials, the FBI and the CIA are pointing fingers at each other. An FBI spokesperson told ABCNEWS today he was not familiar with the scenario, but did not think it was accurate. Despite the fabricated report, there are no plans to change the threat level. Officials said other intelligence has been validated and that the high level of precautions is fully warranted. New Yorkers Taking Police Presence in Stride In New York, police are out in force in the subways, at train stations and airports and at the bridge and tunnel crossings into the city with radiation detectors and gas masks. In a press conference this afternoon, Mayor Michael Bloomberg said 16,000 law enforcement officials trained to combat terrorism were deployed in the city. Air patrols have also returned to New York. We are constantly changing what we're doing so no one can predict what instruments we'll be using and where we'll be going, Bloomberg said. The mayor stressed that while people should be vigilant, they should also be aware that New York City has been on code level orange for 17 months since the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks that destroyed the World Trade Center. New Yorkers, and people around the country, should not be frozen by fear and must carry on with their daily lives, the mayor said. New York Gov. George Pataki said it is important for people to be alert to anything suspicious around them, but that they should not spread rumors that could create panic. Threat Is Still There By no means do people believe the threat has evaporated, said Cannistraro. The threat is still there, the question really is the timing and when this is going to happen. It's not the first time a captured al Qaeda operative has made up a huge story and scared a lot of people. The FBI concluded the information that led to a nationwide hunt for five men suspected of infiltrating the United States on Christmas Eve was fabricated by an informant, and the agency called off the alert sparked by the information. Officials said this one got so far because it coincided with other intelligence, that officials still believe points to a coming attack, timed to hostilities with Iraq. PRINT THIS PAGE | SEND THIS TO A FRIEND | VIEW MOST EMAILED Search Now: Copyright © 2003 ABCNEWS Internet Ventures. Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it. The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sut A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are
[CTRL] Mirror.co.uk - Front Pages
-Caveat Lector- http://www.mirror.co.uk/frontpages/ A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om attachment: B
[CTRL] Rummy the UN-American
-Caveat Lector- Berlin tirade widens rift with Washington http://www.guardian.co.uk/germany/article/0,2763,895348,00.html Franco-German axis Schröder signals further opposition to military strike John Hooper in Berlin and Ian Black in Brussels Friday February 14, 2003 The Guardian The German defence minister yesterday reignited his government's simmering dispute with Washington, lashing out at his US counterpart, Donald Rumsfeld, for remarks he described as un-American and more than impertinent. Peter Struck's angry riposte, after months of taunts and slights from the US defence secretary, was at odds with his claim that an end was in sight to Berlin's quarrel with Washington in Nato. Backed by the US, Turkey has asked that plans be drawn up for it to receive surveillance planes, Patriot missiles and biochemical protection units in the event of war with Iraq. The alliance has been paralysed on the issue by German, French and Belgian vetoes. During a heated debate in the German parliament, Mr Struck said: We will reach a decision in the Nato council at the latest on Saturday - after the sitting of the security council - which corresponds fully to the interests of Turkey. Mr Struck's assurance implied that a deal had been done behind the scenes on an issue some officials have warned imperils Nato's very existence. But there was little sign of a compromise in Brussels where alliance ambassadors yesterday cancelled another crisis meeting on Nato. France said last night that its position was unchanged: defence planning could suggest support for military action against Iraq and prejudge security council decisions, said a French foreign ministry spokesman. Meanwhile the EU has invited the UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, to an emergency summit that has been called to try to heal Europe's divisions. Yesterday Tony Blair rang a number of European colleagues and also wrote a stern letter to the EU's Greek presidency, urging that the summit, on Monday in Brussels, did not back away from the threat of military action. Mr Annan's presence will underline the importance Europe attaches to following the UN route. Germany has been seething since Mr Rumsfeld last week bracketed Germany with Cuba and Libya as nations that had withheld support for the US build-up against Iraq. It's just unacceptable, said Mr Struck. It's beyond impertinent. It is even un-American when one considers fairness is practically an American virtue. Chancellor Gerhard Schröder had earlier given a vigorous defence of Germany's position. Staking a claim to the moral high ground, Mr Schröder told MPs: The chief duty of international politics is to prevent war. No politics of expediency or security doctrine should lead us to become accustomed to war as normal political means. In a remark suggesting Germany was bent on opposing a second UN resolution authorising military action, he said: To reject a war is not to be condemned to appeasement. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it. The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sut A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL
[CTRL] Aziz's welcome fuels anger
-Caveat Lector- http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-577475,00.html February 14, 2003 Italy Aziz's welcome fuels US anger against Europe From Richard Owen in Rome IN SUIT and tie rather than his trademark military uniform, Tariq Aziz, the Iraqi Deputy Prime Minister, flew into Rome yesterday amid a deepening rift between Washington and the Vatican. His five-day visit to Rome and Assisi has infuriated the Bush Administration and worsened the United Statess strained relations with Europe. The Bush Administration has complained vigorously to the Vatican that the Pope, who receives Mr Aziz today, has sent an envoy to Baghdad but not to the US. America has sent a conservative Catholic scholar, Michael Novak, to persuade the Vatican that it was pursuing a just war. Vatican officials point out that Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, did not find time to call on the Pope when in Rome last week for talks with Signor Berlusconi. The Vatican has considered sending Cardinal Pio Laghi, a former ambassador to Washington, as an emissary to the US, but instead the Pope sent Cardinal Roger Etchegaray to Baghdad. He is due to meet Saddam Hussain tomorrow. Mr Aziz said that the USs real intentions were oil and domination and praised the Vatican for doing their best to stop this aggression. He said that the US had made up its mind to attack whatever concessions Iraq makes and that, consequently, he would not invite the Pope to visit Baghdad becausewe cannot guarantee his security. Later he said that UN weapons inspectors would be able to prove Iraq did not have weapons of mass destruction if given enough time. On the eve of the UN Security Council briefing by Hans Blix, the chief weapons inspector, Mr Aziz dismissed charges that Iraqs al-Samoud 2 missile is in breach of UN resolutions. The main problem is that Iraqi missiles of a short range do not have a guidance system, and when a missile does not have a guidance system it can go five, ten or fifteen kilometres beyond target, he said. That is not very dangerous and must not be exaggerated. At the Italian Parliament Mr Aziz met leaders of the Centre Left Opposition. Despite his strident criticisms of the Berlusconi Government for its support of Mr Bushs policies on Iraq, many on the Right were also keen to share the TV limelight. Franco Frattini, the Foreign Minister, said that he would meet Mr Aziz today, but would firmly insist that Iraq disarm immediately, totally, and effectively. Roberto Formigoni, the Centre Right President of Lombardy and an old acquaintance of Mr Aziz, claimed after meeting him that there was still a chance for peace. Mr Aziz added that he would put his uniform back on and fight if war broke out. Asked if Iraq would use non-conventional weapons, he replied: We dont have weapons of that kind, consequently we cannot use them. We had them in 1991, but did not use them then. Iraq was merely the first to pay the price of the new post Cold War American arrogance. Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it. The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sut A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL
[CTRL] BO'Re Illy All Wet
-Caveat Lector-
Fox Host in Hot Seat For Uses of Questionable Ethnic Term
By Jeff McKay
CNSNews.com Correspondent
February 12, 2003
http://www.cnsnews.com/ViewNation.asp?Page=\Nation\archive\200302
\NAT20030212b.html
(Editor's Note: Contains language some readers may find objectionable.)
(CNSNews.com) - The host of the highest rated primetime news program on
cable television is facing criticism after using a disparaging term for
Mexicans during a broadcast last week.
Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly, host of The O'Reilly Factor program,
used the term wetback during a Feb. 6 discussion of immigration
problems along the U.S. - Mexico border.
During a segment of the show featuring Rep. Silvestre Reyes (D-Tex.),
O'Reilly advocated the use of military forces to control illegal immigration
and smuggling along the border, saying We'd save lives because Mexican
wetbacks, whatever you want to call them, the coyotes, they're not going
to do what they're doing now, so people aren't going to die in the
desert, according to a transcript of the program.
The word 'wetback' is a slang term for Mexicans who swim across the Rio
Grande River to illegally enter the U.S. from Mexico and is considered by
some to be offensive.
But it's apparently not the first time O'Reilly has used the term to describe
illegal immigrants from Mexico. According to a report in the Jan. 5, 2003
edition of The Morning Call of Allentown, Penn., O'Reilly criticized the
Immigration and Naturalization Service for not keeping the wetbacks out
of the U.S.
The newspaper reported that O'Reilly was the featured speaker at a
fundraising event in Easton, Penn. when he made the January reference.
When contacted for comment, an official with Fox News in New York
repeated an earlier statement by the network. The network doesn't
condone the use of racial epithets nor does Bill, said Fox News spokesman
Robert Zimmerman.
O'Reilly's use of the term during the January fundraiser in Pennsylvania
apparently caught Zimmerman off guard. This is news to me, said
Zimmerman, who declined further comment.
We find the comment made to be highly offensive, said Ashley Atwell,
press secretary for Reyes, who is Mexican-American. The issue {Reyes}
broached with Mr. O'Reilly is a passionate issue for the people the
congressman serves. They don't want the military on the borders.
Reyes is also a former U.S. Border Patrol agent and served as chief of the
U.S. Border Patrol in the McAllen and El Paso areas between 1984 and
1995. Reyes is opposed to using American military forces along the Mexican
border.
Atwell admitted this type of questionable slang has been used before, and
said the Hispanic Caucus in Congress has dealt with situations like this in
the past.
It is regrettable. We consider the term 'wetback' to be a slur and
offensive to Mexican-Americans, stated a spokeswoman for the
Congressional Hispanic Caucus who would not give her name.
O'Reilly was not available for comment, but was quoted by the New York
Times in a Feb. 10 report that he was groping for a term to describe the
industry that brings people in here. It was not meant to disparage people
in any way.
While O'Reilly's use of the comment has drawn criticism in some quarters,
it's been muted elsewhere.
When representatives for Hispanic Magazine, based in Coral Gables, Florida;
and the Washington, D.C.- based Mexican-American Legal Defense and
Education Fund were contacted, both organizations said they were
unaware of the episode and declined comment.
Even at Reyes' office, inquiries have been limited, according to Atwell. It
hasn't been an all-consuming issue, said Atwell.
O'Reilly himself has been critical of others for their use of disparaging
language in the past.
During a segment in his Jan. 24 show about a DaimlerChrysler vice
president referring to conservative critics of Jesse Jackson as myopic,
O'Reilly said, I don't like those drive-by - pardon the pun - comments, and,
if this were directed toward liberals or anyone else, I would have the same
problem, according to a transcript of the program.
Send a Letter to the Editor about this article.
Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article
have to stand on their own merits.
In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material
is distributed without charge or profit to those who have
expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information
for non-profit research and educational purposes only.
Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do
not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera-
tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and
rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is
written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on
the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after
careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with
reason and
[CTRL] fear and panic as instruments of war
-Caveat Lector- World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/terr-f14.shtml WSWS : News Analysis : North America The US terror alert Washington employs fear and panic as instruments of war By Bill Vann 14 February 2003 Back to screen version| Send this link by email | Email the author The Bush administration, together with the government of Tony Blair in Britain, has over the past week launched a concerted campaign to sow fear and terror among the American and British people in an effort to overcome widespread opposition to the impending invasion of Iraq. Following the Homeland Security Departments declaration of a code orange terror alert in the US, humvees mounted with anti-aircraft batteries have been deployed in the shadows of the Washington Monument and the US Capitol, while machine-gun toting SWAT teams have been sent into the streets of New York City. In London, tanks and combat troops are patrolling Heathrow Airport. Why has code orange, signifying a high threat of terrorist attacks, been declared? No US official has offered a specific or credible reason. Vague references are made to increased chatter overheard by intelligence agencies, the end of the Haj in Mecca, etc. There is not a single verifiable fact. The US media makes no attempt to critically examine the governments claims. On the contrary, it accepts every claim made by the government as fact, while working to hype the warnings and promote popular panic and anxiety. NBC Nightly News, for example, on Thursday included a segment on the operationsalleged without any substantiationof Al Qaeda cells supposedly active within the US. In announcing code orange, Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge insisted that the alert was based on the accumulation of credible corroborated sources, none of which are connected to the possibility of military involvement with Iraq. Ridges words were obviously aimed at countering the well-founded suspicion among broad layers of the public that the terror warning has everything to do with the coming military involvement with Iraq. What purpose does the terror alert serve? It has nothing to do with protecting the American people. For all of the pronouncements, there is no indication whatsoever that the US government has developed any serious public health plan to deal with a mass disaster caused by chemical, biological or nuclear attacks. Rather, the Bush administration is proposing to slash $2 billion in funding for firefighters and other emergency workers who would respond to a disaster, while urging members of the public to buy duct tape and plastic sheeting, materials that most experts believe would be useless in such an emergency. As with the terror alerts announced after the September 11 hijack bombings, the people are given no serious instructions as to how they should respond. Government officials advise them to proceed with their lives as normal, but be more alert. The only substance of such instructions is for the American people to accept as a fact of life the presence of troops, tanks and missile batteries on the streets and at public venues, and accede to the erosion of their civil liberties. The real objectives behind the administrations color-coded terror warnings are political. First, they serve to put the entire political and media establishment on notice that there is to be no more questioning of the administrations war policy, on pain of being charged with aiding and abetting terrorism. Both the Democratic politicians and the major print and broadcast outlets have obediently complied. Second, they provide a pretext for a crackdown on popular dissent. It can hardly be an accident that the warnings specifically referred to the heightened possibility of a terrorist attack through this weekend, coinciding with mass demonstrations on every continent that are expected to bring 10 to 15 million people into the streets. Already, the attempts to organize such protests in the US have met with unprecedented attacks on fundamental democratic rights, with the New York City Police Department, backed by a posse of federal judges, denying demonstrators the right to march. The latest alert was issued in the wake of revelations that the Justice Department had drafted legislation that would dramatically strengthen the police-state powers assumed by the government with the passage of the 2001 USA PATRIOT Act. Provisions included in this document would allow the federal government to declare any US citizen an official enemy at war with the nation. People could be imprisoned or stripped of their citizenship for supporting a group or even an individual deemed by the US to be terrorist. The publication of information on the fate of these individuals would likewise be a crime. The leaking of the document prompted outrage from civil liberties groups, but the controversy has been superseded by the new terrorist threat. Finally, the warning of
[CTRL] Medicare and Medicaid
-Caveat Lector- World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/budg-f14_prn.shtml WSWS : News Analysis : North America The Bush budget: subverting Medicare and Medicaid Part four of five articles on Bushs 2004 budget proposal By Patrick Martin 14 February 2003 Back to screen version| Send this link by email | Email the author This is the fourth in a series of articles on the social implications and political significance of the Bush administrations fiscal 2004 budget plan. Part one, The Bush budget: blueprint for a right- wing assault on the working class, was posted on February 11. Part two, Welfare for the wealthy: the Bush tax plan, was posted on February 12. Part three, Bush budget targets the poor, was posted on February 13. Tomorrow the WSWS will publish an analysis of the budgets implications for public education. In the guise of extending benefits and making programs more flexible, the Bush administration is proposing changes that would effectively undermine both Medicare and Medicaid, the two large federal health care programs that provide services to the elderly and to the poor, respectively. Medicare will be hit by further cuts in reimbursements to providers, which will deepen their financial crisis and cause many providers to refuse Medicare patients altogether. The Medicare Payment Advisory Commission recommended a freeze on payments to nursing homes and home health care agencies and a reduction in the scheduled cost-of-living allowances for hospitals. Payments were already cut 4.9 percent to home health care agencies and 10 percent to nursing homes on October 1. The number of people receiving such care through Medicare has dropped from 3.5 million in 1997 to 2.2 million in 2001, despite an increase in the elderly population, because agencies have cut back admissions or abandoned serving Medicare patients entirely. In most cases these are the most vulnerable of the elderlythose whose health is so poor they cannot take care of themselves without such assistance. The most important change in Medicare, however, is Bushs proposed $400 billion plan to add a prescription drug benefit. Given that the elderly will spend an estimated $2 trillion on prescription drugs over the next 10 years, a plan on the scale of the administrations, covering only 20 percent of the projected cost, cannot be considered a serious effort to meet the social need. Instead, the new prescription drug benefit seeks to exploit this growing problem for a political purpose. It is to be used like a wrecking ball to smash up the traditional fee-for-service plan currently chosen by 85 percent of seniorsand force them to switch to managed care options like HMOs and PPOs that restrict their selection of doctors and allow insurance companies the final say on treatment options. The administration has not released details of the plan, and has seemed to be backpedaling after initial protests from senior citizens and health care advocacy groups, and even some congressional Republicans. Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) Tommy Thompson, in testimony February 6 before the House Ways and Means Committee, said that final decisions on how much coverage would be offered and what incentives or coercion would be applied to get Medicare recipients to leave traditional fee-for-service plans were still being worked on. But when asked point blank if he could guarantee to the elderly that they would be able to retain fee-for-service coverage and still receive prescription drug coverage, he said he could not. Prescription drug coverage and other benefits, such as limited coverage for catastrophic care, are to be used as an inducement for the gradual privatization of Medicare, as the elderly switch to plans administered by privately owned HMOs and PPOs rather than the traditional plan. The drug benefit itself will be quite limited. One press account of HHS deliberations said standard prescription drug coverage would require a deductible of $275 a year, then provide 50 percent coverage up to $3,050 a year, then no coverage to a total patient cost of $5,500 a year, then 90 percent coverage thereafter. This would leave most Medicare recipients paying thousands of dollars a year out of their own pockets for prescription drugs. Shifting Medicaid to the states One of the most drastic and reactionary proposals in the Bush budget is a plan to do away with federal rules that apply to some one-third of Medicaid recipients, those with incomes above the federal eligibility level. States would be given complete authority to set benefit and co-payment levels for these recipients, while the federal share of this portion of Medicaid would be capped. The plan leaves benefits intact for 29 million people covered under the basic federal planthose of the lowest income bracket, largely consisting of the unemployed, welfare recipients and the disabled. But state governments have leveraged the
[CTRL] British Relations with Iraq
-Caveat Lector- http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/ http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/war/iraq/britain_iraq_01.shtml British Relations with Iraq By Derek Hopwood Iraq has changed from being a western ally to an arch enemy in two decades. As troops gather at its borders once again, Derek Hopwood reflects on the fact that Britain and Iraq share a much longer history, with a very modern legacy. Limestone carving showing King Ashurbanipal (668- 631 BC), at the North Palace in Nineveh, Mesopotamia An ancient civilisation The present state of Iraq was founded by Great Britain in 1920, on land of great historical antiquity, then known as Mesopotamia. The country lay between two rivers, the Tigris and the Euphrates - and was the birthplace of the ancient civilisations of Sumeria, Babylon and Nineveh. 'This was the glittering city of the Arabian nights and of Harun al-Rashid.' The present capital of Iraq, Baghdad, lies near the site of Babylon and was founded by the Arab Abbasid dynasty in the eighth century AD. This was the glittering city of the Arabian nights and of Harun al-Rashid, which in 1258 was destroyed by the invading Mongols and became a rather provincial backwater until it was conquered again, this time in 1534 by the Ottomans, who made it the chief city of the province of Baghdad. Eventually, separate provinces of Mosul to the north and Basra to the south were created. These three provinces looked out in different directions. Mosul - a mountainous region largely inhabited by fiercely independent-minded Kurds - looked north to neighbouring Turkish Anatolia. Baghdad faced across the deserts to Syria and east to Persia. Finally Basra, at the head of the Persian Gulf, looked seaward as far as India. '...by 1914 there was growing anxiety about the security of the Persian oilfields...' In the 19th century Europeans (largely the British) began to take an interest in exploring, surveying, spying and trading in Mesopotamia, as well as in navigating its rivers. And by 1914 there was growing anxiety about the security of the Persian oilfields on the other side of the Gulf - these were the fields that supplied the Royal Navy. World War One Turkish soldier taken prisoner in Mesopotamia by the Allies, 1917 The Ottoman Empire, which included the provinces of Baghdad, Basra and Mosul, entered World War One on the side of the Central Powers (Germany and Austria-Hungary), and immediately became a target for British imperial ambitions. Winston Churchill conceived the disastrous campaign in Gallipoli as means of occupying Constantinople, while others, largely in India, favoured sending invading Allied forces via a longer route through Basra to Baghdad. They believed the area was suitable for colonisation, and thought an invasion would meet little resistance. '...the British decided to push on towards Baghdad.' In India a substantial Anglo-Indian army was raised, which landed in Basra in November 1914. The local defending forces soon fled, and the British decided to push on towards Baghdad. They totally miscalculated the strength and determination of the Turkish (Ottoman) forces, however, who trapped them in a terrible siege in Kut al-Amara on the Tigris. The Anglo- Indian force surrendered in April 1916 and many of the soldiers perished in prisoner-of-war camps. New British forces eventually arrived in Basra in greater numbers, and by March 1917 were able to capture Baghdad. The foundation of Iraq Gertrude Bell, influential adviser to the British administration, on a picnic outside Baghdad, with King Faisal I (second right). By the end of World War One, British forces were more or less in control of the three provinces and a shaky British administration in Baghdad had to decide on their future. The Ottoman Empire had collapsed, leaving the former Arab provinces in limbo, and the colonial powers of Britain and France aimed to absorb them into their empires; however, the Arab and other inhabitants felt strongly that they had been promised independence. 'The Arabs claimed this was a veiled colonialism...' Under strong pressure from the United States, a sort of compromise was evolved whereby Britain and France were given mandates for the administration of these provinces, under international supervision, by the League of Nations. The Arabs claimed this was a veiled colonialism, because there was only an indefinite promise of independence. Iraq (the old Arabic name for part of the region) was to become a British mandate, carved out of the three former Ottoman provinces. France took control of Syria and Lebanon. There was immediate resentment amongst Iraq's inhabitants at what they saw as a charade, and in 1920 a strong revolt spread through the country - a revolt that was put down only with great difficulty and by methods that do not bear close scrutiny. The situation was so bad that the British commander, General Sir Aylmer Haldane, at one time called for supplies of poisonous gas. Indiscriminate air power was
[CTRL] Put Sharon on trial.
