[CTRL] Weisenthal Center Silences Critics Of Ruthless Israeli Policy
-Caveat Lector- http://www.rense.com/general49/silences.htm Weisenthal Center Silences Critics Of Ruthless Israeli Policy "But the SWC is like many other mainstream Jewish organizations in the United States that have expanded their mission from fighting the oppression of Jews by others to attempting to silence critics" - including other Jews - "of Israel's human rights record." Published on Thursday, February 19, 2004 by CommonDreams.org Anti-Semitism at the World Social Forum? by Cecilie Surasky 2-20-4 It is my first morning at the World Social Forum in Mumbai, India and I am at a workshop on Palestinian women and the occupation. In the audience is a woman who I first think might be Israeli - she could easily be one of my friends and I feel an immediate kinship with her. She tells me she is 34 and has lived her whole life in Gaza except for college. I ask her if I can interview her. She cautiously eyes my card, on which I have purposely written in thick, visible letters: Jewish Voice for Peace. "I don't know, she says. "Do you support the occupation?" It seems such a surreal question. How could anyone support an occupation? The very word evokes domination, a kind of cruelty. No, I say, we want to end the occupation. We want a peace that is just. I ask about the checkpoints. She describes sitting in her car waiting to be allowed to drive through. The young Israeli soldiers are in sniper posts. You can't see them, but they can see you, she explains. They signal it's time to go by shooting their guns. She waits a long time until the soldiers say, "OK, now the dogs can go." "You think, 'Do I want to be called a dog, or do I just want to go?' " she tells me. "I don't care, so I start my car and they yell 'No! Not you, I said dogs!' So she turns her car off, and sometime later they say, "OK, now humans can go!" She starts her car and they look at her and the others and say "No! I said humans." And she turns her car off and waits until finally this "other" category of Palestinian - neither human nor animal - is allowed to pass. "This," she says, "is my only contact with Israelis." And this, I think, and is my first contact with someone from Gaza. The WSF and the new anti-Semitism The World Social Forum (WSF) is the populist answer to the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland. Instead of a gathering of the world's mostly wealthy, white, and male heads of state and captains of industry in Davos, the WSF is a cacophony of anti-globalization/human rights activists from all over the globe. The roughly 100,000 participants represent every imaginable cause - from Indian "untouchables" and Bhutanese refugees to child trafficking and sexual minorities. They are seen in the hundreds of marches that seem to appear out of nowhere down the main thoroughfare, at the 500 information booths, in more than 1,000 workshops, and on the political posters filling every inch of available wall space. I have come because my New Voices human rights fellowship has decided to send the fellows to the WSF. But I have an additional reason for being here. The Simon Wiesenthal Center (SWC) has cited the WSF as one of the centers of what it and others refer to as the "new anti-Semitism", and these charges have been picked up by various journalists as evidence of a dangerous new trend on the left. Upon closer reading, most of these accounts make little if any distinction at all between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel, or between anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism. The SWC description of the "anti-Jewish" atmosphere at last year's WSF in Brazil is one of these accounts. And yet, their description of the WSF is so disturbing, even frightening, that I am prepared to encounter at minimum silent hostility, and possibly even physical attacks from my fellow attendees. I have come to the WSF to be loudly and visibly Jewish, to make a presentation that deconstructs the theory that Jews dictate U.S. policy in the Middle East, and to see for myself this purported new tidal wave of hatred of Jews from the rest of the global left. The conference is not what I expected It is surprising to find that the Israel-Palestine conflict and the occupation are not more prominently featured at the conference. Out of hundreds of ongoing marches, I witness only one small pro-Palestine march, which includes a prominent Israeli leftist marching in the front row. Out of about 500 information stalls, only two represent Palestinian human rights groups: PENGON, which is working to tear down the wall Israel is building through Palestinian land, and Al-Haq, which is launching a campaign identifying collective punishment as a war crime. Of the thousands of political posters, I see only one series - Al-Haq's powerful posters on collective punishment - related to the issue. I attend most of the workshops I can find on the Israel-Palestine issue. What I do not hear (or see) is anything I would consider anti-
[CTRL] Israeli Asher Karni & Nuclear Terrorism Network
-Caveat Lector- http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/4413/ Israeli Asher Karni & Nuclear Terrorism Network by William Hughes (Thursday 29 January 2004) "If the Bush-Cheney Gang continues to treat the Karni case as simply a supposed violation of an export licensing law, and not as a potentially serious terrorism-supporting crime, with ramifications that pose a real and continuing threat to the very security of the nation, then we have to ask ourselves this final question: Is the U.S.â âspecial relationshipâ with Zionist Israel a national suicide pact?" Its title is: âUSA v. Asher Karni, Mag. No. 03-707 (TFH/JMF).â This very serious federal criminal case, involving potentially a matter of nuclear terrorism, has been filed in the U.S. District Court, in Washington, DC. However, unlike the hysteria over Michael Jackson, Martha Stewart, and the break up of that silly Affleck-Lopezâs relationship, it is getting little or no attention by the Establishment Media. Why? Is it because the defendant is an Israeli citizen, with close connections to its military regime? According to court documents, Karni served as an officer in the Israeli Occupation Army âfrom 1971 to 1985.