[LAAMN] Baghdad's girl blogger
Another from the woman in Baghdad. Let's hope she survives Bush's free election. David Subject: Baghdad's girl blogger Baghdad Burning http://riverbendblog.blogspot.com/ ... I'll meet you 'round the bend my friend, where hearts can heal and souls can mend... - posted by river @ 11:06 PM The Phantom Weapons... The phone hasn't been working for almost a week now. We just got the line back today. For the last six days, I'd pick up the phone and hear... silence. Nothing. This vast nothingness would be followed by a few futile 'hellos' and a forceful punching of some random numbers with my index finger. It isn't always like this, of course. On some days, you can pick up the telephone and hear a bunch of other people screaming allooo? Allooo? E. once struck up a conversation with a complete stranger over the phone because they were both waiting for a line. E. wanted to call our uncle and the woman was trying to call her grandson. The dial-tone came about an hour ago (I've been checking since morning) and I'm taking advantage of it. The electricity situation isn't very much better. We're getting two hours of electricity (almost continuous) and then eight hours of no electricity (continuous). We still can't get the generators going for very long because of the fuel shortage. Kerosene is really becoming a problem now. I guess we weren't taking it very seriously at first because, it really is probably the first time Iraq has seen a kerosene shortage and it is still difficult to believe. They say in 1991 when there was a gasoline shortage which lasted for the duration of the war and some time after, kerosene was always plentiful. This isn't the situation now. We're buying it for obscene prices and it's really only useful for the lamps and the heaters. It feels like just about everyone who can is going to leave the country before the elections. They say the borders between Syria and Jordan might be closed a week before elections so people are rushing to get packed and get out. Many families are simply waiting for their school-age children to finish mid-year finals or college exams so they can leave. This was an interesting piece of news a couple of days ago: The United States has ended its physical search for weapons of mass destruction (WMD) in Iraq, which was cited by the first administration of President George W Bush as the main reason for invading the country, the White House has said. Why does this not surprise me? Does it surprise anyone? I always had the feeling that the only people who actually believed this war was about weapons of mass destruction were either paranoid Americans or deluded expatriate Iraqis- or a combination of both. I wonder now, after hundreds and hundreds of Americans actually died on Iraqi soil and over a hundred-thousand Iraqis are dead, how Americans view the current situation. I have another question- the article mentions a Duelfer Report stating the weapons never existed and all the intelligence was wrong. This report was supposedly published in October 2004. The question is this: was this report made public before the elections? Did Americans actually vote for Bush with this knowledge? Over here, it's not really news in the sense that it's not new. We've been expecting a statement like this for the last two years. While we were aware the whole WMD farce was just a badly produced black comedy, it's still upsetting to hear Bush's declaration that he was wrong. It's upsetting because it just confirms the worst: right-wing Americans don't care about justifying this war. They don't care about right or wrong or innocents dead and more to die. They were somewhat ahead of the game. When they saw their idiotic president wasn't going to find weapons anywhere in Iraq, they decided it would be about mass graves. It wasn't long before the very people who came to 'liberate' a sovereign country soon began burying more Iraqis in mass graves. The smart weapons began to stupidly kill 'possibly innocent' civilians (they are only 'definitely innocent' if they are working with the current Iraqi security forces or American troops). It went once more from protecting poor Iraqis from themselves to protecting Americans from 'terrorists'. Zarqawi very conveniently entered the picture. Zarqawi is so much better than WMD. He's small, compact and mobile. He can travel from Falloojeh to Baghdad to Najaf to Mosul. whichever province or city really needs to be oppressed. Also, conveniently, he looks like the typical Iraqi male- dark hair, dark eyes, olive skin, medium build. I wonder how long it will take the average American to figure out that he's about as substantial as our previously alleged WMD. Now we're being 'officially' told that the weapons never existed. After Iraq has been devastated, we're told it's a mistake. You look around Baghdad and it is heart-breaking. The streets are ravaged, the
[LAAMN] Healing Society!
