Re: [CTRL] Rabbis Goal: The Kingdom of Israel
-Caveat Lector- Jim, I am familiar with the controversy over the Noachide Laws. I don't understand your post, but it's consistent with a certain agenda that has been apparent over the years. Here's a copy of the law: http://www.cephas-library.com/nwo/nwo_public_law_102_14.html Here's a discussion about the Noachide Laws, which are clearly the product of a virulently racist ideology: http://www.kensmen.com/catholic/jc2.html [Excerpt] And the ultimate goal? According to the "Rebbe" [my emphasis]: The main avodah [spiritual goal] of this generation is to go out to the final war of the golus, to conquer and to purify all the gentile countries (such that 'and kingship will be Hashem's,' Ovadiah 1:21). (Shabbos Parshas VaYelech, 5746) Consequently, it is obvious and self-evident that in modern times we must carry out the Divine Command we received through Moshe [Moses]: 'To compel all human beings to accept the commandments enjoined upon the descendants of Noach. (Shabbos Parshas Tsav, 5747, Sichos in English, vol. 35, p. 75)The Seven Laws must be explained in a way that the nations can relate to and, because non-Jews do not possess genuine free will, they will be willing to change more quickly and easily than a Jew. (Hisvaduyos 5748 3:183, cited in "The Deed is the Main Thing," Kol Boi Ha'olam, p. 385-386) Even in the future, the nations will continue to exist, to serve and help the Jewish people. This, then, is our lesson -- to increase our activities in the areas where the many will be influenced: Jews, the world, and the nations. (Shabbos Parshas Vayeishev, 21 Kislev, 5745) - Original Message - From: Jim Rarey To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 1:44 AM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Rabbis Goal: The Kingdom of Israel -Caveat Lector- Your m.o. seems to be making things up, then attributing them to someone knowing that most people won't check them out. The reference below to Public Law 102-14 is a good example. Here is what PL 105-14 really is. . H.J.RES.104 : To designate March 26, 1991, as "Education Day, U.S.A.".Sponsor: Rep Michel, Robert H. [IL-18] (introduced 1/31/1991) Cosponsors (225) Committees: House Post Office and Civil Service Latest Major Action: 3/20/1991 Became Public Law No: 102-14. I think you have a serious problem. JR - Original Message - From: iNFoWaRZ To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Wednesday, November 17, 2004 12:42 AM Subject: [CTRL] Rabbis Goal: The Kingdom of Israel -Caveat Lector- ...And America has secured the Israeli's Biblical Eastern Border on the Euphrates, in Iraq.War in Syria and Egypt is forthcoming. Fighting terrorism will be the excuse.Doubt it not.To The Conspiracy Theory Born By Arnaud de BorchgraveFirst Published October 18, 200411-16-4Excerpts: The Committee of Rabbis in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza, writes, "Everyone who has faith in his heart ... will not countenance betrayal of the divine promise of the Jewish people." Professor Hillel Weiss, said Ma'ariv, spelled out what this meant: "The purpose of the armed struggle is to establish a Jewish state in all the territory that will be captured, from the River Euphrates [in Iraq] to the Egyptian River [Nile]." For good measure, Rabbi Haim Steinitz, writing on behalf of the rabbis of the Beit El settlement, explained, "In general, the Euphrates and the Nile are the main points of reference, as well as the Mediterranean and the Red Sea." That takes care of the western border. There is some dispute about the eastern border. Most West Bank rabbis say the Kingdom of Israel "should rest on the upper Syrian stretch of the Euphrates. Others, wrote Ma'ariv, "take a broader view with a border that runs down to the mouth of the Persian Gulf." One rabbi calls for the military conquest of all Arab countries. Even this was not enough for Rabbi Zelman Melamed, who wrote: "It is not impossible that the Jewish people will have the ability to threaten and put pressure on the entire world to accept our way. But even if we acquire the power to seize control of the world, that is not the way to realize the vision of complete redemption." Rabbi Yitzhak Ginsburg says he knows in the near future the Land of Israel is about to expand. "It is our duty to force ALL MANKIND to accept THE SEVEN NOAHIDE LAWS, and if not -- they will be killed." (Note: George H. W. Bush, signed into Public Law 102-14, 102nd Congress, that the United States of America was founded upon the Seven Universal Laws of Noah.) Well, George, the Founding Fathers would beg to differ.To read the full story: http://www.washingtontimes.com/functions/print.php?StoryID=20041017-102451-5514r--iNFoWaRZIn oppostion to God, Israel seeks
[CTRL] Bush's Sinking Ship (K.P. Nayar)
-Caveat Lector- http://www.telegraphindia.com/1031210/asp/opinion/story_2660369.asp December 10, 2003 BUSHS SINKING SHIP- The US presidents future is endangered by a conservative retreat Diplomacy K.P. Nayar Coming back to Washington after a month abroad is like returning to a land which has changed beyond comprehension in so short a time. It is okay once again to poke fun at POTUS, the president of the United States. Talk show hosts like Bill Maher are no longer in danger of their contracts being annulled for openly expressing their thoughts, and veterans of the small screen like Phil Donahue need no longer worry too much about what they say about the war in Iraq lest they are pulled off the air as in February this year. Driving home to the capital from New Yorks JFK airport, there was the news on the car radio that the department of homeland security was scrapping a discredited system of registering, fingerprinting, photographing and investigating Muslim men and boys in the United States of America, known by its pompous-sounding official name: the national security entry exit registration system, or NEERS. Then there were reports that as many as 140 of the 660 detainees who have been held at the US prison camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, would be released, perhaps as early as Christmas. These reports followed an equally unexpected decision by the US Sup- reme Court to hear cases on whether the Guantanamo detainees, who have been in legal limbo since January 2002, are eligible to challenge their incarceration through the American legal system. Last weekend, George W. Bush withdrew tariffs on steel imported into America in the face of threats by the European Union of imposing retaliatory duties of up to $ 2.2 billion on US products, including oranges from Florida. Floridas votes in the electoral college may once again decide whether Bush will stay in the White House when his first presidential term expires in a year. Japan had added muscle to the EU threat by announcing its own plans for sanctions of $ 458 million for the first time in the history of US-Japan trade. But more striking than any of these administrative climbdowns, which have either been formalized or are in the pipeline, has been the state of political discourse in Americas television studios. In a month, conservative panelists and experts on talk-shows have become like balloons which have been pricked. Gone is their arrogance, their righteousness and their impatience, which often translated on TV screens into efforts to silence everyone else with a differing point of view. This unexpected, but welcome, sense of humility is not confined to those who routinely go on TV. When officials of the Bush administration appear in public, it is not difficult to see that for the first time since January 2001, many of them are on the defensive. The change is not because of Iraq alone. Nor is it a consequence of the pitfalls that lie ahead in the area of the economy. It has come about from a realization that after nearly three years of untiring efforts to wreck international institutions, impose Washingtons ways and will on the rest of the world and replace ideals and principles with a one-point agenda of expediency, the Bush administration finds itself in a cul-de-sac. This has been brought about by a combination of policies pursued by the White House, ranging from the environment and protectionism to defence and ill-conceived efforts to export democracy. Larry Summers, the president of Harvard University, who was Bill Clintons treasury secretary, put it succinctly the other day when he spoke at the London School of Economics. The US, Summers said, is at the zenith of its power but at the nadir of its influence. However brave a front they may put up, many members of the Bush administration are reading the writing on the wall. Look at the resignations that are plaguing the administration, notwithstanding the promise of another four-year term in an election, which is yet to throw up a credible rival to the president from the ranks of the Democratic party. In the crucial area of public relations, there have been three high-profile departures from the administration: Ari Fleischer, the White House spokesman; Charlotte Beers, the former advertising executive, who was in charge of improving Americas image among Muslims worldwide; and Victoria Clarke, the Pentagon spokeswoman, whose boss, the defence secretary, Donald
[CTRL] The Plame Investigation Gets Buried Alive (Melanie Sloan)
Title: Whatever Happened to the Plame Investigation? An Act of Treason by the Bush Administration Gets Buried Alive. - BuzzFlash Guest Commentary -Caveat Lector- http://www.buzzflash.com/contributors/03/12/con03369.html BuzzFlash Guest Commentary December 10, 2003 CONTRIBUTOR ARCHIVES Whatever Happened to the Plame Investigation? An Act of Treason by the Bush Administration Gets Buried Alive. A BUZZFLASH GUEST COMMENTARYby Melanie Sloan, Executive Director of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics In Washington Remember Valerie Plame? Ms. Plame was the CIA undercover operative who was outed by the White House in effort to punish her husband former Ambassador Joseph Wilson, who had publicly stated in a July 6, 2003 op-ed in the New York Times, that despite President Bushs statements to the contrary, Iraq had not attempted to purchase yellow cake uranium from Niger. The existence of that uranium, you may recall, was presented to the public as "evidence" that Iraq had nuclear weapons which, in turn, was used to justify our unilateral attack on Iraq. Ms. Plame, however, had nothing to do with any of that. Ms. Plame was an operative under deep cover -- the CIA had created an entire company just so that Ms. Plame could claim that she worked there. Yet once Joseph Wilson broke his silence and announced that the White House was lying, Karl Rove decided that Wilson needed to be punished and that his wife was "fair game." Two top government officials called at least six Washington journalists and disclosed the identity and occupation of Wilsons wife. But only the ever-ready apologist for the Republican Party, Robert Novak, took the bait. On July 14, 2003, Novak wrote a piece outing Ms. Plame as an operative. Neither Karl Rove -- or whomever among the Bush senior staff leaked it -- nor Novak gave a moments consideration to the lives that they may have jeopardized by outing Ms. Plame. Never mind that anyone in another country who had so much as met Ms. Plame might now be suspected of spying. No thought was given to the fact that others, who were in fact spies, might be outed through their connection to Ms. Plame, and no thought was given to the fact that actual lives could be lost as a result of this odious act. Never mind that outing an undercover CIA operative is a federal crime. A very serious matter, yet you would never know that from the White Houses response. When the revelation first hit the press in July, the White House first refused to comment and later, had White House press secretary Scott McClellan claim -- without so much as a question asked of White House staff -- "that is not the way this White House operates," and that "no one was certainly given any authority to do any of that nature, and Ive seen no evidence to suggest theres any truth to it." Its hard to find evidence you are doing your very best to ignore. Finally, in October the CIA referred the matter to the Department of Justice for investigation, and Attorney General John Ashcrofts Justice Department, despite the obvious conflict of interest, refused to appoint a special prosecutor. President Bushs response: "And if there is a leak out of my administration, I want to know who it is. And if the person has violated the law, the person will be taken care of." Apparently, it never crossed the Presidents mind to simply ask his staff who the leaker was (or leakers were). The Justice Department launched its allegedly official probe on September 26th, but neglected to direct the White House to preserve critical evidence until the evening of September 29th. Then, when the White House Counsel asked if he could wait until the next day to inform the staff of the need to preserve documents, the Justice Department allowed it. Simply, if the leaker(s) had not been smart enough to get rid of the evidence between July 6th and September 29th, the White House Counsels office wanted to be sure that there was at least one last chance to do so before destroying evidence would constitute criminal obstruction of justice. Since September 29th? Nothing, not a word. Nothing from the White House and nothing from the Department of Justice. The President never asked his staff to investigate the matter and never called for the leaker to come forward. The White House is, however, "cooperating." The Department of Justice investigation appears to be at a standstill. Sure, the
Re: [CTRL] Gingrich: U.S. Went Off a Cliff in Iraq (DU)
Title: Democratic Underground Forums - NEWSWEEK: Gingrich Speaks Out Against Administration's Policy in Iraq, -Caveat Lector- Just more good cop/bad cop routine by CFR member Gingrich. Do you think so? I see a Republican Party in disarray, as most of the predictions that were made by the chickenhawks before the war have beenshattered by reality. They broke Iraq, and now they can't fix it. They have to cover their asses now, and they are strugglingto find agraceful exit. The problem is, there is no graceful exit in sight -- only failure and humiliation. They are in squirm mode, flopping around like a fish on the dock. There is no plan behind it all, just one stupid miscalculation after another. We got drawn into the same trap in Iraq that the Russians were drawn into in Afghanistan. We're sitting ducks now. Ouradversaries are free to toy with us, on their turf. Every Iraqi is a potential spy and guerrilla -- Bremer will be unable to sort out friendsfrom foes. Bush, with his dumb bluster,has alienated most of the other nations in the world, including our most important traditional allies, so they have no interest in helping us. They are probably richly enjoying Bush's comeuppance in Iraq, after enduring so many insults from him. Bush threw away a tremendoustreasure of good will towards America in a very few months -- it was an extraordinary performance in mismanagement, but not a surprising performance based on his track record. Donald Rumsfeld, who can see the handwriting on the wall, no fool he,is trying to distance himself from the fanatics in the Cheney group, using Gingrich as a mouthpiece. There is a real split within the Republican Party over Mideast policy in general. Many Republicans are beginning to realize just how unreliable and crazy the neocons are. After the Iraq fiasco, we can probably now write off thegrandiose schemes of the neocons for waging World War IV in five or six other Mideast nations. Dick Cheney is being set up by the media to take the fall for the whole mess -- this much is obvious. Many of the neocons are now pretending that they had nothing to do with what went wrong. It was all Cheney's fault, you see. He made them do it. And whatever you do, leave Israel out of it. Mideast experts, as opposed to Mideast ideologues, accurately predicted these outcomes before the war -- it was an easy call. I know you think the CFR has a centralized grip on everything. It's a free country -- that's your privilege. :) Keep the interesting conspiracy theories coming -- who knows, you might strike gold. - Original Message - From: Jim Rarey To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 1:36 AM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Gingrich: U.S. Went Off a Cliff in Iraq (DU) -Caveat Lector- Just more good cop/bad cop routine by CFR member Gingrich. JR - Original Message - From: Sean McBride To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 12:41 AM Subject: [CTRL] Gingrich: U.S. Went Off a Cliff in Iraq (DU) -Caveat Lector- This is possibly a hugedevelopment -- the Republican Party is starting to come apart at the seams over Iraq. The neocons will be left holding the bag, and an especially stinking bag it will be. It's not like they weren't warned loudly before the war what would happen. They did this to themselves. The negative fallout for Israel, which was the hand behind the neocons' hysterical campaign, could be exceptionally severe. The rage in high American political circles over this mess in Iraq is palpable. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesgforum=102topic_id=257626mesg_id=257626 Home | Forums | Articles | LinksDirectory | Store | Donate Democratic Underground Forums "DU2" NEWSWEEK: Gingrich Speaks Out Against Administration's Policy in Iraq,[View All] Printer-friendly format Email this message to a friend Bookmark this thread Previous thread | Next thread Lobby / Latest Latest Breaking News Message spotbird (1000+ posts) Sun Dec-07-03 03:07 PMOriginal message NEWSWEEK: Gingrich Speaks Out Against Administration's Policy in Iraq, Edited on Sun Dec-07-03 03:17 PM b
Re: [CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples)
-Caveat Lector- Millegan, From the instant you started hurling false andlibelous accusations regarding conspiratorial plots to "besmirch" your reputation and "hijack" cia-drugs, you destroyed what remained of your credibility and wrecked the list. The only plot to ruin you was in your head, and in executing this plot, you succeeded admirably. Brian Downing Quig, in the months before his death, fingered you as a Cointelpro op. No amount of accusing others of being Cointelpro ops is going to change that reality. Brian made the accusation to too many people in too many messages, none of which were forged. I discouraged Brian from going down that path, and defended you at the time, but given subsequent events, one begins to wonder if he wasn't on to something. I don't want to waste any more of my daily message quota on this inane topic. There are too many important developments happening out there in the real world to discuss. If anyone has any questions about this controversy, feel free to contact me in private email, and I will explain what is going on. political-research, here http://groups.yahoo.com/group/political-research/ is also open to discussion on these and other matters related to deep politics, with the caveat that any personal attacks or flaming of the kind we have seen here are strongly discouraged. It's impossible to carry on a useful discussion with this kind of neurotic verbal abuse mucking up the works. - Original Message - From: Kris Millegan To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 12:00 AM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples) 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]/ 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
[CTRL] On Conservative Opposition to the Iraq War (Justin Raimondo)
Title: Going AWOL, by Justin Raimondo -Caveat Lector- http://www.antiwar.com/justin/j120503.html December 5, 2003 ... The troops are supported and empathized with: the policy, however, is increasingly opposed by the overwhelming majority of the American people. A whopping 71 percent say the Iraq war hasn't made them safer from terrorism. Our men and women in uniform, by voting with their feet, are merely reflecting the views of the fellows, who increasingly look on the war to "liberate" Iraq as a pipe-dream founded on a lie. While the War Party loves to point to the far-left "International ANSWER" coalition, responsible for many of the rallies, as the heart and soul of the antiwar opposition, the earliest and most effective opponents of this war were senior military officers. The military wing of the antiwar opposition, like the conservative-Old Right wing, has been less showy in its opposition, yet potentially far more subversive of the War Party's policies. People like General Anthony Zinni, retired Marine Colonel Larry Williams, former Navy secretary James Webb, retired Marine commander Joseph P. Hoar, and the most decorated soldier of the Vietnam war era, Colonel David Hackworth all opposed the war on the grounds that an American occupation of Iraq would be a disaster. The civilians who plumbed for an invasion didn't listen to them, nor did they listen to General Eric Shinseki, former Army chief of staff, who warned that they couldn't stitch Iraq back together again without 200,000 armed nation-builders. When Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld heard this, he went ballistic: the Pentagon's neocon-in-chief, Paul Wolfowitz, made a point of publicly attacking Shinseki's estimate as "wildly off the mark." Now we are seeing the officers' rebellion against a policy of imperialism taking shape in the ranks, as Army reservists, called up in record numbers, are refusing to be coerced into returning to Iraq early. ... 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]/ 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
Re: [CTRL] Gingrich: U.S. Went Off a Cliff in Iraq (DU)
-Caveat Lector- Kris, I agree with your statement in the last paragraph that theWar Party is growing desperate andmay stage acts of terrorism to try to reignite war hysteria in the U.S. I've been expecting that ever since 9/11. What I have trouble believing is that Rove, Bush, Rumsfeld and Cheney went into the Iraq War with the certain expectation of failing and being disgraced. Have I misunderstood your argument here? Is that what you and Jim Rarey believe? When I look at the surpassing egos of these four gentlemen, it is difficult for me to believe that they would deliberately set themselves up to suffer public ruin. The experience of that would be excruciatingly painful for them. This is where my sense of psychological reality collides head on with some conspiracy theories. To believe that the Bush administration went into the Iraq War knowing that it would lose, I would need to see some convincing documentary proof. Speculation or theory alone wouldn't make the case for me. - Original Message - From: Kris Millegan To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 12:03 PM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Gingrich: U.S. Went Off a Cliff in Iraq (DU) -Caveat Lector- As Professor Sutton said, these guys go to war to lose. As my Branch-Chief in the CIA-father told me, Vietnam was about drugs and that "they" were playing out a lose scenario and the "they" were secret societies. My father told me that in the late sixities. He left the CIA in the 50's because of narcotics trafficking. Because of the situation in Iraq, will there arise a clamor for either NATO or UN oversight? The Vietnam "War" was exploited by many folks in many ways, Connecticut arms manufacturers and the psy-war folks used in to create and nuture divisions among the populace, emotional idealogue drain-offs - both right and left. These guys know how to "play" war well ... You really don't get it McFraud, but then your "persona" wouldn't be worth much if it did. What "they" wish us to believe is really getting rather far-fetched and the majority are not buying and dissaffection is growing daily. I am sure there will be attempts to hijack and redirect and possibly massive "terrorist" strikes, especially the west coast, but they won't work. The culture far exceeds "their" ability to control. The future that is coming down the pike includes complete exposure of the secret societies their crimes and corruptions. Beaware of where you stand when change proceeds. Peace, OmKIn a message dated 12/8/03 12:11:34 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: Just more good cop/bad cop routine by CFR member Gingrich. Do you think so?I see a Republican Party in disarray, as most of the predictions that were made by the chickenhawks before the war have beenshattered by reality. They broke Iraq, and now they can't fix it. They have to cover their asses now, and they are strugglingto find agraceful exit. The problem is, there is no graceful exit in sight -- only failure and humiliation. They are in squirm mode, flopping around like a fish on the dock. There is no plan behind it all, just one stupid miscalculation after another. We got drawn into the same trap in Iraq that the Russians were drawn into in Afghanistan. We're sitting ducks now. Ouradversaries are free to toy with us, on their turf. Every Iraqi is a potential spy and guerrilla -- Bremer will be unable to sort out friendsfrom foes.Bush, with his dumb bluster,has alienated most of the other nations in the world, including our most important traditional allies, so they have no interest in helping us. They are probably richly enjoying Bush's comeuppance in Iraq, after enduring so many insults from him. Bush threw away a tremendoustreasure of good will towards America in a very few months -- it was an extraordinary performance in mismanagement, but not a surprising performance based on his track record.Donald Rumsfeld, who can see the handwriting on the wall, no fool he,is trying to distance himself from the fanatics in the Cheney group, using Gingrich as a mouthpiece. There is a real split within the Republican Party over Mideast policy in general. Many Republicans are beginning to realize just how unreliable and crazy the neocons are. After the Iraq fiasco, we can probably now write off thegrandiose schemes of the neocons for waging World War IV in five or six other Mideast nations.Dick Cheney is being set up by the media to take the fall for the whole mess -- this much is obvious. Many of the neocons are now pretending that they had nothing to do with what went wrong. It was all Cheney's fault, you see He made them do it. And whatever you do, leave Israel out of it.Mideast experts, as opposed to Mideast ideologues, accurately predicted these outcomes
Re: [CTRL] Gingrich: U.S. Went Off a Cliff in Iraq (DU)
-Caveat Lector- Jim, I never believe in taking public pronouncements at face value. I'm always looking for solid documentation that contradicts or undercuts public pronouncements. That Newt Gingrich, Wesley Clark and others are political opportunistswho can reverse their positions at the drop of a hat due to changing circumstances is obvious. I don't dispute that. What I was questioning was the thesis that the Bush administration went into the Iraq War with the deliberate intention of losing it, as part of a pre-planned CFR Hegelian dialectic of some kind. To support that thesis, I would need to see some evidence. Rove, Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld are not gentlemen who like to lose or look like losers in the public eye. Smart Republicans have begun to realize that the Iraq War is a mess and a political disaster. They are rapidly repositioning themselves to accommodate that reality. The really smart Republicans opposed the war in the first place. I also agree that the CFR, at the top,is enormously powerful, and tries to control all sides of every argument in both major parties. This doesn't mean that the CFR manipulated a scheme to deliberately lose the war. No doubt, however, the CFR is quick on its feet in adjusting to the reality of the loss of the war. Bush, for the CFR, is perfectly disposable, as is any president. The CFR as a whole always seems to land on its feet, regardless of what happens. It was cunningly designed that way. - Original Message - From: Jim Rarey To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Monday, December 08, 2003 3:16 PM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Gingrich: U.S. Went Off a Cliff in Iraq (DU) -Caveat Lector- Sean, Kris observed, "Public pronouncements are meant to deceive." He is absolutely on target. My problem with most of your posts is that you insist we take the public pronouncements of these characters at face value. My comment on Newt Gingrich was to point out a tactic the CFR crowd uses over and over. That is to obtain the leadership of both groups in important disputes. Where was Gingrich when the Iraq war resolution was going through congress? Was he distracted by the sniper coverage as was most of the nation? Now Gingrich acts like he wants to be a leader of the anti-war movement. Another prime example of this tactic is George Soros. He is not just another member of the CFR, he sits on its board of directors. Now he is trying to buy the leadership of the "anti-Bush" crowd. Where was Soros when the CFR was putting Bush into office? The "good" cops like Gingrich and Soros (and Wesley Clark) don't appear on the scene until it is obvious there is significant public opinion against the "bad cops." We see the same tactic used in the environmental movement with the NWO crowd taking over groups like the Sierra Club, and the Nature Conservancy while CFR member Mikhail Gorbachev starts up Green Cross. \It's like a football game where one team is ripping off gains of fifteen yards a play by sending the fullback straight up the middle. They are going to keep doing it until the defense shows it can stop it. Spare us the public pronouncements of the CFR and NWO crowd. The only thing you can surmise from them is that is what they want us to believe. On rare occasions it might even be the truth Jim 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]/ 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
[CTRL] Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq (Julian Borger)
Title: Guardian | Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq -Caveat Lector- http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4815008-103550,00.html Israel trains US assassination squads in Iraq Julian Borger in WashingtonTuesday December 9, 2003The Guardian Israeli advisers are helping train US special forces in aggressive counter-insurgency operations in Iraq, including the use of assassination squads against guerrilla leaders, US intelligence and military sources said yesterday. The Israeli Defence Force (IDF) has sent urban warfare specialists to Fort Bragg in North Carolina, the home of US special forces, and according to two sources, Israeli military "consultants" have also visited Iraq. US forces in Iraq's Sunni triangle have already begun to use tactics that echo Israeli operations in the occupied territories, sealing off centres of resistance with razor wire and razing buildings from where attacks have been launched against US troops. But the secret war in Iraq is about to get much tougher, in the hope of suppressing the Ba'athist-led insurgency ahead of next November's presidential elections. US special forces teams are already behind the lines inside Syria attempting to kill foreign jihadists before they cross the border, and a group focused on the "neutralisation" of guerrilla leaders is being set up, according to sources familiar with the operations. "This is basically an assassination programme. That is what is being conceptualised here. This is a hunter-killer team," said a former senior US intelligence official, who added that he feared the new tactics and enhanced cooperation with Israel would only inflame a volatile situation in the Middle East. "It is bonkers, insane. Here we are - we're already being compared to Sharon in the Arab world, and we've just confirmed it by bringing in the Israelis and setting up assassination teams." "They are being trained by Israelis in Fort Bragg," a well-informed intelligence source in Washington said. "Some Israelis went to Iraq as well, not to do training, but for providing consultations." The consultants' visit to Iraq was confirmed by another US source who was in contact with American officials there. The Pentagon did not return calls seeking comment, but a military planner, Brigadier General Michael Vane, mentioned the cooperation with Israel in a letter to Army magazine in July about the Iraq counter-insurgency campaign. "We recently travelled to Israel to glean lessons learned from their counterterrorist operations in urban areas," wrote General Vane, deputy chief of staff at the army's training and doctrine command. An Israeli official said the IDF regularly shared its experience in the West Bank and Gaza with the US armed forces, but said he could not comment about cooperation in Iraq. "When we do activities, the US military attaches in Tel Aviv are interested. I assume it's the same as the British. That's the way allies work. The special forces come to our people and say, do debrief on an operation we have done," the official said. "Does it affect Iraq? It's not in our interest or the American interest or in anyone's interest to go into that. It would just fit in with jihadist prejudices." Colonel Ralph Peters, a former army intelligence officer and a critic of Pentagon policy in Iraq, said yesterday there was nothing wrong with learning lessons wherever possible. "When we turn to anyone for insights, it doesn't mean we blindly accept it," Col Peters said. "But I think what you're seeing is a new realism. The American tendency is to try to win all the hearts and minds. In Iraq, there are just some hearts and minds you can't win. Within the bounds of human rights, if you do make an example of certain villages it gets the attention of the others, and attacks have gone down in the area." The new counter-insurgency unit made up of elite troops being put together in the Pentagon is called Task Force 121, New Yorker magazine reported in yesterday's edition. One of the planners behind the offensive is a highly controversial figure, whose role is likely to inflame Muslim opinion: Lieutenant General William "Jerry" Boykin. In October, there were calls for his resignation after he told a church congregation in Oregon that the US was at war with Satan, who "wants to destroy us as a Christian army". "He's been promoted a rank above his abilities," he said. "Some generals are pretty good on battlefield but are disastrous nearer the source of power." Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 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
[CTRL] U.S. Adopts New Tactics in Iraq Guerrilla War
Title: Wired News -Caveat Lector- More on the Israelization of American political culture and military doctrine: Story location: http://wireservice.wired.com/wired/story.asp?section=BreakingstoryId=804941tw=wn_wire_story U.S. Adopts New Tactics in Iraq Guerrilla War Monday, December 08, 2003 3:31 p.m. ET By Charles Aldinger WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The U.S. military has adopted tough new tactics against guerrillas in Iraq, arresting relatives of insurgents and destroying houses used to plan attacks against American troops, defense officials said on Monday. But the officials denied the move was modeled on hard-nosed tactics used by Israeli forces in Gaza and the West Bank, despite visits by U.S. military officers to Israel this year to discuss urban combat with Israel Defense Forces (IDF). "In recent weeks, we have begun using a much-increased tempo of taking the fight to remnants of the former regime to prevent them from planning and carrying out attacks on our people," one of the U.S. defense officials, who asked not to be identified, told Reuters. "This is new in that we are engaging (attacking) buildings for two reasons - if we find they were used to plan or launch strikes against our forces, or if we have information that arms were being made or kept there for attacks," the official added. Another confirmed a New York Times report that some family members of guerrillas wanted by the military were being arrested. But he said it was not a pressure tactic to coerce insurgents to surrender. "We don't do kidnapping. We are arresting relatives if it becomes known that they are coordinating with those high-value targets that we are seeking, or if they have information where fugitives are holding out," the official said. The Times reported from Iraq that at least one whole Iraqi village had been surrounded by razor wire as part of the crackdown, forcing residents to enter and leave through an American military checkpoint. That is similar to isolation tactics used by Israel in its war with insurgents. ADVICE FROM ISRAEL ON URBAN TACTICS Brig. Gen. Michael Vane, a senior officer in the U.S. Army's Doctrine and Training Command, said in a letter to Army magazine in July that American officers had gone to Israel to discuss urban combat and intelligence with the IDF. "Although there is much work to be done, it is inaccurate to characterize our thinking and doctrine on urban warfare as anachronistic. Experience continues to teach us many lessons, and we continue to evaluate and incorporate them appropriately into our concepts, doctrine and training," wrote Vane. "For example, we recently traveled to Israel to glean lessons learned from their counterterrorist operations in urban areas," added the general, deputy chief of staff for doctrine concepts and strategy. "There is a fair amount of military intellectual discussion that goes on between the U.S. Army and the IDF," Harvey Perritt, a spokesman for the training command, told Reuters on Monday. He said Vane was apparently referring to a visit to Israel in January, months before the Iraq War began. Pentagon officials cautioned against drawing any direct parallel between Israeli tactics against guerrillas on the West Bank and the new U.S. moves in Iraq. "We made this decision to adopt a much more aggressive stance based on the conditions at hand, not on what is going on elsewhere," said one official. In one recent incident, the U.S. military used a bulldozer last week to knock down the front wall of a small compound owned by an elderly couple in the Iraqi village of Hawija west of Kirkuk after troops found a large cache of explosives in the house. An order was at first given to completely destroy the house, but an American officer later relented. One soldier told reporters the threat to destroy the house had been a ruse to make the elderly woman provide information. Copyright © 2003 Reuters Limited. Wired News: Staff | Contact Us | Advertising | RSSWe are translated daily into Spanish, Portuguese, and Japanese © Copyright 2003, Lycos, Inc. All Rights Reserved.Your use of this website constitutes acceptance of the Lycos Privacy Policy and Terms Conditions Note: You are reading this message either because you can not see our css files (served from Akamai for performance reasons), or because you do not have a standards-compliant browser. Read our design notes for details. 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
[CTRL] Gingrich: U.S. Went Off a Cliff in Iraq (DU)
Title: Democratic Underground Forums - NEWSWEEK: Gingrich Speaks Out Against Administration's Policy in Iraq, -Caveat Lector- This is possibly a hugedevelopment -- the Republican Party is starting to come apart at the seams over Iraq. The neocons will be left holding the bag, and an especially stinking bag it will be. It's not like they weren't warned loudly before the war what would happen. They did this to themselves. The negative fallout for Israel, which was the hand behind the neocons' hysterical campaign, could be exceptionally severe. The rage in high American political circles over this mess in Iraq is palpable. http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesgforum=102topic_id=257626mesg_id=257626 Home | Forums | Articles | LinksDirectory | Store | Donate Democratic Underground Forums "DU2" NEWSWEEK: Gingrich Speaks Out Against Administration's Policy in Iraq,[View All] Printer-friendly format Email this message to a friend Bookmark this thread Previous thread | Next thread Lobby / Latest Latest Breaking News Message spotbird (1000+ posts) Sun Dec-07-03 03:07 PMOriginal message NEWSWEEK: Gingrich Speaks Out Against Administration's Policy in Iraq, Edited on Sun Dec-07-03 03:17 PM by spotbird Saying The U.S. Went 'Off a Cliff'NEW YORK, Dec. 7 /PRNewswire/ -- In an exclusive interview with Newsweek, former House speaker Newt Gingrich, a quiet confidant of Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, says the U.S. went "off a cliff in Iraq." In the December 15 issue (on newsstands Monday, Dec. 8), Gingrich talks about the shortcomings of the Bush administration's policy in Iraq, saying that "Americans can't win in Iraq. Only Iraqis can win in Iraq."(snip)Gingrich, a member of the influential Defense Policy Board, argues that the administration has been putting far too much emphasis on a military solution and slighting the political element, report National Security Correspondent John Barry and Assistant Managing Editor Evan Thomas. While he says he's not speaking for the board, it is rare that one of its members voices a dissenting view in public. "The Army's reaction to Vietnam was not to think about it," he says. Rather than absorb the lessons of counterinsurgency, Gingrich says, the Army adopted "a deliberate strategy of amnesia because people don't want to ever do it again." The Army rebuilt a superb fighting force for waging a conventional war. "I am very proud of what Tommy Franks did-up to the moment of deciding how to transfer power to the Iraqis. Then we go off a cliff."(more)http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031207/nysu011a_1.htmlIt isnt a condemnation, but it is weird nevertheless. What are they up to? I dont trust this at all. Alert Printer Friendly | Reply 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]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To
[CTRL] Toronto Globe and Mail Kills Review of The Politics of Anti-Semitism
-Caveat Lector-
Analyze carefully the remarks by Martin
Levin below, and then realize that those who dominate the American and Canadian
media are substantially more extreme in their loyalties to Israel than even
Levin.