-Caveat Lector- w w w . h a a r e t z d a i l y . c o m http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=262399 contrassID=2subContrassID=4sbSubContrassID=0listSrc=Y Put Sharon on trial. Here. Israel has always been proud of the concept purity of arms. The principle allowed us to build a morally defensive shield against the corrupting influence of all wars, even morally imperative wars such as the one against terror. It is difficult to tell which kind of war makes it more difficult to maintain this sublime idea - conventional wars against other countries, or the unconventional war in which Israel is now entangled with the Palestinian Authority. A few days ago, Kamala Abu Sa'id, the 65-year-old stepmother of a wanted man, was killed during the demolition of her home in Gaza by Israeli soldiers. I emphasize the demolition was done by Israeli soldiers, since by saying it was done by the IDF would take away the personal nature of that action, as well as hundreds of similar actions conducted in recent months by armed Israeli soldiers. It was said that there was a search of the house before the demolition, but it turns out that it was not sufficiently thorough because apparently nobody cared enough. Thus, innocent Palestinians are killed day after day without anyone being held accountable. The principle of purity of arms has been replaced by a philosophy of superficial concern for non-combatants. And although it is possible to understand the emotional reaction of a soldier to the death of a comrade, especially during battle, it is the duty of military discipline to restrain the natural instinct for revenge. The reason the field commanders confirm with a nod of the head the deviation from that norm is because of the backing for it from the highest levels of the army, leading directly to the prime minister himself. As someone who was a simple soldier in the war in Lebanon, it is clear to me that the collapse of the military ethic, including purity of arms, officially began during that war, in the refugee camps of Sabra and Chatilla, when Ariel Sharon was defense minister. For Sharon, the contempt for the ethical dimension of warfare began much earlier, in Gaza and Kibyeh, but then his influence and methods were felt only at the platoon level. In the Lebanon War, as defense minister, his influence was universal. But the contempt he demonstrated then toward purity of arms took its own vengeance on him and he was fired from that job. Twenty years have passed and Sharon is again in a position of power from which he can set the standards for Israeli fighting. Apparently, what guided Sharon during his military career and reached its shameful climax at Sabra and Chatilla, now dictates the way the IDF conducts its war against terror - with scorn for the moral standards at the heart of the Israeli Army since its establishment. And thus we are every day witness to the indiscriminate killing of Palestinian civilians: not those caught in a cross- fire, but people like that 65-year-old woman. It's possible that for the prime minister, all is fair in love and war. We have a Jewish answer to that: Justice, justice, shall though pursue (Deuteronomy, XVI:20). The rabbis say that the word justice appears twice to say that a just cause must be achieved through just means. That biblical commandment is the earliest form of the IDF's principle of purity of arms. The world community wants to put Sharon on trial for war crimes because of his role in the Sabra and Chatilla massacres, but we are the ones who should put him on trial, for desecrating the principles of the IDF, which were meant to prevent that horror then, and for the ongoing killing of the innocent now. Due to his subterfuge of the moral integrity of the Jewish people, Ariel Sharon stands accused in the court of Jewish decency. And to those of us who stand in silence, in the words of the great Jewish theologian Abraham Joshua Heschel, Some all guilty, but all are responsible. Rabbi Forman is chairman of Rabbis for Human Rights By David Forman /hasen/objects/pages/PrintArticleEn.jhtml?itemNo=262399 close window Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason
[CTRL] Canada has decided
-Caveat Lector- World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/feb2003/can-f14_prn.shtml WSWS : News Analysis : North America : Canada Behind the posturing Canada has decided to join in war on Iraq By Keith Jones 14 February 2003 Back to screen version| Send this link by email | Email the author Canadian Prime Jean Chrétien and his Liberal government maintain that they have yet to take any decision on Canadas participation in a US-led invasion of Iraq. This is a bare-faced lie. Regardless of what happens at the United Nations Security Council in the coming days, Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF) will join the US war against Iraq. The Chrétien Liberals hope that the US will succeed in bullying and bribing the great powers on the UN Security Council into sanctioning war and this for two reasons. First, because they calculate UN authorization would serve as a pacific and internationalist fig-leaf for the US war drive and thus reduce antiwar sentiment. Second, because they desperately hope the dispute between the US and the principal European powers can be bridged and the system of multilateral relations that has long-served Canadas elite in offsetting US economic and geopolitical power preserved. That the Chrétien government and the Canadian military are already irreversibly committed to participation in a war of aggression against Iraq can be readily demonstrated by a series of ministerial statements and government actions and admissions. * The senior CAF personnel who have been working with US and British military planners on Iraqi invasion plans recently transferred from the US Central Command in Florida to Qatar, the Gulf state slotted to serve as the nerve centre for the coming US invasion. Last month Defence Minister John McCallum conceded that CAF leaders had been excluded from some planning meetings, because of uncertainty as to whether Canada would participate in military action against Iraq. But they were invited back late last year after the Liberal government provided the US with assurancesassurances that McCallum refused to specify as to Canadas readiness to participate in the war. * On orders from the government-whip, Liberal MPs joined Tuesday with their counterparts in the ultra-right-wing Canadian Alliance to defeat a motion that stipulated the House of Commons should consider supporting an attack on Iraq only if the UN Security Council sanctions military action. Spokesmen for the governing party claimed it had opposed the motion, which was tabled by the indépendantiste Bloc Québécois and supported by the social democrats of the New Democratic Party as well as the Conservatives, because it wanted to uphold cabinets prerogative to order military action without House of Commons approval. In a pre-Christmas interview Chrétien had suggested Canada would only participate in a war authorized by the UN Security Council. Since then, however, he and his ministers have repeatedly indicated that this is merely a preference and that if the hypothetical becomes reality and the US acts without a Security Council resolution authorizing military action, Canada will rally to the Bush administrations side. Thus Chrétien has claimed that Resolution 1441 already provides all the legal sanction needed to attack and occupy Iraq. * Chrétien and Foreign Affairs Minister Bill Graham have been at pains to disassociate themselves from the French and German governments stand that more time is needed for the inspection process, condemning their call for a tripling of the number of inspectors and their blocking of a NATO deployment in support of Turkeyfrom which an attack on northern Iraq is to be launched. * A Canadian officer has been placed in charge of a multination naval task force that is patrolling the Persian Gulf looking for Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters fleeing Afghanistan. The task force works in close concert with a US aircraft carrier group that has been sent to the Gulf region to prepare for an imminent attack on Iraq. In fact, the CAFs Roger Girouard will report directly on the task forces work to US Admiral Barry Costello, who heads a flotilla led by the aircraft carrier USS Constellation. * Ottawa and Washington announced last week that US President George W. Bush will pay a state visit to Canada in May. Meetings between US presidents and Canadian prime ministers have been routine since the late 1930s. But the timing of the announcement and the often frosty relations between the Bush administration and the Chrétien Liberals suggest that it is part of a series of quid pro quos as the Canadian government dots the is and crosses the ts on its participation in a US war against Iraq. Much of Canadas corporate media and the Official Opposition Canadian Alliance have denounced the Chrétien government for not being even more supportive of the US war drive. While Canadian Alliance leader Stephen Harper recently conceded that he now expects
[CTRL] (Fwd) [RKBA!] More No-Gun Home Signs and Bumper-Stickers
-Caveat Lector- --- Forwarded message follows --- Here is some more information about the No Gun Home Internet Registry that you might be interested in. Also, please feel free to print out the attached Color No-Gun Home signs on a color-printer and display them proudly and prominently, and also give them to your righteous neighbors who live in no-gun houses. You can send your home address to be listed on the National No-Gun Home Internet Registry by emailing it as a message here: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Please wait at least one weak for the posting to be available online to all criminals with computers and freequent flier miles. Also, they will post a list of your most cherished valuables, and also your pretty picture, if you like, to help you compete for the attention of criminals online. Just add that information to your email. The old methods that criminals used to case victim's property and to locate no-gun homes are just so outdated, don't you think? Just read more below: Christmas Eve Robbers asked a young victim on the Street: Do Your Parents Have a Gun? [Read about the proposed No-Gun Home Registry Survival Strategy below this article] Man killed defending family from robber http://www.azcentral.com/offbeat/articles/1227christmas-shoot27-ON.html Associated Press Dec. 27, 2002 08:30 AM MILWAUKEE - A man was killed while trying to defend his family from a Christmas Eve robber, police said. Ernest Whaley, 63, was shot in his north side Milwaukee duplex shortly before 3 p.m. Tuesday by one of two men who had abducted his son Ernest Whaley Jr., 16. The incident started earlier in the day when Whaley's son was robbed by two men in the parking lot of a clothing store. The younger Whaley said two men approached him in the parking lot and demanded money. One of the men had a gun, and Whaley Jr. handed over his wallet, which contained $200, he said. The men said the money wasn't enough and asked if his parents had a gun. Whaley Jr. said no. The men then forced the teen into his car and a third man jumped inside, Whaley Jr. said. They dropped off one of the men at an intersection, then drove to Whaley's home. The gunman ordered the teen to tell his parents that the gunman was a friend from school, which he did. The gunman then demanded that the teen ask for money or he would kill everyone in the house, Whaley Jr. said. The elder Whaley, who served in the Vietnam War and was in the Navy for 20 years, figured out what was happening and tried to take the gun from the man, his son said. He was concerned that his 11-month-old granddaughter would be injured. During the scuffle, one of the men fired his gun until he ran out of bullets, striking Whaley Sr. twice in the upper body. He died six hours later. Whaley Jr. was able to hold the 18-year-old gunman until police arrived. I really couldn't believe it was happening, he said. One bullet went right over my head. Police arrested the man and later captured his 19-year-old accomplice. They were searching for another 19-year-old suspect. Whaley Sr.'s daughter, Jacquita Washington, 30, said her father was looking forward to this Christmas, but instead the family spent the holiday grieving. He wanted to see the faces of all his kids and all his grandkids, Washington said. It was empty. Just empty. Whaley Sr. is survived by his wife, Jacqueline, nine children and more than 20 grandchildren. [END OF ARTICLE] As terrible as it is what happened to a Veteran in this case, there may be valuable lessons to be learned from it. Note the advanced Hunting techniques of the Predators in the story... following their wounded/captive prey back to his den. Also consider: If that No-Gun Family had previously registered their Home on an Internet Registry as being a No Gun Home, then that young man never would have been robbed ON THE STREET. The Robbers would simply have gone straight to his No-Gun Home and taken care of their business there, in the privacy of that home, OR TO ANOTHER NO-GUN HOME listed on the Registry. In that way, the father of this particular No-Gun Home family might still be alive. There are many species of animals who have no defenses against their predators other than evasion and NUMBERS. Schools of fish and herds of sheep are examples. An individual fish would not out-swim a barracuda, but in a school of fish he has a greater chance of being lost in the crowd among other defenseless fish. Applying the same survival principles to those Humans who have chosen to be helpless, I propose the creation, for each community in the United States, of a No-Gun Home Registry. Every such local No-Gun Ho! me Registry will be publicly accessible from any local Public Library internet terminal. The No Gun Home Registry? I have an acquaintance who says she does not believe in guns but in the same conversation she hypocritically said she wanted a baseball bat, to prevent intruders from breaking into her house and
[CTRL] Infallibility
-Caveat Lector- SAVE THIS | EMAIL THIS | Close Bush the Infallible by Jeffrey A. Tucker It is slowly dawning on people that to understand George W., one must understand his religious impulses, which all evidence suggests are intensely important to him. His views are no different from that of the typical evangelical who absorbed his faith from the American Baptist culture. But they merit closer attention when they are held by an arrogant man with his finger on the button and who is contemplating total war. Concerning this arrogance, Richard Cohen writes that Bush's rigidity can come across as smugness. This has always been his least appealing quality, and it was on display, or so I was told, at a lunch he had for network anchors before the State of the Union message. He reportedly came across as cocky, not so much sure of himself as too sure of himself . Maybe this single-mindedness of the president's is the product of his deep religious belief the conviction that he has been chosen for the task of decking Hussein. I don't watch television so I hadn't seen this aspect of Bush on display until the other day when I watched a video feed from MSNBC. Bush was holding a press conference with economists who had endorsed his stimulus plan. He took questions after. None of the questions concerned economics. There was a question on Iraq, a question on race quotas, and one other I can't remember. They were all reasonable. What struck me the most was Bush's demeanor. As the questions were being asked, he looked down at the table and around the room, not at the questioner. He impatiently drummed his fingers on the table, as if he knew in advance that nothing could be asked that was really worth asking. His attitude was that if it needed to be known, he would have already have said it. All inquiries were just an imposition on him, an insult to his own sense of certainty. His answers consisted of barking back the stated position, along with a reminder that the position had already been stated. There was no attempt to charm, no attempt to inform, no attempt to hide his disdain. How does he get away with it? The White House holds all the cards. All the reporters present were there at the permission of the White House. Any reporter who wrote to denounce Bush's stonewalling, or raise questions about his state of mind, would be quickly barred from future events. The news organization that published that story would be punished as well. The press needs access, and so plays along to prevent reprisal. There's another element too, namely that most of these reporters have an ideological admiration for the executive state. They may disagree with Bush's politics, but they adore the power of the office he inhabits. Bush's behavior that day probably qualifies as routine, but because I hadn't seen Bush in action recently, I found it startling. What gives a person that sense of certainty, that swagger that no one but himself ought to be in charge of what is known and what is not known? Power, certainly. Maybe that explanation is enough. And yet, Cohen is right to bring Bush's religious sensibility into it. There is something recognizably regional and sectarian in his religious way, a product of a doctrinal sensibility that thrives in the Southern region of the United States. It is woven into the culture in myriad way. Bush has adopted it as his own. In the state of the union address, Bush said the following: There is power wonder-working power in the goodness and idealism and faith of the American people. His cadence in these lines come from the hymn by Lewis E. Jones, a revival hymn from 1899 once sung in the streets to whip up religious frenzy for prohibition (which Gary North calls the 'last hurrah' in politics for American fundamentalists). There is power, power, wonder working power, go the words, In the precious blood of the Lamb. The sentiments are classically revivalist. All Bush did was replace Jesus as the source of the wonder- working power with the idealism and faith of the American people. He said this as if everyone should recognize the hymn and the meaning, though Europeans couldn't possibly, and few even in the West and East Coast of the US could have any idea what he was referencing. It was code designed to liven the hearts of the faithful the tribe of evangelicals who constitute his strongest support base. Bush is by birth a member of the Episcopal Church, but because he is born again as an adult long past the age of accountability of 1013 years old when a person born into this religion is supposed to be saved his religious sense was shaped by a gripping personal experience and an uncritical embrace of evangelical doctrine. This holds to the Calvinist idea of the security of the believer (once saved, always saved) but rejects the corollary Calvinist idea that God has predestined all men to salvation or damnation in favor of the view that all must make a choice to accept Jesus's invitation
[CTRL] Fwd: [CIA-DRUGS] 22,000 Voting Machines Got a Program Fix, Right Before the Election!