Healing Society! Hi. If interested in real healing for individuals or society, please join Caring Spirit at www.yahoogroups.com/group/CareSp. . Caring Spirit [a non-profit] is doing a study on spiritual healing of individuals and society. Several studies by others suggest that large groups of people concentrating on a specific intention, like improvement in a person's health, or a favorable change in the weather etc, can have very positive results. . There is a real threat of world war as well as climate change. The climate change would not be due so much to pollution as to changes in the entire solar system. Conditions on all of the planets, the sun and many moons are changing dramatically, as our solar system appears to be entering a more energized area of the galaxy [See www.enterprisemission.com ]. Prayer or Raising Consciousness etc can help. . For the study we plan to get a few hundred people concentrating on one person's request at a time to see what results occur. We'll try to determine who has spiritual healing power and how others can develop it. And we'll try to improve our group's powers of healing and use them for healing our society. So everyone interested is invited to join and send in your specific request and what day and time you'd like to have everyone's concentration. At the requested time the group should concentrate on your request. And you should concentrate on what you feel, to see if you can sense the group's concentration in any way. . Would you like to participate by doing focused praying or meditating etc with us for individuals in the group and others, so we can find what works best? . There have been some exciting developments in recent years and we hope to make further breakthru discoveries that will lead to society's healing and to worldwide prosperity. I plan to share some of the exciting developments that have already been made, such as mentioned at www.Bruno-Groening.org/english, and many others. . Aloha! Lloyd Kinder for Caring Spirit Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- Give the gift of life to a sick child. Support St. Jude Children's Research Hospital's 'Thanks Giving.' http://us.click.yahoo.com/lGEjbB/6WnJAA/E2hLAA/7gSolB/TM ~- --- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --- Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Digest: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Help: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Post: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Archive1: http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn --- Archive2: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
[LAAMN] Sy Hersh: The Coming Wars
THE COMING WARS by SEYMOUR M. HERSH What the Pentagon can now do in secret. The New Yorker - Issue of 2005-01-24 and 31 Posted 2005-01-17 http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?050124fa_fact George W. Bush's reelection was not his only victory last fall. The President and his national-security advisers have consolidated control over the military and intelligence communities' strategic analyses and covert operations to a degree unmatched since the rise of the post-Second World War national-security state. Bush has an aggressive and ambitious agenda for using that control--against the mullahs in Iran and against targets in the ongoing war on terrorism--during his second term. The C.I.A. will continue to be downgraded, and the agency will increasingly serve, as one government consultant with close ties to the Pentagon put it, as facilitators of policy emanating from President Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney. This process is well under way. Despite the deteriorating security situation in Iraq, the Bush Administration has not reconsidered its basic long-range policy goal in the Middle East: the establishment of democracy throughout the region. Bush's reelection is regarded within the Administration as evidence of America's support for his decision to go to war. It has reaffirmed the position of the neoconservatives in the Pentagon's civilian leadership who advocated the invasion, including Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Secretary of Defense, and Douglas Feith, the Under-secretary for Policy. According to a former high-level intelligence official, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff shortly after the election and told them, in essence, that the naysayers had been heard and the American people did not accept their message. Rumsfeld added that America was committed to staying in Iraq and that there would be no second-guessing. This is a war against terrorism, and Iraq is just one campaign. The Bush Administration is looking at this as a huge war zone, the former high-level intelligence official told me. Next, we're going to have the Iranian campaign. We've declared war and the bad guys, wherever they are, are the enemy. This is the last hurrah--we've got four years, and want to come out of this saying we won the war on terrorism. Bush and Cheney may have set the policy, but it is Rumsfeld who has directed its implementation and has absorbed much of the public criticism when things went wrong--whether it was prisoner abuse in Abu Ghraib or lack of sufficient armor plating for G.I.s' vehicles in Iraq. Both Democratic and Republican lawmakers have called for Rumsfeld's dismissal, and he is not widely admired inside the military. Nonetheless, his reappointment as Defense Secretary was never in doubt. Rumsfeld will become even more important during the second term. In interviews with past and present intelligence and military officials, I was told that the agenda had been determined before the Presidential election, and much of it would be Rumsfeld's responsibility. The war on terrorism would be expanded, and effectively placed under the Pentagon's control. The President has signed a series of findings and executive orders authorizing secret commando groups and other Special Forces units to conduct covert operations against suspected terrorist targets in as many as ten nations in the Middle East and South Asia. The President's decision enables Rumsfeld to run the operations off the books--free from legal restrictions imposed on the C.I.A. Under current law, all C.I.A. covert activities overseas must be authorized by a Presidential finding and reported to the Senate and House intelligence committees. (The laws were enacted after a series of scandals in the nineteen-seventies involving C.I.A. domestic spying and attempted assassinations of foreign leaders.) The Pentagon doesn't feel obligated to report any of this to Congress, the former high-level intelligence official said. They don't even call it 'covert ops'--it's too close to the C.I.A. phrase. In their view, it's 'black reconnaissance.' They're not even going to tell the cincs--the regional American military commanders-in-chief. (The Defense Department and the White House did not respond to requests for comment on this story.) In my interviews, I was repeatedly told that the next strategic target was Iran. Everyone is saying, 'You can't be serious about targeting Iran. Look at Iraq,' the former intelligence official told me. But they say, 'We've got some lessons learned--not militarily, but how we did it politically. We're not going to rely on agency pissants.' No loose ends, and that's why the C.I.A. is out of there. For more than a year, France, Germany, Britain, and other countries in the European Union have seen preventing Iran from getting a nuclear weapon as a race against time--and against the Bush Administration. They have been negotiating with the Iranian leadership to give up