Levin's remarks about Robert Fisk and
Norman Finkelstein are despicable, however, and nicely demonstrate the use of
the anti-Semitism smear to censor substantive and meaningful discussion on some
of the most important political issues facing the human
race.
Those who have overused the anti-Semitism
smear -- including several Israeli prime ministers -- have committed a grave
political error. They have essentially defined the entire world, including
the American government and many Jews, as anti-Semites. Atthis point
99% of the world may well decide that if to oppose Ariel Sharon, Likud, and the
settlers is anti-Semitic, then being an anti-Semite is a very good and necessary
thing indeed. -
SM
http://www.counterpunch.org/review12062003.html
December 6 /
7, 2003
CounterPunch Special
Toronto Globe and Mail Kills Review of "The
Politics of Anti-Semitism"
Hello, CounterPunch,
I was asked to write a review of two recent books on
anti-Semitism for Toronto's Globe and Mail newspaper. The two books are "The
Politics of Anti-Semitism" and Phyllis Chesler's "The New Anti-Semitism." I
filed the review a week ago, and was sent an email earlier this week from the
editor, who expressed "real problems" with the review. The "real problems" seem
to stem from the fact that I didn't slam "The Politics" (and its "out of the
same litter contributors") but instead praised it while ridiculing (justifiably,
I believe) the Chesler book. I have written many reviews for the Globe, as well
as for the Toronto Star and other publications. (My day job is writing plays.)
They have never spiked a review of mine before. I should add that I approached
the Globe with the idea of reviewing "The Politics" (before I'd read it), and
that they agreed, but only if I would also consider the Chesler book.
I wonder if you'd be interested in looking at the review,
as well as the correspondence relating to it. Yours, Jason Sherman,
Toronto.
[The review, filed Thursday, Nov 13.]
You're Either Against Us, or You're Not For Us
By Jason Sherman.
The Politics of Anti-Semitism Edited by Alexander
Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair AK Press, 178 pgs. (US$12.95)
The New Anti-Semitism The Current Crisis and What We Must
Do About It By Phyllis Chesler Wiley, 305 pgs, $38.95
It doesn't take much to get yourself called an anti-Semite
these days. A few years ago I wrote a play that questioned some cherished
notions about Israel. My "self-hating Jew" badge arrived in the next edition of
the Canadian Jewish News. Not that I was surprised. After all, Noam Chomsky once
wrote that "Left-liberal criticism of Israeli government policy since 1967 has
evoked hysterical accusations and outright lies." Oppose the Israeli occupation
and its treatment of the Palestinian people, he noted, and you risked being
labeled "a supporter of terrorism and reactionary Arab states, an opponent of
democracy, an anti-Semite, or if Jewish, a traitor afflicted with self-hatred."
As two new books make clear, little has changed in the
last 35 years, except perhaps that the mud is thicker, the slinging fiercer, the
cry of "anti-Semite!" louder (and less credible) than ever. Muckraking
journalists Alexander Cockburn and Jeffrey St. Clair co-edit a newsletter and
website called CounterPunch (I visit the latter daily, and twice on Sunday),
from the pages of which they have gathered eighteen brilliant essays on the
Middle East. It's a sort of greatest hits package, called The Politics of
Anti-Semitism. Among its short, sharp blasts are those by Robert Fisk,
foreign correspondent for The Independent, a fierce critic of
authoritarian rule wherever he finds it, who expresses genuine disgust
over the hate mail he regularly receives ("Your mother was Eichmann's daughter"
is among the most pleasant); American writer Norman Finklestein, whose trip to
Germany to promote his controversial book The Holocaust Industry leaves
him not a little soiled; and American economics professors M Shahid Alam, whose
call for a "moral stand against the oppressive and unjust behaviour of Israel"
leads the Boston Herald to claim: "Prof Shocks Northeastern with Defense
of Suicide Bombers."
The editors contribute a couple of memorable pieces.
Cockburn, easily the sharpest and funniest political commentator around (among
other things, he regularly makes mincemeat out of the pompous Christopher
Hitchens), recounts the morality tale of Cynthia McKinney, a black congresswoman
who made the mistake of calling "for a proper debate on the Middle East," after
which "American Jewish money [was] showered upon her opponent." St. Clair's
brilliantly retells the tale of the 1967 Israeli attack on the USS Liberty,
which killed 34 Americans and wounded 174
Re: [CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples)
-Caveat Lector- The bottom line: Anyone who disagrees with your thesis that Skull Bones is the supreme and sole master ofthe global conspiracy is going to be treated to a tirade of irrational name-calling, verbal abuse and slander. Skull Bones for you is of the nature of an emotional religious fixation. I've never once seen you try to engage in a calm, rational and fair-minded discussion about the relative power of various factions within the global power elite. For the most part you don't even know who the main players are. To address just a few of your misstatements: 1. Prove that YOU are not a member of a Cointelpro or ADL operation, along with Phoenix and others. Can you prove that you are not? Many people believe that you are, and with good reason. Making such a charge without a particle of evidence, however,is one of the sleaziest debating tactics in the book. 2. You have claimed that Bush Senior and his associates, including Brent Scowcroft,have actually supported the Iraq War and the policies being pushed by Ariel Sharon and the neocons. PROVE it. Where is your documentation and proof? For over two years, and after repeated requests andchallenges,you've produced absolutely nothing to support your argument -- just emotional verbalabuse. You can't begin to wrestle with the kind of solid research that has been produced by professional journalists like Jim Lobe. No doubt you will now accuse Jim Lobe of also being part of the Skull Bones conspiracy. 3. That Halliburton has profited from the Iraq War doesn't prove that the oil industry as a whole promoted the war. Again, PROVE that leading members of the oil industry promoted the war. It is true that the neocons, most of whom have no business experience at all, have had designs on Mideast oil for several decades (see, especially, Robert Tucker's famous article on the subject in Commentary in 1975). But the neocons are NOT the oil industry. The oil industry as a whole has sought to maintain good relations with Israel's neighbors, not alienate them. You can't pump and profit from oil on territory inhabited by an intensely hostile population. Witness the current mess with the oil pipelines in Iraq. 4. Is it possible to express disagreements with Michael Ruppert without being accused of "attacking" him? Ruppert started to arouse the curiosity of many people when he put all his eggs in the basket of Delmart Vreeland. He even circulated a message claiming that Vreeland had been poisoned by wine that had been sent him by Alan Greenspan. Apparently Ruppert is some kind of cult god for you -- he certainly isn't for folks who are capable of independent thinking and research, and who are better educated in history and politics than Ruppert. Much of Ruppert's research is valuable, but he makes mistakes occasionally, like the rest of us. I know quite a few researchers who are more knowledgeable about conspiracy politics than Ruppert, and who certainly know much more about oil politics than he does. 5. Far from believing that Israel is behind the majority of conspiratorial activities in the world, I've stated many times that I believe that Israel is largely a victim of the Octopus. The Octopus is afragile secretalliance of global criminal interests, many of which are neither Jewish nor Israeli. The Octopus, however, relies heavily on the cover of Zionism to pursue its goals. One of the key tactics the Octopus uses to fend off investigation and criticism is to accuse its critics of "anti-Semitism." Nice trick if you can get away with it, and they've been getting away with it for decades now. Conspiracy politics for you is much more a cult than it is for many Skull Bones members, I suspect. John Kerry, for instance, is capable of engaging in a reasonable debate, based on a rational analysis of objective facts. He doesn't fly off the handle every time his idee fixe is challenged. He took the trouble to get an education before he became a self-appointed expert on world politics. He's also produced some useful writings on elements of Octopus activities, including the Russian Mafia, money laundering, drug trafficking and the Iraq War. And, no, I am not supporting Kerry for president, nor do I treat him with any reverence. But you might pick up a few pointers on how to improve your style of communication from him. (Step number one: get an education before you start lecturing and hectoring the world.) - Original Message - From: Kris Millegan To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 1:47 PM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples) 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
Re: [CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples)
-Caveat Lector- George Bush Senior and his circle for the most part despise the neocons (and the PNAC), and the neocons despise them. The first group is Eurocentric and Atlanticist in its outlook, the latter Israelcentric and fanatically Zionist. From the standpoint of Bush Senior, it must feel like his son was brainwashed and hijacked by the enemy. He is bitterly disappointed by the behavior of his son, especially with regard to the disastrous Iraq War. Here we go, into fantasyland - McFraud is presenting a false dialectic designed to move history. If one is to buy his wash, then we have to choose between his two presented sides. One way to know that this is a false premise is by the very fact that it is being presented and allowed so much space in print. Your ignorance of fundamental history and politics is truly breathtaking, and you illustrate how weak minds are often strongly attracted to conspiracy politics. PROVE that George H. W. Bush and Jimmy Carter on the one hand share the same beliefs and objectives as Ariel Sharon and Yitzhak Shamir on the other. Please -- no sophomoric, pseudo-philosophical gobbledygook -- just well-documented facts from reliable sources, accurately and truthfully represented. Does the name Ray McGovern mean anything to you? Do you think that the current anger by much of the CIA against the Bush administration and the neocons is manufactured, part of your imaginary Hegelian dialectic? If you do think this, then prove it, here and now, with no flailing around and no name-calling. Let's see the relevant documents. - Original Message - From: Kris Millegan To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 1:47 PM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples) 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]/ 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
Re: [CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples)
-Caveat Lector- Millegan, You and Ruppert, who appear to walk in lockstep, have repeatedly tried to characterize disagreements with the government of Israel as sly attacks on "the Jews," as anti-Semitic. In fact this campaign on your part sometimes seems to be the dominant theme of your agenda. This puts you squarely in the same camp with the Israeli government, AIPAC, Mossad, the ADL and a host of other related and interlocking organizations, some of which conduct clandestine political activities on the Internet. Everyone is free to draw their own conclusions about your behavior -- I know quite a few bright minds who made a decision on this matter a long time ago. I should point out that Mike Ruppert seems to have modified his views gradually. He began by attacking anyone who explored the Israeli angle on 911 as being an "anti-Semite." Since then I have seen him be much more open-minded, reasonable and factual on Israeli issues. I also think he is raising some importantquestions about peak oil. But there is this: isn't it a fact that Ruppert strongly supported Delmart Vreeland, someone who tried to disseminate to the world a forged letter blaming Iraq for 911? That raises all kinds of red flags. That forged letter brought to mind the forged note which tried to blame the 911 anthrax attacks on anti-Semitic Muslims. One is also reminded of the fact that the neocons tried to pin 911 on Iraq from day it occurred. There are a few puzzling issues here: 1. Who owns this list? 2. Does William Shannon moderate the list? How did he come to moderate the list? 3. Do you approve of the views and editorial point of view of William Shannon? 4. Isn't it true that Shannon has posted many hundreds of documents in this list that are highly critical of Israel? Most of his contributions are quite solid and valuable, but I have never seen you complain about those posts. Things just aren't adding up here. - Original Message - From: Kris Millegan To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 1:47 PM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples) -Caveat Lector- In a message dated 12/6/03 12:48:38 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 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]/ 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
Re: [CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples)
-Caveat Lector- According to reliable sources, Millegan, YOU were the source of those forged messages, and it was part of a Cointelpro-style operation of which you are a part. You haven't been able to find a single person to support you in your false and slanderous charges, and your fellow Cointelpro operatives are afraid to come out of the shadows to prop you up for fear of being exposed and being tainted by you. That's what some people in the know are saying. Why not fess up? Feel free to take all this to court, and we can sort it all out. As you know, I maintain dated, nonrewritable CD records of all my communications, and I am happy to put all that documentation on the table. Many people have come to the conclusion that your gambit with the "forged" messages was part of an effort to shut down anyquestions about the circumstances of Brian Quig's death. Now, who would be in a hurry to rule out the possible assassination angle on Quig? Well, his possible assassins, for one. With regard to "disparaging" you: haven't you ever participated in a graduate seminar at a first-rate university, and engaged in vigorous give-and-take with others in the spirit of friendly truth-seeking? Actually, what is your educational background exactly? Is it safe to say you don't have a degree in any field related to history? Yes? No? You don't come across as someone who does. You seem to have had no experience in historical and scholarly discussion and debate. You treat any disagreement as a personal attack on yourself. This is not the way intelligent people conduct conspiracy research, or research of any kind, especially historical research. For real scholars, disagreements and differences are opportunities for mutual enlightenment. For cultists, differences and disagreements are occasions for bitter personal feuds and holy wars. Conspiracy theorizing is just an ego trip for them -- any facts which threatens their theory threatens to shatter their ego and sense of self. This is why they become very angry and hostile when their views are challenged. - Original Message - From: Kris Millegan To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Sunday, December 07, 2003 5:35 PM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples) -Caveat Lector- In a message dated 12/7/03 12:15:24 PM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: 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]/ 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
[CTRL] Tim Robbins pours his anger into an anti-war play
-Caveat Lector-
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2003/12/06/DDGVG3GCCU1.DTL
Tim Robbins pours his anger into an anti-war
play
San Francisco Chronicle
December 6, 2003
[Excerpt]
The play's comic stroke of genius is a masked chorus called "The Cabal,"
the policy advisers and analysts in the Pentagon's "Office of Special Plans" -
- with names like Rum-Rum, Pearly White, Woof, Gondola, Cove and Dick. ("I am
not the one who named them the Cabal, by the way," Robbins is quick to point
out. "Those guys in Washington call themselves that.") They sneer at reports
of swelling peace marches, consult their Palm Pilots to find the best date to
launch the invasion ("If we don't get this war started soon, we're going to
have to compete with the NBA playoffs") and recite a litany of excuses for why
none of them ever served in the armed forces -- a feature of the Bush
administration that makes Robbins seethe.
"You've got middle-aged men who never served when they were young enough to
serve in the armed forces now reaching their 50s and 60s and sending young men
and women off to fight," says Robbins. "And most of those (soldiers) they're
sending off to fight are poor. On top of that, for those 'chicken hawks' to
accuse others of a lack of patriotism because they are asking questions about
why it is necessary to put our young men and women at risk is for me another
hypocrisy. They were elected to be representatives in a democratic society,
and they are crushing democratic values when someone disagrees with them."
www.ctrl.org
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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
A HREF=""ctrl/A
To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
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[CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples)
Title: Bad Boys, by Sheila Samples - Democratic Underground -Caveat Lector- PNAC, mostly a crusty, flinty-hearted gaggle of Iran-Contra perps such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Richard Perle, Bill Kristol and Lewis Libby, knew they would likely get but one shot at achieving world domination. The only thing lacking was a candidate who was impervious to human pain and suffering, and who viewed most constitutional laws and regulations as ploys of the vulnerable to set road blocks to progress. They needed a candidate whose lust for power and thirst for blood matched their own. When they looked around for an accomplice or, better yet, a puppet, to start the empirical ball rolling, it was only natural to consider the Brothers Bush. http://www.democraticunderground.com/articles/03/12/p/06_bad.html Bad Boys December 6, 2003By Sheila Samples "...don't criticize my children... or you're dead." - Barbara Bush, Larry King Live, CNN, Oct. 20, 2003 There are few things more bewildering than the possessive - sometimes frightening - love that mothers display for their sons. It appears to be unconditional. To a mother, there's no such thing as a bad boy, especially if that boy is hers. It must be true. In 1976, when cold-blooded murderer Gary Gilmore marched defiantly toward a firing squad, his griefstricken mother, Bessie, sobbed, "He were a good boy. He were always a good boy..." And former first lady Barbara Bush told CNN's Larry King on Oct. 20 when discussing her president-son George, "...mothers are allowed to be proud of their sons." Always one to speak her mind, "Bar" then sneered at the current crop of Democrats hoping to unseat Dubya, calling them a "sorry lot" for daring to criticize him. She even threatened the lives of those who might be tempted to criticize any member of her family. To her, the Democrats are booing and hissing at nothing more important than Dubya's embarrassing performance in his grade-school play after he bullied his way into the lead and then muffed his lines. Bar was indignant as she told an unchallenging Larry King that the Democrats "are running around the country knocking my precious, courageous, brilliant son." They're not running or knocking nearly hard and fast enough for some of us, and there are millions - not just Democrats and not just in America - who look at the performance of Bar's spawn on the world stage and see siblings whose parents have ensured they face no consequences for their actions; they never owe anybody an apology, and they are not only above - but outside - the law. Bush watchers, however, see nothing precious, courageous or brilliant about undisciplined, over-indulged serial liars who keep making mess after ghastly mess and then waltz breezily away, leaving devastation in their wake for others to clean up. They see bad boys. Very, very bad boys. Which is what made the Project for the New American Century (PNAC) gang - a cabal of criminally insane neoconservative interventionists - look closely at the Bush boys when they decided the time was ripe to "rebuild America's defenses" and establish the global empire they had been planning for almost a decade. In 2000, the final blueprint for military action against Afghanistan and Iraq was good to go. This plan, written long before 9-11, targeted Saddam Hussein for impeding "the flow of oil to international markets from the Middle East." It recommended military intervention to bring about "regime change," not only in Iraq, but in Afghanistan, Iran, North Korea and Syria. In the run-up to the 2000 presidential campaign, corporate behemoths had already made major strides in disenfranchising the rabble. The courtier press had earned a place at the right-wing table with a relentless eight-year campaign to bring down a constitutionally elected president, and easily could be embedded with the new regime. Poppy Bush and Britain's former prime minister, John Major, had long ago slid invisibly into the inner sanctum of the Carlyle Group and were poised to reap the monetary benefits that worldwide destruction and reconstruction would bring. PNAC, mostly a crusty, flinty-hearted gaggle of Iran-Contra perps such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Richard Perle, Bill Kristol and Lewis Libby, knew they would likely get but one shot at achieving world domination. The only thing lacking was a candidate who was impervious to human pain and suffering, and who viewed most constitutional laws and regulations as ploys of the vulnerable to set road blocks to progress. They needed a candidate whose lust for power and thirst for blood matched their own. When they looked around for an accomplice or, better yet, a puppet, to start the empirical ball rolling, it was only natural to consider the Brothers Bush. Jeb was plenty bad. As the smartest of the four Bush boys, as well as a co-author of the
Re: [CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples)
-Caveat Lector- If you've got a problem with the article, take it up with Sheila Samples, the author. I don't agree with the full content of every article I post, or even with the main content, but I do think this was an interesting article. George Bush Senior and his circle for the most part despise the neocons (and the PNAC), and the neocons despise them. The first group is Eurocentric and Atlanticist in its outlook, the latter Israelcentric and fanatically Zionist. From the standpoint of Bush Senior, it must feel like his son was brainwashed and hijacked by the enemy. He is bitterly disappointed by the behavior of his son, especially with regard to the disastrous Iraq War. A mountain of documentation has been posted by me and others analyzing this major rift within the power elite. You should make an effort to study it sometime. No realexpert onglobal power elite politics would be ignorant of these basic facts of life. There is much more to global power elite politics than Skull Bones -- SB is just one piece of the puzzle, and not necessarily the most important piece. Your one-trick pony routine with Skull Bones makes it appear sometimes like you are participating in a cover-up operation on behalf of the other major players. It certainly undermines the strength of your analysis when you are trying to figure out something like the Iraq War and PNAC plans for World War IV. Michael Ruppert fell into the sametrap by putting too much emphasis on the oil industry in explaining Bush's Iraq policy. After the war, with pipelines being sabotaged on a regular basis, we nowunderstand why it is that so many oil industry leaders opposed the war. Bush II is being driven by Zionist ideological fanatics, not by pragmatists. The big story in power elite politics these days is the secret civil war between the ideologues and the pragmatists. If you've been paying attention, you will have noticed that the ideologues are beginning to run into a few problems in recent months. - Original Message - From: Kris Millegan To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Saturday, December 06, 2003 2:19 PM Subject: Re: [CTRL] Dubya - The Perfect PNAC Presidential Puppet (Sheila Samples) -Caveat Lector- In a message dated 12/6/03 9:04:37 AM, [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: PNAC, mostly a crusty, flinty-hearted gaggle of Iran-Contra perps such as Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz, Jeb Bush, Richard Perle, Bill Kristol and Lewis Libby, knew they would likely get but one shot at achieving world domination. The only thing lacking was a candidate who was impervious to human pain and suffering, and who viewed most constitutional laws and regulations as ploys of the vulnerable to set road blocks to progress. They needed a candidate whose lust for power and thirst for blood matched their own. When they looked around for an accomplice or, better yet, a puppet, to start the empirical ball rolling, it was only natural to consider the Brothers Bush.Yeah, it all begins with those guys, they are the bad guys, just forget about a hundred plus years of documentable historical corruption, manipulation and psy-war war directed at us hoi polloi and it wasn't those guys that got Bush in power. Your current approach is very "endearing," McFraud.Peace, OmKTo UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] Om 2" 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]/ 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
[CTRL] Florida Won't Require Printouts of Touch-Screen Votes
-Caveat Lector- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topicforum=102topic_id=256322 www.ctrl.org 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://www.mail-archive.com/[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
[CTRL] The Theology of George W. Bush (DU)
-Caveat Lector- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topicforum=103topic_id=24515 www.ctrl.org 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://www.mail-archive.com/[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
[CTRL] Weak Dollar and Mideast Politics Influence OPEC Decision
-Caveat Lector- Vmann has been on the right track on the currency issue: http://market-flash.com/vnews3/news.php?id=1272286493mid Market-Flash Weak Dollar and Mideast Politics Influence OPEC Decision posted on 12/03/03 At the last OPEC meeting in September, the cartel surprised the oil market with an unexpected decision to reduce oil output going into the peak winter season for petroleum. As MARKET-FLASH explained at the time, OPEC effectively adopted the Bush Administrations policy of pre-emption to prevent oil supplies from rising too fast to sustain favorable prices.Naturally, the oil market is concerned that OPEC could carry out another production cut as oil ministers meet today in Vienna. Once again, the Saudis are signaling that "pro-active" action by the cartel is necessary to prevent a price decline, and the market is now expecting a new output reduction sometime within the next 2-3 months.In addition to supply and demand conditions in the oil market, OPEC is now very concerned with the value of the US dollar, the currency for global oil trading. Reflationary measures carried out by the Bush Administration (tax cuts and loose monetary policy) have depreciated the US dollar relative to the euro, yen and other currencies. The rapid surge in the euro has even led to speculation (in today's Daily Telegraph) that the European Commission might consider 1970s-style currency controls to prevent damage to European economies. A senior EU official told the Telegraph that an exchange rate of $1.35 to the euro "is a likely trigger" for blocking dollar inflows to the EC.Meanwhile, reflation has also reduced the dollars purchasing power of commodities, including gold and crude oil. As a result, the dollar revenues received by OPEC oil producers are worth less in real terms than in the past. In other words, the $28 that an OPEC oil producer gets for a barrel of oil today is worth (about 12%) less than a year ago. Therefore, OPEC producers (and other US trading partners) are demanding more dollars to compensate for the dollars reduced purchasing power.As Saudi Oil Minister al-Naimi put it: The dollar is weakening, you know it's purchasing power is quite weak, so the price [of oil] is OK."MARKET-FLASH believes one possible outcome of the dollar-depreciation story could be an eventual move by OPEC away from the dollar and toward the euro. Such a move has been considered by individual OPEC members, including Iran and Venezuela, and was actually implemented by Iraq under the former regime of Saddam Hussein. A serious move by OPEC to embrace the euro would cause instability in world financial markets and greatly exacerbate weakness in the US greenback. Besides volatility in currency exchange rates, geo-political factors are also influencing the price of oil, and possibly the decisions of OPEC ministers. Some analysts saw OPEC's output cut in September as a Saudi shot across the bow of the Bush Administration resulting from disappointment in Washington's policies in Iraq, Israel and the aftermath of 9/11. The Saudis were especially offended by the Administration's refusal last summer to declassify alleged links between the 9/11 hijackers and the government of Saudi Arabia.Has the situation between the longtime allies improved since then? There may be cause for optimism vis--vis Israel, as the Bush Administration has recently signaled a more balanced position: criticizing Israel's controversial security fence and settlement building, calling for an end to "daily humiliation" of the Palestinians and agreeing to meet with Israeli and Palestinian leaders who conducted the unofficial "Geneva" peace talks. On the other hand, the Saudis have signaled this week that they are withholding $1 billion in loans and credits pledged last month for Iraqs US-led reconstruction. The Los Angeles Times described the decision as "a setback for the Bush Administration, which had hoped that the kingdom would set an example for other Arab governments by providing vitally needed aid."The situation in Iraq is volatile as ever, as US forces experienced their most serious losses during the month of November. Iraqi oil exports are far below pre-war levels, mostly due to ongoing sabotage of Iraqi oil pipelines and other oil industry facilities. MARKET-FLASH notes that Wednesday's apprehension of Amar al-Yasseri, operations director of Shia cleric Moqtada al-Sadr, is liable to inflame tensions between US forces and Iraq's Shi'a majority. www.ctrl.org 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
[CTRL] War on terror taking back seat, ex-CIA boss says
Title: Daily Press: War on terror taking back seat, ex-CIA boss says -Caveat Lector- http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-20668sy0dec04,0,1159938,print.story?coll=dp-headlines-topnews War on terror taking back seat, ex-CIA boss saysBy Novelda SommersDaily PressDecember 4 2003NORFOLK -- Former CIA director Stansfield Turner asserted Wednesday that the conflict in Iraq is distracting the U.S. government from the more important war on terrorism. Turner, who ran the spy agency during President Jimmy Carter's administration, condemned moving to oust Saddam Hussein without gaining more international support."We probably would have had to topple Saddam Hussein eventually, but we didn't have to do it in March 2003," Turner said in his speech at an Economics Club of Hampton Roads luncheon put on by Old Dominion University.A frequent, outspoken critic of the president's Iraq policy, Turner said he didn't believe Iraq was a terrorist haven before the war, but it could become one if the U.S. removes its forces too soon.Turner, now a senior research scholar at the University of Maryland, also was critical of the Bush administration's efforts to address intelligence flaws uncovered after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, though he called the creation of the Department of Homeland Security a good idea. The new department could do more to work with local police and fire departments to prevent terrorism at home, he said.In a post-attack, congressional investigators found numerous missed clues held in government files or databases that could have helped prevent the attacks. Numerous other problems also were uncovered, including the sometimes-clashing cultures at agencies required to work together to prevent terrorism. The lack of coordination of agencies led to the creation of the new department."There is nothing I've seen us do since 9-11 that is going to correct the flaws in intelligence that were uncovered by 9-11," Turner said.Turner also outlined his ideas on curbing nuclear arms proliferation. He authored a book on the subject, titled, "Caging the Genies: A Workable Solution for Nuclear, Chemical and Biological Weapons."The United States and other nuclear powers should agree to reduce to 200 the number of nuclear warheads each can own, and they should store warheads far away from delivery vehicles. Turner called the strategy "strategic escrow."He cautioned that U.S. officials who threaten to use nuclear weapons, even small "bunker busters," perpetuate nuclear proliferation. The Bush administration has proposed studying the feasibility of such weapons."It enhances the value (of nuclear weapons) to other people," Turner said. "If we can benefit from first use, so can they."Novelda Sommers can be reached at 247-4767 or by e-mail at [EMAIL PROTECTED] Copyright © 2003, Daily Press 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]/ 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 NS?ci=703di=d016pg=ai=787690 Description: Binary data
[CTRL] Perle Article Didn't Disclose Boeing Tie
Title: washingtonpost.com: Perle Article Didn't Disclose Boeing Tie -Caveat Lector- http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A37059-2003Dec4?language=printer washingtonpost.com Perle Article Didn't Disclose Boeing Tie Pentagon Adviser Lauded Plan to Lease Air Tankers By David S. HilzenrathWashington Post Staff WriterFriday, December 5, 2003; Page E01 Pentagon adviser Richard N. Perle coauthored an opinion piece this summer praising a Pentagon plan to lease tanker aircraft -- which had the potential to steer billions of dollars to Boeing Co. -- 16 months after Boeing committed to invest $20 million with a venture capital firm where Perle was a principal. "It takes a special government green-eyeshade mentality to miss the urgency of the tanker requirement," Perle and a coauthor wrote in the Aug. 14 article in the Wall Street Journal. The piece did not mention Boeing by name or Perle's firm -- Trireme Partners -- and its business relationship with the giant defense contractor. Perle's business interests and his position in the defense policy world have repeatedly placed him at the center of controversy this year. Perle, an outspoken advocate of the war in Iraq, was a Pentagon official in the Reagan administration and has been a corporate consultant. The Wall Street Journal editor who handled the article was not available for comment, "but normally we would rely on the contributor to tell us if they have any financial conflicts of interest because we do like to disclose these things," said Brigitte Trafford, a spokesman for Dow Jones Co., which publishes the newspaper. Boeing yesterday said the company briefed Perle on the tanker issue on July 14. Boeing said it "had no hand in writing the document nor did we assist in placing it." In March, Perle resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board after press accounts raised questions about his actions on behalf of Global Crossing and Loral. He remains a member of the policy board, a group of former government officials and others that advises the Pentagon. Perle also serves on the board of directors of Hollinger International Inc., the media company whose chief executive, Conrad Black, resigned last month after disclosures that he and other executives collected millions of dollars payments the company's audit committee determined were unauthorized. Hollinger disclosed last month that it has invested $2.5 million in Trireme Associates. A special committee of Hollinger's board is examining that investment and others involving company insiders, a source close to Hollinger said yesterday. Perle has not responded to requests this week for an interview on his business activities. Messages left at his office late yesterday were not returned. His coauthor, Tom Donnelly, was traveling and could not be reached for comment. The Financial Times last night on its Web site quoted Perle as saying "I never discussed the tanker issue or my views on the tanker issue with anyone at Boeing that had anything to do with Trireme." The Pentagon put the $17 billion Boeing tanker deal on hold this week while its inspector general investigates whether the procurement process was handled properly. The company last week fired two executives, including a former Air Force procurement official, for allegedly violating company policies. Amid the controversy, Boeing chief executive Philip M. Condit resigned Monday. Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld named Perle to the policy board in 2001. Later that year, Trireme Partners, a venture fund, was set up in Delaware. Trireme Partners first sought an investment from Boeing in February 2002, and the company decided to invest $20 million two months later, Boeing said in a written statement this week. To date, it has advanced $2 million to the fund, the statement said. Gerald Hillman, another principal, represented Trireme, and Perle was not involved in the discussions to obtain the Boeing investment, Boeing said. Perle holds an equity stake in Trireme Associates LLC, which is the general partner of Trireme Partners and receives a share of its profits, according to documents Hollinger filed last month with the Securities and Exchange Commission. "There's no connection between these two matters," Hillman said last night of Boeing's investment with Trireme and Perle's op-ed piece. A memorandum Trireme gave Boeing describing the fund included brief biographies of the principals, including Perle and Hillman, Boeing said. It noted that Perle is "Chairman of the Defense Policy Board and a consultant to the Department of Defense," Boeing said. Boeing "also received a letter early in the process with Trireme that also mentioned that Richard Perle is (was) chairman of the DPB," Boeing said. Trireme's fund is one of 29 venture capital funds to which Boeing has committed a total of about $250 million, the aerospace company said. The Defense Department's inspector general investigated
[CTRL] Bush misled America on Iraq, Clark asserts
Title: Chicago Tribune: Bush misled America on Iraq, Clark asserts -Caveat Lector- Clark said the war in Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terrorism."Many in the military knew this was a bad idea to go after Iraq," he said. "They knew it early and they knew this administration--even as President Bush was promising Osama bin Laden dead or alive--this administration was planning a bait-and-switch."Clark said Bush has since handled himself poorly."Only someone who hasn't seen war firsthand would say something as fatuous as `bring it on,'" Clark said. "You don't make policy by taunting the enemy." http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-0312050317dec05,1,4056461,print.story?coll=chi-newsnationworld-hed Bush misled America on Iraq, Clark assertsBy Jill ZuckmanTribune national correspondentDecember 5, 2003NASHUA, N.H. -- Intensifying his criticism of President Bush's handling of foreign policy, retired Army Gen. Wesley Clark accused the administration Thursday of misleading the American people with "the greatest, most wasteful, disastrous bait-and-switch" by invading Iraq in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.In a frequently personal critique, Clark told an overflow crowd at Daniel Webster College in Nashua that Bush "misled the American people" and Congress, and never presented evidence for invading Iraq."Instead of using the bully pulpit as a foundation for leadership in America, this administration is all bully and no pulpit," he said. "It doesn't feel an obligation to tell the truth. It doesn't feel an obligation to make a convincing case."Clark's remarks come as two new polls show him moving into third place in New Hampshire while Sen. John Kerry (D.-Mass.) is losing ground among voters but holding on to second place, behind former Vermont Gov. Howard Dean.In his talk, Clark, a Vietnam veteran and former supreme commander of NATO, promised to end the war in Iraq, bring home U.S. troops and use military force only as a last resort. He said his first act as president would be to "put the pre-emptive strike doctrine through the shredder."Clark said the war in Iraq had nothing to do with the war on terrorism."Many in the military knew this was a bad idea to go after Iraq," he said. "They knew it early and they knew this administration--even as President Bush was promising Osama bin Laden dead or alive--this administration was planning a bait-and-switch."Clark said Bush has since handled himself poorly."Only someone who hasn't seen war firsthand would say something as fatuous as `bring it on,'" Clark said. "You don't make policy by taunting the enemy."He disagreed with the administration's decision to lock out people who want to witness the arrival of caskets at Dover Air Force Base in Delaware.He said Bush has failed to comfort soldiers' families."He'll go to a dozen fundraisers for re-election, but he won't go to one single home and put his arms around a mother who's lost her child, and that's wrong," Clark said. Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune 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]/ 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
[CTRL] The Entangling American Alliance With Israel: More of the American Right Catches On (Mark Dankof)
Title: Article By Al-Bawaba.com -Caveat Lector- http://www.albawaba.com/news/printArticle.php3?sid=264755lang=e
[CTRL] Israel's unholy wall (Tom Wallace)