-Caveat Lector- A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=""Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om ---BeginMessage--- -Caveat Lector- 22,000 Voting Machines Got a Program Fix, Right Before the Election. http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0302/S00095.htm Georgia's Last Minute 2002 Election Machine Fix Thursday, 13 February 2003, 10:41 pm Article: Bev Harris Georgia: 22,000 Voting Machines Got a Program Fix, Right Before the Election. By Bev Harris http://www.blackboxvoting.com/ This article also appears HERE In early February, 2003, programmers for Diebold Election Systems admitted that they had been See... parking highly sensitive company files on an unprotected web site, a serious security mistake by anyone's reckoning. The very next week officials from the state of Georgia admitted that a program patch was administered to over 22,000 unauditable touch-screen voting machines in Georgia. This took place shortly before the November 2002 election. A single, certified, and carefully examined version of the actual vote-counting program is allowed on the voting machines. However, when a program is patched, new code is inserted into the existing program, usually correcting a fault, or sometimes adding a feature. If a patch is to be applied to the actual vote-counting program, it must be certified to make sure no errors or unauthorized changes are introduced. But no one bothered to certify this patch. A patch to the underlying operating system - Windows - can slip through without scrutiny. Testing labs ignore it, yet this kind of patch can contain new, malicious code designed to tamper with vote-counting. Windows CE, especially, (the system used in Georgia), may carry risks when used in voting machine patches, because its source code is fairly accessible to programmers. In fact, Windows CE is very nearly open source, and overwriting its files with new ones containing hidden code is not difficult. Putting patches on 22,000 voting machines without looking at the underlying code has put the Georgia election results in doubt, for two reasons: First, when a patch is administered, whatever the explanation, it can make other, unnoticed changes to the way the program operates. In this case, no one bothered to see what the patch did. Instead, certification officials just took the vendor's word for it. They could not have known whether the vote-counting program was altered, and especially after installing the patch, they had no way to find out if rogue programs were being run in the background. Second, ignoring the possibility of an attack on the voting system through the operating system is completely naive. In fact, in testimony before Congress See... Douglas W. Jones identified the very real risk of an attack on voting machines through the Windows operating system, specifically with the type of machines (Diebold / Global Election Systems DRE machines) that were used in Georgia! The purpose of the 22,000 Georgia voting machine patches, says Michael Barnes of the Georgia Secretary of State Election Office, was to correct a problem with video screens freezing up. According to See... Chris Riggall , the
[CTRL] Iraqis Join Mexican Border Invasion
-Caveat Lector- Interesting that 'Mexican Authorities' grabbed these Iraqis while millions of Mexicans casually cross the border. flw Mexican Authorities Detain Iraqi Citizens at Border Thursday, February 13, 2003 TIJUANA, Mexico - Mexican authorities have detained six Iraqi citizens who they believe intended to cross into the United States from Tijuana. The five men and one woman claimed to be German citizens when they arrived at the Tijuana airport Tuesday night on a flight from Mexico City. Immigration authorities sent the Iraqis back to Mexico City for questioning. Officials were trying to determine whether the Iraqis might be Chaldean Christians, a group which claims it faces persecution in Iraq. Chaldean Christians often seek U.S. asylum, but many say these requests have been complicated by security concerns in the United States. Mexican authorities were investigating whether the Iraqis might have violated Mexican immigration laws. A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Fwd: [narconews] Pan-American Battle vs. Drug Prohibition Launched in Merida
-Caveat Lector- A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=""Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om ---BeginMessage--- -Caveat Lector- February 13, 2003 Please Distribute Widely Dear Colleagues, The Eagle Has Landed! The Narco News Team opens its full coverage from the first-ever hemispheric Drug Legalization Summit in Merida, Yucatan, with our first nine reports, including a communique authored by Bolivian Congressman Felipe Quispe - El Mallku of America - special to Narco News, a report by Adam Saytanides on Mexican Congressman Gregorio Urias' keynote speech calling for a united Pan-American battle to end drug prohibition, and an important announcement for our readers: The bi-lingual Narco News now expands into a tri-lingual English, Spanish and Portuguese intercontinental ballistic newspaper. That's right, kind readers: Narco News is now published for Portuguese readers in Brazil, too, with a strong assist already with published reports from our Brazilian Authentic Journalism Scholars Adriana Veloso, Carola Mittrany, Karine Muller and Helena Klang. You can read their accounts of the opening session of the J-School, too: http://www.narconews.com/ Right now, our 26 journalism scholarship winners (and many of our professors) are finishing reports on today's events which include Keynote Speeches by former Colombian Attorney General Gustavo de Greiff, Felipe Quispe, Mario Menendez, and others, as well as interviews with many of the hundreds of attendees at this historic gathering. Here's a list of stories already published about the Merida Summit and also the opening of the Narco News School of Authentic Journalism last Monday night. A Path to Dialogue Mexican Congressman Launches Pan-American Battle vs. the repressive policies of the U.S. By Adam Saytanides Narco News Authentic Journalism Scholar February 13, 2003 Tática de guerrilha na guerra da informação Queremos chocar. Queremos atirar a realidade na cara. - Anthony Lappe do site Guerrilla News Network. Por Adriana Veloso 13 de fevereiro de 2003 Principal líder indígena da Bolívia está em Mérida Não desnaturalizamos a coca. A plantação da folha é nossa história. É como nosso corpo que não podemos perder, sustenta Felipe Quispe. Por Karine Muller 13 de fevereiro de 2003 In Defense of Life and Democracy A comuniqué from el Mallku, speaking for the Bolivian people in revolt By Felipe Quispe Huanca El Mallku de América en español... En defensa de la vida y la democracia February 12, 2003 Authentic Journalism Orchestra Begins to Play Students, Professors, Assemble in the Yucatan to Report on Drug Legalization Summit By Carola Mittrany Narco News Authentic Journalism Scholar en español... La Orquestra de Periodismo Auténtico Empieza a Tocar February 12, 2003 Narco News Launches Tri-Lingual Coverage Drug Legalization Summit, Authentic Journalists, Merge in Mexico By Adriana Veloso Narco News Authentic Journalism Scholar February 12, 2003 Começa o desafio da escola de jornalismo autêntico das Américas Por Karine Muller 12 de fevereiro de 2003 Uma comunicação com atitude Comunicadores de várias realidades discutem como exercer um jornalismo autêntico Por Helena Klang 12 de fevereiro de 2003 Fiat lux Sí, estamos Saliendo de las sombras... Por Luis Gómez 12 de febrero de 2003 Kind readers, the Truth Star is fully operational. Here we are, live from Merida, all engines on with history to be made. Stay tuned... more reports... many, many more reports... coming later tonight, early and late tomorrow and for the next week as the Authentic Journalism Army assembled in Yucatan and a cast of hundreds rocks this town and this continent. from somewhere in a country called América, Al Giordano Publisher The Narco News Bulletin http://www.narconews.com/ [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subscribe for free alerts of new reports:
[CTRL] Fwd: [GATA] Star gold fund manager Embry leaves Royal Bank for Sprott Asset Management
-Caveat Lector- A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=""Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om ---BeginMessage--- -Caveat Lector- 7:46p ET Thursday, February 13, 2003 Dear Friend of GATA and Gold: What would you do if you ran an investment bank with the most successful mutual fund manager in the world, a fund manager who achieved a 153 percent return for his clients in 2002 even as most mutual funds reported double-digit losses? If you were Royal Bank of Canada, you'd lose him, because he had dared to make a success of what most investment bankers consider the foulest four-letter word in the English language: G-O-L-D. That's what happened today with John Embry, manager of RBC Global Investment Management's gold and precious metals fund. It was announced that Embry will leave RBC at the end of the month and become president of Sprott Asset Management Inc., where he will run the Sprott Gold and Precious Minerals Fund. This may prove to be the biggest management blunder since the Red Sox traded Babe Ruth to the Yankees after the 1919 baseball season. The statement issued by Sprott about Embry's appointment is appended here. Royal Bank must think it better to be a complete loser than a winner with gold. The bank would hardly be alone in that attitude. But after all, it's only the clients' money going down the toilet in the greatest destruction of wealth in history. What a disgrace for Royal Bank and the world financial establishment. What a break for Sprott Asset Management, and for anyone with eyes to see. CHRIS POWELL, Secretary/Treasurer Gold Anti-Trust Action Committee Inc. * * * SPROTT ASSET MANAGEMENT PRESS RELEASE Sprott Asset Management Adds Precious Metals Industry Expert John Embry To Its Team Of Investment Specialists TORONTO, Feb. 13, 2003 (Business Wire) -- Eric Sprott, chief executive officer of Sprott Asset Management Inc. (SAM), is pleased to announce the appointment of John Embry to the position of president of SAM effective March 2003. John Embry was lead portfolio manager of the Royal Precious Metals Fund and co-manager of the Royal Balanced Fund, Royal Canadian Equity Fund, and Royal Global Resources Sector Fund. We are thrilled about the addition of such an outstanding and prominent Canadian investment specialist to our team and are confident in John's abilities to bring forth new and exciting gold initiatives to our firm and our portfolios, Sprott said. Embry, an industry expert in precious metals, has researched the gold sector for more than 30 years and has accumulated industry experience as a portfolio management specialist since 1963. Using his expertise, Embry will have full management authority over the Sprott Gold and Precious Minerals Fund and will play an instrumental role in corporate and investment policy of the firm, pending regulatory approval. Embry began his investment career at a major insurance company, Great West Life, as a stock selection analyst and portfolio manager. He then became vice president of pension investments for the entire firm. After 23 years with the company, Embry became partner with United Bond and Share, the investment counseling firm acquired by Royal Bank in 1987. Embry graduated from the University of Manitoba with a bachelor of commerce degree. Going forward, SAM hopes to take a leadership role in encouraging Canadians to increase their involvement and exposure to the precious minerals sector by way of investing in equities of companies directly or indirectly involved in the exploration, mining, production, or distribution of gold and precious minerals and by investing directly in physical precious metals and minerals. Embry will lead this initiative. Sprott Asset Management Inc. is a private company based in Toronto with more than $1.3 billion in assets under management primarily for institutions, endowments, and high net worth
[CTRL] Gold Again Has a Day In the Sun
-Caveat Lector- Gold Again Has a Day In the Sun Some Stock-Market Diehards Are Turning to Precious Metal By PETER A. MCKAY Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL About a year ago, investor Ken Anderson gave up on stocks and turned to gold. Mr. Anderson, a building inspector from Toms River, N.J., had built a surging stock portfolio during the late 1990s, only to see it wiped out during the bust. So, as something of a last resort, early last year, he started dabbling in gold. Now, his entire portfolio of about $200,000 is either in gold or gold-related stocks, and he's dubious about returning to the stock market. For three years, the so-called pundits have been predicting a stock-market rally, and we haven't seen it, said Mr. Anderson, who has a 14-year-old daughter who wants to attend Princeton University in a few years. I need the money in a few years, so I don't have time to keep waiting for a rally that I really don't think is going to happen anyway. An unexpected breed of investor is buoying the gold market. Once the domain of true-believing gold bugs -- and recently a refuge for investors wary of terrorism and war -- gold is starting to attract a much wider following, including a number of people who, like Mr. Anderson, have never invested in the precious metal before. The revived investor interest in the metal reflects a skepticism about the stock market, which is still shaking off one of the most wrenching boom-and-bust periods in its history. I'm probably a touch paranoid, but I've lost faith in the official, mainstream viewpoints of what to invest in, said retired pharmaceuticals saleswoman Betty Gray, of Amarillo, Texas, who estimates she has moved about two-thirds of her portfolio into gold bullion and mining shares since 1999. When you're afraid, you try to be conservative. Much of gold's gain has come since the September 2001 terrorist attacks, when many mainstream investors first turned to the metal as an alternative to a shaky market. But the momentum also has carried into this year, with gold up 2.7% for the year while every major stock-market index is down. Gold prices are up 40% from the lows of 1999. Not that it has been an entirely smooth ride. Partly because of the surge in new investors, gold has been unusually volatile lately, including a $9-a-troy-ounce tumble on Wednesday. And many analysts say that given the force of the recent rise, gold prices could very well cool. On Thursday, gold prices rose, with the benchmark futures gaining $4.80, or 1.4%, to $357.40 a troy ounce at the Comex division of the New York Mercantile Exchange. While the revival of gold is admittedly a minor factor in the overall stock market's continued slump, analysts say it is a good barometer of the mood of small investors. Bigger, institutional players, meantime, see gold as a useful hedge against a jittery stock market and an alternative investment to the sagging dollar. While gold's momentum has been building for months, war and terrorism clearly have been the most important recent catalysts. In fact, some analysts believe investor nervousness has had so much time to work into the gold price as war rhetoric has heightened that prices could fall once fighting begins. Joe Foster, manager of Van Eck International Investor Gold Fund, says he is convinced there is a war premium of about $25 built in the gold price, but notes that, by one key measure, gold and gold stocks still could be undervalued. He said the gold price rose 6% in January, while the Philadelphia Stock Exchange's Gold Silver Sector Index, which tracks mining-company shares, a mining industry standard, rose only 0.3%. Usually, the index moves at twice the rate of the bullion price. Considering that mining shares are the way many small investors bet on gold -- so they don't have to pay to store bullion in a vault somewhere -- Mr. Foster said that sector could be poised to go higher, regardless of what happens in Iraq. The general belief among gold boosters is that even after any war with Iraq ends, fundamental weaknesses in the economy will remain, keeping gold prices up. There are people out there using the war as a crutch for why the economy is bad right now, said analyst Dave Meger, of Alaron Trading Corp., in Chicago. I disagree with that thought process. Fred McLeran, who owns a refrigeration repair business in Fruitland, Idaho, echoed that view, saying he would move everything into gold, if he could, because of his nervousness about the economy and the government. During the past six months, he says he has bought more than $25,000 worth of gold and silver coins, which are his first precious-metals holdings. He also has about $1 million tied up in a family real-estate trust, which he hopes to invest in gold eventually. I don't follow what's going on in the stock market, Mr. McLeran said. I prefer to have my hands on a tangible investment, particularly the way things are going right now. Broker Peter Schiff,
[CTRL] Fwd: BREAKING - Belgian Court Ruling on Sharon Signals Shift in World Alliances - NATO Fractured - Bush Under Fire Becomes More Deadly