â Thatâs 14 years of military expertise, with an outfit notorious for sucker punching its opponents and kicking their victims, while they are on the ground begging for mercy, or, like with Rachel Corrie, running her over with a bulldozer. Karni knows his way around the block. He is no Woody Allen-like nerd, thatâs for sure. You could say that he is a professional. A professional, what? Karni stands accused of illegally sneaking 66 U.S.-made nuclear weapons detonators, via South Africa, his present home base for business, into Pakistan. Pretty serious stuff. The triggered spark gaps have a dual use. Hospitals use them to break up kidney stones, but they can also be used to electronically trigger a nuclear weapon. According to the Feds, Karni tried to buy the devices from a manufacturer located in New England. He was advised that he would need a license to export them. The clever Karni then set up a number of front companies, to ship the devices to South Africa, and then on to Pakistan. Thankfully, the Feds got on to him, and the producer of the device disabled them, so that they couldnât be used by any element bent on a massive terrorist killing spree. Yet, despite all of the above, Karni was granted bail of $100,000, on Jan. 28, 2004, by Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan. Why? Why is Karni, age 50, being treated with such kid gloves? Why, too, arenât the anti-terrorism hard liners, such as Attorney General John Ashcroft and V.P. Dick Cheney, demanding that federal prosecutors toss the book at Karni and throw the key away? There is, indeed, something bizarre going on here. As far as the Establishment Media is concerned, the case of âUSA v. Asher Karniâ hardly exist. For example, the âWashington Post,â the âWashington Timesâ and the âBaltimore Sun,â have all ignored it, despite its wider, lethal implications. The wire services, however, like APâs Matt Kelley, in his âIsraeli Man in Nuke Triggers Case,â 01/28/04, have picked it up, as has Karen Abbott, âRocky Mountain News,â (01/13/04), âIsraeli Goes Free on Bail.â You would think, too, that media windbags, like: Bill OâReilly, Wolf Blitzer and Sean Hannity, would have all raised the matter of the Karni case on their cable tv shows by now. Theyâre supposedly concerned about any threats to national security. Right? Yet, they have been silent. This case raises, on its face, profound questions regarding a nuclear Middle East black market, and of a conniving middleman, a la Arnold Rothstein, trying to make a quick buck off a sale, that if successful, could put the entire world at risk. (Rothstein was a notorious NYC gangster, who funded the first organized Drug Cartel in this country, back in the 1920s. He also fixed the 1919 World Series. See, the riveting âRothstein,â by David Pietrusza, for all the disgusting details.) And, what meaning, if any, should be attributed to Karniâs long, intimate involvement with the Israeli military? Does he also have Mossad ties? Who is he, really? And, who, if anyone, is he working for? Are other intriguers, in Tel Aviv, involved in this international conspiracy? The American people deserve answers to these questions. Chief Judge Hogan agreed that, based on the Fedsâ proffer of evidence, that the âweight of the evidence against the defendant is substantial.â The judge also conceded that Karni, who was arrested on Jan. 1, 2004, while going through Customs at the Denver International Airport, has âno ties to the U.S. or to Washington, DC area,â although, he does have âties to Israel and is a citizen of that nation.â At an earlier bail hearing, on Jan. 14, 2004, a sitting magistrate, Judge Michael Watanabe, established that there âwas probable cause that Mr. Karni committed the alleged crime.â Bail was set at $75,000. The government appealed
[CTRL] Zionist Realpolitik: Destabilisation, Encirclement, Boundary Adjustments, Regime
-Caveat Lector- http://www.adelaideinstitute.org/Middle_East/zionists.htm Zionist Realpolitik: Destabilisation, Encirclement, Boundary Adjustments, Regime Changes The following paragraphs are extracted from a major Zionist think tank policy paper, entitled A Clean Break. Among the recommendations are the use of 'Cold War' type rhetoric to sell Israel to the USA as a bulwark of democracy and Western values in the Middle East, the fomenting of rivalries among the Arabs, the removal of Arafat's leadership, and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein as a prelude for the encirclement and invasion of Syria. The disruptive strategy means escalating turmoil in the Middle East, with Israel 'transcending' (sic) its Arab neighbours. Formulated in 1996 to influence the new Government of Netanyahu, the recommendations have been adopted substantially by Gen. Sharon. The paper was authored by the Study Group for a New Israeli Strategy Toward 2000, a group set up by the Zionist think tank, the Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies, headquartered in Jerusalem. Its authors, described as 'prominent opinion makers', are listed as follows: Richard Perle, American Enterprise Institute, Study Group Leader James Colbert, Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs Charles Fairbanks, Jr., Johns Hopkins University/SAIS Douglas Feith, Feith and Zell Associates Robert Loewenberg, President, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies Jonathan Torop, The Washington Institute for Near East Policy David Wurmser, Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies Meyrav Wurmser, Johns Hopkins University A number of these individuals are now prominent in the Bush Administration and have been in the forefront of pushing war against Iraq, namely: Richard Perle, Defence Policy Board; Douglas Feith, Under-secretary of Defence for Policy at the Pentagon; David Wurmser, personal assistant to Chief Policy Adviser John Bolton, another Zionist). We quote from the document: "Israel can shape its strategic