Title: Boston.com / News / Boston Globe / Editorial / Opinion / Op-ed / Israel's unholy wall -Caveat Lector- http://www.boston.com/news/globe/editorial_opinion/oped/articles/2003/12/03/israels_unholy_wall?mode=PF THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING TOM WALLACE Israel's unholy wall By Tom Wallace, 12/3/2003 "IN REALITY, the Holy Land doesn't need walls, but bridges," said Pope John Paul II. Kofi Annan has strongly criticized Israel's separation barrier. The UN General Assembly voted to condemn it 144-4. The Security Council would have but for a US veto. President Bush has referred to it as "a wall snaking its way through the West Bank." He later warned Israel not to prejudice final negotiations of the road map "with the placement of walls and fences." The United States has since decided to deduct $289 million from the $9 billion in loan guarantees appropriated for Israel this year because of the wall and continued settlement construction. Israelis refer to it as a security fence or barrier necessary to protect Israelis from suicide bombers. Palestinians refer to it as an apartheid wall stealing land and water resources and turning towns and villages into prisons. Some supporters now refer to it as a "wall of peace" while detractors call it a "weapon of mass destruction." As the war of adjectives rages on, the wall continues to be built. In fact, in spite of opposition from Washington, construction of the wall will be accelerated. Why has so much of the world, including some of Israel's most ardent supporters, split with Israel over this issue? What is the wall? The wall is a construction of fencing, barbed wire, and concrete barriers up to 26 feet high with a two-lane military patrol road, guard towers, 13-foot-deep trenches on either side, and electronic warning fences. It encircles towns and villages, turning them into prisons. Thousands of acres of olive trees and agricultural land have been destroyed just to build it. If built according to current maps, the wall will confiscate 55 percent of the Palestinian West Bank, including eight critical water wells. It will destroy or confiscate homes, farms, and livelihoods. It will levae hundreds of thousands of Palestinians on the Israeli side of the wall and completely cut off many Palestinian people from each other and from their own land. Some places, like the city of Qalqilya and the village of Jayouus, are already completely surrounded by the wall. Residents have to pass through a gate controlled by the whims of an Israeli soldier. Or in the case of a recent Jewish holiday, the gate is simply locked. No one gets in or out. On Oct. 2, Palestinians on the western side of the wall -- that is, the confiscated portion -- awoke to find notices that they will henceforth need to obtain a permit in order to be on their own land. All area west of the wall is now a "closed zone." Israel continues to claim that the wall is necessary for security. If this were so, the wall would be built along the internationally recognized 1967 border known as the Green Line. According to the UN, only 11 percent of the wall follows the Green Line. The UN places the wall up to 4 miles inside the West Bank now and has projected it to be up to 13 miles inside the West Bank. The route has been drawn to annex as many Jewish settlements to Israel as possible. Uri Avneri, a former Israeli Knesset member, writes: "The wall is not built in order to secure the safety of Israeli citizens but in order to gain hegemony and control over the water resources, for the sake of the de facto annexation of the settlements to Israel, to bisect the Palestinian territories into small isolated enclaves void of territorial contiguity and viability, and in order to create a border zone `clean' of Palestinians." Avraham Bendor, head of the Shin Bet (Israel's counterintelligence and internal security service) from 1980 to 1986, argued in Haaretz recently that the wall, or "fence," as he called it, could actually lead to an increase in terrorism: "The Arabs feel discriminated against and humiliated by the fence. They are being locked up behind barriers, their lives are being embittered, their land effectively plundered." Whether you call it a security fence or an apartheid wall, its effect is the same: destruction, division, a loss of international sympathy toward Israel, and an increase in despair, hopelessness, and terrorism -- and the cycle continues. The pope is right: The
[CTRL] Defense official defends idea of data mining
Title: Government Executive Magazine - 12/2/03 Defense official defends idea of data mining -Caveat Lector- http://www.govexec.com/news/index.cfm?mode=report2articleid=27200printerfriendlyVers=1 Daily Briefing December 2, 2003 Defense official defends idea of data mining By Chloe Albanesius, National Journal's Technology Daily Public misconceptions of privacy and civil liberties issues surrounding the Defense Department's Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) program led to its demise, a Defense official said on Tuesday. The end of TIA, which called for "mining" commercial databases for information on potential terrorists, was the result of "lots of distortions and misunderstandings," Robert Popp, a special assistant to the director for strategic matters at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, said at an event sponsored by the Potomac Institute. Popp said TIA researchers were pursuing the project under two agendas: operational, and research and development. The operational aspect called for DARPA to provide RD groups with different technologies in order to "tie many different agencies together," Popp said. And on the research front, DARPA asked whether "there may be other data in the information space that may be useful for the government to exploit in its counter terrorism." "Terrorist acts must involve people ... and plans and activities ... that will leave an information signature," he said. DARPA was "extremely public" in detailing its TIA work, Popp added, but that allowed the project to be "distorted in the public." Asked how he might have handled the situation differently, he said, "When the first onslaught of distortions occurred, we would've been much more public ... to clear the record ... in respect to the public and to Congress." In place of TIA, perhaps there is a "need for a specific intelligence agency to go after terrorists" with a limited charter, said Kim Taipale, executive director for the Center for Advanced Studies in Science and Technology Policy. "We have a long way to go on this," said Dan Gallington, a senior research fellow at the Potomac Institute. He called for specific congressional oversight committees to handle the situation. "The goal is security with privacy," Taipale added. "[That] does not mean balancing security and privacy but maximizing the set of results you want within those constraints." "It's best solved by using guiding principles, not ... rigged structure or rules that pre-determine where you're trying to get to," he said. "Security and privacy are not dichotomous rivals to be traded one for another in a zero-sum game; they are dual objectives, each to be maximized within certain constraints." Taipale said, "Technology is not the solution" but only a "tool to allocate resources." "In a society that is increasingly digitized, technology creates privacy problems," Taipale said. The problem, therefore, he said, is not controversial programs like data mining, but how to respond to the digitized society. "We really face two inevitable futures," Taipale said. "Develop technologies that are built to provide privacy-protecting mechanisms [or] rely solely on legal mechanisms ... to control the use of technologies." Taipale said specific tech implementations should be subject to congressional oversight, administrative procedures and judicial review. "It's the classic needle-in-the-haystack problem, [but] even worse, the needles themselves appear innocuous in isolation," he said. Brought to you by GovExec.com 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,
[CTRL] Cheney Faction Lashes Out Against LaRouche Exposés (Jeffrey Steinberg)
Title: Cheney Faction Lashes Out Against LaRouche Exposés -Caveat Lector- http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3047cheney_freaks.html This article appears in the December 5, 2003 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. Cheney Faction Lashes OutAgainst LaRouche Exposésby Jeffrey Steinberg According to a well-placed Washington source, in October of this year, a series of heated, closed-door debates took place in the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. The subject: whether or not to launch a public smear campaign against Democratic Party Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche, over LaRouche's year-long campaign to expose the Vice President as the leader of the neo-conservative war party inside the Bush Administration, responsible for the disastrous Iraq war and schemes for a string of future, similar senseless military engagements, all aimed at promoting a unilateral American imperium. While some Cheney political aides opposed getting into such a flight-forward confrontation with LaRouche, some of the office hotheads, including the Vice President himself, as well as his chief of staff Lewis "Scooter" Libby, reportedly insisted that the LaRouche exposes could not go unchallenged, according to the source. Now, with the publication, on Nov. 24, of a scurrilous attack on LaRouche by neo-con scribbler Kenneth R. Timmerman, in the Moonie-owned Insight magazine, it is clear that Cheney and company have launched a dirty tricks effort against the Democratic Presidential candidate. Parallel Dirty Tricks in Europe In Europe, a similar Cheney-led smear campaign is underway against LaRouche, emanating out of England, and spreading into Germany and elsewhere. The ostensible subject of the European slander is the suicide death of a young British man, following his participation in a Schiller Institute youth conference in Germany. Despite a thorough investigation into the incident by both German and British authorities, the smears have persisted, confusing many in Europe. The publication of the Insight attack on LaRouche now confirms that the British media slanders of LaRouche are part of the same Cheney-led dirty tricks effort, to subvert LaRouche's Presidential campaign in the United States. A 'Rogue Intelligence Cabal' The Nov. 24 Insight piece, accompanied by a photograph of Undersecretary of Defense Doug Feith and Pentagon Office of Special Plans (OSP) head William Luti, accused Lyndon LaRouche of being the architect of a campaign to expose the OSP as a "rogue intelligence cabal," behind the unjustified and unwarranted Iraq war. Timmerman, whose attack on LaRouche is also being promoted by neo-con propagandist Frank Gaffney, through his Center for Security Policy website, lamented, "All this silliness could become deadly serious if Senate Democrats get their way, led by Sen. John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, the vice chairman of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (SSCI)." Rockefeller has launched an SSCI probe into the OSP, and, in an Oct. 1 letter to Feith, demanded answers to a series of questions. A subsequent Oct. 30 letter to Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, co-signed by Rockefeller and intelligence panel chairman, Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), gave the Pentagon 24 hours to produce the material and supply witnesses. In fact, on Oct. 27, Feith did submit a memo to the SSCI, with a top-secret annex, detailing "proof" that Saddam Hussein had been behind the Sept. 11, 2001 al-Qaeda terror attacks on New York and Washington. The Feith annex was also leaked to the neo-con Weekly Standard, which published lengthy excerpts from the classified document on Nov. 14, proclaiming "Case Closed"i.e., that Dick Cheney's lying assertions that Saddam Hussein was behind 9/11 were now "proven." Actual intelligence experts made mincemeat out of the Weekly Standard's effort to defend Cheney by regurgitating the Saddam-ran-Osama bin Laden fairytale. Former Defense Intelligence Agency Mideast head, Col. Pat Lang, debated Weekly Standard author Stephen Hayes on CNN on Nov. 20, and exposed the Feith memo as a cherry-picked collection of raw and uncorroborated intelligence reports. Former CIA officer Larry Johnson told The Hill on Nov. 19, "If anybody doubted that there was such a thing as intelligence with a [predetermined] purpose, this is a case study. Just because someone says something and it gets 'classified' stamped on it, doesn't necessarily mean
[CTRL] Press Ignores Widow's Bush Treason Lawsuit
Title: 9/11 IN NEVERNEVERLAND Press Ignores Widow's Bush Treason Lawsuit -Caveat Lector- The American big media, which are controlled by a handful of billionaires,are full co-conspirators with the Bush administration in the cover-up of what really happened on 9/11 and in the campaign of deceit and lies which justified the Iraq War. - SM http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?noframes;read=40847 [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ] The Rumor Mill News Reading Roomhttp://www.rumormillnews.com 9/11 IN NEVERNEVERLAND Press Ignores Widow's Bush Treason Lawsuit Posted By: mailbag for W. David KubiakDate: Tuesday, 2 December 2003, 6:26 p.m. 9/11 MEDIA ALERT: Press Ignores 9/11 Widow's Bush Treason Suit 9/11 IN NEVERNEVERLAND Widow's Bush Treason Suit Vanishes in Blink of Media Eye by W. David Kubiak "The decision 'not to do the story' appears to be multiplying all over the nation." -- Fred Powledge, ACLU "Whoever said `no news is good news,' was BADLY misinformed." -- Dan Rather Think you're already amazed, alarmed or appalled enough by the state of US journalism today? Chew on this a while and think again. Grieving New Hampshire widow who lost her man on 9/11 refuses the government's million dollar hush money payoff, studies the facts of the day for nearly two years, and comes to believe the White House "intentionally allowed 9/11 to happen" to launch a so-called "War on Terrorism" for personal and political gain. She retains a prominent lawyer, a former Deputy Attorney General of Pennsylvania, who served with distinction under both Democrats and Republicans and was once a strong candidate for the governor's seat. The attorney files a 62-page complaint in federal district court (including 40 pages of prima facie evidence) charging that "President Bush and officials including, but not limited to Cheney, Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft and Tenet": 1.) had adequate foreknowledge of 911 yet failed to warn the county or attempt to prevent it; 2.) have since been covering up the truth of that day; 3.) have therefore abetted the murder of plaintiff's husband and violated the Constitution and multiple laws of the United States; and 4.) are thus being sued under the Civil RICO (Racketeering, Influence, and Corrupt Organization) Act for malfeasant conspiracy, obstruction of justice and wrongful death. The suit text goes on to document the detailed forewarnings from foreign governments and FBI agents; the unprecedented delinquency of our air defense; the inexplicable half hour dawdle of our Commander in Chief at a primary school after hearing the nation was under deadly attack; the incessant invocation of national security and executive privilege to suppress the facts; and the obstruction of all subsequent efforts to investigate the disaster. It concludes that "compelling evidence will be presented in this case through discovery, subpoena power, and testimony [that] Defendants failed to act and prevent 9/11 knowing the attacks would lead toâ?| an 'International War on Terror' which would benefit Defendants both financially and politically." Press releases detailing these explosive allegations are sent out to 3000 journalists in the print and broadcast media, and a press conference to announce the filing is held in front of Independence Hall in Philadelphia on November 26th (commemorating the end of the first futile year of the independent National 9/11 Commission). Imagine the world-churning implications of these charges. Imagine the furor if just one was proved true. Imagine the courage of this bribe- shunning widow and an eminent attorney with his rep on the line. Then imagine a press conference to which nobody came. (Well, more precisely, imagine a press conference at which only FOX News appears, tapes for 40 minutes, and never airs an inch.) Now imagine the air time, column inches and talk show hysteria that same night devoted to the legal hassles of Michael, Kobe, and Scott Peterson, and divide that by the attention paid to our little case of mass murder, war profiteering and treason. (OK, this is really a trick question because no number divided by zero yields any answers whatsoever, which evidently in this case is the result preferred.) When you present documented charges of official treachery behind the greatest national security disaster in modern history and the press doesn't show, doesn't listen, doesn't write - just what in fact is really being communicated? That despite all the deaths, lies, wars, and bizarre official actions that flowed from 9/11 there's actually nothing there to be investigated at all? That addressing desperate victim families' still unanswered cries for truth is not a legitimate journalistic concern? That news will now be what the
[CTRL] Bush and Blair Are In Trouble (John Pilger)
Title: ZNet | Iraq | Bush And Blair Are In Trouble -Caveat Lector- http://www.zmag.org/content/print_article.cfm?itemID=4589sectionID=15 ZNet | Iraq Bush And Blair Are In Trouble by John Pilger; December 02, 2003 Shortly before the disastrous Bush visit to Britain, Tony Blair was at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday. It was an unusual glimpse of a state killer whose effete respectability has gone. His perfunctory nod to "the glorious dead" came from a face bleak with guilt. As William Howard Russell of the Times wrote of another prime minister responsible for the carnage in the Crimea, "He carries himself like one with blood on his hands." Having shown his studied respect to the Queen, whose prerogative allowed him to commit his crime in Iraq, Blair hurried away. "Sneak home and pray you'll never know," wrote Siegfried Sassoon in 1917, "The hell where youth and laughter go." Blair must know his game is over. Bush's reception in Britain demonstrated that; and the CIA has now announced that the Iraqi resistance is "broad, strong and getting stronger", with numbers estimated at 50,000. "We could lose this situation," says a report to the White House. The goal now is to "plan the endgame". Their lying has finally become satire. Bush told David Frost that the world really had to change its attitude about Saddam Hussein's nuclear weapons because they were "very advanced". My personal favourite is Donald Rumsfeld's assessment. "The message," he said, "is that there are known knowns - there are things that we know that we know. There are known unknowns - that is to say, there are things that we now know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns ... things we do not know we don't know. And each year we discover a few more of those unknown unknowns." An unprecedented gathering of senior American intelligence officers, diplomats and former Pentagon officials met in Washington the other day to say, in the words of Ray McGovern, a former CIA analyst and friend of Bush's father: "Now we know that no other president of the United States has ever lied so baldly and so often and so demonstrably ... The presumption now has to be that he's lying any time that he's saying anything." And Blair and his foreign secretary dare to suggest that the millions who have rumbled the Bush gang are "fashionably anti-American". An instructive example of their own mendacity was demonstrated recently by Jack Straw. On BBC Radio 4, defending Bush and Washington's doctrine of "preventive war", Straw told the interviewer: "Article 51 [of the United Nations Charter], to which you referred earlier - you said it only allows for self-defence. It actually goes more widely than that because it talks about the right of states to take what is called 'preventive action'." Straw's every word was false, an invention. Article 51 does not refer to "the right of states to take preventive action" or anything similar. Nowhere in the UN Charter is there any such reference. Article 51 refers only to "the inherent right of individual or collective self-defence if an armed attack occurs" and goes on to constrain that right further. Moreover, the UN Charter was so framed as to outlaw any state's claimed right to preventive war. In other words, the Foreign Secretary fabricated a provision of the UN Charter which does not exist, then broadcast it as fact. When Straw does speak the truth, it causes panic. The other day, he admitted that Bush had shut him out of critical talks in Washington with Paul Bremer, the US viceroy in Iraq. Straw said he was "not party to the talks, not a party to his [Bremer's] return visit". The Foreign Office transcript of this leaves out that Straw had complained that "the UK and US [are] literally the occupying powers, and we have to meet those responsibilities". The US disregard for its principal vassal has never been clearer. Both are now desperate. The Bush regime's panic is reflected in its adoption of Israeli revenge tactics, using F-16 aircraft to drop 500lb bombs on residential areas called "suspect zones". They are also burning crops: another Israeli tactic. The parallels are now Palestine and Vietnam; more Americans have died in Iraq than in the first three years of the Vietnam war. For Bush and Blair, no recourse to the "bravery" of "our wonderful troops" will work its populist magic now. "My husband died in vain," read the headline in the Independent on Sunday. Lianne Seymour, widow of the commando Ian Seymour, said: "They misled the guys going out there. You can't just do something wrong and hope you
[CTRL] Poll: 7 in 10 do not think Iraq war reduced threat of terrorism
Title: Poll: 7 in 10 do not think Iraq war reduced threat of terrorism -Caveat Lector- http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/12/03/national1015EST0518.DTLtype=printable www.sfgate.com Return to regular view Poll: 7 in 10 do not think Iraq war reduced threat of terrorism Wednesday, December 3, 2003 ©2003 Associated Press URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/news/archive/2003/12/03/national1015EST0518.DTL (12-03) 07:15 PST WASHINGTON (AP) -- Seven in 10 Americans do not think the war in Iraq has reduced the threat of terrorism, according to a poll released Wednesday. The poll by the Program on International Policy Attitudes at the University of Maryland also found strong support, 71 percent, for the United Nations taking the lead to help establish a stable government in Iraq. That's up from half in April. President Bush and administration officials frequently say the efforts in Iraq are central to winning the war on terror. Attacks on U.S. troops in Iraq have been sharply increasing throughout the fall and terrorists have struck targets in Turkey and Saudi Arabia in recent weeks. Despite apparent uneasiness with this country's military presence in Iraq, two-thirds said they don't think U.S. troops should withdraw until there is a stable government. That's down 14 points from April, however. That Iraqi government wouldn't have to be friendly to the United States, in their view. Four in five respondents agreed that Iraqis should be able to choose their own government, even if that government is unfriendly to the United States. The poll of 712 people was conducted by Knowledge Networks from Nov. 21-30 and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points. ©2003 Associated Press 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]/ 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
[CTRL] Iraqis dispute claim of 54 killed
Title: Iraqis dispute claim of 54 killed / Townspeople say only 9 died, mostly noncombatants -Caveat Lector- Who could possibly disbelieve official statements from the Bush administration, given its track record for truth-telling? Surely the residents of Samarra are lying. -- SM http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/02/IRAQ.TMPtype=printable www.sfgate.com Return to regular view Iraqis dispute claim of 54 killed Townspeople say only 9 died, mostly noncombatants Vivienne Walt, Chronicle Foreign ServiceTuesday, December 2, 2003 ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/12/02/IRAQ.TMP Samarra, Iraq -- U.S. commanders said Monday they had killed up to 54 insurgents in the fiercest battle since Saddam Hussein's government fell nearly eight months ago, but townspeople disputed that claim, saying only about nine Iraqis were killed in the battle Sunday, most of them noncombatants. Military officials said the simultaneous attacks against two convoys of Bradley fighting vehicles in this city about 70 miles north of Baghdad were a highly synchronized operation involving heavy munitions and requiring precise knowledge of the American convoys' schedules. "This was a coordinated effort,'' said Col. Frederick Rudesheim, commander of the 4th Infantry Division's 3rd Brigade, whose tanks drove into two ambushes as they escorted trucks carrying large amounts of the new Iraqi currency to branches of the Radifan Bank on opposite ends of town. He said 30 to 40 insurgents attacked each convoy. "There was a concerted effort by the enemy to deal a significant blow to coalition forces," Rudesheim added. But with Samarra's hospital still filled with casualties, residents told a starkly different story. In a mix of rage and grief, residents lashed out at the brigade's soldiers for firing randomly into crowded market areas in the center of the city, killing civilians, including two Iranians believed to be pilgrims visiting a Shiite mosque in town. "All the people in town today are asking for revenge," said Majid Fadel al-Samarai, 50, an emergency-room worker at the Samarra General Hospital who said he counted nine dead people at the hospital on Sunday. "They want to kill the Americans like they killed our civilians. Give me a gun, and I will also fight." Rudesheim told reporters Americans shot only at those who had fired on soldiers. He said the military had calculated deaths "as best as we could," using reports from field commanders immediately after the firefights. Each death was cross-checked with a second soldier, said Capt. Andrew Deponai of the 3rd Brigade's Combat Team. Residents said American soldiers showed little regard for the safety of civilians during the gunbattle. "I saw a man running across the street to get his small son, who was stuck in the middle," said Abdul Satar, 47, who owns a bakery a block from one of the two banks to which the convoys had driven. "So the Americans shot the man," he said. In a house on the outskirts of Samarra, Abir Mohammed Al-Khayat, 28, said a rocket hit the minibus in which she and several others had commuted from their jobs at a local pharmaceuticals factory. "There were about 20 of us, men and women," she said, cradling her arm, injured by shrapnel, in a sling. At the hospital, several patients said they were injured when a shell, apparently fired from an attack helicopter, struck a mosque at about 5 p.m., when residents were converging for evening prayers. In the corner bed of one ward lay Ali al-Tashi, a 9-year-old boy who had gone to the mosque Sunday night to pray with his father. Heavily bandaged, the boy sobbed in pain and confusion. His older brother, Grimian, 17, clutched his hand and tried to comfort him. "He still does not know that our father has been killed," Grimian said. "All our brothers and sisters and our mother have gone up north, to Irbil, to bury him." In the hospital's morgue, two people killed by bullets lay on metal shelves: a rail-thin man who seemed to be in his 60s, and a middle-aged woman dressed in a black religious robe. Hospital staffers said they found Iranian passports on the two bodies. Many Iranian pilgrims visit the shrine of Mahdi, an imam revered by Shiite Muslims, in the city. But Samarra is now dominated by Sunni Muslims and is a longtime stronghold of Hussein supporters. U.S. military officers said Sunday that all those killed were members of Fedayeen Saddam, the most ruthless fighting force Hussein possessed before the war. By Monday, however, they said that was no longer clear. "We have not established a definitive link between these enemy and a specific organization," Brig. Gen. Mark Kimmitt told reporters in Baghdad. He said some were wearing black
[CTRL] A Combat Leader Gives The Inside Skinny Of The Biggest Battle Since The War Ended
-Caveat Lector- The Israelization of American military doctrine: The belief in superior firepower as a counter-insurgency tactic is then extended down to the average Iraqi, with the hope that the Iraqis will not support the guerillas and turn them in to coalition forces, knowing we will blow the hell out of their homes or towns if they don't. Of course in too many cases, if the insurgents bait us and goad us into leveling buildings and homes, the people inside will then hate us (even if they did not before) and we have created more recruits for the guerillas. Since terrorizing Palestinians civilians has been such a great success for the Israelis, it of course makes sense for Bush and Rumsfeld to adopt the doctrine and apply it to Iraqis. The sheer genius of this administration is breathtaking. http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Special%20Reports%20Hack.dbcommand=viewoneop=tid=92rnd=16.346899020788562 A Combat Leader Gives The Inside Skinny Of The Biggest Battle Since The War Ended The convoy which was attacked while driving through Samara was not a supply convoy as reported, but was carrying large amounts of new Iraqi currency to stock local Iraqi banks and US greenbacks used to pay for goods and services the US forces need to accomplish their missions in Iraq. This convoy was heavily guarded by Abrams Tanks and Bradley Fighting Vehicles. It was akin to a huge Brinks Truck delivery. The reports of 54 enemy killed will sound great on the home front, but the greater story is much more disturbing and needs to be told to the American Public. When we received the first incoming rounds, all I could think of was how the hell did the Iraqis (most of these attackers being criminals, not insurgents) find out about this shipment? This was not broadcast on the local news, but Iraqi police knew about it. Bing, Bing Bing, You do the math. Of greater importance in the scale of the attack and the coordination of the two operations. Iraqi Rebel Guerilla Units elements still retain the ability to conduct synchronized operations despite the massive overwhelming firepower "Iron Hammer" offensive this month. Hack, most of the casualties were civilians, not insurgents or criminals as being reported. During the ambushes the tanks, brads and armored HUMVEES hosed down houses, buildings, and cars while using reflexive fire against the attackers. One of the precepts of "Iron Hammer" is to use an Iron Fist when dealing with the insurgents. As the division spokesman is telling the press, we are responding with overwhelming firepower and are taking the fight to the enemy. The response to these well coordinated ambushes was as a one would expect. The convoy continued to move, shooting at ANY target that appeared to be a threat. RPG fire from a house, the tank destroys the house with main gun fire and hoses the area down with 7.62 and 50cal MG fire. Rifle fire from an alley, the brads fire up the alley and fire up the surrounding buildings with 7.62mm and 25mm HE rounds. This was actually a rolling firefight through the entire town. The ROE under "Iron Fist" is such that the US soldiers are to consider buildings, homes, cars to be hostile if enemy fire is received from them (regardless of who else is inside. It seems too many of us this is more an act of desperation, rather than a well thought out tactic. We really don't know if we kill anyone, because we don't stick around to find out. Since we armored troops and we are not trained to use counter-insurgency tactics; the logic is to respond to attacks using our superior firepower to kill the rebel insurgents. This is done in many cases knowing that there are people inside these buildings or cars who may not be connected to the insurgents. The belief in superior firepower as a counter-insurgency tactic is then extended down to the average Iraqi, with the hope that the Iraqis will not support the guerillas and turn them in to coalition forces, knowing we will blow the hell out of their homes or towns if they don't. Of course in too many cases, if the insurgents bait us and goad us into leveling buildings and homes, the people inside will then hate us (even if they did not before)
Re: [CTRL] [political-research] Straw fuels fear of rift between EU and US
-Caveat Lector- I take this development as further proof that Bush and the neocons are destroying America's relations with the entire world, including all of Europe (not just "Old Europe"). From the standpoint of American interests, history will judge the Bush administration to be the most disastrous in history. Bush is a force for pure destruction. It will be impossible for anyone to fix what he has broken. Israel, and its satellite, the U.S., are on a violent collision course with the entire planet. Sharon, and his puppet, Bush, are terrorism-creating machines without peer. Increasingly the rest of the world wants nothing to do with us. The more the errors of the necons are exposed, the more frenetically they redouble their fanaticism. The Democratic Party is utterly useless in dealing with this problem. Hillary Clinton just revealed herself to be "Bush Lite" when she urged Americans to "stay the course" in Iraq. She, like all theother leading Democrats,is dependent for her political survival on the financial generosity of closet Greater Israelists and Israel Firsters who are determined to push the U.S. into Joseph Lieberman's "global religious war" (the neocons'/neolibs' World War IV). Pretty much all we can do is stand back and watch the U.S. go permanently downhill, as it is turned into a permanent paranoid garrison state, at war with the entire world. - Original Message - From: Vigilius Haufniensis To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; [EMAIL PROTECTED] ; gold currency warfare Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 10:13 PM Subject: [political-research] Straw fuels fear of rift between EU and US http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/11/30/wnato30.xmlsSheet=/news/2003/11/30/ixnewstop.html/news/2003/11/30/wnato30.xmlJack Straw, the Foreign Secretary, fuelled fears of a transatlantic rift over the European Union's defence policy yesterday when he refused to reveal how Washington had reacted to news of a controversial deal struck by Britain, France and Germany. http://news.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;$sessionid$LVCCAHVYF0CLLQFIQMFCFFWAVCBQYIV0?xml=/news/2003/11/29/weu29.xmlIt is believed that Colin Powell, the US secretary of state, telephoned two European foreign ministers on Friday seeking urgent clarification of the deal, which will allow the EU to conduct its own military operations independently of Nato.The plan will also be discussed by Nato defence and foreign ministers at meetings in Brussels this week, where critics are expected to include Donald Rumsfeld, the hawkish US defence secretary.Mr Straw spoke to Mr Powell on Thursday, the day after the deal was struck in Berlin, but said his response would have to remain one of the "secrets of the confessional".He refused to be drawn on whether the Bush administration was willing to back the plan. "There is a process of discussion to take place with our American colleagues and with other partners in Nato," he said.One Nato diplomat, however, had already warned that the proposal - broadly welcomed by other EU foreign ministers meeting in Naples - was a "Trojan horse" that could undermine the transatlantic alliance.Senior Washington officials are concerned that the EU taking on an independent defence role will weaken Nato, the cornerstone of Western defence for more than 50 years.Earlier this month, President George W. Bush said that he trusted Tony Blair to "make the right decision" on EU defence.Yesterday, Mr Straw insisted that the plan would not weaken Nato. "The conclusion that we reached last night was one in which Nato is accepted as the alliance par excellence of all participating member states, the prime means by which we guarantee each other's mutual defence," he said.Any EU defence activities would be "complementary" to the alliance.Michael Ancram, the shadow foreign secretary, said: "This is a sell-out by Tony Blair. I think George Bush will be very angry and upset by this deal. They promised the Americans there would be no planning capability outside Nato. But that is what they have agreed."Mr Ancram said he had warned President Bush about the initiative during his recent meeting with Michael Howard, the Conservative leader."President Bush told us that Tony Blair had assured him it would not undermine Nato. He said, 'I trust him and therefore I am not listening to you'. I think he will see this vindicates what we were saying," said Mr Ancram.EU diplomats said that the defence plan, described by Dominique de Villepin, France's foreign minister, as "a breakthrough", would see a skeleton staff of about 30 "operational planners" established alongside an existing strategic planning unit in Brussels.They would be put to work whenever the EU decided to deploy its own military force.Nato
[CTRL] Fw: [the_octopus] Media Ownership Chart
-Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: Misty To: The Octopus ; Armageddon or New Age Sent: Sunday, November 30, 2003 5:21 AM Subject: [the_octopus] Media Ownership Chart http://www.takebackthemedia.com/owners.htmlMediaChannel's Media Ownership ChartThis is a handy graphic chart of who owns what. This page is one largeimages, so it may take a long while to load on slower connections.Columbia Journalism Review's 'Who Owns What'Colombia Journalism Review provides a clickable list of the major mediacompanies and their holdings. This web guide demonstrates the exceedinglyfar reach of these companies.The Nation's 'Big Ten'Here's a clickable chart of the world's ten biggest media conglomerates. The'Big Ten' shows that concentration of media owndership isn't just a problemhere - it's happening worldwide.The Incredible Shrinking Ownership GroupIn 1985, there were 50 companies who owned media outlets. The graph on thissite shows that between then and now, the number has dwindled to only six,and if the planned deregulation goes through it'll decline even further.Includes the major media reform advocacy groups.FAIR's List of For-Profit MediaFAIR points out that most media outlets are owned by for-profitcorporations, which by nature makes them more accountable to thestockholders than the public interest.NOW's 'Who Controls The Media?'This easy-to-read chart breaks it all down - even down to which cableoutlets are controlled by which conglomerates. Yahoo! Groups Sponsor ADVERTISEMENT The Octopus: A Yahoo! Groups Message ServiceFounded August 25th, 1999In Memoriam: Danny CasolaroJim KeithRon BondsWilliam Cooper [EMAIL PROTECTED] Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the Yahoo! Terms of Service. 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]/ 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
[CTRL] Talking turkey about a 'free' press (Antonio Zerbisias)
Title: TheStar.com - Talking turkey about a `free' press -Caveat Lector- http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_PrintFriendlyc=Articlecid=1070106096435call_pageid=968867495754 Nov. 30, 2003. 01:00AM Talking turkey about a `free' press ANTONIO ZERBISIASLet me say this straight up: I am not so cynical that I don't believe U.S. President George W. Bush wasn't sincerely farklempt when he talked turkey with the boys in Baghdad on Thanksgiving. Still, his talk of freedom struck me as gobbledygook. "By helping the Iraqi people become free, you're helping change a troubled and violent part of the world," Bush said, to the cheers of the troops who are "helping to build a peaceful and democratic country in the heart of the Middle East..." Gobbledygook because Bush and his administration callously disregard one of the most basic freedoms of all, and that's freedom of the press. That the corporate media appear to happily go along with this curtailment and blatant manipulation of the press is even more shocking. But none of it is surprising especially given the latter's willingness to be embedded with the former in order to win regulatory reforms that will allow the media behemoths to beef up some more. That said, to rail against how Bush's well-planned photo op dominated the news would be a waste of time and paper. Even the most apathetic couch potato would have had a hard time missing the story with the video played and replayed more often than that of Michael Jackson's arrest the week before. That it will show up in Bush's next campaign commercial is a given. That the anchors were giddy with excitement over having something else to report on besides the parade and what-to-do-with-your-holiday-leftovers features was obvious. That the coverage was almost uniformly uncritical was, sadly, almost to be expected, considering the record so far. (To be fair, everybody was caught off guard and so the usual suspects/pundits probably couldn't be found to be booked or quoted. Not that there are many usual suspects/pundits who are critical but, like I said, I am trying to be fair here.) The bottom line is, the Bush people lied L-I-E-D about everything, including misinforming the press about what the First Family would be eating on Thanksgiving Day. Okay, fine. Security, surprise, stealth, safety, whatever. But why were some reporters included by the White House and not others? How come an editor at Fox News, the administration's most rah-rah news operation, had advance word when no other editors did? And why is it that a president who refuses to acknowledge the dead and the wounded so readily exploits the still, for now alive? As Joe Lockhart, former spokesperson for ex-president Bill Clinton, told the Washington Post: "There's no way to do this kind of trip if it's broadcast in advance, for security reasons. My problem with this is not that he misled the press. This is a president who has been unwilling to provide his presence to the families who have suffered, but thinks nothing of flying to Baghdad to use the troops there as a prop." And the media go along, after raising nary a peep about how the Pentagon, after banning coverage of the returning "transfer tubes" (a.k.a. body bags), now forbids journalists from getting close to funerals at Arlington National Cemetery. They're restricted to a distant, roped-off area from which nothing can be heard. This after a Pentagon spokesperson said, "The media can get a better, more complete understanding of the person who has passed by attending and covering funeral services as opposed to coffins arriving aboard an air station." Wh? But, let's leave the administration aside since, for political expediency, many a lie has been told. So what about the press? What about the stories they're not telling here? Consider: Last week, Richard Perle, a member of U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's policy board, told a London audience that he thought the attack on Iraq was illegal. The Guardian reported him saying that international law "stood in the way of doing the right thing," and it "would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone." To my knowledge, no U.S. media organization picked this up. The U.S. media have forgotten the victims in whose names all this started: the Americans killed on 9/11. Their families have been struggling to get the government
[CTRL] Is the Next Wave of Terrorism Prepared for Europe?