-Caveat Lector- A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=""Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om ---BeginMessage--- -Caveat Lector- Belgian Court Ruling Saying Sharon Can Be Tried as War Criminal is the Biggest Blow Ever to the New World Order Israeli Govt Reaction Reveals Global Power Play Over Iraq Global Coalition Shatters, Resistance Mounts Fangs, Rage and Fury of Administration Signal Deepening Danger THE FIG LEAF COMES OFF by Michael C. Ruppert Copyright 2003, From The Wilderness Publications, www.fromthewilderness.com. All Rights Reserved. This story may NOT be posted on any Internet web site without express written permission. Contact [EMAIL PROTECTED] May be circulated, distributed or transmitted for non-profit purposes only Feb. 13, 2003, 2330 PST, (FTW) - The clearest signal, among many, of a major fragmentation of the global economic power bloc that had until recently supported the Bush Administration came today when a Belgian court ruled that, after he leaves office, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon may be prosecuted for war crimes. The charges stem from his role as Israeli Defense Minister in facilitating a bloody 1982 massacre of hundreds of Palestinian refugees by the Lebanese Christian Phalange militia at the Sabra and Shatilla camps in Israeli-occupied territory. Other recent signals of a massive global break up include efforts by three NATO members to block NATO support for Turkey once the invasion of Iraq begins, a lawsuit filed today by members of the U.S. Congress seeking an injunction to prevent military action against Iraq, a resolution introduced in the House of Representatives seeking to revoke the war powers given to President Bush after 9-11, the refusal of some British military reservists to be called up for deployment to the Middle East, growing international refusals by first responders and military personnel to receive controversial vaccinations, and even open opposition from British and American intelligence agencies. In response, the administration has bared it fangs, revealed its rage and - as described in some press stories - expressed its fury at former allies. All of these signs taken together are ominous because they reveal an administration that is out of control, groping, and fundamentally lacking in the operational skills to behave as a world manager. Each new sign of resistance produces only more muscle flexing as the world inches closer to a replay of 1914, but with a different cast. The bottom line is that Europe is quietly demonstrating power with increasing success every time the Bush Empire screws up. In response, the Empire inches closer to simultaneous overt military aggression on two or more fronts. This is the only skill which it really possesses. ARIEL SHARON A flurry of stories released today by the Associated Press, The New York Times, in Europe and in Israel disclosed that a Belgian court had ruled that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, previously exempted from prosecution under Belgian law for war crimes, could be tried as a war criminal after he left office. The ruling came after a court decision last year dropped a lawsuit against Sharon by Palestinian survivors on the grounds that he was a sitting head of state and not in Belgium at the time. The instant response from Israeli Foreign Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was explosive. Quoted in stories by the Times Netanyahu described the Belgian decision as, an affront to truth, justice, and the right of the state of Israel to defend itself against terrorism. We in Israel and the Jewish people as a whole have had enough of blood libels on the soil of Europe, and we are going to fight this one with everything we have. He also directly linked the ruling to resistance by several European nations, including Belgium, to the U.S. plans for an invasion of
[CTRL] Government Asphyxiation
-Caveat Lector- The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be lead to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary. --H. L. Mencken ~~for educational purposes only~~ [Title 17 U.S.C. section 107] Government Asphyxiation by Brian Dunaway It doesnt help that this Threat Condition Orange perfectly coincides with the administrations desperate attempts to link al Qaeda with Saddam Hussein, but lets leave politics aside for the moment. Houston press has reported that Lowes and Home Depot stores throughout Harris County have sold out of the plastic sheeting, duct tape, and other supplies recommended by the Office of Homeland Defense (OHD) in order for citizens to be better prepared in the event of an terrorist act. Its the same all over the nation. This is a very serious health issue. Place a dry cleaning bag over your head and await further instructions. This may as well have been the instructions by the time they filtered down to Betty Sue in Omaha. But we all know Betty Sue doesnt have anything to worry about, does she? Well, she does if she follows the instructions from OHD. The cause for most concern is the OHD plan for q uot;What to do during a chemical or biological attack: Seek shelter in an internal room, preferably one without windows. Seal the room with duct tape and plastic sheeting. Ten square feet of floor space per person will provide sufficient air to prevent carbon dioxide build-up for up to five hours. And Good Morning Americas Home Improvement Editor, Ron Hazelton, assured his viewers: Don't worry about running out of air. Every ten square feet of floor space will last an adult about 5 hours. And don't leave the room until you get instructions from the Emergency Broadcast System to do so. But notice the discrepancy in the phrases to prevent carbon dioxide build-up and don't worry about running out of air. Hazelton is actually correct (probably accidentally) that the amount of oxygen corresponding to a ten square foot space is probably sufficient (though marginal) to sustain an adult for about five hours, but the critical issue is not oxygen consumption, but carbon dioxide generation and accumulation. The OHD statement is correct in identifying carbon dioxide accumulation as a concern, but its conclusions are surprising, to say the least. Assuming an eight-foot ceiling (yielding eighty cubic feet per person) and a subject metabolic rate of 800 BTU/hr, after five hours the partial pressure of carbon dioxide (ppCO2) would be ~67 mm Hg (if the initial ppCO2 were zero). It cannot be understated: this is very high. (Note: 800 BTU/hr (3.36 kcal/min) is not unreasonable for a very excited person in a hot and humid enclosure with elevated carbon dioxide (more on that in a moment). For this case, a bare (but irresponsible) minimum might be 600 BTU/hr (corresponding to a ppCO2 level of 50 mm Hg after five hours). Consider that NASA Environmental Control and Life Support (ECLS) engineers typically assume a waking metabolic rate of 450 BTU/hr for moderate intravehicular activity, and this is with very physically efficient subjects (astronauts) not using major muscle groups (e.g., legs) in microgravity.) Keep in mind that the maximum operational limit for the Shuttle Orbiter is 7.6 mm Hg, and is actually lower for the International Space Station. The NASA Spacecraft Maximum Allowable Concentration (SMAC) for carbon dioxide is 10.0 mm Hg for a one-hour period. Similar values can be found among the literature of the various military branches. The NASA Bioastronautics Data Book (Second Edition, pp. 4849) indicates that after only 80 minutes, at a ppCO2 level of ~18 mm Hg, the subject can experience mental depression, headache, dizziness, nausea. At ~45 mm Hg (after 80 minutes), the subject experiences marked deterioration leading to dizziness and stupor, with inability to take steps for self preservation. The final state is unconsciousness. (The level in our case would not reach 45 mm Hg after 80 minutes, but the threshold of the aforementioned symptoms would be at a much lower CO2 level at the end of five hours.) Industry literature is similar. The W.E. Kuriger Associates web page titled Carbon Dioxide Fact Book, states that, Several studies have indicated that CO2 does not seriously impact human health until levels reach approximately 15,000 ppm [7.5 mm Hg]. At extremely high levels, i.e., 30,000 ppm [15 mm Hg] (these concentrations are usually never reached in a standard home), the symptoms can include nausea, dizziness, mental depression, shaking, visual disturbances and vomiting. At extremely high levels, loss of consciousness may occur. Finally, CO2 is an asphyxiate, a condition in which an extreme decrease in the amount of oxygen in the body, accompanied
[CTRL] Fwd: [CIA-DRUGS] Colombia plane crash, DynCorp connection and more...
-Caveat Lector- A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=""Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om ---BeginMessage--- -Caveat Lector- So officials refuse to release any information about the chartered plane that crashed in Colombia, but sources traced the plane's registration number, N1116G, to the owner of the airplane, Ronald B. Powers, of ASS Hampton, GA, dba One Leasing, and now DynCorp is helping with the rescue/recovery effort although they deny any of their employees were onboard. So can we assume this was one of those CIA operations chartered by one of those private companies who has no idea who is leasing their plane, a la Rudy Dekkers, Waffen -- er Warren Buffet -- et al? Although those were bad examples, huh? Since those guys already know who was (and is) leasing their planes and for what purpose... Has this already been discussed in here? If so, sorry, haven't been back that far. *UGH* I'm tired... And please, don't YELL at me if I'm off the mark, Mr. BRIAN QUIG DOWNING! I'm just really tired... - Colombia Crash Kills 2; 3 May Be Captured Thu Feb 13, 8:59 PM ET By ANDREW SELSKY, Associated Press Writer BOGOTA, Colombia - A U.S. government plane carrying four Americans and a Colombian crashed Thursday in southern Colombia, and officials feared the survivors were captured by leftist rebels. Two bodies were spotted at the site, Colombian officials said. Investigators with the state prosecutor's office saw the two bodies amid the wreckage of the plane, said the government office, which is responsible in Colombia for investigating deaths. U.S. Embassy officials said they had no comment on the report. U.S. officials scrambled rescue teams to the sweltering plains of the region after the crash, but at least one report said rebels had captured the survivors and announced, We have them! We have them! in an intercepted radio transmission. There was no statement from the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, Colombia's main leftist rebel group. A Colombian military official reported the transmission and said FARC rebels had apparently found the plane. Earlier, the Colombian Armed Forces' high command had said rescuers had found only the burned plane and no people. It was impossible to immediately reconcile the report with the statement from the state prosecutor's office. Colombia's two main TV news networks, RCN and Caracol, both reported that two of those aboard the plane had been killed. U.S. officials refused to discuss the mission or identities of those aboard the single-engine Cessna, which went down as it approached Florencia, 235 miles south of Bogota, the capital. The high command said the plane was on an intelligence operation. It was not clear which arm of the U.S. government operated the crashed plane. A host of U.S. agencies and government contractors are in Colombia. They operate radar stations that track drug-smuggling flights, fumigate drug crops with airplanes and assist Colombian security forces in other anti-drug operations. Sources said those aboard the crashed plane were not Drug Enforcement Administration agents. If the survivors were captured, it would mark the first time in Colombia's decades-long civil war that Americans on U.S. government business had been taken by the insurgents. Dozens of private U.S. missionaries and businessmen have been kidnapped by FARC and another rebel group, the National Liberation Army. A U.S. Embassy spokesman said the plane crashed near Florencia during an attempted emergency landing just before 9 a.m. The spokesman said the cause apparently was engine failure. Earlier in the day, prior to the sighting of the bodies, an embassy spokesman said that the fate of the pilot, co-pilot and three passengers
[CTRL] Colin Powell has lied before -- do you believe him now?
-Caveat Lector- http://atlanta.creativeloafing.com/fishwrapper.html The War Party's huckster Colin Powell has lied before -- do you believe him now? BY JOHN SUGG In a lobby at the U.N. building where diplomats meet with the press, there hangs a large replica of Picasso's "Guernica." The painting is one of the most piercing anti-war statements ever executed in any medium -- depicting men, women and children crying to heaven as Hitler's Luftwaffe bombed the city during the Spanish Civil War. But such an emotional and compelling outrage against war would hardly have been a good backdrop for Colin Powell's Feb. 5 agitprop performance at the Security Council. Imagine if you will, an errant TV camera panning past "Guernica" and reminding Americans what their government planned to inflict on another city, Baghdad. Bush lusts to hit Baghdad with force the German air marshals could only envy -- first-strike tactical nukes, 800 cruise missiles in the opening 48 hours. For the Bushies, bad imagery can't be permitted. So, prior to Powell's arrival, "Guernica" was draped with a blue curtain. As I watched Powell's speech, I, like most Americans, felt drawn to his projection of sincerity and substance. That's not surprising. Polls show that about twice as many Americans trust Powell compared to his boss, George Bush. Thus, what we have is a convincing con man fronting for someone we know deep down is a liar. Still, Powell is no different than his would-be Caesar in Washington. Powell got one of his first big boosts in the military by attempting to whitewash the My Lai massacre in Vietnam. He participated in the attempted cover-up of the Iran-Contra scandal. I started thinking of the similarities between the fall of 1990 and the winter of 2003. The lineup 12 years ago was Poppa Bush, Dick Cheney (then secretary of defense) and Powell (the top general). The roster today is Bush II, Cheney (veep) and Powell (secretary of state). And what do we know about what happened in 1990? Well, the Bush 41 administration told a lot of lies. Here are a few, in case you've forgotten -- or, as is more likely the case, the neutered, pandering media never exposed them. Prior to the launch of Desert Storm, it was widely agreed that an invasion of Kuwait wasn't sufficient provocation for the United States to go to war. Indeed, Bush's envoy, April Glaspie, had green-lighted the Iraqis, telling them that the United States had "no opinion" on the dispute with Kuwait. What would have justified war -- according to Norman Schwarzkopf in his book, It Doesn't Take a Hero -- was an invasion of Saudi Arabia. So the administration in September 1990 conjured up "classified" satellite photos -- the very same sort of "evidence" touted by Powell last week -- showing 265,000 Iraqi soldiers massed on the Saudi border. At the St. Petersburg Times, one of the nation's best newspapers (its excellence secured because it is owned by a foundation, not a corporation), reporter Jean Heller embraced that most prized of journalistic qualities, skepticism. She spent about $3,000 to purchase her own satellite photographs. Guess what they showed? No Iraqi military buildup on the Saudi border. Zip, none at all. The Bushies had deceived the world. A bold and murderous mendacity. It took Powell more than a year to admit the lie (but his bogus photos are still classified) -- and by then the war had been fought and somewhere between 100,000 and 300,000 Iraqis had been killed. Many more, including tens of thousands of children, would die later due to our destruction of the country's infrastructure and the cruel sanctions we imposed (and that only strengthened Saddam Hussein's iron grip on his people). "It was a very big deception," Times reporter Heller told me. "It brings into question how convincing Powell's evidence really is." There were, of course, many other deceptions, such as the much-repeated myth that Iraqi soldiers had yanked newborn infants from incubators in a Kuwaiti hospital. That turned out to be a total fabrication by a giant American public relations company, Hill Knowlton. The ultimate con has to do with Saddam's "evil" nature (which I don't dispute). There's no doubt Saddam -- with U.S. blessing and support -- used poisons against Iran. And, in March 1988, he gassed and killed 5,000 Kurdish Iraqis at the city of Halabja. If that's evil, then why did we provide him with those weapons and the intelligence needed to execute his slaughters -- and continue to do so for 18 months after Halabja? Why did we grab Iraq's 12,000-page declaration of its weapons program, and strip from it the names of the U.S., European and Japanese companies that had aided Saddam's nuclear, biological and chemical weapons programs? Where does the "evil" stop? Powell promised the Security Council that "every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What we're giving you are facts and conclusions based
[CTRL] LIFE (?) IN PALESTINE