environment, in cooperation with Turkey and Jordan, by weakening, containing, and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq - an important Israeli strategic objective in its own right - as a means of foiling Syria's regional ambitions. Jordan has challenged Syria's regional ambitions recently by suggesting the restoration of the Hashemites in Iraq. This has triggered a Jordanian-Syrian rivalry to which Asad has responded by stepping up efforts to destabilize the Hashemite Kingdom, including using infiltrations. Syria recently signaled that it and Iran might prefer a weak, but barely surviving Saddam, if only to undermine and humiliate Jordan in its efforts to remove Saddam. But Syria enters this conflict with potential weaknesses: Damascus is too preoccupied with dealing with the threatened new regional equation to permit distractions of the Lebanese flank. And Damascus fears that the 'natural axis' with Israel on one side, central Iraq and Turkey on the other, and Jordan, in the center would squeeze and detach Syria from the Saudi Peninsula. For Syria, this could be the prelude to a redrawing of the map of the Middle East which would threaten Syria's territorial integrity." Seldom do we get such a clear picture of the extent and subversive nature of Zionist ambitions in the Middle East, which extend well beyond the present border. Zionist objectives to destabilise the region in the interests of Israel alone promise turmoil in this region for many more years to come. Ultimately, the aim is the establishment of a 'Greater Israel' extending from the Nile to the Euphrates rivers, the so-called 'Deed of Covenant' mentioned in Genesis, which no Zionist will repudiate because of its supposedly divine origin. Indeed, as we show elsewhere, the symbol of the Irgun terrorist organisation of the 1940s and the Herut Party which it later formed, and which became the major constitute of the present ruling Likud Party, was a map of a ?Greater Israel? encompassing Jordan. The aim of a Greater Israel from the rivers Nile and Euphrates is very much dependent upon the kind of strategy outlined in the above document, necessitating the destruction of much of Syria and Iraq in their present forms. At the 1919 Paris Peace Conference the Zionist delegation presented a proposal for the Israeli State, which whilst not as ambitious as an empire from the Nile to the Euphrates, nonetheless indicates the extent of Zionist imperial ambitions. The territory envisaged at that stage by the Zionists comprised: The whole of Palestine; Southern Lebanon, including Tyre and Sidon, the headwaters of the River Jordan on Mount Hermon, and the southern portion of the Litani River; Syria: the Golan Heights including the town of Kuneitra, the River Yarmuk, and El-Himmeh Hot Springs; Jordan: The whole of the Jordan Valley, the Dead Sea, and the eastern highlands up to th
[CTRL] Texas Gov. Rick Perry Gay Sex Scandal Brewing!
-Caveat Lector-
http://austin.indymedia.org/newswire/display/15577/index.php
News :: Politics
Gov. Perry Sex Scandal Brewing Current rating: 0
by .
(No verified email address) 18 Feb 2004
Modified: 10:13:01 PM
EWW!
Source #1: "I attended a political meeting this morning at which it was reported that Governor Perry's wife has left the Governor's Mansion in Austin. The alleged reason was that she found the governor in bed with another man. If true, discussions of gay issues are likely to take a higher profile in Texas in the coming weeks."
Source #2: "I did not want to say anything until it hit the mainstream press, but I have known about that for more than a week."
Source #3: "...the rumors about Perry and Secretary of State Connor (the alleged paramour) have been "swirling" since January. The governor's office is being very evasive."
For photos of the paramour go to http://www.sos.state.tx.us/about/sosbio.shtml
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Rumors
A BUZZFLASH RUMOR ANALYSIS
As any BuzzFlash reader knows, we may be irreverent, but we avoid posting rumors. There's enough immorality, hypocrisy, adultery, war profiteering, lawbreaking, graft, lying, bribery and other nefarious Republican activity to cover that we don't need to troll the gutter for RUMORS.
However, for the first time since we have been online since May of 2000, we have received reports from numerous CREDIBLE sources that a "role model" GOP Governor who touts the sanctity of marriage is about to be served with divorce papers.
Furthermore, this particular governor, should the rumor prove to be true is allegedly being divorced for sexual hijinks that would make the GOP appear to be hypocrites extraordinaire (as if there were any doubt) on both the monogamous marriage issue (i.e., adultery) and the issue of homosexuality.
One more thing, again if this rumor proves true, let us just say it will be a major embarrassment to George W. Bush, Mr. Hypocrisy himself. That is not because Bush has anything whatever to do with the alleged incident and alleged pending divorce suit (and we mean that). It is for reasons that will quickly become apparent should this rumor move to the divorce filing stage.
The rumor further has it that the alleged governor is working furiously to convince his spouse not to file divorce papers in return for who knows what.
But in hearing this rumor, which again -- and we're being honest here -- does not in any way directly involve George W. Bush, we are, however, reminded of his strange exchange that Bush had with the aide of the Canadian Prime Minister ("Bush Tells Canadian Prime Minister's Scott that He has a Prettier Face Than Bush's Scott: We Are Not Making This Up!"):
The President chuckled. "Well, you got a pretty face," he told the surprised Mr. Reid. He wasn't done. "You got a pretty face," he said again. "You're a good-looking guy. Better looking than my Scott anyway."
[LINK]
That gives the flavor of the rumor involving this governor and what would be hypocrisy of the most extreme sort, were it to be revealed as true.
But for the moment, all we can say is that this story is: 1) developing; 2) being covered up; or 3) not true.