Title: IS THE NEXT WAVE OF TERRORISM PREPARED FOR EUROPE? -Caveat Lector- http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?noframes;read=40642 [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ] The Rumor Mill News Reading Roomhttp://www.rumormillnews.com IS THE NEXT WAVE OF TERRORISM PREPARED FOR EUROPE? Posted By: RosalindaDate: Saturday, 29 November 2003, 11:58 p.m. (Source: Sueddeutsche Zeitung, Die Welt, internet search) In a psychological warfare operation by the Chickenhawk faction, strange ads with the slogan "No Power to Terrorism" have continued to appear in big European daily papers (in Germany Suedeutsche Zeitung and Die Welt). The responsible organization calls itself the European Security Advocacy Group (ESAG). ICOM, (International Communications Agency Network, based in Colorado) and Vale International are the advertising agency and spokespersons for the ESAG campaign. According to them, just after 9/11, "a group of concerned people and companies began the process of creating a foundation and raising funds, to develop a public awareness campaign, that was launched the week of 15th of September." In Spain, according to the Spanish ad agency Veinte Segundos, five ads are planned in different papers, and a sixth one has been prepared in case a major terrorist incident were to occur! In Norway, ads are appearing in Aftenposten, where the ads are run by TIBE Inferno advertising agency. In France, the campaign is being run by Dassas Publicitee, which handles textile brands like Lacoste. The president of Dassas, Patrick Walhain, is also European regional Director of ICOM. The quarter-page ads in Sueddeutsche Zeitung and Die Welt focus in a very artificial and suggestive references to Islam, with various "reasons" given for terrorism: parents are sending children to "martyr schools," which preach hate and holy war; al Qaeda employs "children soldiers," because "young bodies are cheap"; and, to dismiss the argument that poverty and despair breed terrorism, one ad said that terrorists usually come from "good families" like Osama bin Laden or the former German RAF terrorists, and not from the poor parts of the population. The ads sound like PR writings for the chickenhawks and for Sharon. The initiator of the campaign, Norman Vale, president and founder of the consulting and PR firm Vale International, gave a very philantropic-sounding and secretive interview to the Spanish paper ABC (Oct. 11-12). He said, after 9/11, he needed two years, to organize people for that effort, to "help show the effects of terror" on children, women, economy, the future of free societies, education, etc. Since terrorism does not know any borders, it is "a permanent threat for all societies" and is a threat also for coming generations. He dismissed questions about whether the U.S. government or intelligence services were behind this campaign, and underlined, that he does not have "any political aims." Password: [ Return to Index ] [ Read Prev Msg ] [ Read Next Msg ] The Rumor Mill News Reading Roomhttp://www.rumormillnews.com is maintained by Forum Admin with WebBBS 5.12. 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]/ 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
[CTRL] Lieberman Warns of Global Religious War (DU)
Title: Democratic Underground Forums - Lieberman Warns of Global Religious War -Caveat Lector- http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesgforum=102topic_id=246133mesg_id=246133 Home | Forums | Articles | LinksDirectory | Store | Donate Democratic Underground Forums "DU2" Lieberman Warns of Global Religious War[View All] Printer-friendly format Email this message to a friend Bookmark this thread Previous thread | Next thread Lobby / Latest Latest Breaking News Message arcos (1000+ posts) Sun Nov-30-03 03:46 PMOriginal message Lieberman Warns of Global Religious War Lieberman Warns of Global Religious War WASHINGTON - Iraq (news - web sites) is the testing ground that will determine whether fanatical Muslims go to war against other religions, including moderate Islam, Democratic presidential candidate Joe Lieberman (news - web sites) said Sunday. "There is no substitute for victory here. We must pull together across party lines, here in the United States, and we have to pull together with the rest of the world in a way that President Bush (news - web sites) has not been able to accomplish yet," Lieberman said. snipThe world must be convinced, the Connecticut senator said, "that victory in the conflict we're in in Iraq now matters as much to them in the civilized world as it does to the United States of America." Appearing on "Fox News Sunday," he said: "This is a battle to stop al-Qaida, Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) and every other enemy of freedom and modernity from turning the beginning of the 21st century into what is truly unbelievable, which would be a global religious war." sniphttp://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storycid=694ncid=703e=4u=/ap/20031130/ap_on_el_pr/democrats_lieberman Alert Printer Friendly | Reply 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]/ 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
[CTRL] Occupation Is a Lose-Lose Proposition (Charley Reese)
Title: Occupation Is a Lose-Lose Proposition, by Charley Reese -Caveat Lector- http://www.antiwar.com/reese/reese6.html Occupation Is a Lose-Lose Propositionby Charley ReeseNovember 29, 2003 Mosul, recently held up as an example of our successful occupation of Iraq, was where two American soldiers were shot, dragged out of their car and had their bodies pummeled with concrete blocks by a mob that had quickly gathered. All of this happened recently in broad daylight in the heart of the city. Would you not concede that such behavior indicates at least a mild distaste on the part of Iraqis for the American occupation? The fact is, the Bush administration lied about the reasons for going to war, and now it is lying about the occupation. It is trying what we tried to do in Vietnam fight a guerrilla war and win the "hearts and minds" of the people at the same time. Well, the policy failed in Vietnam, and it will fail in Iraq. The reasons are simple. A guerrilla war brutalizes the army that is fighting it. How do you think the GIs in Mosul feel about Iraqis after what happened to their comrades? They hate them. And that hatred will manifest itself, and this will in turn generate more resistance. No country in the world likes the idea of foreign occupation. The Arabs like it least of all. Every time an American soldier throws an Iraqi man to the ground and puts his boot on his neck or back, he creates an implacable, unforgiving enemy. Every time we kill some innocent Iraqis, we create enemies. Every time an American soldier body-searches a schoolgirl, we create enemies. Of course, some Iraqis will smile to our faces. Of course, some Iraqis want us to stay to avoid a civil war until they can worm their way into power. Of course, there are always traitors for sale in any country. But the simple fact that an Iraqi hates Saddam Hussein does not mean that he or she likes us. Some Americans seem to have trouble grasping that people can hate both Saddam Hussein and the Americans. You should also note that we have been trying to catch Saddam for eight months now. If he were as hated as American propaganda makes him out to be, surely one Iraqi would have dropped a dime on him by now and collected that $25 million. Yet this 66-year-old geezer continues to elude his 140,000 pursuers. More recently, an American military officer said something really stupid and callous. He said that the attacks were insignificant. I don't think that the people who are killed and maimed and their loved ones consider them to be insignificant. That was the calloused part. The stupid part was when he said the guerrillas could not defeat the American military. Of course they can't, and they aren't even trying. The purpose of the guerrilla attacks is not to defeat us, but merely to demonstrate that we cannot control the country. As long as the guerrillas can kill one or two Americans and Iraqi collaborators now and then, they will be "winning." The Viet Cong could not defeat the American military either, but you see who left and who stayed. It doesn't cost the Iraqi guerrilla anything to stay in Iraq. It's his home. He has nowhere else to go. On the other hand, it's costing us $2 billion a week to stay in Iraq, not counting the cost in lives and the spent political capital. Sooner or later, we will leave, and the Iraqi guerrillas know that. The president can prattle all he wants about "staying the course," but the only question is, can we establish a halfway decent government before we are forced to bail out? Some people in the Pentagon are saying we will be in Iraq for five or six years. I don't think we will last that long. Just in dollars and cents, six years would cost us a third of a trillion dollars. The sooner we leave, the better, because the longer we stay, the more resistance we will generate. We have dropped young American men and women, well-trained to fight a conventional war, into an alien culture, and they simply don't know how to deal with it. They will grow to resent and to hate Iraqis, and this resentment and hatred will be returned with interest. Occupation is a lose-lose proposition. © 2003 by King Features Syndicate, Inc. comments on this article? send them to backtalk![visit backtalk!] Recent columns by Charley Reese
[CTRL] Raid On Arab TV Network Hardly A Democratic Move (Helen Thomas)
-Caveat Lector- The neocons, who are all wannabe world dictators,have proven repeatedly by their words and deeds that they profoundly despise democracy: http://www.thebostonchannel.com/helenthomas/2667834/detail.html Raid On Arab TV Network Hardly A Democratic Move Dictators Should Be Only Ones Shutting Down Media Broadcasts POSTED: 5:22 p.m. EST November 26, 2003 UPDATED: 5:23 p.m. EST November 26, 2003 WASHINGTON -- The raid by the U.S.-appointed Iraqi officials on an Arab television network bureau in Baghdad and the ban on its broadcasts hardly fits my idea of how to spread democracy in the Middle East. Isn't that the first thing dictators do -- shut down broadcast outlets and newspapers? For those in power, tolerating a free press is difficult, even in a democracy. As a foreign occupier in Iraq, we are proving that it is intolerable. The terrible irony here is that we pride ourselves on offering a model to the rest of the world on how to design -- and live by -- our constitutional freedoms. Journalists around the globe have been taught to emulate our approach to newsgathering, hopefully in an atmosphere free of government restraints. At the same time, we're snuffing out news outlets we don't like. On Monday, the U.S.-appointed Iraqi government raided the Baghdad bureau of the Al-Arabiya TV network. The network's crime was to broadcast an audiotape from Saddam Hussein complaining about Iraqis who were cooperating with the U.S. occupation force and calling for resistance. The tape had been sent to Al-Arabiya's headquarters in Dubai, the United Arab Emirates. The network, which has interviewed Secretary of State Colin Powell in the past, is one of the largest TV outlets in the Arab world. Any tape portraying Saddam's views on life fits the definition of news, if for no other reason than it is evidence that he is still alive and able to secretly communicate from wherever he was hiding. Al-Arabiya and its competitor, the Al-Jazeera Satellite Channel, have a wide following throughout the Middle East. Al-Jazeera caused Washington much discomfort in the lead-up to the war by broadcasting statements from Saddam. The White House strongly offered "advice" to U.S. TV outlets to shun those tapes but the American networks generally ignored the unhelpful hints. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has accused both Arab stations of being hostile by covering news of the guerrilla attacks on American forces. Al-Jazeera's Baghdad bureau was hit by a U.S. missile on April 8, killing a reporter-cameraman. The network also has complained of an attack on its marked vehicle April 7. On Nov. 13, 2001, during the U.S. war on Afghanistan an American missile went "awry," according to the Pentagon, and destroyed the Al-Jazeera bureau in Kabul. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists has condemned the move against Al-Arabiya, noting that "statements from Saddam Hussein and the former Iraqi regime are inherently newsworthy and news organizations have a right to cover them." Rumsfeld grouses that the two stations were violently against the American coalition. He hopes to counter their influence when a U.S.-controlled TV satellite channel begins broadcasts next month. Then will the Iraqis and the Arab world be guaranteed the truth? In a brilliant speech earlier this month before the National Conference on Media Reform, broadcaster and former newspaper editor Bill Moyers warned that American media conglomerates may find common cause "with an imperial state." But Moyers said "the greatest moments in the history of the press came not when journalists made common cause with the state but when they stood fearlessly independent of it." Against that statement of values, the recent performance by American journalists does not measure well. White House and Pentagon reporters initially pulled their punches in reporting on the Iraqi war. Some media outlets admittedly did not want to rock the boat by showing grisly photos or videotape that could be disturbing to Americans. As a result, many Americans tuned in on foreign news channels to get the full picture of the war. Even now, with the administration's pro-war arguments reduced to a pile of confetti, many news outlets have failed to demand accountability from the Bush administration for what appears to be systematic dishonesty in trying to justify the U.S. attack. This failure and the U.S.-led suppression of newsgathering in Iraq show that the historic American model for a free and independent press needs courageous bolstering. (Helen Thomas can be reached at the e-mail address [EMAIL PROTECTED]). www.ctrl.org 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
[CTRL] Iraq situation provides analysts with a complex puzzle (Georgie Anne Geyer)
-Caveat Lector- http://www.uexpress.com/printable/print.html?uc_full_date=20031106uc_comic=gg back to Georgie Anne Geyer IRAQ SITUATION PROVIDES ANALYSTS WITH A COMPLEX PUZZLEWASHINGTON -- There is one question on everyone's lips here these days: "All right, what should we do next?" The issue, of course, is Iraq, and the questions about the next stage of American policy there are coming from all corners. Little else is discussed at meetings and receptions, although a second question is also emerging: "And how long do we have to do anything?" So first, let me try to splice together the answer coming from both sympathizers of the Iraq war and its most passionate critics -- although not yet from the White House or the Pentagon. This solution to the (new word of the administration) "insurgency" would be first to internationalize the conflict, and second to do some public "housecleaning" of the neoconservative advocates of the war as a symbol of willingness to change. But bringing in French, German, Indian, Pakistani or other contingents of troops would mean seriously giving up some of the power held by the administration's little "in-group." It would require showing courtesy to other nations, which this administration finds so onerous. It would mean putting the American occupation under some United Nations official or mandate. Internationalization could be done only symbolically, but still it would diffuse the focused hatred of the United States in Iraq. These are the points made by our most cogent and experienced analysts (men such as military analyst Lawrence Korb, prominent diplomat Robert Oakley and military historian William Lind). At the same time, many stress that there has to be an at least symbolic housecleaning. Somebody has to be seen by the American public to pay for the disgraceful mistakes of the war and especially the occupation. The favorite name that comes up is that of the Pentagon's fanatic neo-con, Douglas Feith. Such a gesture would also have to be paralleled by some appropriate, if not humbling, acknowledgment by President Bush that he, too, made mistakes -- and that he is a big enough man to admit it and move to undo them. Then, many say, a "committee of wise men" should be formed who would directly advise the president, share with him the differing and experienced knowledge that he has not been receiving, and offer him some desperately needed new perspectives. These could be people like Marine Corps Gen. Anthony Zinni, scholars Zbigniew Brzezinski or Ivo Daalder, former Secretary of State James Baker III, and Sens. Chuck Hagel and Richard Lugar. In short, men and women who are not anti-Bush but who have shown the capacity to think openly -- and who have records of being right on policy questions. Would such advice be accepted by President Bush, much less by the Pentagon civilians and the neo-cons who hover all around him? One would suppose not. But on the other hand ... Consider George W. Bush's position. His support goes down by the day, and the macho refrain that "We will stay the course in Iraq, no matter what" is becoming a bad joke to many Americans watching the war play out. Instead of being in control, which he loves, he is every day more beholden to circumstances and events that he clearly cannot control. (There is also real evidence that some of his most confident war "planners" are jumping ship. One well-informed policy wonk from outside went to the Pentagon last week and found all the third-tier war lovers under the secretary walking around like zombies, unable to understand what they have wrought. Many of them are leaving their jobs, even as American troops and reservists in Iraq are seeing their service time repeatedly extended.) Enter Karl Rove. This cool-cat election planner never cared about Iraq, but he desperately cares about re-election. Sometime this winter, he's going to have to tell the president: "It's Iraq or the election." At this point, "We can't leave" becomes not a solution, a policy or an answer, but a mantra already out of step with reality -- and a threat to the Bush presidency. Finally, move to the question of time. Senior administration officials have been saying, in small but revealing outbursts both in Iraq and here, that the U.S. has a "window" of only three to six months to put down the resistance. Students of revolution and rebellion point out that 1) mistakes made in
[CTRL] Iraq's oil pipelines under attack
Title: Iraq's oil pipelines under attack / Resistance forces repeatedly hitting vulnerable spots; cost to rebuild rises -Caveat Lector- The oil industry knew BEFORE the neocon-directed Iraq War that you can't conduct a stable and profitable business by trying to bully nations into submission through blunt military agression. Bush's Israeli-inspired war has been a disaster for everyone concerned, except for war profiteers like Halliburton and Bechtel, who are being paid exoritant fees to repair the damageinflictedon Iraq byGeorge W. Bush and the Wolfowitz/Perle cabal which controls him. Paul Wolfowitz promised Americans before the war that Iraq's oil would fully pay for the costs of the war. Why is Wolfowitz still working for the American government in any capacity, given the enormous damage that he and his fellow neocons, like Douglas Feith and Lewis Libby,have inflicted on Americans and the American interest? When are these misguided zealots going to be held accountable for the mistakes they have made and the lies they have told? http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/11/28/MNGQE3C75I1.DTLtype=printable www.sfgate.com Return to regular view Iraq's oil pipelines under attack Resistance forces repeatedly hitting vulnerable spots; cost to rebuild rises Charles M. Sennott, Boston GlobeFriday, November 28, 2003 ©2003 San Francisco Chronicle | Feedback URL: sfgate.com/article.cgi?file=/c/a/2003/11/28/MNGQE3C75I1.DTL Kirkuk, Iraq -- Three successive explosions rattled the windows at the Northern Oil Co. on a recent afternoon. Within minutes, several U.S. contractors and Iraqi executives rushed out to start assessing the damage from yet another attack on Iraq's oil pipelines. Insurgents have been striking almost weekly against a labyrinth of pumping stations and hundreds of miles of pipeline that snakes through the desolate plains and rugged hills of northern Iraq, bearing crude oil exports to the Turkish port city of Ceyhan. The attacks have all but shut down the flow of 850,000 barrels of exported crude that coursed through Kirkuk's hub of pipelines each day before the war, U.S. and Iraqi officials say. Describing the vulnerability of the pipeline, one insurgent, Ali, a 32- year-old former Iraqi army sergeant turned resistance fighter, recently put it this way: "The truth is, there is very little they can do to stop us. We can hit them every day if we want to." The sabotage also has robbed the U.S.-led occupation of revenues that it hoped would defray the vast cost of rebuilding postwar Iraq. As if to highlight the campaign against the petroleum industry, insurgents fired rockets at the Oil Ministry in Baghdad last week from a donkey cart. Washington's reconstruction strategy counts on an expected $50 billion in oil export revenue for Iraq over the next three years, but the sabotage, combined with extensive damage to infrastructure from neglect and looting, means the earnings are likely to fall far short of U.S. predictions. The pipelines are the focal point of a dangerous cops-and-robbers drama involving anti-U.S. insurgents and the U.S. and Iraqi forces trying to hunt them down. Ali, the former soldier, who said he was a demolition specialist in the Iraqi army, said that he had been training insurgents to prepare explosive devices to sabotage the pipeline -- and that his group had bombed it 25 to 30 times. In an interview on the terrace of an apartment building in the northern town of Ba'iji, as the gas-burnoff flame of an oil refinery flickered far in the distance, Ali said he was part of a broad-based resistance effort against the U.S.-led occupation. Speaking on condition that his full name not be used, Ali said: "This is Iraqi oil for the Iraqi people. America came, saying that it would kick out Saddam, but they never got Saddam and instead began stealing our oil. So this is why we are fighting, and this is why we will hit directly at what they want most -- our oil." Ali, his face covered in a red-and-white checkered kaffiyeh, said the ranks of the resistance increasingly included former soldiers who, like himself, profess no loyalty to Hussein but who are frustrated with the occupation and determined to fight it. He said he was part of a small group acting independently around Ba'iji, which sits halfway between the vast oil fields of northern Iraq and the large refineries in Baghdad. He said the groups were often aided by members of the Bedouin tribes that live in the remote areas where the pipeline is most vulnerable. "We watch for spots where they are lacking security. We have also watched which spots they repair, and then we strike that same spot again. This is all very simple. They can never protect the pipeline," Ali said, smiling. Chasing such shadowy suspects is far from easy.
[CTRL] Iraq Attack Long Planned (Charleston Gazette)
-Caveat Lector- A basic truth which the mainstream American media are still determined to bury: We have been dragged into this war by a president surrounded by super-hawks, who intended from the beginning to attack. That sounds like a precise summation. A tiny clique planned the Iraq assault for a decade, and the 9/11 tragedy gave them a smokescreen to use as an excuse to start the war. No other explanation adds up. http://wvgazette.com/section/Editorials/2003112710 The Charleston Gazette November 28, 2003 War roots Iraq attack long planned Since all of President Bushs reasons for invading Iraq turned out to be false, the question lingers: Why, really, did he start the war? A study by the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace indicates that an Iraq attack had been advocated for more than a decade by a clique of far-right Republican hawks who wanted to control Iraqs oil and erase threats to Israel. A brief by foundation officer Joseph Cirincione begins: Long before Sept. 11, before the first inspections in Iraq had started, a small group of influential officials and experts in Washington were calling for regime change in Iraq. Some never wanted to end the 1991 war. Many are now administration officials. Paul Wolfowitz, undersecretary of defense in the first Bush administration, was upset because the first President Bush didnt finish conquering Iraq in the Gulf War. Wolfowitz wrote a Defense Policy Guidance plan advocating another attack on Iraq to assure access to vital raw material, primarily Persian Gulf oil, and to reduce deadly weapons and Mideast terrorism that menaced Israel. His plan called for preemptive strikes by America. When it leaked to The New York Times, a public outcry caused it to be withdrawn until it was resurrected under the second President Bush as his preemptive war strategy. The Carnegie report continues: In 1996, Richard Perle, Douglas Feith and David Wurmser, now administration officials, joined in a report to the newly elected Likud government in Israel calling for a clean break with the policies of negotiating with the Palestinians and trading land for peace. They said Israel can shape its strategic environment ... by weakening, containing and even rolling back Syria. This effort can focus on removing Saddam Hussein from power in Iraq They called for reestablishing the principle of preemption. In 1998, a group of 18 conservatives including Wolfowitz, Perle, Donald Rumsfeld and convicted Iran-contra conspirator Eliott Abrams wrote to President Clinton urging him to aim at the removal of Saddam Husseins regime from power. In 2000, while Clinton was still president, neoconservative hawks in the Project for the New American Century drafted a plan to use Americas military might to impose U.S. interests around the globe. It advocated keeping a substantial American force presence in the Persian Gulf sector dominated by Iraq. PNAC leaders included Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz, Perle, Dick Cheney, Jeb Bush and William Kristol, who got $100,000 from the sleazy Enron conglomerate that backed Bush for president. When the 9/11 horror happened, it provided an opportunity for this neocon group by then in power in the new Bush administration to unleash war on Iraq. On the very day of the 9/11 tragedy, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld wrote a memo urging aides to tie Saddam Hussein to the al-Qaida terrorist network. Go massive. Sweep it all up. Things related and not, his note said. For several months, the urgency of wiping out the al-Qaida base of operations in Afghanistan took top priority but planning for an Iraq attack proceeded. Perle, who had become chairman of a Pentagon war policy board, met in Paris with a notorious arms dealer to discuss action against Iraq. He also participated in a Goldman Sachs conference call advising investors how to reap war profits. The session was titled Implications of an Imminent War: Iraq Now, North Korea Next? Washington Post columnist David Ignatius says Pentagon leader Wolfowitz is a genuine idealist, despite the widespread notion that Wolfowitz is simply a neoconservative tool of Israel. Its easy to see why that notion became widespread. He is tightly allied with Perle, Feith and other Bush insiders involved in the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs, which is devoted to protecting Israel and neutralizing its Arab neighbors. The group wields enormous clout in the Bush administration. President Bush took up the war cry against Iraq. He refused to let
[CTRL] The Politics of War (William S. Lind)
Title: The Politics Of War, by William S. Lind -Caveat Lector- Conservatives are deserting George W. Bush in droves. Publicity stunts like Bush's recent trip to Iraq are doing nothing to answer the urgent questions that have been asked by leading members of the Republican Party, the intel community, the military and the oil industry about the rationale for the Iraq War. The ideologues behind the war are adrift in an autistic trance, beyond rational interaction. They simply repeat the same lies over and over again. -- SM http://www.antiwar.com/lind/lind1.html The Politics Of Warby William S. LindNovember 26, 2003 As I said in an earlier column, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are already lost. Nothing the United States can do can yield an American victory in either place. In all probability, both wars were lost before the first bomb was dropped or the first shot fired. They were lost because, in an era when the state is in decline, our wares on the Afghan and Iraqi states were doomed to be too successful. We fought to destroy two regimes, but what we ended up doing was destroying two states. Neither in Afghanistan nor in Iraq are we able to recreate the state, which means that Fourth Generation, non-state forces will come to dominate both places. And neither we nor any other state knows how to defeat Fourth Generation enemies. To the degree America had a chance of real victory in either war, we lost that chance through early mistakes. In Afghanistan, we failed to bring the Pashtun into the new government, which means we remain allied with the Uzbeks and Tajiks against the Pashtun. Unfortunately, in the end the Pashtun always win Afghan wars. In Iraq, the two fatal early errors were outlawing the Baath Party and disbanding the Iraqi army. Outlawing the Baath deprived the Sunni community of its only political vehicle, which meant it had no choice but to fight us. Disbanding the Iraqi army left us with no native force that could maintain order, and also provided the resistance with a large pool of armed and trained fighters. Washington is now making noises about reversing both of those early decisions, but it is simply too late. As von Moltke said, a mistake in initial dispositions can seldom be put right. What is interesting is that the most powerful man in Washington, Karl Rove, who is President George W. Bush's political advisor, has apparently figured out that the Iraq war is lost (Afghanistan is not on his political radar screen). Further, he has discerned that if Mr. Bush goes into the 2004 election with the war in Iraq still going on, and still going badly, Mr. Bush is toast. The result was the recent decision to turn the government back to the Iraqis sometime next summer. Will it work? Probably not. Mr. Rove still faces two big fights, and neither will be easy. The first will be a nasty political brawl with the so-called "neo-cons," more accurately neo-Jacobins, who gave us the Iraq War in the first place. Their political future is at stake in Iraq, and if we are defeated, they go straight into history's wastebasket. They are determined to fight down to the last American paratrooper, and once they figure out that Mr. Rove wants out, they will go after him with everything they have. The other fight will be in Iraq itself, where we will see a race between American efforts to create at least the fig leaf of a functioning Iraqi state so we can get out with some tail feathers intact and a resistance movement that is rapidly gaining strength. My bet is that, unfortunately, we will lose. Again, the root problem is that in a Fourth Generation world, once you have destroyed a state recreating it is very difficult. More, as is typical of a power facing defeat, our moves are too little and too late. By next summer, when we hope to transfer sovereignty to a new Iraqi government, it is likely to represent a frustration of the Shiites' hope to use their majority status to create a Shiite Islamic Republic. That may deprive us, and the new Iraqi government, of the one prop we still have, a relatively quiescent Shiite population. The upshot of all of this is that despite Mr. Rove's belated wakening to political reality, Mr. Bush will go into the 2004 election with one of two albatrosses around his neck: a continuing, losing guerilla war, with ever-increasing American casualties, or an out-and-out American defeat, where we have left Iraq very much the way the Soviets left Afghanistan.