-Caveat Lector- Life in Palestine Lucy Mair, writing from Jerusalem 12 February 2003 How do I describe what life is like here - of the sadness in the eyes of my colleagues, of the exhaustion that results when every daily action requires an extraordinary effort, when perseverance is no longer enough and futility and despair fight for a place on the proud faces carrying bags and babies and the burden of poverty through checkpoints, over dirt piles, past soldiers and tanks and the bombed-out shells of buildings. On rainy days the muddy water swells around the feet, slowing passage. The soldiers stand in shelters and never seem to get wet under their helmets and uniforms and weapons, protected by arrogance and hatred and a state and an army and the world's superpower. They pull people out of the battered Ford Transit vehicles that always seem to drive too fast to make up for lost time, jostling the school children and old men and mothers who ride in them, if they can afford the 3 shekel fare and if they are not males between the ages of 18 and 35 and if they have permission to enter Jerusalem and if there is no curfew or closure. The soldiers line them up, face to the wall, make them sit in the dirt, or stand in the rain or the scorching sun for minutes or hours while they chat on their mobile friends, joke with their friends, eat, smoke, laugh, abuse, with words and with actions. How do I explain that when the wind blows it does not bring respite from the heat, but rather fills the mouth and the nose with grit, ripe with the smell of sewage and garbage and exhaust fumes. An Israeli woman asks Why don't they clean up their streets? Why do they live like animals? And the children play in the refuse that can never be collected in villages and towns and cities which remain for hours and days and weeks and months under crippling curfews. Curfews which are enforced with a shoot-to-kill policy. Curfews which are not lifted during school hours. Curfews which prevent pregnant women from giving birth in hospitals, which stop ambulances in their tracks, which forced a Bethlehem family to live with the decaying corpse of their family member for days. How can I express the feeling of death that lurks around every corner - of the children shot on their way home from school, of the old woman killed while sitting on her porch, of the people in Gaza killed in their homes when the bomb was dropped on their apartment building, of the refugees killed in their homes in Jenin when the tanks and the bulldozers ate up their camp, razing houses on top of their inhabitants, of people killed in taxis and on sidewalks when the Israelis carry out preventive pinpointed killings. How do I tell the story of refugees made homeless for the 3rd or 4th time, of the woman who throws up her hands, in the middle of her house, with the gaping holes from the bulldozers in the wall, and the windows shot out by snipers, and the rooms filled with the debris of a family's life, and begs me to tell the people of the US to please make it stop, this terrible nightmare. And wipes away my tears which I am ashamed to shed, and hugs me and gives me some of the precious drinking water that is so hard to come by in Rafah these days since the wells have been destroyed. And the people next door who invite us in for coffee, while sewage washes past the steps of their battered home which is sure to be demolished, standing as it is on the front line of Rafah, empty land where the next row of houses once stood. And the farmers chased from their olive trees by armed settlers and the people in Hebron who live with sandbags blocking their windows because the settlers have shot the glass out so many times, and my colleague who only sees his 4 adoring children, once a week, because the closures make the distance between his home and his work, just 30 KM apart, a 4 hour journey. How can I show the faces behind the statistics - 70% unemployment, - 75% poverty, - 13% malnutrition in children under five. The number of dead, and injured, and blinded, and handicapped, in wheelchairs, and hospital beds and orphaned and homeless. The children that play funeral in the schoolyard, or ambulance stopped at the checkpoint, or soldier abusing passersby. The number of school days missed and the number of schools invaded and closed and the number of teachers who can't get to work and the number of students who can't afford to return to university. And the number of people in administrative detention, held without charge, without trial, without lawyers, without family visits, in tents without adequate food and water and sanitation and protection from the elements. And the number of trees uprooted, and dunums of land raised and kilometers of bypass roads built and wells destroyed. And of the courage and the dignity and the determination and the family who rebuilds their house again and again, each time it is demolished. And of the fear and the loss and the humiliation and the
[CTRL] http://saferamerica.com/sapackages.asp?packageID=2
-Caveat Lector- High Rise Kit: 1 Adult 1 Escape Parachute: Executive-Chute 1 Smoke Hood: Evac-U8 1 NBC Protective Suit: Tyvek F 1 Package of No-Rad Potassium Iodide 1 Pair of Nitrile Gloves + Booties 1 Flash Light 2 D Duct Tape When ordering the kit, please indicate the size of the Tyvek NBC suit. Our price: $975.00 A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Beware statesman invoking God
-Caveat Lector- Saturday February 15, 2003 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?storyID=3100103 thesection=newsthesubsection=dialogue Diana Wichtel: Beware statesman invoking God 08.02.2003 - The alarm bells really started ringing after September 11, when George W began throwing around words like crusade and evil-doers. I liked him better in the old days, when he said things like, I know how hard it is for you to put food on your family and I know the human being and fish can coexist peacefully. Actually, I never liked him. But such pronouncements, though devoid of discernible meaning, were at least relatively harmless. Now, emboldened by getting away with sounding increasingly like an Old Testament prophet rather than a 21st century world leader, Bush continues to blur the lines, not just between church and state but between the will of God and the will of George W. Bush. In journalist Bob Woodward's behind-the-scenes book, Bush at War, we hear this from Bush: There is a human condition that we must worry about in times of war. There is a value system that cannot be compromised - God-given values. These aren't United States-created values. He is talking about things like freedom and mother love, apparently. But he's also setting up the outrageous notion that if and when America goes to war it will be about upholding Divine law. Nothing to do with American foreign policy. They say Bush was quite a drinker before he saw the light. For that matter, Bush says it himself. Then he gave up the booze and became a born again Christian. This explains a lot. Like many a reformed hellraiser, he seems to think this gives him permission to preach to the rest of us, even though most of us knew way before George W did that excessively abusing oneself with substances was a bad idea. Bush has certainly retained the manipulative qualities and denial techniques of the hardened boozer. To invoke God in the way he does is to cut the moral ground out from under anyone who disagrees with you. By the time he's finished, to be against America's policies is to be against God. It would be quite clever if it wasn't so scary. Well, not that clever. Even in Old Testament mode, Bush sometimes reverts to his English-as-a-second-language ways. We hold dear what our Declaration of Independence says, that all have got uninalienable rights, endowed by a Creator, he told community and religious leaders in Moscow last year. It was an interesting Freudian slip. That double negative in uninalienable means the rights are, in fact, alienable, something a lot of innocent civilians may be about to find out. But it's getting harder to laugh. Some commentators are seriously worried about what has been referred to as Bush's Messiah complex. Others think the rhetoric is largely for political purposes. I hope the latter are right. The alternative is that the most powerful man in the world believes that God's plan includes apocalypse, if not now, then possibly quite soon. Whatever Bush's temporal or spiritual agenda, he was at it again in his State of the Union speech. The liberty we prize is not America's gift to the world, it is God's gift to humanity. Cue wild applause. Liberty is God's gift to humanity. America sees itself as a free nation, therefore God has favoured America. Iraq, on the other hand, is not free, therefore God doesn't like Iraq and it's okay to bomb it back into the Stone Age. Nice. This sort of thinking has done some good - there are hilarious parodies of Bush speeches to be found on the net - Our God also pities the atheists who insist on separation of church and state. Forgive them Father, for they do not know that in Hell, even your teeth burn. (Applause.) And, of course he is not the first politician to claim that God is on his side. Nor, sadly, will he be the last. You also have to take into account the general God-bothering tendencies of American public life. American entertainment industry awards ceremonies are full of people, mostly living lives of appalling consumption and hedonism, who seem to believe God is directly responsible for their latest forgettable album or awful sitcom. But this is different. This is a fundamentalist mindset. And what disturbs me about fundamentalism of any flavour is that it is usually so frighteningly primitive and literal. Writing about Woodward's aforementioned book, a reviewer says, What are readers to make of the anecdote in which a CIA operative is told to bring Osama bin Laden's head home in a box? Was this for real? Apparently so, since the operative took a cardboard box and dry ice with him. Yikes. The trouble with bringing God into politics - well, you only need to think of Northern Ireland, the Middle East, Bosnia ... and it's not that big a step from believing you are serving God to believing you are God. The Nazis saw themselves as super beings with the right to give and take away, to decide who would live and die, who was human and who was not. The
[CTRL] Globe plans for aprs-guerre
-Caveat Lector- www.sfgate.com Return to regular view http://sfgate.com/columnists/worldviews/ WORLD VIEWS: Globe plans for aprés-guerre humanitarian aid; Bush's religious war rhetoric bashed by Pope, others; and more. by Edward M. Gomez, special to SF Gate Thursday, February 13, 2003 ©2003 SF Gate URL: Even as European leaders square off over George W. Bush's controversial Iraq war plans, prompting divisions in decades-old alliances, European governments and international relief organizations are already planning for what the French call the après-guerre (after the war) scenario. Relief agencies have begun sending experts and supplies into the prospective war region, and the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) has spent $19 million from its reserves to purchase tents and cooking supplies and [to] transport them to [Iraq's] neighboring countries. The UNCHR predicts that if war breaks out, some 600,000 Iraqis could flee abroad, with about half going to Iran and the rest to Turkey, Syria and Jordan. The Swiss-run International Committee of the Red Cross has bases in Kuwait, Iran and Jordan, but a spokeswoman for the organization cautioned that infrastructure hardly functions. She added that the population has been living on food rations and is very vulnerable. (Reuters) The Bush administration has announced that it has given the UNHCR $12.1 million for humanitarian contingency planning for Iraq, (Reuters) but it has declined to take part in a conference on humanitarian relief for Iraq that Switzerland's foreign minister, Micheline Calmy-Rey, has been organizing. (Swissinfo/NZZ) We are uncertain as to how the conference would assist the planning, a spokesperson for the U.S. diplomatic mission in Geneva said. (Islam Online) Calmy-Rey's conference comes on the heels of another humanitarian-relief confab, the annual Aid and Trade expo, which took place in late January in Geneva. Part conference and part trade fair, Aid and Trade attracted some 250 exhibitors offering such wares for war-torn places as satellite phones, de-mining suits, police cars and foods for refugees. (Alternet) Iraq was not invited to Calmy-Rey's Feb. 15-16 Geneva conference, a gesture that provoked criticism from Iraqi officials. Said the Swiss foreign minister, Humanitarian issues have got nothing to do with politics. We must do everything we possibly can on the humanitarian side before, during and after a possible war. (Swissinfo/NZZ) Noting that U.S. Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld had predicted with a smile a short war that could last six days or six weeks, France's Le Monde looked ahead to a postwar world and asked, What sort of mandate [does the United States have] to occupy a nation that today numbers 23 million inhabitants and whose capital, Baghdad, weighs as heavily in the collective history of the Arabs as Paris, London or Berlin does for Europeans? To pose these questions is not to defend the indefensible status quo, the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. It is [instead] to measure the enormity of what is at risk of taking place. Officially, but in a low-key way, the United States also has been getting ready for the impact of the war. In Italy, Archbishop Renato Martino, from the pope's Council of Peace and Justice, told the media that a shipment of 100,000 body bags and 6,000 coffins had been delivered to a U.S. Navy base on the island of Sicily. I am very apprehensive about this, Martino said. The consequences of this war will make themselves all too obvious [to] the American people when they start to see coffins with loved ones in [them] returning home. (The Mirror) * * * * Overseas, observers have not failed to notice the religious tone of George W. Bush's quips and speeches. They're lambasting him for that fervor, too, for fanning the flames of misunderstanding and war. Sounding increasingly like an Old Testament prophet rather than a 21st- century world leader, Bush continues to blur the lines not just between church and state but between the will of God and the will of George W. Bush, commentator Diana Wichtel wrote in The New Zealand Herald. To invoke God in the way he does is to cut the moral ground out from under anyone who disagrees with you. To be against America's policies is to be against God. It would be quite clever if it wasn't so scary. In the United Kingdom's Observer, Mary Riddell opined that British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Bush may believe God is on their side, but it would still be an immoral war. Noting that God seems to be the coalescing agent of this war, the unifying bond between a prime minister guided by religious certitude and a president in thrall to Bible and gun, Riddell added, It may become, or lead to, the first nuclear conflict of the century. It will also echo back through 2,500 years of bloodshed justified by the sway of good over evil. Bush should have studied Old Testament prophecy further. (Observer) A higher authority, Pope John Paul
[CTRL] Triple crisis
-Caveat Lector-
Friday » February 14 » 2003
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.html?id={B1C45323-E31C-4B37-
A6F5-E2999A91E20B}
Triple crisis fuels alarm in U.S.
Jan Cienski
National Post, with files from news services
Thursday, February 13, 2003
WASHINGTON - The three international crises facing the United States
seemed to converge on Washington yesterday, raising public alarm to a
level not seen since the Cuban missile crisis of 1962.
Administration officials simultaneously warned of the imminent danger of
war with Iraq, the possibility of a terrorist attack and the ability of North
Korea to launch nuclear weapons at the U.S.
You are dealing with ... three layers of people that are very difficult and
of great concern to the American intelligence community, George Tenet,
the director of the Central Intelligence Agency, told a Senate committee.
Across the country, Americans crowded stores to stock up on plastic
sheeting, duct tape and other supplies to guard against chemical or
biological attack.
The mood of the nation is grim, said Robert Byrd, a West Virginia
Democrat who has been a U.S. Senator since 1958.
Bush administration officials scurried from hearing to hearing on Capitol
Hill, pausing to issue updated warnings of the threat to the nation and
advising Americans to prepare for the worst.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency urged families to prepare a
disaster kit, identify places to gather in case of an attack and to keep
important documents in a watertight container able to survive a
cataclysmic event.
People are going to be on their own for the first 24 or 48 hours, said
David Paulison, the U.S. fire administrator and a defence planner for the
new Department of Homeland Security, established in the wake of the
Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
People quickly heeded the advice, jamming hardware stores to stock up
on necessities in case of a calamity: food, water, and materials to build
temporary chemical and biological warfare shelters.
The plastic and the tape sold out yesterday, sold out again this morning,
sold out this afternoon, and we have another shipment coming in now and
we expect to sell out tonight, said Natalie Green, a manager at
Strosneider's Hardware in Montgomery County, just north of the U.S.
capital. Some people are in a panic.
At a Home Depot in Alexandria, Va., shoppers spent the day debating the
protective merits of thin plastic film over thick tarps, and wondering
exactly how much of their home would need to be sealed off and for how
long.
How am I going to keep my kids sealed up in one room? And what about
the bathroom? We won't all fit in the bathroom if we try to stay there,
one shopper said.
Authorities added to the mood of foreboding by visibly beefing up security
around the capital, deploying heat-seeking Stinger anti-aircraft missiles
mounted on Humvee vehicles at important sites, including the Pentagon,
which was hit by a hijacked airplane during the Sept. 11 attacks.
Overhead, Black Hawk helicopters and F-16 jet fighters were placed on 24-
hour alert in Washington and at other U.S. cities, including New York and
Boston.
Police stepped up their patrols on the streets and in subway tunnels,
where electronic signs that normally alert commuters to arriving trains and
broken elevators instead flashed Security Alert messages asking
commuters to report anything suspicious.