But because rumors are just that -- rumors -- we aren't printing any names. Unlike the slimesters on the other side, we don't want to peddle in personal slander.A BUZZFLASH RUMOR ANALYSIS
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[CTRL] Karen Kwiatkowski - Soldier For The TRUTH
-Caveat Lector- http://www.laweekly.com/ink/04/13/news-cooper.php Soldier for the Truth Exposing Bushâs talking-points war by Marc Cooper Busting the liars: Karen Kwiatkowski After two decades in the U.S. Air Force, Lieutenant Colonel Karen Kwiatkowski, now 43, knew her career as a regional analyst was coming to an end when â in the months leading up to the war in Iraq â she felt she was being âpropagandizedâ by her own bosses. With masterâs degrees from Harvard in government and zoology and two books on Saharan Africa to her credit, she found herself transferred in the spring of 2002 to a post as a political/military desk officer at the Defense Departmentâs office for Near East South Asia (NESA), a policy arm of the Pentagon. Kwiatkowski got there just as war fever was spreading, or being spread as she would later argue, through the halls of Washington. Indeed, shortly after her arrival, a piece of NESA was broken off, expanded and re-dubbed with the Orwellian name of the Office of Special Plans. The OSPâs task was, ostensibly, to help the Pentagon develop policy around the Iraq crisis. She would soon conclude that the OSP â a pet project of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Don Rumsfeld â was more akin to a nerve center for what she now calls a âneoconservative coup, a hijacking of the Pentagon.â Though a lifelong conservative, Kwiatkowski found herself appalled as the radical wing of the Bush administration, including her superiors in the Pentagon planning department, bulldozed internal dissent, overlooked its own intelligence and relentlessly pushed for confrontation with Iraq. Deeply frustrated and alarmed, Kwiatkowski, still on active duty, took the unusual step of penning an anonymous column of internal Pentagon dissent that was posted on the Internet by former Colonel David Hackworth, Americaâs most decorated veteran. As war inevitably approached, and as she neared her 20-year mark in the Air Force, Kwiatkowski concluded the only way she could viably resist what she now terms the âexpansionist, imperialistâ policies of the neoconservatives who dominated Iraq policy was by retiring and taking up a public fight against them. She left the military last March, the same week that troops invaded Iraq. Kwiatkowski started putting her real name on her Web reports and began accepting speaking invitations. âIâm now a soldier for the truth,â she said in a speech last week at Cal Poly Pomona. Afterward, I spoke with her. Â L.A. WEEKLY: What was the relationship between NESA and the now-notorious Office of Special Plans, the group set up by Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld and Vice President Cheney? Was the OSP, in reality, an intelligence operation to act as counter to the CIA? KAREN KWIATKOWSKI: The NESA office includes the Iraq desk, as well as the desks of the rest of the region. It is under Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Bill Luti. When I joined them, in May 2002, the Iraq desk was there. We shared the same space, and we were all part of the same general group. At that time it was expanding. Contractors and employees were coming though it wasnât clear what they were doing. In August of 2002, the expanded Iraq desk found new spaces and moved into them. It was told to us that this was now to be known as the Office of Special Plans. The Office of Special Plans would take issue with those who say they were doing intelligence. They would say they were developing policy for the Office of the Secretary of Defense for the invasion of Iraq. But developing policy is not the same as developing propaganda and pushing a particular agenda. And actually, thatâs more what they really did. They pushed an agenda on Iraq, and they developed pretty sophisticated propaganda lines which were fed throughout government, to the Congress, and even internally to the Pentagon â to try and make this case of immediacy. This case of severe threat to the United States. Â You retired when the war broke out and have been speaking out publicly. But you were already publishing critical reports anonymously while still in uniform and while still on active service. Why did you take that rather unusual step? Due to my frustration over what I was seeing around me as soon as I joined Bill Lutiâs organization, what I was seeing in terms of neoconservative agendas and the way they were being pursued to formulate a foreign policy and a military policy â an invasion of a sovereign country, an occupation, a poorly planned occupation. I was concerned about it; I was in opposition to that, and I was not alone. So I started writing what I considered to be funny, short essays for my own sanity. Eventually, I e-mailed them to former Colonel David Hackworth, who runs the Web page Soldiers for the Truth, and he published them under the title âInsider Notes From the Pentagon.â I wrote 28 of those columns from August 2002 until I retired. Â There you were, a career military officer, a Pentagon analyst, a conservative
[CTRL] Saddam's Shredders - Not A Shred Of Evidence
-Caveat Lector- http://www.antiwar.com/spectator/spec36.html Not a shred of evidence Did Saddam Hussein really use industrial shredders to kill his enemies? Brendan OâNeill is not persuaded that he did Forget the no-show of Saddam Husseinâs WMD. Even George Bush no longer believes that they are there. Ask instead what happened to Saddamâs âpeople shredderâ, into which his son Qusay reportedly fed opponents of the Baathist regime. Ann Clwyd, Labour MP for Cynon Valley and chair of Indict, a group that has been campaigning since 1996 for the creation of an international criminal tribunal to try the Baathists, wrote of the shredder in the Times on 18 March â the day of the Iraq debate in the House of Commons and three days before the start of the war. Clwyd described an Iraqiâs claims that male prisoners were dropped into a machine âdesigned for shredding plasticâ, before their minced remains were âplaced in plastic bagsâ so they could later be used as âfish foodâ. Sometimes the victims were dropped in feet first, reported Clwyd, so they could briefly behold their own mutilation before death. Not surprisingly the story made a huge impact. Two days after Clwydâs article was published, the Australian Prime Minister John Howard addressed his nation to explain why he was sending troops to support the coalition in Iraq; he talked of the Baathistsâ many crimes, including the âhuman-shredding machineâ that was used âas a vehicle for putting to death critics of Saddam Husseinâ. Clwyd received an email from the US deputy defence secretary, Paul Wolfowitz, who expressed admiration for her work and invited her to meet him at the Pentagon. Her Times article on the shredder is still on the US State Departmentâs website, under the heading âIssues of International Securityâ. Others, too, made good use of the story. Andrew Sullivan, the British-born journalist who writes a weekly column from Washington for the Sunday Times, said Clwydâs report showed âclearly, unforgettably, indeliblyâ that âthe Saddam regime is evilâ and that âleading theologians and moralists and politiciansâ ought to back the war. The Daily Mail columnist Melanie Phillips wrote of the shredder in which âbodies got chewed up from foot to headâ, and said: âThis is the evil that the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Anglican bishops refuse to fight.