[CTRL] Zionist Intelligence Engineered Istanbul Blasts
Title: Jihad Unspun - A Clear View On The US War On "Terrorism" -Caveat Lector- I have no idea about the credibility of this source, orabout "the Turkish media sources" mentioned in the article. http://www.jihadunspun.com/index-side_internal.php?article=85191list=/home.php Zionist Intelligence Engineered Istanbul BlastsNov 27, 2003 Ankara - Turkish media sources have pointed out that the Zionist foreign intelligence known as the Mossad might have been involved in the two explosions in Istanbul against two Jewish synagogues last week.The sources said that the Turkish intelligence, in cooperation with the intelligence of a neighboring country, have reached the conclusion that the Mossad had masterminded the terrorist blasts in Istanbul for yet unknown reasons.A Turkish daily close to the ruling justice and development party quoted Turkish intelligence sources as saying that the Mossad had established the organization that launched the two attacks on 15th November.The sources said that the situation would be totally different in the region if it were proven that the Mossad had played a role in those explosions.Meanwhile, Britain warned its nationals against visiting Turkey after the two other explosions that targeted the British consulate and HSBC bank in Istanbul.The British foreign ministry said that it had information on probable fresh terrorist attacks in Istanbul and Ankara.The four suicide attacks that took place last week in Istanbul left 54 dead and hundreds others injured. Back 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]/ 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 WarBanner.jpg01-frontpage.jpg02-askjus.jpg03-players.jpg04-departments.jpg05-newsarchive.jpg06-archives.jpg07-opinions.jpg08-multimedia.jpg
[CTRL] Iraq war diverting resources from war on terror, experts say
Title: Iraq war diverting resources from war on terror, experts say -Caveat Lector- Dick Cheney and the neocons rammed this claim (that Iraq was the frontline in the war against terrorism) down the throats of the American public without a shred of public debate and against the best analysis and advice of the CIA, the DIAand most of the rest of the intel community. Cheney, Wolfowitz, Perle and Feith have never once been able to offer a rational explanation for why an American invasion and occupation of Iraq would make Americans safer against terrorist threats. The overwhelming evidence is that Bush's aggression against Iraq will increase terrorism, not decrease it. For the most part the American media have been criminally remiss in asking the most basic and simple questions about Bush's Iraq policy -- they are fully complicit with Bush and the neocons in creating the mess in Iraq and in increasing the terrorist threat against Americans. The only conceivable factor that could explain their behavior is an unstated emotional assumption that an American attack on Iraq, or on any Arab or Muslim nation, is good for Israel. But they are desperate to keep this motive completely hidden from public view. The entire Iraq operation has been shrouded in deception and deceit -- this is why the administrationhas beenforced to come up with new reasons for the policy on a daily basis, without ever addressing the real reason, which has its roots in the Clean Break paper that Richard Perle and his fellow neocons wrote for Benjamin Netanyahu back in 1996. -- SM Experts who have served in top positions in both Republican and Democratic administrations are increasingly suggesting that the Iraq war has diverted momentum, troops and intelligence resources from the worldwide campaign to destroy the remnants of al-Qaida. They note that the presence of U.S. troops in an Arab homeland is serving as a major recruiting tool for signing up and motivating new jihadis, or Islamic holy warriors. "Fighting Iraq had little to do with fighting the war on terrorism, until we made it (so)," said Richard Clarke, who was a senior White House counter-terrorism official under Bush and President Bill Clinton. http://www.realcities.com/mld/krwashington/7357863.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp Posted on Wed, Nov. 26, 2003 Iraq war diverting resources from war on terror, experts sayBy Warren P. StrobelKnight Ridder Newspapers WASHINGTON - A growing number of counter-terrorism experts are challenging President Bush's assertion that Iraq is a major battle in the war against terrorism and are questioning whether the U.S. invasion of Iraq has hurt rather than helped the global battle against al-Qaida and its affiliates. Experts who have served in top positions in both Republican and Democratic administrations are increasingly suggesting that the Iraq war has diverted momentum, troops and intelligence resources from the worldwide campaign to destroy the remnants of al-Qaida. They note that the presence of U.S. troops in an Arab homeland is serving as a major recruiting tool for signing up and motivating new jihadis, or Islamic holy warriors. "Fighting Iraq had little to do with fighting the war on terrorism, until we made it (so)," said Richard Clarke, who was a senior White House counter-terrorism official under Bush and President Bill Clinton. There are few objective measures by which to judge the progress of the war on terror, something that makes it difficult to gauge whether the United States is winning or losing the battle. Bush administration officials note that much of al-Qaida's known top leadership has been caught or killed, but even Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, in a much-publicized memo that was leaked last month, said ways of measuring progress are almost nonexistent. "Today, we lack metrics to know if we are winning or losing the global war on terror," Rumsfeld wrote. Yet gauging the status of the war against al-Qaida has taken on fresh urgency with a series of deadly car bombings this month in Turkey and Saudi Arabia, and new threat warnings at home. The war on terror also appears destined to play a major role in next year's presidential
[CTRL] The Real Reason for the Iraq War (From the Archives)
Title: The Pollard Affair Never Ended -Caveat Lector- http://www.larouchepub.com/pr_lar/2002/090802pollard_affr.html PRESS RELEASE The Pollard Affair Never Ended! Sept. 8, 2002 (EIRNS)The following statement was released today by LaRouche in 2004, Lyndon LaRouche's campaign committee for the Democratic Presidential nomination. The statement is being circulated widely throughout the United States in leaflet form. Lyndon LaRouche reports that there is now firm evidence that the ongoing drive to induce President George W. Bush to launch a war against Iraq, is a 1996 Israeli government policy that is being foisted on the President by a nest of Israeli agents inside the U.S. government. This Israeli spy network inside the United States was unable achieve their objective until President Bush was entrapped by the events of Sept. 11, 2001 and the falsified accounts of those events provided by this foreign intelligence apparatus, and lured over to their policies. Lyndon LaRouche demands to know: Is this not the motive that explains the who and why of the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001? LaRouche demands an immediate Congressional investigation, to help purge the U.S. government of this foreign intelligence apparatus, which attempted, with the 9/11 events, to seize control over U.S. foreign policy. The network of Pollard "stay-behinds" inside the Bush Administration is engaged in a witting hoax, to induce the President and the U.S. Congress to go to war. When you read the summary evidence below, you will certainly share Lyndon LaRouche's conclusion that all of these people must be immediately fired from their Administration posts, and that the U.S. Congress must launch public hearings to get to the bottom of this criminal scheme. The summary facts are as follows: On July 8, 1996, Richard Perle, now the Chairman of the Defense Policy Board, an advisory group that reports to Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, presented a written document to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, spelling out a new Israeli foreign policy, calling for a repudiation of the Oslo Accords and the underlying concept of "land for peace"; for the permanent annexation of the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip; and for the elimination of the Saddam Hussein regime in Baghdad, as a first step towards overthrowing or destabilizing the governments of Syria, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia, and Iran. The document was prepared for the Jerusalem and Washington, D.C.-based Institute for Advanced Strategic and Political Studies (IASPS), a think tank financed by Richard Mellon-Scaife. The report, "A Clean Break: A New Strategy for Securing the Realm," was co-authored by Perle; Douglas Feith, currently the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Policy; David Wurmser, currently special assistant to State Department chief arms control negotiator John Bolton; and Meyrav Wurmser, now director of Mideast Policy at the Hudson Institute. Two days after he received the foreign policy blueprint from Perle, Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu delivered a speech before a joint session of the U.S. Congress, which strongly echoed the IASPS outline. The same day, the Wall Street Journal published excerpts from the IASPS document, and the next day, July 11, 1996, the Journal editorially endorsed the Perle document. Beginning in February 1998, the British government of Prime Minister Tony Blair launched a concerted effort, in league with the Netanyahu government in Israel, and the Perle Israeli agent-of-influence networks inside the United States, to induce President William Clinton to launch a war against Iraq, under precisely the terms spelled out for Netanyahu in the "Clean Break" paper. The war was to be launched, ostensibly, over Iraq's possession of "weapons of mass destruction." United Nations weapons inspectors were, at this time, still on the ground inside Iraq. To buttress the war drive, British Foreign Secretary Robin Cook issued an official lying "white paper" on the Iraqi drive to obtain WMD. On Feb. 19, 1998, Richard Perle and former Congressman Stephen Solarz released an "Open Letter to the President," demanding a full-scale U.S.-led drive for "regime change" in Baghdad. The dangerously incompetent military scheme for the overthrow of Saddam that was published in the Open Letter, has been recently revived by the Perle-led network of "chickenhawks" in the office of Secretary of Defensebut has been summarily rejected by the
[CTRL] Evidence indicates that Wellstone crash was no accident (Jim Fetzer)
Title: One man's opinion: Evidence indicates that Wellstone crash was no accident -Caveat Lector- http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/duluthtribune/news/opinion/7306797.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp Posted on Thu, Nov. 20, 2003 Point of View by JIM FETZEROne man's opinion: Evidence indicates that Wellstone crash was no accident Minnesota Sen. Paul Wellstone was a serious man who cared profoundly about his fellow citizens. He took courageous stands against an administration that he viewed with profound suspicion, arguing eloquently against tax cuts for the rich, the subversion of the Constitution, and violating international accords. He would have led the opposition to the war in Iraq if only he had had the chance. Everyone knew it and he may have died because of it. For nearly a year now, evidence has been accumulating about the event that ended the life of this magnificent human being. Whatever caused the crash was not the plane, the pilots or the weather. In spite of what you may have heard, the plane was exceptional, the pilots well-qualified and the weather posed no significant problems. Even the National Transportation Safety Board's own simulations of the plane, the pilots and the weather were unable to bring the plane down. This means we have to consider other, less palatable, alternatives, such as small bombs, gas canisters or electromagnetic pulse, radio frequency or High Energy Radio Frequency weapons designed to overwhelm electrical circuitry with an intense electromagnetic field. An abrupt cessation of communication between the plane and the tower took place at about 10:18 a.m., the same time an odd cell phone phenomenon occurred with a driver in the immediate vicinity. This suggests to me the most likely explanation is that one of our new electromagnetic weapons was employed. The politics of the situation were astonishing. The senator was pulling away from the hand-picked candidate of the Bush machine. Its opportunity to seize control of the U.S. Senate was slipping from its grasp. Its vaunted "invincibility" was being challenged by an outspoken critic of its most basic values. Targeted for elimination, he was going to survive. Here's one man's opinion: Under such conditions, the temptation to take him out may have been irresistible. Among the striking indications that something was wrong with the NTSB in its inquiry into the causes of the crash is that Carol Carmody, a former employee with the CIA, the head of the team, announced the day after that the FBI had found no indications of terrorist involvement. Yet it is the responsibility of the NTSB to ascertain the cause of the crash, which has yet to be determined to this very day. So how could the FBI possibly know? The FBI's prompt arrival was peculiar. As Christopher Bollyn of American Free Press reported (www.rumormillnews.net, Oct. 29, 2002), "According to Rick Wahlberg, then St. Louis County sheriff, a team of FBI agents was quickly on the crash site about noon, less than an hour after (assistant manager Gary) Ulman and the (fire) chief had first located the site and found a way to access the wreck. This FBI team had come from the distant Twin Cities in record time!" When Bollyn "asked Ulman if he had notified the FBI about the accident, Ulman said he had not spoken with the bureau at any time. Asked how the FBI got to the site so quickly, Ulman said that he assumed they had come from Duluth. AFP contacted the Duluth office of the FBI and was told that the team of 'recovery' agents had not come from Duluth but had traveled from the FBI office in Minneapolis." I calculate that this team would have had to have left the Twin Cities at about the same time the Wellstone plane was taking off. Gary Ulman confirmed to me that the FBI had been on the scene no later than 1 p.m. I have reviewed the log books maintained by the Sheriff's Department at Eveleth and have discovered that they are grossly incomplete and cannot confirm when the FBI showed up.
[CTRL] Media Silence on 9/11 (Schechter and Kelly)
-Caveat Lector- Conspiracy theories about these events flourish because independently verified information has yet to see the light of day. More importantly no one has been held accountable for any lapses or misjudgments that left our country undefended. We live in a county where crime scene investigation TV shows are all the rage. Yet, in one of the most serious crimes in this century, there has been no official rush to get all the facts. If a person was shot in front of the World Trade Center, there would be more of an urgent inquiry into that killing than was accorded the murder of thousands of people in broad daylight. There would be a trial, witnesses giving sworn testimony, evidence presented in public for anyone interested to review and discern. None of this has yet to happen with regard to 9/11. Is it any wonder that skepticism and suspicion flourish? http://www.alternet.org/print.html?StoryID=17254 Media Silence on 9/11 Danny Schechter and Colleen Kelly, AlterNetNovember 24, 2003Viewed on November 26, 2003 A subpoena can work like truth serum. Drag waffling officials and dissembling politicians before a serious investigatory body and suddenly secrets start to spill and disclosures mount. Dots are connected. Confessions emerge, and sometimes, indictments follow. The terrorist attacks of 9/11 were criminal acts, but with political causes and tragic consequences. Two years later, there is much that we don't know about all that happened on September 11th or its aftermath. That's why we now have a National Commission investigating the attacks. Lest we forget, the commission was only set up because of pressure from 9/11 victim families, and over the stonewalling objections of the current administration. They didn't want an independent investigation at all, and when one was forced on them, this same administration ironically chose Henry Kissinger to head it. The creation of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States (the 9/11 commission) was announced just before Thanksgiving a year ago. President Bush appeared to welcome it saying that the "investigation should carefully examine all the evidence and follow all the facts, wherever they lead (sic). It's our most solemn duty." A year later, what has happened with the implementation of that "solemn duty?" Conspiracy theories about these events flourish because independently verified information has yet to see the light of day. More importantly no one has been held accountable for any lapses or misjudgments that left our country undefended. We live in a county where crime scene investigation TV shows are all the rage. Yet, in one of the most serious crimes in this century, there has been no official rush to get all the facts. If a person was shot in front of the World Trade Center, there would be more of an urgent inquiry into that killing than was accorded the murder of thousands of people in broad daylight. There would be a trial, witnesses giving sworn testimony, evidence presented in public for anyone interested to review and discern. None of this has yet to happen with regard to 9/11. Is it any wonder that skepticism and suspicion flourish? Many of us remember spending the summer of 1973 glued to the television, watching Sam Erwin's Watergate hearings. It was public, unrehearsed and very effective. It spotlighted a conspiracy orchestrated by the Oval Office. It helped the public see what was going on in the shadows. Will we ever see such a robust, no-holds-barred inquiry into 9/11? We encourage the Kean Commission to set an even higher standard. But the latest compromise deal it struck with the White House to limit its own access to documents undercuts its stated mission of a "full and unfettered" investigation. Commissioner Max Cleland, the former Senator from Georgia said, "If this decision stands, I, as a member of the commission, cannot look any American in the eye, especially family members of victims, and say the commission had full access. This investigation is now compromised." This recent compromise has also been denounced by many family members of 9/11 victims. The media has also compromised its role as an independent watchdog. Until recently, there has been minimal media coverage of the 9/11 commission. This apparent media indifference leads us to ask the media and our fellow Americans the following question: Which event has greater historical
[CTRL] Pipeline Ablaze North of Baghdad
Title: Boston Globe Online: Print it! -Caveat Lector- Why the pragmatic and business-savvy oil industry for the most part OPPOSED the Iraq War and the messianic schemes of the neocons: http://www.boston.com/dailynews/330/world/Pipeline_ablaze_north_of_BaghdP.shtml '); //-->> THIS STORY HAS BEEN FORMATTED FOR EASY PRINTING Pipeline ablaze north of Baghdad By Associated Press, 11/26/2003 02:34 BAGHDAD, Iraq (AP) A major pipeline linking oilfields in northern Iraq to the country's biggest refinery was ablaze Thursday, witnesses said. Sheets of flame and thick black smoke were shooting from the damaged line next to the desert highway about 30 miles north of Beiji, the site of Iraq's largest oil refinery, witnesses said. There was no immediate explanation about what had caused the blaze. The location of the fire was about 135 miles north of the capital, in the so-called Sunni Triangle where guerrillas have repeatedly attacked pipelines linking Iraq's oil fields with Turkey. Sabotage of pipelines and other infrastructure has become a major problem for the U.S.-run coalition and its Iraqi partners as they try to revive the country's giant petroleum industry the key to economic recovery. Iraq has the second largest proven petroleum reserves in OPEC. But many companies are holding back until they see an improvement in security against attacks by militants opposed to American troops and the U.S.-backed Iraqi Governing Council. The northern pipeline which carries crude oil from Kirkuk to Turkey operated briefly in August before one of several attacks on facilities forced the Iraqis to shut it down for repairs. 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]/ 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
[CTRL] Israel predicts Europe next in line after Istanbul bombings
-Caveat Lector- http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/031121123249.dihmpkeg Israel predicts Europe next in line after Istanbul bombings 21 November 2003 In the wake of the devastating bombings against British interests in Istanbul, Israeli officials and experts predicted Friday that the next target of global terrorism would be Europe. "The Europeans are not really aware of the seriousness of this phenomenon of international terrorism, which has not hit them yet," Israeli government spokesman Avi Pazner told AFP. "The risk is closing down on them and the free world must unite to stop this tidal wave of blind violence which has already struck America, Indonesia, Thailand, the Philippines, Tunisia, Morocco and Saudi Arabia," he said. Two car-bomb attacks against British interests in Istanbul killed at least 27 people Thursday, coming close on the heels of the November 15 twin suicide attacks on synagogues in the Turkish city that killed 25 people. The wave of bombings, with Osama bin Laden's Al-Qaeda network as a prime suspect, were seen as a reaction to Turkey's close ties with Israel and the pro-Western policies of a Muslim state with one of the world's largest armies. Israel signed a military cooperation agreement with Turkey in 1996 angering the Arab world, and as many as 300,000 Israelis every year choose Turkey as their holiday destination. According to an Israeli intelligence source, Turkey was targeted "because it is on the threshold of Europe, because of its secular and pro-Western regime and because it is seeking to join the European Union." "Choosing Turkey as a target for terrorist attacks, and hitting Jewish or Western interests is tantamount to warning Europe it is next on the list," Pazner said. Israeli newspapers warned against European apathy. "This war of the worlds is now underway. But not everyone in the West understands yet that they could be the next stop. Sleeper cells such as the ones that operated in Turkey are spread throughout the countries of Western Europe," the Yediot Aharonot said. "Now it is just a matter of making a decision in the Al-Qaeda umbrella organization: When and whom to strike. Has it been blocked in one place? It will continue and strike in another place. Jihad is a malignant disease. But Europe continues to sleep," the top-selling daily added. Amid the barrage of condemnations which followed Thursday's blasts against the British consulate in Istanbul and a branch of the London-based HSBC Bank, some voices in Europe identified the threat hanging over Western countries which have so far been spared by Al-Qaeda. Walter Schwimmer, secretary general of the Council of Europe, said: "These murderous acts are clearly aimed at destabilising not only Turkey but also Europe as a whole." "I call on the international community to pull together and step up its efforts to prevent despicable terrorist acts such as this," he said. The Israeli daily Maariv blamed the West's failure in the battle against Osama bin Laden's network on several factors, including "the lack of coordination between the American intelligence agencies and their counterparts in Europe because of the rivalry between the two continents." It also pointed to "the unwillingness of countries throughout the world to stand alongside the United States in the war on terror, at least not until they get hit." www.ctrl.org 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://www.mail-archive.com/[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
[CTRL] 'Plumbers' Are Under Investigation in Cheney-Gate (Jeffrey Steinberg)
Title: 'Plumbers' Are Under Investigation in Cheney-Gate -Caveat Lector- http://www.larouchepub.com/other/2003/3046chnygte_plmbrs.html This article appears in the November 28, 2003 issue of Executive Intelligence Review. 'Plumbers' Are Under Investigation in Cheney-Gateby Jeffrey Steinberg The triumphant neo-conservative claim trumpeted throughout U.S. media on Nov. 14that links between Saddam Hussein and Al-Qaeda had been "conclusively proven" by a memo from Undersecretary of Defense Douglas Feith to the Senate Intelligence Committeerapidly went the way of all previous such cooked claims from Vice President Dick Cheney's faction in Washington. But more, this claim had, by Nov. 17-18, boomeranged into its opposite: a Defense Department denial of the claim itself; an eruption of official demands to investigate who passed this classified document to the waiting neo-con press; the likely revival of the Intelligence Committee probe which had been shut down on Nov. 7 "to save Cheney's neck"; and the escalation of "Cheney-gate" itself, by the exposure of what appear to be "plumbers'" operations to steal sensitive documents from the Cheney faction's opponents. The boomerang was part of what Democratic Presidential candidate Lyndon LaRouche called "the start of the hot phase" of his Presidential campaignfocussing on the Jan. 13 Washington, D.C. Democratic primary and other events in the nation's capitaland of his drive to force Cheney out of office. LaRouche told National Public Radio in St. Louis in a Nov. 18 interview, "Cheney is the guy we've got to be rid of, because we can not be going into this policy of nuclear preventive war, which is the policy the United States will be dragged into, if we don't get him out before the next election." On Nov. 17, the Central Intelligence Agency formally requested a Department of Justice (DOJ) probe into the leak to the neo-con press of the classified memo from Feith; it was expected that both the National Security Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency would file similar requests within days. The Feith document, dated Oct. 27, had been passed on to the neo-con Weekly Standard, and widely published and reported on Nov. 14, with great fanfare from Rupert Murdoch's Fox TV and New York Post. The Weekly Standard, too, is a Murdoch-owned propaganda sheet, edited by one of Washington's leading Leo Strauss cultists, William Kristol. At the same time that the CIA was demanding a full probe of the leak, the leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee, chairman Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) and vice-chairman John D. Rockefeller IV (D-W.Va.), were also calling on the DOJ to probe the Feith leakand to investigate, as well, the theft of a Democratic staff memo from the panel's highly secure offices. The theft and leaking of that staff memo had been used by Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) as the pretext for his Nov. 7 order to shut down the panel's probe of intelligence abuses by senior Bush Administration policymakers in the run-up to the Iraq war. It had been surfaced by radio host Sean Hannity and promoted by Fox TV as "proof" that the Democrats were playing "partisan politics" with a probe that has increasingly centered on Vice President Cheney, the leading war-hawk in the Bush White House. Cheney Has Most To Lose Behind the Frist shutdown of the Senate intelligence panel stood Vice President Cheney, the man who stands to lose the most if the probe goes forward; and the man designated by President George W. Bush as the White House point-man for relations with the Congress. In an unprecedented show of legislative clout, Cheney maintains offices at both the House of Representatives and the Senate, and is a regular participant in the weekly Senate Republican policy caucus sessions. Congressional sources say that Frist would never have moved to shut down the intelligence panel unless he had been given explicit orders from Cheney. In a Washington Post op-ed on Nov. 18, Senator Rockefeller sharply rebutted the charges of partisan politics, and accused the Republicans of attempting to shut down a legitimate and vital probe into how the Executive Branch abused the intelligence system, by "pilfering" a confidential staff memo meant for his eyes only. Rockefeller wrote, "There is disconcerting evidence that in this administration, the policymaking is driving the intelligence, rather than the other way around. This
[CTRL] Neocon Terror-Based Counterinsurgency Operations (Rohan Pearce)
Title: IRAQ: US terrorises civilians -Caveat Lector- Like many of the Bush gang's policies, the push for terror-based counterinsurgency operations has been led by the so-called neo-conservatives. http://www.greenleft.org.au/current/563p14.htm IRAQ: US terrorises civilians BY ROHAN PEARCE A November 19 press release from the US military's Central Command was headlined, Operations Make Iraq Safer, Improve Quality of Life. It was referring to the renewed offensive by US occupation forces against Iraqi resistance fighters. The US invaders are improving the quality of life for Iraqis with the aid of 500-kilogram bombs, F-16 fighter-bombers, heavy tanks, the obliteration of the homes of suspected guerrillas, widespread arrests and the strafing of Iraqi cities, including Baghdad, by AC-130 gunships. Operation Iron Hammer (centred on Baghdad) and Operation Ivy Cyclone II (Tikrit to Kirkuk) were launched in response to the downing of a US Chinook transport helicopter and a Black Hawk helicopter in early November. On November 11, the US carried out the first air strikes on Baghdad since it took control of the city in April. Near Fallujah, where resistance fighters shot down the Chinook, F-16s dropped three 230kg bombs. Between November 12 and 16, US forces arrested more than 130 suspects in areas north and west of Baghdad. According to a November 15 statement issued by US Central Command, troops arrested 67 people for further questioning in Ramadi in one 24-hour period. Tikrit, birthplace of deposed Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein, located north of Baghdad, has borne the brunt of the crackdown. The British Independent's Phil Reeves reported on November 18 that the US had sealed the town with chest-high razor wire, only allowing Iraqis with identification cards issued by the occupation regime in or out. Hey this is just like Gaza, isn't it?, an Iraqi commented to Reeves. US forces demolished between 12 and 15 homes in the area on November 16 and 17. A November 19 article by the Knight Ridder News Service quoted US Major Gordon Tate's justifications for the demolitions, which were carried out by Apache helicopters and tanks. We don't just destroy their homes for no reason, he told journalists. I don't want to say they [military commanders] are cold-hearted. But if your house is used to make [homemade roadside bombs] or house Saddam loyalists, that's within the rules of warfare. On November 19, the US announced that it had dropped two 900-kilogram satellite-guided bombs near Baqouba, and 450-kilogram bombs on terrorist targets near Kirkuk in northern Iraq. A military spokesperson told Agence France-Presse that the targets, from which he claimed mortar or rocket attacks had been launched, may be abandoned buildings, they may be overgrown. Collective punishment At a press briefing the day before, Brigadier General Mark Kimmitt, when asked if dropping bombs on empty buildings was aimed at intimidating Iraqis, said: All of our military operations have a military purpose. Some are to persuade. Some are to compel. Some are to kill. Some are to capture. Collective punishment is expressly prohibited under the terms of the 1949 Geneva Conventions. Article 75 lists it among the acts which are and shall remain prohibited at any time and in any place whatsoever, whether committed by civilian or by military agents. While the Iron Hammer and Ivy Cyclone operations are a massive escalation of collective punishment, it's not a new policy. After the fall of Baghdad, strict curfews and mass arrests were two of the tactics used by US forces to try to crush resistance to the occupation. In mid-October, the Independent's Patrick Cockburn reported, US soldiers driving bulldozers, with jazz blaring from loudspeakers, have uprooted ancient groves of date palms as well as orange and lemon trees in central Iraq as part of a new policy of collective punishment of farmers who do not give information about guerrillas attacking US troops. According to the farmers, 50 families lost their livelihoods. The latest operations are motivated by the original intentions of the shock and awe terror onslaught that Washington had initially planned for the invasion of Iraq. However, the massive global and US opposition to the war forced the Pentagon to limit the scale of the invasion's bombing blitz in order to reduce civilian deaths. While the speed of the US victory over Hussein was welcomed by a White House under considerable public pressure to limit US casualties, it did not lead to the massive demoralisation and fear among the Iraqi population that Washington felt it needed to minimise subsequent resistance to the occupation. In January, architect of the shock and awe campaign Harlan Ullman described its
[CTRL] Capitalism with a Stalinist Face (Douglas Davis)
Title: Israel News : Jerusalem Post Internet Edition -Caveat Lector- http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/Printercid=1068697366966 Capitalism with a Stalinist face Douglas Davis Nov. 13, 2003 When the compact figure of Vladimir Putin strode onto the world stage after his success in the 2000 presidential elections, a tremor of anxiety passed through the collective body of Western leaders. Gone was the boozy, bumbling, free-wheeling Boris Yeltsin, clown-prince of post-Soviet Russia who had unaccountably found himself in the box seat at the historic moment when his country was rolling up the Communist empire. The new leader of the new Russia was his polar opposite. A former KGB colonel, Putin was the identikit Soviet-style apparatchik: hard-eyed, unsmiling, tightly disciplined. And he had a black-belt in judo to prove it. The high-achieving Putin, who rose to prominence from the rat-infested slums of St Petersburg, is still obviously uneasy at the media spotlight that relentlessly picks out his slight form and follows his every move. But Putin's moves have been carefully orchestrated and exquisitely choreographed. While he remains reluctant to permit a smile to crack his stony fa ade, he has demonstrated that he is a fast learner. American and European leaders were soon jostling to embrace their new best friend as he set about convincing the West that he was committed to continue carrying Russia down the path of democracy and upholding the principles of the free market. But all that changed abruptly on October 25 when Russia's most powerful political figure ordered the arrest of its most powerful economic figure. As Mikhail Khodorkovsky was bundled off his private Tupolev 154 jet at a remote Siberian airport on that cold and misty morning three weeks ago, a new chapter in Russia's turbulent history was being opened. October, of course, is the season for revolution in Moscow, and just as the 1917 revolution sent an echo around the world, the 2003 revolution has raised the specter of a return of the bad old Soviet ghosts. For those who wanted to believe that Russia was on the cusp of a new, democratic, free-enterprise destiny, the timing of Putin's challenge to the small band of mostly Jewish oligarchs could hardly have been worse. After all, the Moscow market had just hit a record high and the credit-rating agency Moody's had, for the first time, just conferred investment-grade status on Russia. Not least, elections for the Duma were scheduled for December and presidential elections for next March. Iu decision to arrest Khodorkovsky, the multi-billionaire former head of the Yukos oil empire, was an election ploy designed to woo the masses who loathe the oligarchs, it has badly misfired. The arrest sent the value of Russian stock plummeting 15 points in one day and, simultaneously, raised dark fears among the business and political classes abroad about the wisdom of investing in Russia and of trusting Putin. Foreign investors, who provide the fuel for Russia's renaissance, now perceive the Khodorkovsky affair as the acid test of Putin's sincerity; Western leaders believe it could destroy Russia's nascent economic and political reforms; Russian businessmen fear it could trigger the biggest crash since Russia's rebirth. Perhaps the best the West can hope for is what Grigory Yavlinsky, leader of the liberal opposition party Yabloko, has described as "capitalism with a Stalinist face." A sign of the dilemma facing the Kremlin - and of the international respectability that Khodorkovsky had acquired - came in a letter to the London Times last week signed by the four-man international advisory board of Yukos. They included former Carter White House aide Stuart Eizenstat and former German finance minister Otto Lamsdorff. In a devastating indictment, they wrote: "We are gravely concerned by recent events that exhibit a complete disregard for the rule of law and we believe these will serve only to destroy confidence in Russia as a place to invest." It is still not possible to fully fathom the implications of Putin's putsch against the oligarchs. What is certain, however, is that the credibility of his administration - and, possibly, the destiny of Russia's experiment with freedom - is inextricably tied to the fate of 40-year-old Khodorkovsky, now awaiting trial on fraud and tax charges. Those who know Khodorkovsky have told The Jerusalem Post that his future is now unpredictable, but they expect him to remain in jail, even if he is not formally arraigned, until at least after the Duma elections, possibly even the presidential elections . If Khodorkovsky is convicted, he could face a sentence of up to 10 years. For all Putin's careful calculations, observers believe he might have got his sums disastrously wrong when he slapped the handcuffs on Mikhail Khodorkovsky. If Russia's most celebrated prisoner
[CTRL] Canadian Clubbed (Jamie Doward on Conrad Black)