[LAAMN] Protest WABC-TV cut of half hour of premier Black public affairs show
Date: Mon, 3 Jan 2005 10:37:21 EST Subject: From Lisa Davis...Support Gil Noble! (please feel free to distribute the article below widely. We need everyone's assistance in getting the program Like It Is returned to a full hour in time for Black History Month) Lisa Is basket ball more important to African people than our history and the socio-political events that affect our community? Apparently, WABC-TV believes that it is, as it has preempted 30 minutes of Like It Is for the show NBA Inside Stuff. This is the absolute insult of insults to the Black community and is an offense to our intelligence. Out of 168 hours a week, WABC-TV only dedicates less than 1 hour a week to programming pertaining to serious issues affecting people of African descent. What is even more troubling is that according to the NBA's website, NBA Inside Stuff was contracted to WABC-TV as a Saturday program. _http://aol.nba.com/news/tv_contract_020122.html_ ( http://aol.nba.com/news/tv_contract_020122.html ) So why, prey tell, did WABC-TV decide to slash 30 minutes of Like It Is, which airs on Sunday to air NBA Inside Stuff, which was originally a Saturday program? (For those not familiar with the issue, WABC-TV tried to cancel the program altogether a couple of years ago. But due to the community outrage they reversed their decision.) Like It Is with Gil Noble is a national treasure. It is a public affairs program that is the longest running Black produced show in US history and has produced the largest archives of programming on the African experience in the US the Carribean and even African itself . It was born right out of the civil rights movement, after The Kerner Commission in 1968 issued its scathing report lambasting the mass media for its role in inciting the rebellions in the Black communities, by the perpetuation of racist stereotypes. It was not long after the Newark rebellion, that Like It is was created. With its multiple award winning producer and host Gil Noble, the show has served its viewers for the last 34 years with timely and critical analysis of the political, economic and cultural issues that shape the lives of people of African descent and brings pride and self-esteem to our community. Gil Noble has won many awards, including seven emmyâ?Ts for his excellence in journalism and over 650 community awards. As a Black public affairs program, his show has produced the largest body of programs and documentaries on African Americans in the nation. Over the past 30 years he has interviewed many of the worldâ?Ts prominent figures including Robert Mugabe, Maurice Bishop, Adam Clayton Powell, Jr, Kenneth Kaunda, Louis Farrakhan, Andrew Young, Stokely Carmichael, Carmen McCrae, Aretha Franklin, Sarah Vaughan, Bill Cosby, Sammy Davis Jr., Sidney Poitier, Muhammad Ali, Jesse Jackson, Jim Brown, Arthur Ashe etc. Some of the documentaries among the â?oLike It Isâ? archives include W.E.B DuBois, Malcolm X, Paul Robeson, Fannie Lou Hamer, Jack Johnson, etc. The decision to reduce the program by 30 minutes for basketball is in my opinion a racist attempt to diminish its capacity, continuity and relevance. Now, instead of being able to give serious issues the depth and analysis that an hour provides, the show's audience is now being shortchanged, with pressing serious topics being drastically cut and often held over to the next week. Obviously, this also means that the Black community is being shortchanged in another very important way, in that Like It Is will not be able to cover the amount of topics for the season that it had been able to give attention to in the past. Futhermore, as the show deals with issues affecting all African people from the diaspora it should be shown nationally and not just in the NY tri-state area. Today, many of the gains that people of African ancestry and other people of color have made in media during the past three decades are being systematically reversed. Racial diversity in media ownership and representation in the newsrooms is in decline. The fact that â?oLike It Isâ? is one of the only regularly scheduled Black programs produced at WABC-TV out of 168 hours of airtime a week, coupled with WABC's decision to first try to eliminate the program and then in lieu of that slash the time format, reflects a dangerous, frightening and disturbing trend. Moreover, WABC-TV is sending a very loud and condescending message that Black people jumping through hoops for the pleasure and profit of a sport owned by Whites , is of more relevance than the education and the history of Black people. I do not have anything against basketball or sports at all, when taken in their proper context. Goodness knows, I have had my fun yelling and screaming during the super bowls and world series (as a Yankee fan that did hold true up until 2004). And I can even go up against the best of them with boxing and baseball trivia. But when someone or some entity dictates to us that sports takes precedence over our
[LAAMN] Fw: L.A. INDYMEDIA PRESENTS
PLEASE FORWARD TO YOUR LISTS! JOIN THE INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER FOR A SCREENING OF THE DOCUMENTARY FILM OUTFOXED. An examination of how media empires, led by Rupert Murdoch's Fox news, have been running a race to the bottom in television news. This film provides and in-depth look at Fox News and the dangers of ever-enlarging corporations taking control of the public's right to know. The Screening will be followed by a discussion on the importance of the IMC and Independent Media to a true Democracy. Where: ROCKOTITLAN CAFE - 1277 WILTON PLACE (corner of Wilton and Fountain) IN HOLLYWOOD When: THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3, 7:30 pm IF YOU MISSED THIS FILM BEFORE, THIS IS THE TIME TO SEE IT. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ~-- DonorsChoose. A simple way to provide underprivileged children resources often lacking in public schools. Fund a student project in NYC/NC today! http://us.click.yahoo.com/5F6XtA/.WnJAA/E2hLAA/7gSolB/TM ~- --- LAAMN: Los Angeles Alternative Media Network --- Unsubscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Subscribe: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Digest: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Help: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Post: mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Archive1: http://www.egroups.com/messages/laamn --- Archive2: http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED] --- Yahoo! Groups Links * To visit your group on the web, go to: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/laamn/ * To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: [EMAIL PROTECTED] * Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to: http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/