â In the Telegraph, Mark Steyn used the spectre of the shredder to chastise the anti-war movement: âIf itâs a choice between letting some carbonated-beverage crony of Dick Cheney get a piece of the Nasiriyah soft-drinks market or allowing Saddam to go on feeding his subjects feet-first into the industrial shredder for another decade or three, then the âpeaceâ activists will take the lesser of two evils â i.e., crank up the shredder.â In his book Allies: The United States, Britain, Europe and the War in Iraq, published in December 2003, William Shawcross wrote of a regime that âfed people into huge shredders, feet first to prolong the agonyâ. Earlier this month, Trevor Kavanagh, political editor of the Sun, claimed that âBritish resistance to war changed last year when we learned how sadist Saddam personally supervised the horrific torture of Iraqis. Public opinion swung behind Tony Blair as voters learned how Saddam fed dissidents feet first into industrial shredders.â Nobody doubts that Saddam was a cruel and ruthless tyrant who murdered many thousands of his own people (at least 17,000 according to Amnesty; 290,000 according to Human Rights Watch) and that the vast majority of Iraqis are glad heâs gone. But did his regime have a human-shredding machine that made mincemeat of men? The evidence is far from compelling The shredding machine was first mentioned in public by James Mahon, then head of research at Indict, at a meeting at the House of Commons on 12 March. Mahon had just returned from northern Iraq, where Indict researchers, along with Ann Clwyd, interviewed Iraqis who had suffered under Saddamâs regime. One of them said Iraqis had been fed into a shredder. âSometimes they were put in feet first and died screaming. It was horrible. I saw 30 die like this On one occasion I saw Qusay Hussein personally supervising these murders.â In subsequent interviews and articles, Clwyd said this shredding machine was in Abu Ghraib prison, Saddamâs most notorious jail. What was done to corroborate the Iraqiâs claims? Apparently nothing. Indict refuses to tell me the names of the researchers who were in Iraq with Mahon and Clwyd; and, I am told, Mahon, who no longer works at Indict, âdoes not want to speak to journalists about his work with usâ. But Clwyd tells me: âWe heard it from a victim; we heard it and we believed it.â So nothing was done to check the truth of what the victim said, against other witness statements or other evidence for a shredding machine? âWell, no,â says Clwyd. â[Indict researchers] didnât have to do that; they were just taking witness statements.â But surely,
[CTRL] Chutzpah! Richard Perle's got plenty of it
-Caveat Lector- http://www.antiwar.com/justin/ February 20, 2004 Chutzpah! Richard Perle's got plenty of it by Justin Raimondo "Utter nerve" â that's how the dictionary defines chutzpah, and that just about sums up, in a single, wonderfully descriptive Yiddish word, Richard Perle's recent suggestion that "heads should roll" in the U.S. intelligence community. We didn't find the "weapons of mass destruction" Perle and his neocon buddies insisted were there in the run-up to the Iraq war, and whose fault is that? CIA Director George Tenet's, says the neoconservative guru and former chairman of the Defense Policy Board: "George Tenet has been at the CIA long enough to assume responsibility for its performance. There's a record of failure and it should be addressed in some serious way." Perle, you remember, is the one who assured us that Iraq was crawling with WMD: "We will find Saddam's well-hidden chemical and biological weapons programs, but only when people who know come forward and tell us where to look. While Saddam was in power, even a hint about his concealment and deception was a death sentence, often by unimaginable torture against whole families. Saddam had four years to hide things. We have had a few weeks to find them. Patience â and some help from free Iraqis â will be rewarded." But Perle needn't take responsibility: only Tenet, whose Agency debunked cherry-picked "intelligence" that made the case for war, is so burdened. It was Tenet who fought an unsuccessful battle to keep claims of an Iraqi nuclear program not far from success out of the President's 2003 State of the Union. It was Tenet whose Agency was sidelined by the Office of Special Plans (OSP), a division of the Defense Department set up especially to propagandize for war and "stovepipe" cherry-picked (and unverified) intelligence directly to the White House via the office of the Vice President. When Perle and his cohorts were concocting tall tales of Al Qaeda's "links" to the Iraqi government, and Saddam's mythical quest for Niger "yellowcake," CIA analysts were outspokenly (if anonymously) debunking these fanciful effusions. Even as the CIA was denying it, Perle was busy spreading the fable about an alleged meeting of Mohammed Atta and an Iraqi intelligence agent in Prague that turned out never to have happened. While Perle was confidently concurring with fellow Defense Policy Board member Ken Adelman's prediction that the conquest and occupation of Iraq would be a "cakewalk," a State Department study (shelved by the neocons) accurately foretold the mess we find ourselves in today. So, tell me again why it is that Tenet has to step down. Perle is right when he says: "I think, of course, heads should roll. When you discover that you have an organization that doesn't get it right time after time, you change the organization, including the people." Heads should roll, alright: starting with Perle's, and don't think he doesn't know it. That's what the chutzpah strategy is all about: brazening it out. He blithely avers that "the CIA has an almost perfect record of getting it wrong in relation to the (Persian) Gulf going back to the Shah of Iran," but what about Perle's record? The vaunted "cakewalk" has turned into a major stumble that constantly threatens to become a flat-out failure. The WMD he confidently said would be