Title: Media | Canadian clubbed -Caveat Lector- Insights into the neocon culture and value system: http://media.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4803352-105414,00.html Canadian clubbed Conrad Moffat Black was a man of Napoleonic ambition and achievement, but his final attempt to outflank shareholders brought him down. Jamie Doward reports Jamie DowardSunday November 23, 2003The Observer In the week we learnt, courtesy of a rogue reporter, that the Queen's breakfast table is festooned with Tupperware, it is gratifying to learn that at least one member of the aristocracy has tastes so lavish they rival those of the Sun King, Louis XIV. As befits an avid historian of pomp and pageantry and a man born into one of Canada's wealthiest families, Lord Black of Crossharbour has anachronistically regal tastes that are only now coming into the open as his empire teeters on the brink of disintegration. As Black is subjected to the ignominy of a US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) inquiry into the whereabouts of millions of dollars that were paid to him and several acolytes in the form of non-compete fees - fees which disgruntled shareholders say belong to them - the high-living tycoon faces the millionaire's equivalent of having his credit cards cut up. Cosy deals which saw tens of millions of dollars paid out of the US-listed Hollinger International, owner of the Daily and Sunday Telegraph, the Jerusalem Post and the Chicago Sun-Times into a series of Black's own private companies are now being dismantled. Worse, if investigators find any holes in Hollinger's accounts, then under the recently introduced Sarbanes-Oxley Act, Black, the man who signed them off, and who categorically denies any wrongdoing, could face a jail term. Last week, as the deadline for vouchsafing the latest set of accounts came and went, Conrad Moffat Black was forced to stand down as chief executive officer, opening up further questions about the state of his empire's finances. Relinquishing his position represents an Icarus-like descent for the 59-year-old Black. 'You've got to understand that Conrad is someone who believes he is in a league of his own. In his eyes he is not mortal, at least not like others. The power of his intellect, his huge wealth, his massive network of contacts, has convinced him of this. This will be a major shock to the system,' recalls someone who has worked with Black. Or as Black's former history tutor, Laurier LaPierre, once recalled: 'Conrad's entire sense of life revolved around the idea that, through a combination of circumstance, accidents and evolution, god is granting him this extraordinary power that he must guard well and pass on. He has always felt himself to be a genuine instrument of history.' But relinquishing titles like the Telegraph, possibly to a rival like Richard Desmond (on whom Black's views are unprintable) would be far, far worse. Black positively thrives on the power his papers give him. 'The deferences and preferments that this culture bestows upon the owners of great newspapers are satisfying. I mean, I tend to think that they're slightly exaggerated at times, but as the beneficiary - a beneficiary - of that system, it would certainly be hypocrisy for me to complain about it,' he once said. Whatever happens as a result of the SEC investigation, Black is likely to find himself in significantly straitened financial circumstances - although if needs be, he could always sell one of his many palatial homes to avert a cashflow crisis. There's the stunning Toronto mansion complete with a domed roof modelled on St Peter's in Rome, a chapel consecrated by the City's Roman Catholic archbishop, and a 12-acre estate, for a start. Then there is the obligatory Park Avenue apartment in New York, the ocean-front home in Palm Beach and the stucco-fronted four-storey pile in London's Kensington he bought from Australian financier Alan Bond. Previously when in London he lived in a house in Highgate, but this turned out to be too small for Black's extensive library. So he bought the house next door to store his collection of books and then sold it to a shipping magnate a few years later. Records at the Land Registry suggest he also owns a property in Chelsea. All these abodes are stuffed with works of art, historical curios and busts of great military leaders - Caesar and Napoleon being the two great favourites, although he also has more than a sneaking admiration for de Gaulle. Not even Dennis Kozlowski, the disgraced boss of industrial conglomerate Tyco and the man who become infamous for spending $15,000 on an umbrella stand, seems to be able to match Black when it comes to a taste for the finer things. Those powerful or unfortunate enough to have been summoned into Black's cavernous New York city office could not have missed the series of framed letters from Franklin Roosevelt to his cousin Margaret Suckley that hang on the
[CTRL] Why Iraq isn't -- and is -- another Vietnam (Joseph Galloway)
Title: Why Iraq isn't -- and is -- another Vietnam -Caveat Lector- If you want one more similarity, consider the incredible egos of McNamara and Rumsfeld. McNamara listened only to his small staff of Whiz Kids; Rumsfeld listens to a similar coterie including Paul Wolfowitz, Douglas Feith and the dark prince himself, Richard Perle. They share a breathtaking arrogance. They brook no word of opposition. They persist in believing that somehow they can graft Jeffersonian democracy onto ancient Mesopotamia, a land bathed in blood and ruled by terror for millennia. When they're wrong, they never admit it. Never. A large part of the trouble unfolding in Iraq can be laid directly at the feet of Cheney, Rumsfeld and their people. They made no plans for postwar Iraq. No plans to secure the buildings and symbols of government in Iraq. No plans to rebuild a shattered economy, infrastructure and nation. No plans to secure law and order in a fractious, violent place. They listened instead to their own counsel and to the whisperings of exiles who hadn't lived in Iraq in 40 years. They ignored the warnings of the Central Intelligence Agency and the Defense Intelligence Agency. They ignored nearly a year of detailed studies and plans for postwar Iraq because the study was done by the despised State Department. It took Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon nearly a decade to fail in Vietnam. Cheney and Rumsfeld could do it in Iraq in a year. http://www.dfw.com/mld/dfw/news/opinion/7326613.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp Posted on Mon, Nov. 24, 2003 Why Iraq isn't -- and is -- another VietnamBy Joseph GallowayKnight Ridder Newspapers There are a hundred reasons why Iraq isn't Vietnam, but a few where the similarities are chilling. First, let's examine the big differences. The Iraqi guerrillas aren't the Viet Cong. They don't swim like fish among the 24 million citizens of Iraq. They're overwhelmingly Sunni Muslims, and they're largely confined to the Iron Triangle defined by the Baghdad suburbs in the south, Tikrit in the north, and Ramadi and Fallujah to the west. They don't fight to unify their homeland but rather to regain a brutal minority's power over an enslaved majority. They were the privileged class under Saddam Hussein, and they don't want to let go of the BMWs, the mansions and the other perks. If they tried to swim among the peoples they oppressed for 40 years, the Kurds and Turkomens in the north and the Shiites in the south, they wouldn't last a New York minute. They have no Ho Chi Minh to put a kindly and photogenic visage on their campaign. They soldier under the banner of the fugitive Saddam, who tortured and slaughtered hundreds of thousands of his countrymen to keep himself, his family and his Tikriti tribe in power. They don't have a China or a Soviet Union to pump in weapons and ammunition and carry the ball for them in the United Nations and internationally. They don't need them. Iraq is one huge arms dump, with a million tons of unguarded weapons and explosives. They don't have the sanctuaries that afforded easy shelter and protection for the Viet Cong and North Vietnamese. No Cambodia. No Laos. Iraq's borders are long and porous, but not even Iran among its neighbors wants to be caught providing sanctuary to these people. The Iraqi guerrillas can use SAM-7 missiles or rocket-propelled grenades to shoot down the occasional U.S. helicopter; drop a few mortar rounds into this compound or that; send truck bombs against soft targets of opportunity, such as the U.N. headquarters; build roadside explosive devices triggered by cellphones; and fire RPGs into soft-skinned Humvees. But that's all they really have to do. That and survive. A presidential election is approaching in the United States, and Americans and their allies are already growing impatient with the cost of this war, both in blood and in treasure. So where are the similarities between Iraq and Vietnam? They reside in Washington. The failures of American political leadership that plagued this country in Vietnam are being repeated in Iraq. Lyndon Johnson used a dubious
[CTRL] How the American Media Are Protecting Richard Perle and the Neocons
-Caveat Lector- The New York Times, the Washington Post and the rest of the "liberal" mainstream American big media find it of no interest that Richard Perle recently declared the Iraq War to be a violation of international law. Clearly, by these repeated acts of omission,they are implicitlyproviding support for Ariel Sharon's campaign to trigger World War IV and the clash of civilizations between "the West" and Israel's neighbors. http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?file=/gate/archive/2003/11/24/hsorensen.DTL But before I start kicking sand in Arnold's face, I'd like to put in a word or two for Richard Perle, best known as a member of the U.S. Defense Policy Board. Perle did not make headlines last week when he admitted what most of us already know, that the war against Iraq is a violation of international law. This "confession" of sorts got somewhat less attention in the news media than, say, the police booking of a Santa Barbara man-child accused of sexual molestations. It was reported once -- in London's Guardian -- and picked up by only one other publication, The Taipei Times. If it was reported elsewhere, neither Google nor LexisNexis know about it. Speaking in London, Perle said, "International law . . . would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone." And: "International law stood in the way of doing the right thing." I don't want to dwell on this subject -- you can click on the Guardian article yourself -- but I just felt Perle's admission should be reported somewhere in the American press, if only in one little online column. 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]/ 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
[CTRL] Fears Iraqi Insurgency Speading
Title: CBSNews.com: Print This Story -Caveat Lector- Bush's war is going well. Neocon prophecies and predictions are being vindicated. America is winning the war against terrorism, a battle which is now being expanded against anyone who has opposed the Iraq War. -SM http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2003/11/24/iraq/printable585300.shtml Fears Iraqi Insurgency SpreadingNov. 24, 2003U.S. troops opened fire after an explosion near a military convoy Monday in Mosul, as fears grew that the anti-coalition insurgency was spreading north a day after two American soldiers were savagely beaten and killed in the same city. Near the northern city of Kirkuk, an oil pipeline was on fire Monday. Adel al-Qazzaz, manager of the Northern Oil Company, said he believed sabotage was to blame. Insurgents have repeatedly targeted pipelines, and sabotage of oil infrastructure has become a major problem for the U.S.-run coalition. In the Mosul attack, gunmen activated a roadside bomb and opened fire on the convoy, injuring a soldier, the military said. Local residents said U.S. troops immediately cordoned the area in Hay al-Dobat neighborhood. "I heard a strong explosion saw the Americans randomly shooting in all directions," said Omar Hamed, a witness. In other developments: President Bush heads to Fort Carson, Colo., to visit a military community hit hard by the war in Iraq. Twenty-seven soldiers from the post have died. The U.S.-led coalition said it had grounded commercial flights after the military confirmed that a missile struck a DHL cargo plane that landed Saturday at Baghdad International Airport with its wing aflame. The New York Times reports the Iranian-backed Shiite group Hezbollah is active in Iraq but is refraining from attacks on Americans. The Care Australia aid agency said Monday it was considering its future in Iraq following a weekend attack on its Baghdad office. Several other aid groups have ended or curtailed their missions in Iraq after recent violence. British Home Secretary David Blunkett said in an interview published Monday that Iraqi asylum seekers could be forced to return home. The Pentagon is investigating corruption charges against members of the U.S.-led Coalition Provisional Authority and an Iraqi official related to the sale of coveted mobile phone licenses, the Financial Times reports. Civil liberties groups are criticizing an FBI memo detailed some of the tactics used by anti-war protesters and urged police to report suspicious or unlawful activity to their local Joint Terrorism Task Force. The FBI says the memo merely contained basic advice for local police departments. On Sunday, gunmen in Mosul shot two American soldiers driving through the city center, sending their vehicle crashing into a wall. About a dozen swarming teenagers dragged the men out of the wreckage and beat them with concrete blocks, the witnesses said. "One of the soldiers was shot under the chin and the bullet came out of his head. I saw the hole in his helmet. The other was shot in the throat," said Bahaa Jassim, a witness. The city is 250 miles north of Baghdad. Some people looted the vehicle of weapons, CDs and a backpack, Jassim said. The frenzy recalled the October 1993 scene in Somalia, when locals dragged the bodies of U.S. Marines killed in fighting with warlords through the streets. The savagery of the attack was unusual for Mosul, once touted as a success story in sharp contrast to the anti-American violence seen in Sunni Muslim areas just north and west of Baghdad. Members of the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan said U.S. troops and Iraqi police raided one of their offices in Mosul about 10:00 a.m. A party member, Salem Hussein, said the Americans arrested two PUK guards and confiscated four Kalashnikov rifles, a television set, a computer, a printer, a satellite receiver and a small amount of cash. U.S. military officials said that someone opened fire on Iraqi police and ran into a PUK building but had no other details. In recent weeks, attacks against U.S. troops and their Iraqi allies such as policemen and politicians working for the interim Iraqi administration have increased in the region surrounding Mosul. In Kirkuk, 150 miles north of Baghdad, three American civilian contractors from the U.S. firm Kellogg Brown Root were injured Sunday when a bomb exploded at an oil compound. In Baqouba, just north of Baghdad, insurgents detonated a roadside bomb as a 4th Infantry Division convoy passed, killing one soldier and wounding two others, the military said Sunday. Sunday's deaths brought to 427 the number of U.S. service members who have died since the war began. And gunmen killed the Iraqi police chief of Latifiyah, 20 miles south of Baghdad, and his bodyguard and driver, American and Iraqi officials said. That was at least the third Iraqi official murdered in the past week. An Iraqi Sunni Muslim religious leader Monday called on U.S.
[CTRL] Scaring Up Votes (Maureen Dowd)
Title: Op-Ed Columnist: Scaring Up Votes -Caveat Lector- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/opinion/23DOWD.html?th=pagewanted=printposition= November 23, 2003OP-ED COLUMNIST Scaring Up VotesBy MAUREEN DOWD ASHINGTON First came the pre-emptive military policy. Now comes the pre-emptive campaign strategy. Before the president even knows his opponent, his first political ad is blanketing Iowa today. "It would take one vial, one canister, one crate slipped into this country to bring a day of horror like none we have ever known," Mr. Bush says, in a State of the Union clip. Well, that's a comforting message from our commander in chief. Do we really need his cold, clammy hand on our spine at a time when we're already rattled by fresh terror threats at home and abroad? When we're chilled by the metastasizing Al Qaeda, the resurgent Taliban and Baathist thugs armed with deadly booby traps; the countless, nameless terror groups emerging in Turkey, Morocco, Indonesia and elsewhere; the vicious attacks on Americans, Brits, aid workers and their supporters in Iraq, Afghanistan and Turkey? The latest illustration of the low-tech ingenuity of Iraqi foes impervious to our latest cascade of high-tech missiles: a hapless, singed donkey that carted rockets to a Baghdad hotel. Yet the Bush crowd is seizing the moment to scare us even more. Flashing the words "terrorists" and "self-defense" in crimson, the Republican National Committee spot urges Americans "to support the president's policy of pre-emptive self-defense" a policy Colin Powell claimed was overblown by the press. "Since when have terrorists and tyrants announced their intentions, politely putting us on notice before they strike?" Mr. Bush says. With this ad, Republicans have announced their intention: to scare us stupid, hoping we won't remember that this was the same State of the Union in which Mr. Bush made a misleading statement about the Iraq-Niger uranium connection, or remark that the imperial idyll in Iraq has created more terrorists. Richard Clarke, the former U.S. counterterrorism chief, told Ted Koppel that Mr. Bush's habit of putting X's through the pictures of arrested or killed Qaeda managers was very reminiscent of a scene in the movie "The Battle of Algiers," in which the French authorities did the same to the Algerian terrorists: "Unfortunately, after all the known Algerian terrorists were arrested or killed, the French lost. And that could be the thing that's happening here, that even though we're getting all the known Al Qaeda leaders, we're breeding new ones. Ones we don't know about and will be harder to find." This view of Al Qaeda was echoed by a European counterterrorism official in The Times: "There are fewer leaders but more followers." The president is trying to make the campaign about guts: he has the guts to persevere in the war on terror. But the real issue is trust: should we trust leaders who cynically manipulated intelligence, diverted 9/11 anger and lost focus on Osama so they could pursue an old cause near to neocon hearts: sacking Saddam? The Bush war left our chief villains operating, revved up the terrorist threat, ravaged our international alliances and sparked the resentment of a world that ached for us after 9/11. Now Mr. Bush says that poor Turkey, a critical ally in the Muslim world, is the newest front in the war on terror. "Iraq is a front," he said. "Turkey is a front. Anywhere the terrorists think they can strike is a front." Here a front, there a front, everywhere a terror front. In his Hobbesian gloom "Fear and I were born twins," Hobbes said Dick Cheney thought an Iraq whupping would make surly young anti-American Arab men scuttle away. Instead, it stoked their ire. James Goodby and Kenneth Weisbrode wrote in The Financial Times last week that the Bush crew has snuffed the optimism of F.D.R., Ronald Reagan and Bush père: "Fear has been used as a basis for curtailing freedom of _expression_ and for questioning legal rights long taken for granted. It has crept into political discourse and been used to discredit patriotic public servants. Ronald Reagan's favorite image, borrowed from an earlier visionary, of America as `a shining city on a hill' has been unnecessarily dimmed by another image: a nation motivated by fear and ready to lash out at any country it defines as the source of a gathering threat." Instead of a shining city, we have a dark bunker. But the only thing we really have to
[CTRL] Stonewalling the 9/11 Commission
Title: Stonewalling the 9/11 Commission -Caveat Lector- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/23/opinion/23SUN2.html?th=pagewanted=printposition= November 23, 2003 Stonewalling the 9/11 Commission he National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States has been working to determine what really happened on Sept. 11, and its accounting of that disastrous day must be as full and detailed as possible. After some reluctance, the White House is cooperating. The Pentagon has made tapes and transcripts available. Still, there is a key figure stubbornly refusing to hand over important data: Mayor Michael Bloomberg. Since last July, the commission has been asking for the city's tapes of 911 calls and transcripts of interviews of firefighters who responded to the attack. The city has continually resisted. Now, facing a federal mandate to finish its report by May, the commission has issued a subpoena, noting that the mayor "has significantly impeded" the investigation. Mr. Bloomberg, who argues that this request is "ghoulish," insists his concern is for the privacy of the people who made these emotional calls and gave the interviews. And, he wants the right to edit the information before turning it over. Certainly, it is not hard to imagine the pain and horror being expressed on those tapes and in the transcripts. But it is hard to believe that those involved would want to thwart the one federal commission that might ultimately help set the record straight and perhaps even help avert similar tragedies in the future. The commission, headed by former Gov. Thomas Kean of New Jersey, noted last week that the tapes and transcripts of 911 calls are critical to understanding how the city and the public reacted that day. The transcripts of oral histories, it said, will "contribute significantly" to understanding the performance of firefighters at the site. The New York Times and families of some victims have also demanded access to the records. Perhaps the city may be resisting any assessment of its own performance as well as intrusion into the private pain of the victims and their families. Whatever the reason, the mayor's argument falls especially short right now as Americans remember the Warren Commission that investigated John F. Kennedy's assassination 40 years ago. It is not what a commission learns after a catastrophe that we may live to regret most. It is what we fail to learn that haunts us. Copyright 2003The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy Policy | Search | Corrections | Help | Back to Top 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]/ 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
[CTRL] Synagogue bombings will only serve Israeli interests
Title: GN Online: Arab Perspective: Synagogue bombings will only serve Israeli interests -Caveat Lector- http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/print.asp?ArticleID=103478 Arab Perspective: Synagogue bombings will only serve Israeli interests |By Dr Marwan Asmar|21/11/2003 The recent explosions at the two synagogues in Turkey raised many questions about future relations between Muslims and Jews and casts doubt on the political relations of countries of the region. Dr Marwan Asmar of Gulf News Research Centre looks at what the Arabic press has to say. In its editorial, Al Sharq (Qatar) says its country denounces the attacks on the two synagogues in Turkey as acts that will inflame unrest in the Middle East. The attacks are against the three monotheistic religions as well as human and moral values. Amr Moussa, Secretary-General of the Arab League, condemned the attacks but also held Israel responsible for incitement against terrorism that does not seem to be abating. Al Sharq adds American losses in Iraq do not suggest the war against terrorism is over as Washington claims, but is intensifying. The only way to deal with what is happening in Iraq is not through further military means but by political dialogue.The daily goes on to point out the attacks in Istanbul, which killed and injured 277, will only increase cooperation between Turkey and Israel in the field of security, and maybe lead to a harsher Turkish stand with regard to Iraq. Al Sharq concludes this will be in the interests of Israel that would like to launch a war against everything that is Arab. The killing of Jews and the bombing of the synagogues in Turkey will only serve the interests of Israel and those against Arabs and Muslims, says Ahmed Al Rub'ie in Ashraq Al Awsat (UK-based). The explosions are a present to Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Zionist media machine to refocus public attention away from the atrocities by Israel and its policy of colonisation against the Palestinians, he adds.What will happen now is that the Palestinian question will be swept aside, and the debate will move on from denouncing Israel to sympathising with the victims of the synagogue explosions.The bombing of religious places, for whatever reasons, is rejected, as the targets are always innocent civilians. Islam is not at war with other religions, but in a justified conflict against those who occupy Arab lands, states Al Rub'ie.Israel lied and the world believed it when it said it was a Jewish state; Zionism lied and the world believed it about the Jews being one community despite all the historical facts that prove they are different communities with many cultures.He warns the Zionist media will take the opportunity and launch an attack against Islam and Muslims rather than on terrorists and try and change European opinion that has recently been against Israel.Hazem Saghiyah in Al Hayat (UK-based) starts off by quoting the well-known Israeli Haaretz daily which suggests the different Palestinian organisations, except for the Abu Nidal faction, have long been against targeting Jews abroad.Quoting the paper, the columnist says even the terrorist operations of Hamas and Islamic Jihad were inside Israel and not against the Jews in the world. Saghiyah asks what precisely was the objective behind the booby trap explosions outside the synagogues. If it was to worsen Turkish-Israeli relations, the complete opposite happened. The Turkish police are now busy arresting individuals from the Arab community living in Turkey, there are greater security checks of Arab travellers going back to their country and Mossad agents are helping the Turkish security forces in the investigation.Turkish-Arab relations have again taken a backseat. The government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyep Erdogan is now likely to deal more cautiously with the Arabs and Europe is almost certain to lend a more attentive ear to the American and Israeli points of view which will now speak of terrorism against Semitism. Those who would like Turkey to become an Islamic bridge among the world cultures are being impeded. Those that wanted to create a wedge between Sharon's policies and the Jews of the world are also being thwarted. Mohammad Naji Amayreh, writing in Al Watan (Oman), says nobody will approve of any attack on religious places whatever the reasons. They must be denounced and the perpetrators must be found. It is not a question of a conspiracy theory, but
[CTRL] Mission Creep Hits Home (William M. Arkin)
Title: Los Angeles Times: Mission Creep Hits Home -Caveat Lector- http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-op-arkin23nov23,1,5669872,print.story?coll=la-news-comment-opinions U.S. MILITARY Mission Creep Hits Home American armed forces are assuming major new domestic policing and surveillance roles.By William M. ArkinWilliam M. Arkin is a military affairs analyst who writes regularly for Opinion. E-mail: [EMAIL PROTECTED]November 23, 2003SOUTH POMFRET, Vt. Preoccupied with the war in Iraq and still traumatized by Sept. 11, 2001, the American public has paid little attention to some of what is being done inside the United States in the name of anti-terrorism. Under the banner of "homeland security," the military and intelligence communities are implementing far-reaching changes that blur the lines between terrorism and other kinds of crises and will break down long-established barriers to military action and surveillance within the U.S."We must start thinking differently," says Air Force Gen. Ralph E. "Ed" Eberhart, the newly installed commander of Northern Command, the military's homeland security arm. Before 9/11, he says, the military and intelligence systems were focused on "the away game" and not properly focused on "the home game." "Home," of course, is the United States.Eberhart's Colorado-based command is charged with enhancing homeland security in two ways: by improving the military's capability to defend the country's borders, coasts and airspace unquestionably within the military's long-established mission and by providing "military assistance to civil authorities" when authorized by the secretary of Defense or the president.That too may sound unexceptionable: The military has long had mechanisms to respond to a request for help from state governors. New after 9/11 are more aggressive preparations and the presumption that local government will not be able to carry the new homeland security load. Being the military, moreover, contingency planners approach preparing by assuming the worst. All of this is a major and potentially dangerous departure from past policy. The U.S. military operates under the 1878 Posse Comitatus Act, which prohibits the direct use of federal troops "to execute the laws" of the United States. The courts have interpreted this to mean that the military is prohibited from any active role in direct civilian law enforcement, such as search, seizure or arrest of civilians."There are abundant reasons for rejecting the further expansion of the military's domestic role," says Mackubin T. Owens, a professor of strategy and force planning at the Naval War College. Looking at the issue historically, Owens wrote in an August 2002 essay in the National Review's online edition that "the use of soldiers as a posse [places] them in the uncomfortable position of taking orders from local authorities who had an interest in the disputes that provoked the unrest in the first place." Moreover, Owens said, becoming more involved in domestic policing can be "subtle and subversive like a lymphoma or termite infestation." Though we are far from having "tanks rumbling through the streets," he said, the potential long-term effect of an increasing military role in police and law enforcement activities is "a military contemptuous of American society and unresponsive to civilian authorities."Eberhart says his Northern Command operates scrupulously within the bounds of the law. "We believe the [Posse Comitatus] Act, as amended, provides the authority we need to do our job, and no modification is needed at this time," he told the House Armed Services Committee in March. Of course, what he knows is that amendments approved by Congress in 1996 for that earlier civilian war, the war on drugs, have already expanded the military's domestic powers so that Washington can act unilaterally in dispatching the military without waiting for a state's request for help. Long before 9/11, Congress authorized the military to assist local law enforcement officials in domestic "drug interdiction" and during terrorist incidents involving weapons of mass destruction. Furthermore, the president, after proclaiming a state of emergency, can authorize additional actions.Indeed, the military is presently operating under just such an emergency declaration. Eberhart's command has defined three levels of operations, each of which triggers a larger set of authorized activities. The levels are "extraordinary," "emergency" and "temporary." At the "temporary" level, which covers such things as the Olympic Games or the Super Bowl, limited assistance can be provided to law enforcement agencies when a governor requests it, primarily in such areas as logistics, transportation and communications. During "emergencies," the military can provide similar support, mostly in response to specific events such as the attacks on the World Trade
[CTRL] Mossad Chief Travels to Turkey (Guardian)
Title: Guardian Unlimited | World Latest | Report: Mossad Chief Travels to Turkey -Caveat Lector- Uh huh -- in the formation of Urban Moving Systems (the 911 Mossad celebrants and filmmakers) our problem is your problem: The trip was part of an Israeli campaign to make countries around the world understand that terror is not just an Israeli problem and every country should work to stop it, the TV said. How many of these bombings all around the world are themselves part of the same heavy-handed propaganda *CAMPAIGN*? http://www.guardian.co.uk/worldlatest/story/0,1280,-3416215,00.html Report: Mossad Chief Travels to Turkey Friday November 21, 2003 8:31 PM JERUSALEM (AP) - The chief of Israel's Mossad secret service agency traveled to Turkey this week to offer anti-terror expertise after suicide bombings in Istanbul killed at least 50 people, an Israeli TV station reported Friday. Mossad chief Meir Dagan shared with Turkish officials Israel's experience in dealing with suicide bombings in three years of fighting with Palestinians, Channel Two TV reported. The report did not give an exact date for Dagan's trip or say how long he stayed. The trip was part of an Israeli campaign to make countries around the world understand that terror is not just an Israeli problem and every country should work to stop it, the TV said. An official from Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's office, which oversees the Mossad, would not comment on the report. During three years of Israeli-Palestinian fighting, suicide bombers have killed 436 people. Senior security officials in Israel refused to comment this week when asked if the two countries were cooperating in efforts to fight terrorism. But they claimed to know who was behind the bombings and said they were connected to al-Qaida. Turkish and U.S. authorities have also pointed blame at al-Qaida for the bombings Thursday at the British consulate and a London-based bank and two other attacks on Nov. 15 at synagogues in the city. After the attacks, Israel sent a rescue team for the synagogue bombings and offered to send blood donations. Much of the sympathy in Israel stems from the belief that Turkey was targeted due to its ties with Israel, which are based on a broad military agreement signed in 1996. 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]/ 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
[CTRL] U.S. Seeks Advice From Israel on Iraq
Title: Los Angeles Times: U.S. Seeks Advice From Israel on Iraq -Caveat Lector- Israel has much useful advice to offer the United States and the rest of the world regarding successful methods for occupying hostile populations through brute military force. Consider the happy circumstances in which Israelis now find themselves as the result of their brilliant policies. Now Americans can share the joy. http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/iraq/la-fg-usisrael22nov22,1,800667,print.story?coll=la-home-headlines THE WORLD U.S. Seeks Advice From Israel on Iraq As the occupation grows bloodier, officials draw on an ally's experience with insurgents.By Esther Schrader and Josh MeyerTimes Staff WritersNovember 22, 2003WASHINGTON Facing a bloody insurgency by guerrillas who label it an "occupier," the U.S. military has quietly turned to an ally experienced with occupation and uprisings: Israel.In the last six months, U.S. Army commanders, Pentagon officials and military trainers have sought advice from Israeli intelligence and security officials on everything from how to set up roadblocks to the best way to bomb suspected guerrilla hide-outs in an urban area."Those who have to deal with like problems tend to share information as best they can," Stephen Cambone, undersecretary of Defense for intelligence, said Friday at a defense writers breakfast here.The contacts between the two governments on military tactics and strategies in Iraq are mostly classified, and officials are reluctant to give the impression that the U.S. is brainstorming with Israel on the best way to occupy Iraq. Cambone said there is no formal dialogue between the two allies on Iraq, but they are working together. Indeed, the U.S. is loath to draw any comparison between what it says is its liberation of Iraq and what the international community has condemned as Israel's illegal occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip.But Israeli and American officials confirm that with extremists carrying out suicide bombings and firing rocket-propelled grenades and missiles on U.S. forces in Iraq, the Pentagon is increasingly seeking advice from the Israeli military on how to defeat the sort of insurgency that Israel has long experience confronting.The Israelis "certainly have a wealth of experience from a military standpoint in dealing with domestic terror, urban terror, military operations in urban terrain, and there is a great deal of intelligence and knowledge sharing going on right now, all of which makes sense," a senior U.S. Army official said on condition of anonymity. "We are certainly tapping into their knowledge base to find out what you do in these kinds of situations."Many of the tactics recently adopted by the U.S. in Iraq increased use of airpower, aerial surveillance by unmanned aircraft of suspected sites, increased use of pinpoint search and seizure operations, the leveling of buildings used by suspected insurgents bear striking similarities to those regularly employed by Israel. Two Israeli officials one from the Jerusalem police force and a second from the Israel Defense Forces confirmed on condition of anonymity that U.S. officials had visited Israel to gain insight into police and military tactics. They also said Israeli officials have visited Washington to discuss the issues. U.S. officials were particularly interested in the "balancing act" that Israeli officials say they have tried to pursue between fighting armed groups and trying to spare civilians during decades of patrolling the occupied territories."There are routine channels that have been there for years, and those channels have been energized," an Israeli official said of the communications. "The American military has been very interested in our lessons in how do you do surgical strikes in an urban zone, how do you hit the bad guy with minimum collateral damage."Some U.S. officials acknowledge that they blanch at the idea of the Pentagon adopting tactics from Israel, a nation regularly criticized for security tactics it employs to battle armed groups it has never managed to quell. And even Israeli officials acknowledge that they are somewhat reluctant to give advice."After all," one Israeli official said, "we've made plenty of mistakes ourselves." Indeed, criticism of the Israeli army's tactics against Palestinians has been mounting within Israel. The current chief of staff, Moshe Yaalon, along with a group of retired heads of the Shin Bet internal security service and even some active-duty soldiers say the methods have been unduly harsh and threaten to destroy Israeli and Palestinian society if no solution is found to the conflict.But such concerns have not slowed the flow of information between Washington and Jerusalem.When Iraqi insurgents began firing from vehicles on U.S. troops at checkpoints, U.S. officials were prompted to reinforce their ties to the Israeli military and
[CTRL] New Hollinger Payment Unveiled
Title: Printer Friendly Version - New Hollinger payment unveiled -Caveat Lector- These are guys who got us into the Iraq War and who are still agitating for World War IV http://www.nydailynews.com/business/v-pfriendly/story/138917p-123405c.html New Hollinger payment unveiled Saturday, November 22nd, 2003 Hollinger International, the newspaper publisher under investigation for unauthorized payments to founder Conrad Black said it invested $2.5 million in a fund partly owned by board member Richard Perle. The disclosure comes after Black stepped down Monday and may hinder the company's search for a buyer. Black quit amid the revelation that he and three partners pocketed $15.6 million without approval, and the Securities and Exchange Commission issued a subpoena seeking company documents the next day. "Does it ever end?" said John Morton, an independent newspaper analyst. "It does put the company in a position where it might not command as high a price as it otherwise would have. If anybody moves into this thing, they will have exceptional due diligence done." The investment went to a venture capital fund called Trireme Partners, Hollinger said in a filing with the SEC. As an investor in Trireme, Perle is entitled to 5% of the returns. He also receives a management fee. Hollinger director and former Secretary of state Henry Kissinger and Black are advisers to Trireme. In March, Perle quit as chairman of the Defense Policy Board, which advises Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, after criticism of his work as a paid adviser to bankrupt Global Crossing. Bloomberg News 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]/ 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
[CTRL] Bin Laden is No Big Deal...