The extent of the preparations was questioned by some critics of the
government, who accused the administration of encouraging a sense of
panic to boost support for its war plans in Iraq.
People are warned of imminent terrorist attacks with little guidance as to
when or where such attacks might occur, Mr. Byrd said. Family members
are being called to active military duty, with no idea of the duration of
their stay or what horrors they may face. Communities are being left with
less than adequate police and fire protection.
But the administration maintained the precautions were justified.
Appearing before a House committee, Colin Powell, the Secretary of State,
made clear the United States is more determined than ever to proceed
against Iraq, with or without approval from the United Nations.
We are reaching a moment of truth as to whether or not this matter will
be resolved peacefully or will be resolved by military conflict, he said.
While Americans have become resigned to the inevitability of war with Iraq,
the threat to the United States itself has seemed distant and unreal.
The administration is working to change that. On the weekend it raised
the U.S. threat level to orange, the second-highest level, based on
intelligence indicating Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda terrorist network is
planning a new round of attacks.
After months of downplaying the danger of a nuclear attack by North
Korea, Mr. Tenet said yesterday the communist state has the potential to
hit the West Coast of North America with an experimental long-range
missile.
I think the declassified answer is yes,
[CTRL] Texas firm arranged to avoid almost all federal taxes
-Caveat Lector- www.sfgate.com Return to regular view Enron's top 200 execs paid themselves $1.4 billion in 2000 Panel hears how Texas firm arranged to avoid almost all federal taxes Peter Behr, Washington Post Friday, February 14, 2003 ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback URL:http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/02/14/BU241090.DTL Washington -- Enron Corp.'s 200 highest-paid executives received total compensation of $1.4 billion in 2000, more than triple the amount the year before, and more than the company's $979 million in reported corporate profit, according to a three-volume report the congressional Joint Committee on Taxation issued Thursday. The executives' compensation, mostly stock option awards, enabled the Houston company to wipe out nearly all its federal tax obligations that year. While its compensation strategy was erasing tax bills in the late 1990s, Enron was turning its tax department into a profit center, the report found. Its senior executives joined with leading accounting, banking and legal advisers to manipulate tax laws through complex, concealed transactions that generated $651 million in artificial profit between 1995 and 2001, the report said. Enron paid these advisers $88 million in fees in that six-year period in a relationship the committee called incestuous. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, said at a hearing on the report that he intended to introduce legislation that would bar other corporations and their outside advisers from imitating Enron's tax schemes, effective with Thursday's hearing. I don't care if it takes five years to get the legislation passed, the date will hold, he said. Without new sanctions, the Internal Revenue Service will continue to be outwitted by corporate tax filers, as it was by Enron and its advisers, the report said. The committee's top Democrat, Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., endorsed Grassley's pledge, calling the report a wake-up call on corporate tax abuse. One Republican tax lobbyist said the Enron tax report has caused a rush of anxiety among Washington's law firms. Some worry that lawmakers will try to use the joint committee's loophole-closure recommendations to offset some of the cost of President Bush's $665 billion tax cut plan, the lobbyist said. So the business community is gearing up for a major fight. The joint committee's report, released after a yearlong investigation, stunned Lindy Paull, the committee's longtime chief of staff, she said. Hundreds of pages of confidential flow charts describe how Enron engineered swaps of assets and securities between its divisions and some of its financial partners to accelerate billions of dollars in tax deductions. In some cases, deductions were counted twice. Other deals allowed Enron to deduct loan principal payments, not merely interest. Other transactions appeared to shuffle paper between Enron units, with little of real value changing hands, the committee found. Grassley called the practices a little bit short of racketeering. ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback Page B - 5 Forwarded for your information. The text and intent of the article have to stand on their own merits. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. section 107, this material is distributed without charge or profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving this type of information for non-profit research and educational purposes only. Do not believe in anything simply because you have heard it. Do not believe simply because it has been handed down for many genera- tions. Do not believe in anything simply because it is spoken and rumoured by many. Do not believe in anything simply because it is written in Holy Scriptures. Do not believe in anything merely on the authority of teachers, elders or wise men. Believe only after careful observation and analysis, when you find that it agrees with reason and is conducive to the good and benefit of one and all. Then accept it and live up to it. The Buddha on Belief, from the Kalama Sut A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A
[CTRL] http://www.diplomatie.gouv.fr/actu/article.asp?ART=32389
-Caveat Lector- Texte complet sur site A:E:R Monsieur le Président, à ceux qui se demandent avec angoisse quand et comment nous allons céder à la guerre, je voudrais dire que rien, à aucun moment, au sein de ce Conseil de Sécurité, ne sera le fait de la précipitation, de l'incompréhension, de la suspicion ou de la peur. Dans ce temple des Nations Unies, nous sommes les gardiens d'un idéal, nous sommes les gardiens d'une conscience. La lourde responsabilité et l'immense honneur qui sont les nôtres doivent nous conduire à donner la priorité au désarmement dans la paix. Et c'est un vieux pays, la France, d'un vieux continent comme le mien, l'Europe, qui vous le dit aujourd'hui, qui a connu les guerres, l'occupation, la barbarie. Un pays qui n'oublie pas et qui sait tout ce qu'il doit aux combattants de la liberté venus d'Amérique et d'ailleurs. Et qui pourtant n'a cessé de se tenir debout face à l'Histoire et devant les hommes. Fidèle à ses valeurs, il veut agir résolument avec tous les membres de la communauté internationale. Il croit en notre capacité à construire ensemble un monde meilleur. Je vous remercie. A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] February 21st 2003?
-Caveat Lector- I suggest by simple calculation, that Blood will flow on February 21st 2003. No gut feeling, no nothing, but a calculation. For the USA says I will Go for it. Mmm A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Child Pornography, Sai Baba, CIA sabotaged inspections, suit to stop war
-Caveat Lector- also has Is the Bush administration using terrorism fears to shield government -- and business -- from public view? this may be heavy for survivors Review of Child Pornography and Obscenity Crimes Report Number I-2001-07 July 19, 2001 "Child PornographyIn 89 percent of the cases, the defendants either pled guilty or were found guilty at trial." http://www.usdoj.gov/oig/i0107/results.htm from http://www.saiguru.net/english/articles/new6.htm all accusations are alleged "It is now an undisputed fact, even among leading devotees such as the European Central Coordinator of the Sathya Sai Organisation, Thorbjørn Meyer, that SB takes down the trousers of young men and boys and handles their genitals intimately, rubbing on oil and sometimes also so-called 'holy ash'. Many report that he also rubs vigorously so as to (try to) cause an erection, also sometimes kissing them voluptuously on the mouth." http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=378163 CIA 'sabotaged inspections and hid weapons details' By Andrew Buncombe in Washington 14 February 2003Senior democrats have accused the CIA of sabotaging weapons inspections in Iraq by refusing to co-operate fully with the UN and withholding crucial information about Saddam Hussein's arsenal. Led by Senator Carl Levin, the Democrats accused the CIA of making an assessment that the inspections were unlikely to be a success and then ensuring they would not be. They have accused the CIA director of lying about what information on the suspected location of weapons of mass destruction had been passed on. http://www.motherjones.com/news/outfront/2003/02/ma_219_01.html Official Secrets Is the Bush administration using terrorism fears to shield government -- and business -- from public view? Daniel Franklin People who live near chemical plants can no longer go online and find out which hazardous materials are stored near their home. Air travelers can no longer see Federal Aviation Administration records on airport-security violations. Journalists and elected officials no longer have access to a string of reports pinpointing weaknesses in the nation's antiterrorism defenses. When the federal government scrambled to remove vast amounts of information from official libraries and websites in the wake of September 11, most assumed that access would be restored after officials had a chance to carefully evaluate security risks. But instead, many observers now say, the administration has used a string of laws and executive orders to reverse a decades-long trend toward government openness. The new measures are so broad, critics warn, it's impossible to say whether officials are protecting national security or simply expanding their power to operate without public scrutiny. "An iron veil is descending over the executive branch," warns Rep. Dan Burton (R-Ind.), chairman of the House Committee on Government Reform. http://www.upi.com/view.cfm?StoryID=20030213-093506-8792r Suit questions Bush's war powers By David D. Haskell >From the National Desk Published 2/13/2003 3:25 PM BOSTON, Feb. 13 (UPI) -- A lawsuit filed in federal court in Boston Thursday seeks to prevent President Bush from going to war against Iraq without congressional approval. A coalition including six House members, several U.S. soldiers and parents of servicemen claims only Congress has that power under the Constitution. "We have a message for President Bush today. Read the Constitution," John Bonifaz, the plaintiffs' lead attorney, said at a news conference announcing the suit. "A war against Iraq without a congressional declaration of war will be illegal and unconstitutional," he said. "It is time for the courts to intervene." The representatives joining the suit, all Democrats, are John Conyers of Michigan, Dennis Kucinich of Ohio, James McDermott of Washington, Jose Serrano of New York, Sheila Jackson Lee of Texas and Jesse Jackson Jr. of Illinois. A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=""Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL]
[CTRL] American Jihad
-Caveat Lector- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/chronicle/archive/2003/02/13/ED152326.DTL Impending War on Iraq American Jihad George Bisharat Many Americans suspect that the war our government is preparing to launch against Iraq is about oil. That is both correct and incorrect. True, Iraq possesses huge oil and gas reserves. Yes, the United States and England, the two countries most adamant for war, are home to the world's four largest energy conglomerates. Yet oil is a constant. In a sense, everything in U.S. Middle East policy for the last 50 years or more has been about oil. For that very reason, however, oil cannot explain a shift in policy toward war. Some new variable has entered the equation. No, the real reason we are going to war is the messianic vision of a small but influential group of strongly pro-Israeli hawks within the Bush administration. Their goal is unilateral global domination through absolute military superiority. U.S. global hegemony will "promote democracy" and "spread prosperity" through free enterprise and trade. But the hawks' almost theological obsession with Iraq still needs explaining. The evidence in support of the "Iraqi threat" to America is palpably thin. Whether or not Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction, for years he has been safely contained by threat of nuclear retaliation. The hawks recognize this evidentiary weakness, and have aggressively pressed the CIA to cook its reports to support war. Douglas Feith, assistant to Undersecretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz, oversees an amateur intelligence unit inside the Department of Defense that equips Wolfowitz and Donald Rumsfeld with unconfirmed, professionally substandard information (according to Robert Dreyfuss in the American Prospect) to contest less gung-ho CIA reports. It has reportedly pressed especially hard to generate evidence of an Iraq-al-Qaeda connection (consider Colin Powell's Security Council presentation last week in this light). Why the determination to overthrow the Iraqi regime? One key is the special regard of the hawks for Israel's right-wing elements. A number of senior Bush officials, including Wolfowitz, Feith and others, have strong affiliations with the Likud Party of Ariel Sharon (as documented by Bill and Kathleen Christison in the online magazine Counterpunch). Feith and Defense Policy Board member Richard Perle, for example, helped author a 1996 study for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu describing Hussein's overthrow as "an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right -- [and] a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions." Interestingly, the study for the Israeli government also advocated resort to pre-emptive strike -- a theme now taken up by President Bush. If an Iraqi attack on the United States is far-fetched, a rejuvenated Iraq could eventually alter the regional balance of power now favorable to Israel. Iraq is the only Arab state to combine oil wealth, water and a large population (more than 23 million), making it a potential powerhouse. War on Iraq would eliminate, for the foreseeable future, any obstacle to a disposition of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict on terms that satisfy Israel's territorial ambitions on most or all of the West Bank. Israel is quietly exultant at the turn in U.S. policy, occasionally hinting that Iran or Syria should be next. Israeli Deputy Interior Minister Gideon Ezra suggested to the Christian Science Monitor in August that a U.S. attack on Iraq will help Israel impose a new order, without Arafat, in the Palestinian territories: "The more aggressive the attack is, the more it will help Israel against the Palestinians. The understanding would be that what is good to do in Iraq, is also good for here." A U.S. strike would "undoubtedly deal a psychological blow" to the Palestinians and would help Israel vis-a-vis Syria, Ezra added. Does this mean that we are going to war for Israel, rather than the United States? That question is incomprehensible to the hawks, who view the two countries as two democracies, shoulder to shoulder in facing the common threat of terrorism. Like the Israelis, the hawks would not stop at Iraq. Instead, Iraq is just a first step in redrawing the map of the entire Middle East. Iraq under a pro-Western leadership, with its enormous oil reserves, would diminish the strategic value of Saudi Arabia and negate Saudi leverage vis-a-vis the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. A new Iraq would be a beachhead for ridding the Middle East of autocracies -- the wellsprings of terrorism, in the hawks' view -- installing democratic governments, and making the region a haven for free enterprise and development. This rosy vision of a revolutionized Middle East overlooks immense risks. Most obviously, a return to colonialism in the Arab world is almost certainly a formula for perpetual war -- Osama bin Laden's dream. Many of us in the Jan. 18 anti-war demonstration in San Francisco --
[CTRL] Interview W/ Rep. Ron Paul - One REAL Patriot