found in Iraq dissipated like a desert mirage â along with the President's credibility. Now he wants the CIA to take responsibility for the lies he told, and he'll settle for nothing less than "a shakeup," i.e. a purge of anyone who opposed the neocon agenda and the forced march to war: "'I'd start with the head head,' Perle said when asked which heads should roll at the CIA. Perle said the D[efense] I[ntelligence A[gency] 'is in at least as bad shape as CIA (and) needs new management.'" But if you look at the National Intelligence Estimate [pdf file], a document prepared by the White House with input from all agencies, the section on Iraq, which postulates a whole arsenal of active WMD, is filled with dissenting footnotes authored by the very agencies Perle would purge: not only the CIA and the DIA, but also the State Department's Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), which described the African yellowcake story as "highly dubious." That didn't stop the President from proclaiming the infamous "16 words" to the country and the world as a prime reason for targeting Iraq. Air Force intelligence appended a disdainful dissent to the claim that Saddam possessed "drones" capable of dropping biological agents on American cities. Bush didn't listen to his own Air Force: instead, he highlighted this ridiculous claim in a major speech. Dick Cheney's henchmen were feeding both the President and the country a strict diet of pure science fiction and fantasy authored by the Office of Special Plans: in a very short time a whole new genre of speculative fiction was spawned by the neocons. They always wer
[CTRL] Israeli suspected of selling nukes to India and Pakistan
-Caveat Lector- http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/396317.html Last Update: 20/02/2004 15:47 Israeli suspected of selling nukes to India and Pakistan By The Associated Press WASHINGTON - An Israeli businessman accused of being a middleman in the nuclear black market worked to supply not only Pakistan but also its arch-rival India, court records indicate. South Africa-based Asher Karni faces felony charges of exporting nuclear bomb triggers to Pakistan. But court files in the case also include e-mail exchanges between Karni and an Indian businessman who was trying secretly to buy material for two Indian rocket factories. "Be careful to avoid any reference to the customer name," warned one message from Karni's Indian contact, Raghavendra "Ragu" Rao of Foretek Marketing (Pvt.) Ltd. The messages offer a rare glimpse into such dealings. Federal prosecutors filed them in court as part of their attempts to persuade a judge to keep Karni behind bars before his trial. After conferring with U.S. Magistrate Judge Alan Kay on Thursday, lawyers for both sides agreed to postpone a bond hearing for Karni until next Tuesday. L. Barrett Boss, one of Karni's lawyers, declined comment after the hearing. Karni, 50, has pleaded innocent. Federal agents arrested him on New Year's Day when he arrived in Denver for a ski vacation. Authorities accuse Karni of using front companies and falsified documents to buy nuclear bomb triggers in the United States and ship them to Pakistan. The United States is pressuring Pakistan to shut down the black-market network it used to supply its nuclear weapons program and in turn to supply Iran, North Korea and Libya with nuclear technology. A key scientist in Pakistan's nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, said this month that he ran the network but insisted Pakistan's government was not involved. Rao's e-mails from India ask Karni to procure three kinds of high-tech equipment while concealing that they were meant for the two rocket labs. The United States restricts exports of missile-related material to the two organizations, the Liquid Propulsion Systems Center and the Vikram Sarabhai Space Center. An August 2002 e-mail from Rao to Karni warns Karni to conceal the final customer of an accelerometer to the LPSC, noting its export is restricted because of its "possibility of being used in guidance systems for missiles." Rao did not respond to AP e-mails seeking comment Thursday. Prosecutors said they found his e-mails while searching a laptop computer and six computer discs Karni had when he was arrested. The court files also include records of other deals Karni made with his contact in Pakistan, Humayun Khan of the company Pakland PME. One involved Khan's urgent request last May for Karni to buy infrared sensors for AIM-9L Sidewinder missiles - which Pakistan uses on its F-16 fighter planes for air-to-air combat. While it is unclear whether that deal went through, the request shows Karni must have known Khan had ties to the Pakistani military, Assistant U.S. Attorney Jay Bratt argued in court documents. Another deal which apparently was completed was Humayun Khan's request for a sophisticated oscilloscope, a measuring device that could be used in nuclear weapons programs. For that deal, the documents indicate, Karni used the same U.S. intermediary he used for the bomb triggers: Giza Technologies Inc. of Seacaucus, New Jersey. In an August e-mail to Giza head Zeki Bilmen, Karni said he had a "new project" for Giza. "It is very important that they will not know it is coming to S.A. (South Africa)," Karni wrote. Karni in May had asked the oscilloscope maker, Tektronix Inc., if he could buy an oscilloscope for Pakistan, but the company told him to ask for a U.S. export license first, court records indicate. There is no indication Karni contacted Tektronix directly again. Bilmen has declined comment. Neither he nor his company have been charged, though Bratt wrote that agents searched Giza's offices in December at the same time South African police raided Karni's offices in Cape Town. The criminal case against Karni centers on his efforts to buy devices called triggered spark gaps from PerkinElmer Optoelectronics of Salem, Mass. The devices can be used in machines to break up kidney stones, but exports are restricted because they also are key to triggering nuclear detonations. A PerkinElmer representative in France rebuffed Karni's efforts to buy spark gaps last spring, saying Karni had to certify they would not be used in nuclear weapons. Khan urged Karni to try harder, writing in an e-mail: "I know it is difficult but that's why we came to know each other." Karni then used Giza as a front to buy 66 spark gaps from PerkinElmer, prosecutors allege. Giza said on shipping documents the spark gaps were destined for a South African hospital, but Karni repackaged them and sent them on to Pakistan, court documents allege. A court filing from Karni's Co
[CTRL] CIA Struggles to Spy in Iraq, Afghanistan