-Caveat Lector- Despite the fact that he was supposedly the mastermind of 911, and is allegedly planning new terrorist atrocities all around the world and in the United States. Will there come a point when even average Americans begin to notice that the Bush administration policy on terrorism simply isn't adding up? Or will they be too bashed and battered by Michael Jackson 24x7 to be able to think about any serious issue with clarity? http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/22/1069027373682.html Osama capture unnecessary, US general says November 22, 2003 A senior US general said today that al Qa'eda mastermind Osama bin Laden had "taken himself out of the picture" and that his capture was not essential to winning the "war on terror". General Peter Pace, vice-chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at US military headquarters just north of Kabul that the 11,500-strong US-led force hunting al Qa'eda and Taliban militants was not focusing on individuals. "He (bin Laden) has taken himself out of the picture," Pace told reporters after visiting US troops serving in Afghanistan. "It is not an individual that is as important as is the ongoing campaign of the coalition against terrorists," he said. New US ambassador to Kabul Zalmay Khalilzad said earlier this week that the US military would "redouble" its efforts to find bin Laden and other al Qa'eda and Taliban leaders. While appearing to contradict this, Pace, added: "That is not to say that we would not be glad to capture Osama bin Laden today or tomorrow." He said US-led forces were winning their war against "terrorists" in Afghanistan, despite nearly 400 people being killed in just over three months in the bloodiest period since the Taliban's ouster two years ago. "The fact that the enemy is not pooling up in waves that can be attacked in large numbers to me means that in fact the coalition is being effective," Pace said. There have been very few major clashes between US forces and Islamic militants in the past two years. In the most recent case, hundreds of Taliban were hunted down by US forces and Afghan troops in the troubled provinces of Uruzgan and Zabul in August and early September, leading to the death of over a hundred rebels. But generally US operations, including the latest launched in the north-east earlier this month, kill few militants due to their apparent ability to blend into local populations or flee into the hills, often crossing into neighbouring Pakistan. "We will continue to pursue them to make sure that they don't re-establish any kind of a stronghold," Pace said. He added that civilian-military teams already in some cities were the ideal way for the international community to contribute to Afghan stability, and that Pakistan and Afghanistan should work together to fight militants active on their common frontier. Afghanistan suspects Pakistan is turning a blind eye to Taliban and al Qa'eda remnants, but Islamabad says it is doing all it can to support the US war on terror. Also believed to be at large in Afghanistan or Pakistan are Taliban supreme leader Mullah Mohammad Omar and bin Laden's deputy Ayman al-Zawahri. Reuters This story was found at: http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/11/22/1069027373682.html www.ctrl.org 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://www.mail-archive.com/[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 hpn Description: Binary data
[CTRL] The 'Clean Break' Plan: Implications for US Middle East Policy
-Caveat Lector- http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031121/dcf007_1.html Press Release Source: Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy The 'Clean Break' Plan: Implications for US Middle East PolicyFriday November 21, 8:01 am ET IRmep Capitol Hill Forum Wednesday 10AM - Noon November 26, 2003 Gold Room - The Rayburn House Congressional Office Building WASHINGTON, Nov. 21 /PRNewswire/ -- "A Clean Break, A New Strategy for Securing the Realm" is an ambitious 1996 Middle East policy paper. A Clean Break recommended toppling the government of Iraq, "rolling back" Syria and Iran, and "electrifying" support for Israel in the US Congress in exchange for new missile defense contract opportunities. Three of the eight authors have since become prominent policymakers in the U.S. government. The study leader, Richard Perle, is the former chair and a current member of the Defense Policy Board of the Pentagon. Douglas Feith is Undersecretary of Defense and David Wurmser is Vice President Richard Cheney's recently hired Middle East advisor. But what is "A Clean Break?" What are the plan's core assumptions? How has it affected US regional policy? What insights does it reveal about US policy initiatives in the Middle East? How do Arab countries perceive current US regional policy? Are Clean Break assumptions and strategies beneficial to US interests? What are the potential costs? Find out at the IRmep Capitol Hill Forum on Wednesday, November 26th 2003 from 10 a.m. to 12 noon in the Gold Room of the Rayburn Congressional House Office Building. Our distinguished and diverse panel of experts and IRmep analysts will review the implications of A Clean Break and take questions from the public. Panel members include Adam Shapiro of the International Solidarity Movement, former congressional candidate and Million Man March leader Dr. E. Faye Williams, Imad Moustapha, Charge d'Affaires of the Syrian Embassy; Khaled Dawoud, D.C. bureau chief of Al-Ahram; and Adib Farha, adviser of the Lebanese Minister of Finance and professor at the Lebanese American University in Beirut, Lebanon. Reserve your seat online at http://www.IRmep.org/CHF.html. Seating is limited. About the Institute for Research: Middle Eastern Policy, Inc. - www.IRmep.org The Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy (IRmep) is a think tank dedicated to researching America's interests in the Middle East. Founded in 2002, the Institute became an independent non-profit tax-exempt organization in 2003. The Institute's analyst network is composed of experienced research academics and reviewers in the diplomatic and business communities. The heart of the IRmep's work is academically driven research that is highly usable by the U.S. policy making and business community. Broadly funded by individuals, foundations and industry groups, IRmep maintains an independent research agenda centered on U.S. interests that is accurate, relevant and actionable. Source: Institute for Research Middle Eastern Policy www.ctrl.org 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://www.mail-archive.com/[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
[CTRL] Fissures deepen within Israeli political establishment (Jean Shaoul)
Title: Fissures deepen within Israeli political establishment -Caveat Lector- http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/nov2003/isra-n21_prn.shtml World Socialist Web Site www.wsws.org WSWS : News Analysis : Middle East Fissures deepen within Israeli political establishment By Jean Shaoul21 November 2003 Back to screen version | Send this link by email | Email the author In an extraordinary move, four former leaders of Shin Bet, Israels internal security force, gave a joint interview to Israels leading daily, Yedioth Aharanoth, criticising Prime Minister Ariel Sharons suppression of the Palestinians. Warning that Sharons policies were leading to a catastrophe that threatened the very survival of the Jewish state, they called for Israel to dismantle some of the Zionist settlements in the Occupied Territories and sign a peace agreement with the Palestinian Authority (PA) that will establish a Palestinian state. That these former security chiefs turned businessmen have described Sharons policies as nothing short of suicidal for the Zionist state is indicative of the depth of the political divisions within the Israeli ruling elite. These are the self-same people who for 20 years were responsible under successive Israeli governments for brutally suppressing the Palestinian people. Under their leadership, Shin Bet, as now, carried out assassinations, raids into Palestinian towns and villages in search of alleged terrorists, collective punishments, house demolitions, curfews, exiles, deportations, imprisonment without trial, closures and road blocks. It ran a network of Palestinian informers throughout the West Bank and Gaza, a number of whom have been exposed and executed by Palestinian militants, and became notorious for its brutal interrogation of Palestinian detainees. They are speaking out now because they can see that Sharon, who rests upon a narrow social layer of ultra-nationalists, is dragging Israel into a military, social and economic quagmire that may yet lead to its destruction. They publicly acknowledge that repression, far from having the intended impact of crushing Palestinian resistance, has stiffened resolve to fight the Israeli army of occupation. And privately they will be equally concerned by mounting internal oppositionboth to the continued occupation and the and to the attacks on living standards made necessary by the devastating decline in Israels economy as a result of the ongoing conflict. They speak for a section of the ruling elite that recognises it can no longer maintain its political domination based on such a short-sighted policy. Ami Ayalon, director of Shin Bet from 1996 to 2000 and now chairman of an irrigation systems company, said, We are taking sure and very measured steps to a point where the state of Israel will not be a democracy or a home for the Jewish people. Avraham Shalom, director of Shin Bet from 1980 to 1986 and now an international business consultant, said, All the steps we have taken are steps that are contrary to the aspiration for peace. If we do not turn away from this path, of adhering to the entire land of Israel, and if we do not also begin to understand the other side, we will not get anywhere. We must admit that there is another side, that it has feelings and that it is suffering, and that we are behaving disgracefully. Yes, there is no other word for it: disgracefully... We have turned into a people of petty fighters using the wrong tools. Carmi Gillon, a Shin Bet director from 1995 to 1996 who has more recently served as an ambassador, said, If we continue our conflict with the Palestinians, this country will go from bad to worse... [The government] is dealing solely with the question of how to prevent the next terrorist attack. It ignores the question of how we get out of the mess we find ourselves in today... It is clear to me that we are heading toward a crash. Yaakov Peri, director of Shin Bet from 1988 to 1995, a period that covered the brutal suppression of the first Palestinian intifada, and now a banker and businessman, said, We are heading downhill towards near catastrophe in almost every areaeconomic, political, social and security. We need to take the situation into our own hands and leave Gaza with all the difficulty that that entails, and to dismantle illegal settlements. There will always be some [settler] groups...for whom the land of Israel nestles in the hills of Nablus and inside Hebron, and we will have to clash with them. When asked about the right-wing zealots who would oppose such a withdrawal, Ayalon said, At issue are 15 percent or even 10 percent of the settlers, and we have to be capable of facing such a number. The unprecedented two-hour newspaper interview was the first time the four former security directors had ever met together. According to Gillon, they had agreed to speak out publicly because of serious concern for the condition of the state of
[CTRL] Religious right relishing Road Map's collapse (Bill Berkowitz)
Title: Welcome to WorkingForChange -Caveat Lector- http://www.workingforchange.com/printitem.cfm?itemid=16028 Religious right relishing Road Map's collapse Bill Berkowitz - WorkingForChange 11.21.03 - In the coming maelstrom that lies ahead, in the coming judgment that's going to burst in cyclonic fury over this world, and this planet, America's only hope -- listen to me, White House, listen to me, State Department, listen to me, Pentagon, listen to me, Mr. President -- America's only hope is not GNP, it's not scientific achievement, it's not an education at Harvard or Yale, but it's America holding on to that little, tiny state of Israel and saying, "We will stand with you," because God said, "They that bless Israel I will bless, and they that curse Israel, I will curse." -- Rev. Jimmy Lee Swaggart, March, 1985 Fundamentalist Christians in the U.S. are looking to last month's attack on a convoy of U.S. diplomatic and CIA vehicles in the Gaza Strip -- which killed several U.S. citizens -- as a watershed event that will hopefully force the Bush Administration to re-evaluate its involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Shortly after the October 15 attack the Jerusalem Prayer Team, a U.S.-based Christian fundamentalist organization, introduced an e-mail "Action Alert" with the following: "The Bush Doctrine is being challenged by Arafat's PLO terrorist organization. If the Bush Doctrine is defeated, then the war on terrorism is lost. If Israel loses her war on terrorism, America will lose her war on terrorism. The future of America hangs in the balance." The Jerusalem Post posed three questions about a potential U.S. response to the attack: "If Palestinian Islamic militants are now targeting Americans in their war with Israel, how should the White House respond to this dangerous escalation? Did Yasser Arafat know about the attack in advance? Did he approve it, even tacitly? What is the future of the Bush Administration's 'Road Map' since the Palestinian side staunchly refuses to crack down on terror for fear of triggering a civil war?" Aluf Benn, the diplomatic correspondent for Ha'aretz, an Israeli daily newspaper, wrote: "In the immediate aftermath of the bomb attack... Israel is making the argument it has been trying to make since the Sept. 11 terror attacks in the U.S. and since the war in Iraq -- that it and America are facing the same enemy. That the enemy in Baghdad is the same as the enemy in Gaza." This blow to the "Road Map" came on the heels of increased suicide bombings, Israel's strike against terrorist camps in Syria, its ongoing West Bank "security" fence project, and the Israeli's government's debate over whether Palestinian Authority Chairman Yasser Arafat should be exiles or assassinated. In mid-September, in an effort to put a roadblock in the way of Bush's "Road Map," several US fundamentalist Christian organizations sent President Bush a petition urging him to "stop his involvement in the 'land for peace' process," according to Worthy News, a daily Christian-based news service. The petition, organized by Worthy News, Koenig's International News, Bridges for Peace and the International Christian Zionist Center, "presented the Biblical foundation for supporting the nation of Israel and showed the importance of not parceling Israel's covenant land," and serves as a reminder of how opposed to a Palestinian state many fundamentalist Christian groups are. Religious right ramps up support for Israel Describing the recent visit to the United States of Binyamin Elon, Israel's Tourism minister and the head of Moledet, "one of the small right-wing parties that help keep Ariel Sharon in power," New York Magazine's Craig Horowitz writes: While the "alliance between the Evangelicals and the Jews is not new, it has suddenly taken on a sense of urgency and an intensity that haven't been seen before." During his trip, Elon met with a number of fundamentalist Christian leaders including Roberta Combs, president of the Christian Coalition, Mike Evans,
[CTRL] The Bush Team Inside the Bubble (Maureen Dowd)
Title: The Buck House Stops Here -Caveat Lector- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/20/opinion/20DOWD.html?th=pagewanted=printposition= November 20, 2003 The Buck House Stops HereBy MAUREEN DOWD ASHINGTON President Bush thought he had at last found someplace even more sequestered from the real world than the Republican fund-raisers and conservative think tanks where he makes his carefully controlled "public" appearances. Swaddled in the $8.5 million security blanket of reinforced concrete, wire mesh and 14,000 bobbies designed to protect him from the ungrateful citizens of our one I mean, our closest ally, Mr. Bush was a blithe spirit in his rented tails with his English cousins behind the high gates of Buckingham Palace. Even sheltered in the bosom of the British royal family, however, Mr. Bush wasn't entirely safe. Wearing a blue sash and a tiara with enough diamonds to pay for a year of the Iraqi occupation, the British queen gave the American president a bit of a poke, a light sideswipe with her handbag, as it were. In her remarks honoring Mr. Bush at the state dinner last night, Queen Elizabeth unleashed a barrage of favorable references to the most dreaded words in the Bush-Cheney lexicon: "multilateral order," "trans-Atlantic partnership," "other allies" and "effective international institutions." "At the very core of the new international and multilateral order, which emerged after the shared sacrifices of that last terrible world war, was a vital dynamic trans-Atlantic partnership working with other allies to create effective international institutions," she said. This, to a president who has never met an international institution he did not try to wreck and who's darting around like a fugitive in the land of the "special relationship," using Buck House as a safe house. Her Majesty barely mentioned the pesky colonial mess in Iraq where U.S. occupiers are also surrounded by razor wire, concrete barricades and armed guards and spent more time praising the first President Bush's leadership than the second's. Everything Mr. Bush did in London reinforced the idea that this was a trip made not so much to thank the British people for their friendship, but to send a message to the voters back home that he was at ease as a world leader. The White House spared Mr. Bush from having to endure a session with the rowdy Parliament and flew him by helicopter over the protesting rabble, who think a bullying Bush administration dragged Britain into the war under false pretenses. (Scotland Yard even wanted to keep the president in a "mobile-free bubble" that would block cellphone calls in his vicinity, but the phone companies refused, calling it "Bush hysteria.") The White House packaged the visit for the viewers at home. How else to explain the same Bush advance geniuses who brought us the "Mission Accomplished" banner putting up a blue PowerPoint-ish backdrop for the president's speech at Whitehall Palace that stuttered, "United Kingdom," "United Kingdom," "United Kingdom." The people in the United Kingdom already knew he was in the United Kingdom. And the kingdom isn't very united at the moment. Ken Livingstone, the mayor of London, captured the spirit of the moment when he told NPR that the Republican National Committee should foot the bill for Mr. Bush's extraordinary security, the largest police operation ever in Great Britain. All this, he harrumphed, "just so George Bush can use a few clips of him and the queen in his campaign advertisements for re-election next year." There was a dispiriting contrast between G.W.B. shutting out the world and avoiding the British public, and the black-and-white clips this week of J.F.K. reaching out to the world and being adored by Berliners. There was also a dispiriting contrast between the Bush administration, hiding the returning coffins of U.S. soldiers and avoiding their funerals, and the moving pictures of the Italian politicians and people, honoring their dead with public ceremonies and a week of mourning. The bubble in London is just an extension of the bubble the Bush team lives in at home. It superimposes its reality on the evidence for war, the ease of the occupation, the strength of the insurgency and the continuing threat from Saddam and Osama. Isolationism has been a foreign policy before. But for this administration, it seems to be a way of life. Copyright 2003The New York Times Company | Home | Privacy
[CTRL] On the Neocon Use of Leaks (Jim Lobe)
Title: Asia Times - Asia's most trusted news source for the Middle East -Caveat Lector- ''It's obvious that if you cared about the real national security interests of this country, you wouldn't reveal an asset,'' said Goodman. ''That shows this is a venal and desperate group who are not considering the real national-security interests of this country.'' http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/EK21Ak01.html Asia Times November 21, 2003 Middle East The truth leaks outBy Jim Lobe WASHINGTON - This week's blockbuster leak of a secret memorandum from a senior Pentagon official to the US Senate Intelligence Committee has spurred speculation that neo- conservative hawks in the Bush administration are on the defensive and growing more desperate. Both the committee and the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) have asked the Justice Department to launch an investigation of the leak, which took the form of an article published Monday by the influential neo-conservative journal, The Weekly Standard. Committee chairman Pat Roberts characterized the leak as ''egregious'', noting that it might have compromised ''highly classified information'' on intelligence sources and methods of collecting information, as well as ongoing investigations. He also said he did not believe the leak came from his committee or its staff. The Pentagon issued an unusual press statement declaring that the leak was ''deplorable and may be illegal''. The Weekly Standard article, "Case Closed", is a summary of a lengthy memo sent to the committee October 27 by Undersecretary of Defence for Policy Douglas Feith. He had been asked by the senators to provide support for his assertion in a closed hearing in July that US intelligence agencies had established a long-standing operational link between the al-Qaeda terrorist group and Baghdad. That, and similar assertions by senior Bush officials before the war, have long been considered questionable, more so after the war when the administration - as with its pre-war contentions about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction (WMD) - failed to come up with evidence to back its case. Investigative reporters and Iraq war critics have accused Feith's office of having manipulated or ''cherry-picked'' the intelligence on Iraq's purported ties to al-Qaeda and WMD programs before the war to persuade Bush and the public that Saddam posed a serious threat to the United States. The leaked memo consists mainly of 50 excerpts culled from raw intelligence reports by four US intelligence agencies about alleged al-Qaeda-Iraqi contacts from 1990 to 2003. Some of the reports include brief analysis, but most cite accounts by unnamed sources, such as ''a contact with good access'', ''a well placed source'', ''a former senior Iraqi intelligence officer'', a ''regular and reliable source'', ''sensitive CIA reporting'', and ''a foreign government service''. Although the article's author, Weekly Standard correspondent Stephen Hayes, concludes that much of the evidence is ''detailed, conclusive, and corroborated by multiple sources'', the only example of real corroboration is with respect to several reports regarding contacts between al-Qaeda and Iraqi agents in Afghanistan in 1999. Most of the excerpts deal instead with alleged meetings or less direct contacts in which sources claim that al-Qaeda agents are requesting certain kinds of assistance, such as a safe haven, training or, in one case, WMD. While supporters of the war in Iraq, such as the New York Times' William Safire, have jumped on the Hayes article as proof of what the administration had alleged, retired intelligence officers have criticized it, both because of the security breach of the leak itself and because its contents are anything but ''conclusive'' of an operational relationship. W Patrick Lang, former head of the Middle East section of the Defence Intelligence Agency, told the Washington Post the article amounted to a ''listing of a mass of unconfirmed reports, many of which themselves indicate that the two groups continued to try to establish some sort of relationship''. At the same time, he added, it
[CTRL] The Media Blackout of 9/11 (Eric Alterman)
-Caveat Lector- If there is nothing conspiratorial about 911, then why are the neocon-dominated media making such a heavy-handed effort to block any honest investigation into the facts about what occurred? Could the situation be any more obvious to any skeptical person with common sense? What precisely arethe neocon/neolib mediatrying to hide? Under normal circumstances wouldn't one expect the media to exhibit intense curiosity about the detailed circumstances of an event with the historical impact of 911? http://progressivetrail.org/articles/031120Alterman.shtml November 20, 2003 The Media blackout of 9/11 by Eric AltermanPublished by Center for American ProgressSometimes, as Matthew Yglesias pointed out last week, its what they dont say. And when its Fox News keeping mum, you better listen hard. Following the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, Congress over intense White House objections - created an independent, 10-person commission to investigate the bombings that took nearly 3,000 lives. In the tradition of the Warren Commission, and the inquiries into Pearl Harbor, the 9/11 commission would offer up the definitive take on the historic tragedy, and provide key assessments so America was never caught off guard again. And it would do that by combing through millions of documents, with unfettered access. Thomas Kean, former New Jersey Republican governor whos chairing the commission, recently reported its engaged in "the largest investigation of the United States government in United States history." This may read well on paper. But Kean and company have been forced to grovel not only for enough money to do the job, but also for access to key White House documents, most notably sensitive (read: embarrassing) presidential daily briefings, and specifically any from the summer of 2001 that appear to have warned Bush about an imminent and spectacular al Qaida attack inside the United States. (Bush decided to spend the rest of the day fishing on his ranch following the still-secret briefing.) Last week a deal was finally struck, giving a small number of commissioners access to the most sensitive documents, and letting them, in effect, report back to the entire panel about what they saw. Some victims family members labeled the backroom deal a charade. Either way, the 9/11 commission qualifies as news, or so one would think. Well, not at Bush-friendly Fox News. On-air reports about the 9/11 commission have been as common as anchors with bad teeth or academics with leftward leanings; in other words, not very. ...' Fox has treated viewers to a virtual news blackout on commission-related news. And if this has been an accident, it has to be one of the most amazing news-gathering coincidences in cable history. All of Foxs marquee programs - Hannity Colmes, The OReilly Factor, Special Report with Brit Hume, The Beltway Boys, The Big Show with John Gibson, Fox News Sunday, and Your World with Neil Cavuto - have managed to avoid the 9/11 commission as if it were a Dan Quayle spellathon. Its been a year since the 9/11 inquiry was formed (did we mention the Bush White House objected to it?), even tried to appoint Mr. Official Secrecy, Henry Kissinger, to head it? During this time, the above mentioned Fox shows have aired at least 1,300 episodes and welcomed, Im guessing, 4,000 guests. (Not 4,000 separate individuals, since lots of people are repeat guests. But 4,000 separate bookings nonetheless.) How many of those 4,000 were invited to discuss the 9/11 commission? Five percent? One percent? According to a Nexis search, the number hovers closer .1 and .2 percent of the guests, or perhaps 10 people, tops. And were being generous, because among several of those 10, the 9/11 commission came up only in passing. As for guests invited on exclusively by Fox to talk about the commission, its investigation, and its battles with the White House? The number is closer to zero. (Thats snake eyes if youre reading, Bill.) Are we picking unfairly on Fox? Perhaps. Unfortunately, most of mainstream media have done a spotty job covering the commission, with some notable exceptions being the AP, the Dallas Morning News and the Newark Star-Ledger. (For Nexis heads out there, the search of 9/11 commission and Fox News for the last 12 months captured 21 transcript matches, no matter how fleeting the on-air reference was, compared to 63 matches for 9/11 commission and CNN.) Even so, if your ambition were to watch your post-9/11 news in a 9/11 commission-free zone, while you chose instead to direct peoples attention away from any failures that may have left the nation vulnerable and instead convince the country to focus on say, an imaginary threat from Iraq, Fox would consistently been the best choice. And perhaps no place on Fox has would have been safer than Bill OReillys no-spin zone. This sounds a bit weird, I know. After all, right? OReilly insists hes not a
[CTRL] Hollinger Woes Casting a Pall Over Future of Neocon Papers (Forward)
Title: FORWARD : News -Caveat Lector- http://www.forward.com/issues/2003/03.11.21/news3.hollinger.html NOVEMBER 21, 2003 | current issue | back issues | subscribe | Hollinger Woes Casting a Pall Over Future of Neocon Papers By NATHANIEL POPPER FORWARD STAFF A convergence of unrelated financial scandals is threatening to sink the tiny but influential boat of Jewish-flavored conservative journalism. At the center of the controversy is Hollinger International, a media company that owns dozens of conservative newspapers, including the hawkish Jerusalem Post. An internal investigation into improper payments allegedly made to Hollinger's majority owner and CEO, Conrad Black, and its president, F. David Radler, has triggered a major reorganization of the company. Radler, who oversaw the Jerusalem Post, has resigned. Black has stepped down as CEO, but will continue to play a role in planning what is expected to be a mass sell-off of the company's media holdings. Many media insiders are predicting the shakeup will lead to the sale of most Hollinger-controlled newspapers, including The Jerusalem Post, The Daily Telegraph of London and the Chicago Sun-Times. Hollinger also owns a piece of The New York Sun, which was launched in 2002 by former Forward editor Seth Lipsky. Though ostensibly a general interest newspaper, the Sun is best known for its pugnacious coverage of Jewish-related issues, as well as its neo-conservative policy positions. Hollinger's stake in the Sun is relatively small, but financial problems have also threatened Roger Hertog, the newspaper's main financial backer and also a part-owner of The New Republic, a highly influential Washington-based opinion journal with a heavy interest in Jewish issues. Hertog's potential troubles relate to his post as vice chairman of Alliance Capital. The company is being investigated by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer for improper trading moves and has put aside $190 million to cover restitution and legal costs relating to the case. Alliance Capital is also being investigated by the Securities and Exchange Commission for payments to Morgan Stanley to obtain preferred status with investors. Some of the allegations at Alliance Capital surround suspicious trading activity at mutual funds it purchased from the company of the late Jewish philanthropist Zalman Bernstein, where Hertog was formerly president and CEO. A financially induced collapse at the Sun or political shift to the left at The Jerusalem Post would represent a severe blow to conservative Jewish activists who have come to depend these publications as dependable allies in various policy fights. Since it is not yet clear how, and whether, the troubles at Alliance Capital will affect Hertog, for now the more furious speculation is focused on Hollinger and the fate of The Jerusalem Post. "This is one of the most famous brand names in Israel alongside Jaffa oranges," said one former employee. "And there is a major change coming to the Post; a fundamental change in the way the paper operates." The Post was historically known as a left-wing newspaper, until its acquisition by Hollinger in 1989. Since then it has become a leading conservative outlet for opponents of the peace process throughout the world, thanks to its highly popular Web site. While the political future of the newspaper remains unclear, most observers are predicting the newspaper will be sold. Rumors about an impending sale were rippling through a gathering in Israel this week of 4,000 North American Jewish communal leaders. "The air at the General Assembly [of the United Jewish Communities] is thick with rumors of potential buyers," said David Landau, editor of the English edition of the Israeli daily Ha'aretz. "I think that obviously you are looking at wealthy Jews who are interested in extending their influence," one Israeli media insider said. "I don't know that any Israelis would buy it." Speculation has focused in part on Michael Steinhardt, the New York-based Jewish philanthropist with stakes in the Sun and The New Republic. Formerly a part-owner of the Forward, Steinhardt has previously displayed interest in buying the Post. Another name being mentioned is that of Ronald Lauder, the cosmetics heir who already has holdings in Israeli media. Russian investors Vladimir Gusinsky and Roman Abramovich also have been rumored to be interested. Given Hollinger's $730 million of debt, observers see no way for the company to survive without selling at least some of its assets. Numerous parties have expressed interest in The Daily Telegraph, and The Washington Post Group has been repeatedly mentioned for its interest in the Chicago Sun-Times. An Israeli media insider said the assumption is that the Post
[CTRL] Pouring Gas on the Flames (Bush In Iraq)
-Caveat Lector- Israel has been attempting to intimidate, bully and terrorize the Mideast into submission for six decades now, and with what results? Will Bush's Israeli-directed strategy lead to the democratization and pacification of the Mideast, or to a wave of violent anti-Americanism that could last for centuries? Is Bush a visionary genius in foreign affairs or something quite different? Does he have a track record of leading grand ventures to a successful conclusion? Are his advisers motivated by a rational concern for the American interest or by something else? Will these policies lead to success or disaster for the Bush administration and the United States? Stay tuned -- we should know soon enough, and probably before the next election. One way for Americans to anticipate the outcome is to ask how they would react if they were invaded and occupied by a foreign power. Human nature on these matters appears to be universal. http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=KIZIRSHS1SKEMCRBAELCFEY?type=reutersEdgestoryID=384 Print This Article Print this article Close This Window U.S. Tough Tactics Risk Inflaming Iraq InsurgencyTue November 18, 2003 10:13 AM ET By Luke Baker BAGHDAD (Reuters) - U.S. forces in Iraq have launched their fiercest military campaign since major combat ended in May, but experts fear the aggressive "show of force" may inflame an anti-American insurgency rather than douse it. In the past 10 days, fighter jets have dropped 500 lb. (230 kg) bombs, satellite-guided missiles have been fired, and tanks have pounded suspected guerrilla hideouts in a display that may be spectacular but could ultimately backfire. "I don't think this present campaign is going to produce what the Americans want, which is security on the ground for Iraqis and U.S. forces," said Phillip Mitchell of the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "It's only going to ensure that the population becomes more allied with the pro-Saddam, anti-American insurgency... The risk is that these sort of actions will actually inflame hatred." The tougher line began earlier this month, after the downing of two helicopters -- a Chinook transporter and a Black Hawk -- in the space of five days with the loss of 22 soldiers. In response, the 4th Infantry Division based around Saddam Hussein's hometown of Tikrit, 175 km (110 miles) north of Baghdad, launched Operation Ivy Cyclone, sending F-16s to bomb several abandoned warehouses. At the same time, M1A1 tanks and Bradley fighting vehicles rumbled through the streets of the small city, where a curfew has been reimposed, and a taskforce of soldiers raided a handful of homes, rounding up some suspected Saddam loyalists. HEAVY HAND Lieutenant-Colonel Steve Russell, who commands the 1-22 Battalion of the 4th Infantry Division and has led many of the raids around Tikrit, declared the new, harder line a success and the right sort of tactics for the task at hand. "We will not let these insurgents dance on our territory," he said after a midnight raid last week. "We need to maintain an offensive stance and let the enemy know that we will come down with a heavy hand when we want to." Since Ivy Cyclone, U.S. forces have also launched Operation Iron Hammer in and around Baghdad, and Ivy Cyclone Two, which has involved firing GPS-guided missiles at suspected insurgent camps, including one on an island in the Tigris river. Hazy green television images of the attacks, shot through night-vision lenses, have been broadcast worldwide and created the impression of a bold and intense new campaign. But there so far appears to be relatively little to show for the new tactics in terms of the
[CTRL] The Terror Enigma: 9/11 and the Israeli Connection