-Caveat Lector- http://www.texasobserver.org/showArticle.asp?ArticleID=1246 An Anti-War Republican! An Interview with Congressman Ron Paul BY JAKE BERNSTEIN Off the main hall at the Republican State Convention in Dallas last June, among all the booths pushing cherished right-wing causes from tort reform to gun ownership, one stood out in popularity. Stationed first as delegates stepped off the floor, the Republican Liberty Caucus of Texas consistently held the largest crowds. The RLC represents the Libertarian wing of the Republican Party. Its standard bearer is U.S. Congressman Ron Paul. By the end of the convention, most delegates proudly sported a sticker that proclaimed, "Iâm a Ron Paul Republican." Paul, who once ran for president as a Libertarian, has been ridiculed by opponents over the years for his role as an ideological gadfly. Challengers for his seat have accused him of holding positions so far out that they place him in outer space. Indeed many of the planks particularly repellent to progressives that Republicans adopted for their Texas platform mirror Paulâs positions. They include abolishing the Internal Revenue Service, eliminating the Department of Education, prohibiting abortion, and doing away with most environmental laws. Remarkably though, Paulâs principled stance also makes him and his true followers natural allies on certain issues progressives hold dear. He has lobbied his fellow members to end the embargo of Cuba. Paul has also been a vocal leader fighting in Congress against a war in Iraq. In doing so he has spoken truth to power with an honesty and courage progressives wish more Democratic leaders exhibited. Paul has also been a leader in warning the American public about the dangers of the police state the Bush administration is rapidly buildingâwhat the ACLU has taken to calling our "surveillance society." Itâs a place where five-count felon John Poindexter (who escaped on a technicality) runs databases out of the Pentagon that hold all of our personal informationâfrom how we spend our money to where we go on the Internet. As an ever-growing number of Americans become concerned about the direction Republican leaders are taking the country, a coalition between left and right that extends from the halls of Congress to the Texas statehouse has begun to form on some of these issues. An example of this incipient movement is a libertarian rally scheduled in Austin at the University of Texas on February 17th. The two featured speakers are Congressman Paul and Texas ACLU Executive Director Will Harrell. The Texas Observer visited with Ron Paul at his district office in Freeport on the Gulf Coast in late December. We wanted to question Paul more closely on the areas where he and progressives might coincide. Here are some of the results of that conversation. Texas Observer: Is it inevitable we will go to war with Iraq? Ron Paul: I would say the odds are 98 percent. Only a miracle will save us from committing this overt act of aggression. I think this will be a gift for Osama bin Laden. He will be the beneficiary of it. He hates Saddam Hussein. He has a better chance of getting one of his men [in power] after we cause a lot of disruption over there. And besides, his recruiting operation is going to get a real boost. We are going to prove to many Muslims around the world exactly what he has been telling them all along, that we are over there to dominate, to control, and to get the oil. I think we have fallen into that trap. Â TO: Why havenât more people seen through this effort to link Hussein to the war on terrorism? RP: It seems that those who advise the president, those who control foreign policy, need another war for various reasons: whether it has to do with the oil or this principle that we are such good people that we know what is best; our views should dominate. I think they believe it almost like a religion. What has happened is that they have been able to control the propaganda. Even if there are some in Washington who have questioned thisâand many of them did question itâthe propaganda has been so powerful. All [Congress] had to do was look at the polls and say, "Oh, the polls show that we must do this." I have told others, and I am convinced that if Bill Clinton was doing exactly what the president is doing today, I bet I wouldnât be a lonely Republican. I bet I would have a lot of Republican supporters on my side But now itâs a Republican president, and he can do no wrong. Â Â Â TO: Has 9/11 changed how the U.S. should operate in the world? RP: I just think it has taken a foreign policy that was seriously flawed and given it more momentum. Now itâs just going further and faster and there is less resistance. Â TO: Will we have to wait for Castro to die for the embargo to end? RP: I think the momentum is moving in our direction. But it would require overriding a veto. It is getting to be so popular I donât try
[CTRL] Fw: View From Britain
-Caveat Lector- THE MIRROR UK http://www.mirror.co.uk/ WHY WE SHOULD MARCH TOMORROW John Pilger TOMORROW one of the most important public events in memory will take place in central London. It is not possible to overstate the significance and urgency of the march and demonstration against an unprovoked British and American attack on Iraq, a nation with whom we have no quarrel and who offer us no threat. The urgency is the saving of lives. First, let us stop calling it a war. The last time war was used in the Gulf was in 1991 when the truth was buried with more than 200,000 people. Attacking a 70-mile line of trenches, three American brigades, operating at night, used 60-ton armoured earthmovers to bury alive teenage Iraqi conscripts, including the wounded and those surrendering and retreating. Survivors were slaughtered from the air. The helicopter gunship pilots called it a turkey shoot. Of the 148 Americans who died, a quarter of them were killed by Americans. Most of the British were killed by Americans. This was known as friendly fire. The civilians who were killed, whose deaths were never recorded by the American military because it was not policy, were collateral damage. Today, after 13 years of an economic blockade that has been compared with a medieval siege, Iraq is defenceless, no matter the discovery of an odd missile that can reach barely 90 miles. Its ragtag army is woefully under-equipped and awaiting its fate, along with a civilian population of whom 42 per cent are children. They are stricken. Even the export of British manufactured vaccines meant to protect Iraqi infants from diphtheria and yellow fever has been restricted. The vaccines, say the Blair government, are capable of being used in weapons of mass destruction. This is the nation upon which the Bush gang says it will rain down 800 missiles within the space of two days. Shock and awe the Pentagon calls its strategy. Meanwhile the weapons inspectors and their morose Swedish leader go about their treasure hunt and a cartoon show is hosted in the UN by General Colin Powell (who rose to the top by covering up the notorious My Lai massacre in Vietnam). It is all a charade. The Americans want Iraq because they want to control and reorder the Middle East. Their once-favourite dictator, Saddam Hussein, made the mistake of misreading the signals from Washington in 1990 and invading another favourite American oil tyranny, Kuwait. So belatedly, Saddam must be replaced, preferably by another Saddam, though more reliable and less uppity. There is no issue of weapons of mass destruction. That is a distraction for us and the media. The wider significance of the promised attack is the rapacious nature of the American state. As Tony Blair has confirmed, North Korea is likely to be next. I think he is wrong and that Iran will be next. That is what the Israeli regime wants and Israel's wishes are as important to influential members of the Bush gang as oil. Thereafter, there is China. Says Anatol Lieven of the Carnegie Institute in Washington: What radical US nationalists have in mind is either to 'contain' China by overwhelming military force or to destroy the Chinese Communist state. ONE of the Bush gang's planners, Richard Perle, has said: If we let our vision of the world go forth and we embrace it entirely, and we don't try to piece together clever diplomacy but just wage a total war ... our children will sing great songs about us years from now. September 11 2001 was their big opportunity. On September 12 Donald Rumsfeld wanted to use the Twin Towers tragedy as an excuse to attack Iraq, which was temporarily spared only because Colin Powell argued that public opinion has to be prepared. Afghanistan was the easier option and they were planning to attack it anyway. The subsequent American endeavour to encircle al-Qaeda in the eastern mountains of Afghanistan was a fiasco and more than 20,000 people, estimates Jonathan Steele in the Guardian, paid the price of that country's liberation. Since September 11 America has established bases at the gateways to all the major sources of fossil fuels. The Unocal oil company is to build a pipeline across Afghanistan. Bush has repudiated the Kyoto treaty on greenhouse gas emissions, with the war crimes provisions of the International Criminal Court and the anti-ballistic missile treaty. He has said he will use nuclear weapons against non-nuclear states if necessary - incredibly Geoffrey Hoon, on Blair's behalf, has said exactly the same. Assassination is now legal. Virtually before our eyes, prisoners have been tortured to the point of suicide in an American concentration camp in Cuba. Under Donald Rumsfeld a secret group with the Orwellian name of the Proactive Pre-emptive Operations Group has the job of provoking terrorist attacks, which would then require counter-attack by the United States. You have to keep
[CTRL] JOKES OTHERS MAKE ABOUT AMERICANS
-Caveat Lector- JOKES OTHERS MAKE ABOUT AMERICANS Q: What's the difference between an American and an American bomb? A: The bomb is smart enough to know where to find Iraq What do you call someone who speaks three languages? --Multilingual. What do you call someone who speaks two languages? --Bilingual. What do you call someone who speaks one language? --An American. In America, what do you call a worker who can fit a round peg in a round hole? Answer: overqualifed. An American was telling one of his favorite jokes to a group of friends. Hell is a place where the cooks are British, the waiters are French, the policemen are Germans, and the trains are run by Italians. The lone European in the group pondered all this for a second and responded, I can't say about the police and the trains, but you're probably right about going out to eat. A restaurant in Hell would be one where the cooks are British and the waiters are French -- and the customers are all Americans. How many American tourists does it take to change a light bulb? Fifteen: Five to figure out how much the bulb costs in the local currency, four to comment on how funny-looking local light bulbs are, three to hire a local person to change the bulb, two to take pictures, and one to buy postcards in case the pictures don't come out. What's the difference between Americans and the engines of the jets on which they travel abroad? After they land, the engines of the jets quit whining. A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
[CTRL] Fwd: [CIA-DRUGS] The Rothschild Formula: aka Grand Orient Forumula
-Caveat Lector- A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=""Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om ---BeginMessage--- -Caveat Lector- This is the formula that banks act as if they use to generate perpetual interest payments from governments who are involved in perpetual war. First reduced to writing by G. Edward Griffin in 1994, here is a small excerpt from one of his 26 chapters, The Rothschild Formula, found in his book entitled, THE CREATURE FROM JEKYLL ISLAND. THE ROTHSCHILD FORMULA Let us imagine a man who is totally pragmatic. He is smarter and more cunning than most men and, in fact, holds them in thinly disguised contempt. He may respect the talents of a few, but has little concern over the condition of mankind. He has observed that kings and politicians are always fighting over something or other and has concluded that wars are inevitable. He also has learned that wars can be profitable, not only by lending or creating the money to finance them, but from government favoritism in the granting of commercial subsidies or monopolies. He is not capable of such a primitive feeling as patriotism, so he is free to participate in the funding of any side in any conflict, limited only by the factors of self interest. If such a man were to survey the world around him, it is not difficult to imagine that he would come to the following conclusions which would become the prime directives of his career: 1. War is the ultimate discipline to any government. If it can successfully meet the challenge of war, it will survive. If it cannot, it will perish. All else is secondary. The sanctity of its laws, the prosperity of its citizens, and the solvency of it treasury will be quickly sacrificed by any government in its primal act of self-survival. 2. All that is necessary, therefore, to ensure that a government will maintain or expand its debt is to involve it in war or the threat of war. The greater the threat and the more destructive the war, the greater the need for debt. 3. To involve a country in war or the threat of war, it will be necessary for it to have enemies with credible military might. If such enemies already exist, all the better. If they exist but lack military strength, it will be necessary to provide them the money to build their war machine. If an enemy does not exist at all, then it will be necessary to create one by financing the rise of a hostile regime. 4. The ultimate obstacle is a government which declines to finance its wars through debt. Although this seldom happens, when it does, it will be necessary to encourage internal political opposition, insurrection, or revolution to replace that government with one that is more compliant to our will. The assassination of heads of state could play an important role in this process. 5. No nation can be allowed to remain militarily stronger than its adversaries, for that could lead to peace and a reduction of debt. To accomplish this balance of power, it may be necessary to finance both sides of the conflict. Unless one of the combatants is hostile to our interests and, therefore, must be destroyed, neither side should be allowed a decisive victory or defeat. While we must always proclaim the virtues of peace, the unspoken objective is perpetual war. Whether anyone actually put this strategy into words or passed it along from generation to generation is not important. In fact, it is doubtful it has ever worked that way. Whether it is the product of conscious planning or merely the consequence of men responding to the profit opportunities inherent in fiat money(1), the world's financial lords have acted as though they were following such a plan, and this has become especially apparent since the creation of the central-bank Mandrake Mechanism(2) three centuries ago. The balance-of-power question is particularly intriguing. Most history texts
[CTRL] Fw: Against war
Title: Against war -Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: organisation To: em Sent: Saturday, February 15, 2003 1:44 AM Subject: Against war Organisation of Iranian People Fadaii Guerrillas A.C.PPostfach 12020660115 Frankfurt am MainGermanyFax: 00-49-221-170 490 21E-Mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]Web Site: http://www.iranian-fedaii. Supporting International Movement Against WarAs the time goes by, the dark and horrific nightmare of the war against Iraq is dominating the entire Middle East especially the Persian Gulf region. The United State and its allies irrespective of the international public opinion are intensifying their war preparations. The US and its allies are ignoring all the opposition coming from so many different countries. February 15th has been declared as the day of protest against this war by so many different organizations. Many democratic groups, revolutionary organizations, and communist parties have announced their solidarities with the ongoing anti-war movement. OIPFG (the Organization of Iranian Peoples Fedaie Guerrillas) invites all the peace loving, revolutionary, and democratic forces to participate in this anti-war movement. It is time to show our strong solidarity against the tyrannical war-policies of the US and its allies. In the current condition international conflicts can only be solved through diplomatic channels and war should be rejected by all means. Undemocratic governments being in power in many different countries does not give the right to any other nation to interfere in the internal affairs of the others. It does not give the right to the United States nor its allies to deploy their military force against anybody else to pursue their imperial ambitions. People of the world are free to choose their own way of life and are free to choose the type of the government that they want to live in. It is up to the people of those countries to decide how and when to stand up against the dictatorial regimes. Therefore there is no need for the US and its allies to play the role of the liberators and try to be the godfather for the rest of the world. February 15th is the day to protest any possible US aggression against Iraq or any other nation for that matter. We invite all the peace-loving, democratic, and revolutionary forces to actively participate in the upcoming February 15th demonstrations. Organisation of Iranian People Fadaii Guerrillas11 Fev 2003 A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsis 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. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html A HREF=""Archives of [EMAIL PROTECTED]/A http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om