-Caveat Lector- http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-cia20feb20,1,4570519.story?c oll=la-home-headlines THE WORLD CIA Struggles to Spy in Iraq, Afghanistan Security problems and short-term assignments hamstring the agency, sources say. Its Baghdad chief is again replaced and outposts are closed. By Greg Miller and Bob Drogin Times Staff Writers February 20, 2004 WASHINGTON - Confronting problems on critical fronts, the CIA recently removed its top officer in Baghdad because of questions about his ability to lead the massive station there, and has closed a number of satellite bases in Afghanistan amid concerns about that country's deteriorating security situation, according to U.S. intelligence sources. The previously undisclosed moves underscore the problems affecting the agency's clandestine service at a time when it is confronting insurgencies and the U.S.-declared war on terrorism, current and former CIA officers say. They said a series of stumbles and operational constraints have hampered the agency's ability to penetrate the insurgency in Iraq, find Osama bin Laden and gain traction against terrorism in the Middle East. The CIA's Baghdad station has become the largest in agency history, eclipsing the size of its post in Saigon at the height of the Vietnam War, a U.S. official said. But sources said the agency has struggled to fill a number of key overseas posts. Many of those who do take sensitive overseas assignments are willing to serve only 30- to 90-day rotations, a revolving-door approach that has undercut the agency's ability to cultivate ties to warlords in Afghanistan or collect intelligence on the Iraqi insurgency, sources said. There is such a shortage of Arabic speakers and qualified case officers willing to take dangerous assignments that the agency has been forced to hire dozens - if not hundreds - of CIA retirees, and to lean heavily on translators, sources said. The agency has also had to use soldiers for tasks that CIA officers normally perform, sources said. Even without the personnel challenges, Iraq and Afghanistan are seen as so dangerous that it is difficult for agency officers to venture outside guarded districts and compounds without security details, making covert meetings with informants extremely difficult, sources said. CIA officials said Thursday that the agency had no shortage of eager volunteers for tough assignments, or any lack of resolve in the war on terrorism. But current and former officers, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the agency was confronting one of the most difficult challenges in its history. One former officer who maintains close ties to the agency said it was stretched to the limit. "With Afghanistan, the war on terrorism, with Iraq, I think they're just sucking wind," he said. But the officers also said the latest problems point to a deeper problem with the CIA leadership and culture. Some lamented that an agency once vaunted for its daring and reach now finds itself overstretched and hunkered down in secure zones. "They claim that they've rebuilt the [clandestine service] and it's firing on all cylinders," said a former station chief in the Middle East. "Is it? I would say not. Not if you don't have trained manpower." The CIA dismisses such criticism, and President Bush has recently voiced support for six-year CIA Director George J. Tenet. The president said he believed the agency was serving the country well. The CIA has also won praise for its role in dismantling the upper ranks of Bin Laden's Al Qaeda network and helping round up the top figures in Saddam Hussein's regime. But in many respects, the CIA is an agency under siege, with several inquiries underway into its prewar assessments on Iraq, and an independent commission still investigating intelligence failures related to the Sept. 11 attacks. Swift Rotation The U.S. official acknowledged that the CIA station chief in Baghdad was removed in December after weeks of increasingly deadly and sophisticated attacks against U.S.-led coalition forces and civilian targets. "There was just a belief that it was a huge operation and we needed a very senior, very experienced person to run it," the official said. The official declined to disclose the number of CIA personnel in Iraq, but other sources said it exceeded 500 people. The replacement of the station chief means that the high-profile post has been held by three senior officers since Bush declared an end to major combat in Iraq in May, sources said. The job of Baghdad station chief is a demanding one that includes briefing top U.S. officials in Iraq, providing frequent updates to Washington on the stability of the country, and overseeing all of the operations and analysis done in the nation. The first of the three recent station chiefs had served at the Baghdad station before the Persian Gulf War in 1991. He went to "run ope
[CTRL] Fwd: [Spy News] Why Kerry should sue the Sun
-Caveat Lector- www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ctrl 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 --- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector- http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1151093,00.html Why Kerry should sue the Sun Some of the British media are too happy doing Drudge's dirty work Sidney Blumenthal Thursday February 19, 2004 The Guardian One question remains unanswered about the politically inspired lie that Senator John Kerry had had an affair with an "intern". Which interested source planted it with the rightwing internet hooligan Matt Drudge and with the conservative British newspapers that put it into wide public play? Its timing was fortuitous. Immediately after George Bush went into a tailspin, falling behind the Democratic presidential frontrunner, John Kerry, in the polls, Kerry became the subject of smears filled with remembrance of things past. First, a phoney composite photograph was circulated of Kerry standing next to Jane Fonda at an anti-Vietnam war rally. Unfortunately, not only did Fonda denounce the ploy as a "dirty trick", but so did Republican senator John McCain, heroic Vietnam prisoner of war, Bush's rival for the nomination in 2000 and a close friend of Kerry's. The attempt to revive the dread of the Nixon era failed, and the scarlet letter of the Clinton years was unfurled. The Drudge Report, claiming 15 million readers, alleged that a young "intern" had a "mystery relationship" with Kerry and that several major US news organisations were already investigating. But none published a word, though political society in Washington and New York was instantly consumed with gossip. On February 13, on the eve of Valentine's Day, Rupert Murdoch's Sun newspaper screeched, "New JFK rocked by sex scandal", naming the woman as Alexandra Polier and quoting her father as calling Kerry "a sleazeball". On February 15, the Tory papers, the Mail and the Telegraph, quoted her "friend": "This is not going to go away. What actually happened is much nastier than what is being reported." Murdoch's Sunday Times repeated the "sleazeball" quote and winked knowingly: "It is a tale of two Americas, as the Democrats might say." Back in the US, frustrated rightwing media tried to force the issue, using the authority of the British imprimatur. Rush Limbaugh, the conservative talk-show host, broadcasting on more than 600 radio stations, boomed: "It's all over the UK press! It's front page!" He suggested that President Clinton was the source of the story in order to bump off Kerry and help Senator Hillary Clinton become president. The neoconservative former Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote in National Review: "Isn't it curious how after a story like this breaks there turn out to be dozens of people who were in on the secret?" On CNN, the Sunday Times columnist and Drudge pal Andrew Sullivan held forth: "Can you anymore not talk about something that's on the front page of the Times of London, front page of the Drudge Report, on everybody's minds? There comes a point at which the media has to acknowledge people are talking." On February 16, Polier spoke for herself, declaring the story "completely false" and explaining her motive in stepping forward. "Because these stories were false, I assumed the media would ignore them. It seems that efforts to peddle these lies continue, so I feel compelled to address them." It turned out she was not even an intern. Her father said that the notorious "sleazeball" quote attributed to him had been fabricated. Drudge, ever gallant, blamed the story on the young woman's imagined seductive behaviour: "Polier's flippant remarks and flirtatious manner, according to friends, fuelled the intrigue." The defamation, the media amplification through the conservative network, the British blowback was all well-rehearsed. Drudge initially gained his celebrity by libelling me on the day I began work in the Clinton White House in August 1997, reporting as fact that I was
[CTRL] Fwd: 9/11 Families' questions for Bush
-Caveat Lector- www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ctrl 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 --- Begin Message --- -Caveat Lector- If we could watch Bush & Co. answer these questions under oath live on TV, we'd have a whole different world soon. Please forward widely! -Evan >From http://www.911independentcommission.org/ The Family Steering Committee Statement and Questions Regarding the 9/11 Commission Interview with President Bush February 16, 2004 The Family Steering Committee believes that President Bush should provide sworn public testimony to the full ten-member panel of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States . Collectively, the Commissioners are responsible for fulfilling the Congressional mandate. Therefore, each Commissioner must have full access to the testimony of all individuals and the critical information that will enable informed decisions and recommendations. Before an audience of the American people, the Commission must ask President Bush in sworn testimony, the following questions: 1. As Commander-in-Chief on the morning of 9/11, why didn't you return immediately to Washington, D.C. or the National Military Command Center once you became aware that America was under attack? At specifically what time did you become aware that America was under attack? Who informed you of this fact? 2. On the morning of 9/11, who was in charge of our country while you were away from the National Military Command Center? Were you informed or consulted about all decisions made in your absence? 3. What defensive action did you personally order to protect our nation during the crisis on September 11th? What time were these orders given, and to whom? What orders were carried out? What was the result of such orders? Were any such orders not carried out? 4. In your opinion, why was our nation so utterly unprepared for an attack on our own soil? 5. U.S. Navy Captain Deborah Loewer, the Director of the White House Situation Room, informed you of the first airliner hitting Tower One of the World Trade Center before you entered the Emma E. Booker Elementary School in Sarasota, Florida. Please explain the reason why you decided to continue with the scheduled classroom visit, fifteen minutes after learning the first hijacked airliner had hit the World Trade Center. 6. Is it normal procedure for the Director of the White House Situation Room to travel with you? If so, please cite any prior examples of when this occurred. If not normal procedure, please explain the circumstances that led to the Director of the White House Situation Room being asked to accompany you to Florida during the week of September 11th. 7. What plan of action caused you to remain seated after Andrew Card informed you that a second airliner had hit the second tower of the World Trade Center and America was clearly under attack? Approximately how long did you remain in the classroom after Card's message? 8. At what time were you made aware that other planes were hijacked in addition to Flight 11 and Flight 175? Who notified you? What was your course of action as Commander-in-Chief of the United States? 9. Beginning with the transition period between the Clinton administration and your own, and ending on 9/11/01, specifically what information (either verbal or written) about terrorists, possible attacks and targets, did you receive from any source? This would include briefings or communications from Out-going Clinton officials CIA, FBI, NSA, DoD and other intelligence agencies Foreign intelligence, governments, dignitaries or envoys National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice Richard Clarke, former counterterrorism czar 10. Specifically, what did you learn from the August 6, 2001, PDB about the terrorist threat that was facing our nation? Did you request any follow-up action to take place? Did you request any further report be developed and/or prepared? 11. As Commander-
Re: [CTRL] Amnesty Intl.: Israeli Wall Violates International Law
-Caveat Lector- In a message dated 2/19/2004 1:24:06 PM Eastern Standard Time, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: The Israeli authorities claim that the fence/wall is "a defensive measure, designed to block the passage of terrorists, weapons and explosives into the State of Israel". And we Americans have had experience with Israeli "defensive measures." Oh yes, that ship was called "The Liberty." Prudy www.ctrl.org DECLARATION & DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion & informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply. Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector. Archives Available at: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ ctrl 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