-Caveat Lector- http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-29682-3 The Terror Enigma : 9/11 and the Israeli Connection by Justin Raimondo Our price: $11.95 Format: Paperback Size : 6 x 9Pages: 94ISBN: 0-595-29682-3Published: Nov-2003 International orders: Email usat [EMAIL PROTECTED] or call 001-402-323-7800 (556) Foreign spies of a friendly country were trailing the 9/11 hijackers. Why didn't they warn us? This book will change how you think about 9/11. Book Description 9/11 what did the Israelis know, and when did they know it? With information culled from mainstream sources, author Justin Raimondo shows in this eye-opening book that Israels spies in the United States had been watching the 9/11 terrorists. As the terrorists were planning the biggest and deadliest terrorist attack in American history, Israeli agents in the U.S. were watching them 24/7 living literally next door to Mohammed Atta, according to one account. Did Israeli intelligence have foreknowledge of 9/11? As one law enforcement source close to the investigation told Fox News, the real question is: how could they not have known? But if they knew, then why didnt they tell us? Browse Before You Buy Note: 'Browse Before You Buy' feature may contain pages that have been reduced in resolution to improve viewing speed. Copyright Notice 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]/ 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
[CTRL] At Hollinger, Big Perks in A Small World (Steven Pearlstein)
Title: washingtonpost.com: At Hollinger, Big Perks in A Small World -Caveat Lector- Business neocon-style... Why does there seem to be such an intimate connection between crooked billionaires and Israel? Sometimes it seems like Zionism is just a front for the operations of an international gang of plutocrats. Conrad Black, like Rupert Murdoch, is a militant Likudnik. This controversy seems to be similar toscandals involving figures like Robert Maxwell, Michael Milken, Boris Berezovsky, Mikhail Khodorkovsky and numerous others. Could the Iraq Warhave beendesigned to increase the wealth and power of this predatory clique? Perish such a cynical thought -- we're fighting for "democracy" and "God." http://www.washingtonpost.com/ac2/wp-dyn/A59784-2003Nov18?language=printer washingtonpost.com At Hollinger, Big Perks in A Small World By Steven PearlsteinWednesday, November 19, 2003; Page E01 It's amazing the coincidences you find digging into Hollinger International, the publishing empire that includes Chicago's Sun-Times and London's Daily Telegraph and is quickly slipping from Conrad Black's control. Let's start with the board of directors, which includes Barbara Amiel, Conrad's wife, whose right-wing rants have managed to find an outlet in Hollinger publications. And there's Washington superhawk Richard Perle, who heads Hollinger Digital, the company's venture capital arm. Seems that Hollinger Digital put $2.5 million in a company called Trireme Partners, which aims to cash in on the big military and homeland security buildup. As luck would have it, Trireme's managing partner is none other than . . . Richard Perle. Perle, of course, has been pushing hard for just such a military buildup from his other perch at the Pentagon's secretive and influential Defense Policy Board, where there are a number of other Friends of Hollinger. There's Gerald Hillman, managing partner of Hillman Capital, which also got a $14 million investment from Hollinger, according to the Financial Times. Hillman is also a partner at Trireme. And then there's Henry Kissinger, another longtime Hollinger director, though it must be said that Henry is very busy and was only able to make one board meeting last year. Rounding out the Hollinger director-hawks is Richard Burt, the former arms negotiator and ambassador to Germany. Burt is also on the board of Archer Daniels Midland, whose former chairman, Dwayne Andreas, and director Robert Strauss, were also Hollinger directors until last year. Small world, huh? Some might consider Andreas a somewhat risky choice for corporate director, inasmuch as ADM had to pay a $100 million fine for price-fixing during his watch. But Andreas probably felt right at home at Hollinger, alongside A. Alfred Taubman, who as head of Sotheby's was nabbed for fixing art auction prices. Taubman gave up his Hollinger seat last year, around the time he checked into prison. The coincidences don't stop there. When Hollinger wanted to unload some of its smaller newspapers recently, the winning bidders were Horizon Publications and Bradford Publishing, which happen to be partly owned by Black and his closest lieutenants. Hollinger even graciously agreed to finance a portion of the sales. And imagine everyone's surprise when it came out that Hollinger had paid $8 million for a collection of memos and letters of FDR, who just happens to be the subject of Black's new 1,134-page biography. Perhaps investors might have been willing to put up with a controlling shareholder inclined to use the company as his personal piggy bank (did I mention the lavish homes and chauffeured cars in Chicago and New York?) had Hollinger turned out to be a great investment. But, alas, it hasn't been. Between 1998 and 2002, as Hollinger paid out more than $200 million to Black and close associates in the form of salary, management fees and non-compete payments, the company was able to eke out a total profit of $23 million. During that period, Hollinger shares fell 25 percent while other publishing shares rose -- 17 percent at Gannett and 20 percent at Knight Ridder. This is all, of course, vintage Black, who got his start as a corporate wheeler-dealer snookering Canadian widows and raiding employee pension funds. But shame on Hollinger's directors for letting themselves be used as corporate hood ornaments, lending legitimacy to Lord Black's financial manipulations and relentless social climbing. Only one, former Illinois governor James Thompson, was willing to defend himself yesterday, suggesting at one point that there was only so much directors could do with a chief executive wielding absolute voting control. So far, however, there is scant evidence that any of them even tried, at least until dissident shareholders threatened to sue. Steven Pearlstein will host a Live Online discussion today at 2:30 p.m. on www.washingtonpost.com. He can be reached at [EMAIL
[CTRL] War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal
Title: Guardian | War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal -Caveat Lector- http://www.guardian.co.uk/print/0,3858,4801223-103550,00.html War critics astonished as US hawk admits invasion was illegal Oliver Burkeman and Julian Borger in WashingtonThursday November 20, 2003The Guardian International lawyers and anti-war campaigners reacted with astonishment yesterday after the influential Pentagon hawk Richard Perle conceded that the invasion of Iraq had been illegal. In a startling break with the official White House and Downing Street lines, Mr Perle told an audience in London: "I think in this case international law stood in the way of doing the right thing." President George Bush has consistently argued that the war was legal either because of existing UN security council resolutions on Iraq - also the British government's publicly stated view - or as an act of self-defence permitted by international law. But Mr Perle, a key member of the defence policy board, which advises the US defence secretary, Donald Rumsfeld, said that "international law ... would have required us to leave Saddam Hussein alone", and this would have been morally unacceptable. French intransigence, he added, meant there had been "no practical mechanism consistent with the rules of the UN for dealing with Saddam Hussein". Mr Perle, who was speaking at an event organised by the Institute of Contemporary Arts at the Old Vic theatre in London, had argued loudly for the toppling of the Iraqi dictator since the end of the 1991 Gulf war. "They're just not interested in international law, are they?" said Linda Hugl, a spokeswoman for the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, which launched a high court challenge to the war's legality last year. "It's only when the law suits them that they want to use it." Mr Perle's remarks bear little resemblance to official justifications for war, according to Rabinder Singh QC, who represented CND and also participated in Tuesday night's event. Certainly the British government, he said, "has never advanced the suggestion that it is entitled to act, or right to act, contrary to international law in relation to Iraq". The Pentagon adviser's views, he added, underlined "a divergence of view between the British government and some senior voices in American public life [who] have expressed the view that, well, if it's the case that international law doesn't permit unilateral pre-emptive action without the authority of the UN, then the defect is in international law". Mr Perle's view is not the official one put forward by the White House. Its main argument has been that the invasion was justified under the UN charter, which guarantees the right of each state to self-defence, including pre-emptive self-defence. On the night bombing began, in March, Mr Bush reiterated America's "sovereign authority to use force" to defeat the threat from Baghdad. The UN secretary general, Kofi Annan, has questioned that justification, arguing that the security council would have to rule on whether the US and its allies were under imminent threat. Coalition officials countered that the security council had already approved the use of force in resolution 1441, passed a year ago, warning of "serious consequences" if Iraq failed to give a complete accounting of its weapons programmes. Other council members disagreed, but American and British lawyers argued that the threat of force had been implicit since the first Gulf war, which was ended only by a ceasefire. "I think Perle's statement has the virtue of honesty," said Michael Dorf, a law professor at Columbia University who opposed the war, arguing that it was illegal. "And, interestingly, I suspect a majority of the American public would have supported the invasion almost exactly to the same degree that they in fact did, had the administration said that all along." The controversy-prone Mr Perle resigned his chairmanship of the defence policy board earlier this year but remained a member of the advisory board. A Pentagon spokesman pointed out yesterday that Mr Perle was not on the defence department staff, but was a member of an unpaid advisory board. Mr Perle refused to elaborate on his remarks. Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 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
[CTRL] Israel Angers the Bush Administration (Jane's)
-Caveat Lector- Israel, by its own free choice, appears to be moving into a state of apocalyptic confrontation with the entire world. Israel, with its large arsenal of weapons of mass destruction -- biological, nuclear and chemical -- and with its genius for polarizing the entire world against it, including its best friends, has the strong potential to become the world's ultimate suicide bomber. http://www.janes.com/security/international_security/news/fr/fr031119_1_n.shtml 19 November 2003Israel angers the Bush administration Ariel Sharon is surely feeling lonely these days. Tension is building between him and the Bush administration, which feels that mounting Muslim hostility toward the USA, and particularly its troubled occupation of Iraq, is being fuelled by Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Following a stinging public rebuke of his policies by Israel's top soldier, Chief of Staff Moshe Yaalon, on 28 October, no less than four former directors of the Shin Bet security service, intimately involved in fighting the Palestinians, added their sharp criticism on 14 November. They warned of a catastrophe if Israel did not reach an accommodation with the Palestinians soon. US impatience with Sharon became evident as the new Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurie, an architect of the Oslo Accords universally known by his nom de guerre of Abu Aala, has formed a government that seeks to breathe some life into the badly battered US-backed peace initiative known as the 'road map'. With US forces in Iraq under constant and escalating attack by resistance fighters - be they 'Saddam regime remnants', 'foreign fighters' or plain old up-in-arms nationalists - the USA needs Sharon's policies against the Palestinians, which stoke up Islamist passions, like a hole in the head. They would like him to moderate his hard line - quickly. Paul Wolfowitz, the US Deputy Secretary of Defense and the spearhead of the neo-conservative hardliners in the Bush administration, has endorsed the so-called 'Geneva Initiative', the unofficial peace plan agreed by Ayalon and a Palestinian academic, Sari Nusseibeh, last month. Given Wolfowitz's support for Sharon and Israel's other hardliners over the years, his unexpected, and remarkably under-reported, endorsement of the informal peace pact that calls for a Palestinian state in the pre-June 1967 West Bank and Gaza Strip and the partition of Jerusalem, carries immense political weight and clearly had the approval of the White House. "Clearly, one huge factor in our relations with the Muslim world, as well as one of the greatest obstacles to peace in that region, is the continuing conflict between Israelis and Palestinians," said Wolfowitz. That echoed, with the weight of the Bush administration behind it, much of what Yaalon and the Shin Bet quartet had to say: Israeli action against the Palestinians was creating hatred that would eventually explode; that the Palestinians had to be given feasible political targets if any progress toward ending the intifada was to be achieved; and help must be given to a moderate Palestinian government (Israel did little to help the short-lived government of Abu Mazen). On 13 November, Bush's people opened fire again. William Burns, President Bush's Middle East envoy, took aim at Jewish settlement building in the Occupied Territories and at the wall the Israelis are building in the West Bank, ostensibly to keep out the suicide bombers, but in fact gobbling up Palestinian land, probably for ever. The security wall, said Burns, "prejudices negotiations and, like settlement activity, takes us further from the two-state goal." 491 of 1170 words [End of non-subscriber extract.] www.ctrl.org 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://www.mail-archive.com/[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
[CTRL] What Would $87 Billion Buy? (Michael Moore)
Title: Berkeley Daily Planet -Caveat Lector- http://www.berkeleydaily.org/text/article.cfm?issue=10-28-03storyID=17652 Berkeley Daily PlanetEdition Date: Tuesday, November 18, 2003 ArticleBack to MainpageIndex of Sections What Would $87 Billion Buy?By MICHAEL MOORE (10-28-03)If you can't get through this list without wanting to throw up, I'll understand. But pass it around anyway. This is the nail in the Iraq War's coffin for any sane, thinking individual, regardless of their political stripe (thanks to TomPaine.com and the Center for American Progress). To get some perspective, here are some real-life comparisons about what $87 Billion means: $87 Billion is more than the combined total of all state budget deficits in the United States. The Bush administration proposed absolutely zero funds to help states deal with these deficits, despite the fact that their tax cuts drove down state revenues. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities] $87 Billion is enough to pay the 3.3 million people who have lost jobs under George W. Bush $26,363 each! The unemployment benefits extension passed by Congress at the beginning of this year provides zero benefits to "workers who exhausted their regular, state unemployment benefits and cannot find work." All told, two-thirds of unemployed workers have exhausted their benefits. [Source: Center on Budget and Policy Priorities] $87 Billion is more than double the total amount the government spends on homeland security. The U.S. spends about $36 billion on homeland security. Yet, Sen. Warren Rudman (R-N.H.) wrote, "America will fall approximately $98.4 billion short of meeting critical emergency responder needs" for homeland security without a funding increase. [Source: Council on Foreign Relations] $87 Billion is 87 times the amount the federal government spends on after school programs. George W. Bush proposed a budget that reduces the $1 billion for after-school programs to $600 millioncutting off about 475,000 children from the program. [Source: The Republican-dominated House Appropriations Committee] $87 Billion is more than 10 times what the government spends on all environmental protection. The Bush administration requested just $7.6 billion for the entire Environmental Protection Agency. This included a 32 percent cut to water quality grants, a 6 percent reduction in enforcement staff, and a 50 percent cut to land acquisition and conservation. [Source: Natural Resources Defense Council] 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]/ 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
[CTRL] How the Pentagon Forgot About Running Iraq (Jacob Weisberg)
-Caveat Lector- The assumption that events will conform to a preconceived model is a failing to which neoconservatives are notably vulnerable. Part of this may be Marxist residue that never quite washed off. The intellectual descendants of Trotskyists, the neocons find the idea of revolution from above, in which intellectuals and ideas play the crucial role, instinctively appealing. Many neocons also tend to buy into overly deterministic, Hegelian theories of history (see Fukuyama, Frank). In this sense, the assumption that Iraq was destined to become a liberal democracy with just a nudge from the United States is an error akin to Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick's Hannah Arendt-inspired view that Communist totalitarian societies could never reform from within. There was nothing wrong with that theory either, except that it happened to be completely wrong. Another reason the neocons go for grand theories may be that their primary experience tends to come from the classroom, rather than the real world. Colin Powell, who took fire in Vietnam, has a visceral sense of what happens when a military engagement turns sour that those who served out the war at the University of Chicago may lack. What's more, few neoconservatives have cultivated a deep appreciation or understanding of other culturesunless you count the Athens of Pericles or Machiavelli's Florence. http://slate.msn.com/id/2090852/ Slate the big ideaOccupational HazardsHow the Pentagon forgot about running Iraq.By Jacob WeisbergPosted Thursday, Nov. 6, 2003, at 9:44 AM PT The shooting down on Sunday of a Chinook helicopter, which claimed more American lives than any episode since the fall of Saddam Hussein, confirms what the Bush administration has spent weeks attempting to deny: The occupation of Iraq is going badly. It is not at all surprising that we've run into trouble over there. The difficulties we have faced, from looting to the lack of viable institutions, were largely to be expected from a devastated post-totalitarian society in a part of the world overwhelmingly hostile to the United States and its interests. What is surprisingamazing, in factis how unprepared we were for these problems. Much of the discussion in the postwar period was focused on the question of where those weapons of mass destruction went. An even more important question is how the Bush administration failed to prepare for what it knew was coming. How did the world's greatest military power plan the invasion of a country without also planning its occupation? David Rieff's Nov. 2 article in the New York Times Magazine offers pieces of an answer. The neoconservative Iraq hawks inside the PentagonPaul Wolfowitz, Richard Perle, and Douglas Feiththought our troops would be welcomed as liberators and that the Iraqi National Congress could run the country for us (a view Gideon Rose demolished in Slate back in April). Wolfowitz, in particular, was known for his view that fixing Iraq would provoke a reverse-domino effect of democratization throughout the Middle East. Those who bought into this wishful thinking didn't want to hear about the potential problems. The hawks' big mistake was not in thinking that optimistic scenario might be borne out. Their mistakeespecially stunning because the Pentagon is essentially a planning agencywas not preparing for alternate scenarios that were, at the very least, equally likely. The neoconservative architects of the invasion seem not to have, at any point, seriously engaged the question, "What if things do not go the way we hope they will?" What if the Iraqis are glad to be rid of Saddam but not glad to have the Marines as neighbors? What if Ahmad Chalabi turns out not to be the next Vaclav Havel? The Pentagon spends hundreds of millions of dollars staging elaborate war games to help anticipate unexpected turns in battle. Somehow, it neglected to game out the postwar peace. The assumption that events will conform to a preconceived model is a failing to which neoconservatives are notably vulnerable. Part of this may be Marxist residue that never quite washed off. The intellectual descendants of Trotskyists, the neocons find the idea of revolution from above, in which intellectuals and ideas play the crucial role, instinctively appealing. Many neocons also tend to buy into overly deterministic, Hegelian theories of history (see Fukuyama, Frank). In this sense, the assumption that Iraq was destined to become a liberal democracy with just a nudge from the United States is an error akin to Jeanne J. Kirkpatrick's Hannah Arendt-inspired view that Communist totalitarian societies could never reform from within. There was nothing wrong with that theory either, except that it happened to be completely wrong. Another reason the neocons go for grand theories may be that their primary experience tends to come from the classroom, rather than the real
[CTRL] Pentagon Debunks Reports on Osama-Saddam Ties
-Caveat Lector- No matter how many lies neocons and neocon media outlets are caught telling, they continue to tell lie after lie, even when they know they are going to be caught yet again. Neoconservatism appears to be less an ideology than a severe personality disorder which radically disconnects neocons from reality. Neocons basically will say anything, tell any lie, and adopt any ideology which supports whatever ideathat has taken fanatical root in their heads at any given moment. They are unresponsive to stimuli and data from the real world. Perhaps neoconservatism is linked to autism in some way? Is it a genetic thing? Connected with the disorder is a total absence of shame for whatever outrages one has committed in the past. The more the neocons are exposed as liars, the more stridently self-righteous they become. It is incomprehensible to any sane person that Douglas Feith would recirculate lies at this stage in the game which he had to KNOW would be shot down by his own Defense Department. What makes a guy like this tick? http://www.mediainfo.com/editorandpublisher/headlines/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=2030480 Editor Publisher NOVEMBER 18, 2003Pentagon Debunks Reports on Osama-Saddam Ties Some Outlets Run With 'Weekly Standard' Story By Seth Porges NEW YORK -- Several newspapers and other media outlets had egg on their face Monday after reporting or endorsing a Weekly Standard story revealing new evidence of an "operational relationship" between Saddam Hussein and Osama Bin Laden. Several outlets, including the New York Post, The Washington Times and FOX News, ran with the story. There was just one problem: On Saturday, the Pentagon issued a press release stating that "news reports that the Defense Department recently confirmed new information with respect to contacts between al-Qaida and Iraq ... are inaccurate."Despite this, the New York Post on Monday titled its editorial on the subject: "Bush Was Right."In the current Nov. 24 issue of the conservative journal The Weekly Standard, Stephen F. Hayes writes that Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein "had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda." The magazine's revelations allegedly came from a "top secret U.S. government memorandum obtained by The Weekly Standard." The Pentagon press release, however, states that the classified sections of the document contained "raw reports" and "was not an analysis of the substantive issue of the relationship between Iraq and al Qaida and it drew no conclusions."The Nov. 17 New York Post editorial made no mention of the Pentagon refuting the charge as "inaccurate."Also on Monday, The Washington Times carried an editorial on the issue, using The Weekly Standard article as evidence. At the end of the editorial, the Times mentions the Pentagon release, but urges "readers to examine the Weekly Standard article and decide for themselves."On Nov. 16, The Washington Post's Walter Pincus reported that the CIA has found "no evidence that Hussein sought to arm terrorists."The New York Post editorial opens: "As blood flowed freely again this weekend in the War on Terror, this time in Turkey as well as Iraq, a new report in The Weekly Standard suggests that events there may not be unrelated. "In fact, the report by Stephen Hayes -- based on a top-secret government memo -- documents an even more profound linkage: between none other than Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden. "According to Hayes, the memo, provides enormous evidence that the Bush team was right all along about Saddam's terrorist ties -- despite charges to the contrary by the president's foes, particularly Democrats ..." Source: Editor Publisher Online Seth Porges ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) is a reporter for EP. www.ctrl.org 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=""ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL
[CTRL] A Web of Spin, Lies and Self-Delusion
Title: GN Online: Youssef M. Ibrahim: Get the American GIs out of Iraq -Caveat Lector- Not since the Vietnam disaster, which cost well over 50,000 American and more than a million Vietnamese lives, has a debacle of the scale unfolding in Iraq been visited upon the American people. This is a war constructed on ideological premises uncomfortably resembling those that led us to Vietnam: a web of spin, lies and self-delusion. Bush has not, to this day, given the world a credible reason for putting the lives of over 150,000 Americans in harm's way - no weapons of mass destruction found, no democracy is mushrooming, no light looms at the end this dark tunnel. Worse yet, the great Iraqi silent majority, according to the latest CIA confidential report leaked to the "Philadelphia Inquirer" a few days ago, is tilting against the US and the puppet Iraqi government we have put in Baghdad, as people become poorer, less safe and harassed by frightened and confused American troops in their homes and villages. http://www.gulf-news.com/Articles/print.asp?ArticleID=103200 Youssef M. Ibrahim: Get the American GIs out of Iraq |Special to Gulf News|18/11/2003 Looking at the American debacle in Iraq through Arab eyes, the solution is starkly evident: put American forces under the command of General Kofi Anan, otherwise known as Secretary-General of the United Nations, immediately. Get the French, Germans and the European Union - along with China, India and the rest of the world community - to send their soldiers under blue caps as peace-keeping forces, as they all readily agree they would if commanded by the United Nations.And, above all, get the American GIs out. Sooner or later an exceedingly stubborn and lonely George W. Bush Administration will have to reach that conclusion. Problem is, as long as it drags its feet, this administration is doing untold damage to the reputation and values of the US, once the most admired in this part of the world.It is creating a deep hatred in the Arab, and more important, the much bigger 1.2 billion Muslim world around the globe that will haunt us for years to come, feeding the ranks of the very same terrorists we are hoping to eradicate. Instead of winning the war on terror, President Bush is fanning its flames. As long as we remain an occupation force in Iraq, the worst case scenario is an expansion of the ongoing collapse of American prestige, respect, credibility and power . At the end of this tunnel lies a defeat which history will judge to have been entirely an American domestic political design. It is unconscionable of the Bush crowd of hawkish neo-conservatives, Evangelical Christians and pro-Likud supporters of Israel to drive matters to that extent, solely for the questionable purpose of gaining electoral votes. Indeed it is self-defeating. Bush may loose his job along with the US clout in the Iraqi quagmire. Web of spinNot since the Vietnam disaster, which cost well over 50,000 American and more than a million Vietnamese lives, has a debacle of the scale unfolding in Iraq been visited upon the American people. This is a war constructed on ideological premises uncomfortably resembling those that led us to Vietnam: a web of spin, lies and self-delusion. Bush has not, to this day, given the world a credible reason for putting the lives of over 150,000 Americans in harm's way - no weapons of mass destruction found, no democracy is mushrooming, no light looms at the end this dark tunnel. Worse yet, the great Iraqi silent majority, according to the latest CIA confidential report leaked to the "Philadelphia Inquirer" a few days ago, is tilting against the US and the puppet Iraqi government we have put in Baghdad, as people become poorer, less safe and harassed by frightened and confused American troops in their homes and villages. Instead of facing up to this, the Bush crowd is now plotting to get out and leave the puppet government in charge with all what that entails of danger including a return to a Saddam Hussain-style autocracy, or a civil war.Is it a surprise then that no one wants to come and help? The Turks, having pocketed $8 billion to send 10,000 troops, now say they aren't coming. The Red Cross has folded its tent in Iraq. The United Nations is refusing to co-operate and the Japanese and Koreans have just said they are re-thinking their promise to send forces. Even our friends, the Brits, have quietly cut their forces from 45,000 during the invasion to less than 15,000 now. Meanwhile in Iraq, American forces which a few
[CTRL] MSN Newsbot to Challenge Google News
Title: Microsoft Tests Answer to Google News
-Caveat Lector-
Consider the data mining/surveillance possibilities for a global
central intelligence with access to all the net clicks on the world (including
all searches):
The most innovative Newsbot feature is personalization. MSN users who
sign in to Microsoft Passport received personalized news based on previously
demonstrated interests. It can show news from sources that person clicked on
in the past, or suggest stories based on previously shown interests, the
company said.
"We pay attention to the usage of the service for many reasons
http://www.internetnews.com/IAR/print.php/3110201
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Microsoft Tests
Answer to Google News By Pamela ParkerNovember 18,
2003
Software giant Microsoft is testing its answer to Google's popular news
aggregator and search site. "MSN Newsbot", on MSN UK, France, Spain and
Italy, signals at least one of Microsoft's intentions as it seeks to build
out its own search technology.
Newsbot aggregates headlines from over 4,000 sources on the Internet,
apparently provided by partner Moreover Technologies. Headlines are
clustered by topic and displayed based on algorithms Microsoft
established, the company said in a FAQ about the beta service. Those
algorithms consider the number of sources covering the story, when the
story was published, and how many people have looked at a particular
story.
Overture text ads are served on the main Newsbot page, as well as on
news search results. It's not clear what criteria are used to target the
ads. On Monday, both Overture listings featured merchants selling chimney
flue liners. The top story on the page concerned a gangplank collapse that
killed 15 people trying to board a British liner in France. Microsoft renewed its
deal with Overture earlier this year. Overture paid listings will
continue to appear on MSN in the U.S. and the U.K. through June, 2005.
The Newsbot service is a glimpse at what Microsoft's been up to in the
hot search arena, amidst much speculation about the company's intentions.
The Redmond, Wash.-based software company has made significant investments
in the search arena, tripling staffing levels as it works to catch up with
Google and Yahoo! Microsoft has been very quiet about strategy specifics,
especially in regard to paid search.
The most innovative Newsbot feature is personalization. MSN users who
sign in to Microsoft Passport received personalized news based on
previously demonstrated interests. It can show news from sources that
person clicked on in the past, or suggest stories based on previously
shown interests, the company said.
"We pay attention to the usage of the service for many reasons. We want
to make MSN Newsbot (beta) more useful for our users," MSN says on its
site. "By tracking the most popular stories, we can build a 'most popular'
list for each section of news -- speeding discovery of what stories the
world is reading. By telling users that 'People who read this story also
read...' we can reduce the time it takes to find other interesting
stories."
Personalization features aside, the Newsbot service is close to a
perfect echo of Google's News service, also still in beta after appearing
in September, 2002.
MSN choice of Moreover Technologies as a news provider is interesting.
The latter company worked with Yahoo! on its news search.
Contact internetnews.com staff
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directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with
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Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.
[CTRL] JFK, 9/11 and Conspiracy Theories (Maureen Farrell)
Title: JFK, 9/11 and Conspiracy Theories - Maureen Farrell at BuzzFlash.com
-Caveat Lector-
http://www.buzzflash.com/farrell/03/11/far03002.html
November 18, 2003
MAUREEN FARRELL
ARCHIVES
JFK, 9/11 and Conspiracy Theories
by Maureen Farrell
"There have been many things swept under the
carpet. And I think it's a shame in a government that you trust - I think
it's a shame, the things that they chose to tell you and the things they
choose not to tell you." -- Sept. 11 widow Julia Sweeney, whose
husband Brian worked in the World Trade Center
"One of my greatest shames, as a journalist is
that I still don't know who killed Jack Kennedy." -- Hunter S.
Thompson
Last January, Mike Ward compared the post-9/11
conspiracy frenzy to what occurred in the aftermath of JFKs murder.
"Angry speculation -- focused mainly on government dirty dealings,
ulterior motives, and potential complicity in the attacks -- has risen to
a clamor that easily rivals what followed the Kennedy assassination," he
wrote. [Alternet.org]
Inconsistencies in the official story always take
their toll, particularly when there's a whiff of a cover-up. And
certainly, news that the White House will edit sensitive documents before
handing them over to the independent commission investigating Sept. 11
makes matters murkier. "The White House gets to cherry-pick how much
access the nation's commission looking into 9/11 gets to crucial
documents. I'm ready to vote for subpoenas right now," former Senator Max
Cleland told CNN, evoking Warren Commission suspicion deja vu.
While it's not surprising, as a New York
Times/CBS poll revealed, that 77 percent of Americans reject the
Warren Commission's findings, it seems that several government officials
did, too. Richard Nixon, for example, said that the Warren Commission was
"the greatest hoax that has ever been perpetuated," [BBC] while Bill Clinton reportedly asked Webster Hubble
to find answers to two questions: "One, who killed JFK? And, two, are
there UFOs?"
Of course, without history's hindsight, nobody knows
if 9/11 questions will capture the public's imagination the way those
surrounding John F. Kennedy's assassination have. And while some, like
Tucker Carlson, continue to disparagingly refer to "grassy knoll
conspiracy theories," a quick glance at this week's TV listings shows
exactly how enduring (and widely believed) such theories are.
Though ABC plans to commemorate the 40th anniversary
of JFKs assassination by "irrefutably" confirming that Lee Harvey Oswald
acted alone, other offerings include FOXs JFK: Case Not Closed,
The Discovery Channel's Unsolved History: JFK Conspiracy, Court
TVs JFK Assassination: Investigation Reopened and Cinemaxs airing
of Oliver Stones JFK. Starting Nov. 18, The History Channel is
featuring Nigel Turners The Men Who Killed Kennedy series,
offering nine hours of individual conspiracy segments over the course of
three nights. And on Sun. Nov. 23, theyll air JFK and the Grassy
Knoll, with Kennedy assassination authors Gerald Posner, Mark Lane and
David Lifton debating new evidence, which, the listing explains,
"concludes that there may have been another gunman on the grassy knoll."
Although there are at least 36 different JFK
conspiracy theories, part of the lasting allure of the Kennedy saga lies
in the fact that new information keeps bubbling to the surface. It seems
that while some fibs (like Condi Rice's assertion that nobody imagined
planes being used as weapons) are uncovered early on, others take longer
to unravel. It took nearly 40 years and a team of British forensic
scientists, for example, to conclude, with 96.3% accuracy, there was most
likely a second gunman on the grassy knoll ("Study Backs Theory of 'Grassy
Knoll,'" the Washington Post, March 25, 2001).
Postcards from the Bushy Knoll
While ex-British minister Michael Meacher has openly
wondered if 9/11 wasnt conveniently allowed to happen to pave the way for
US global domination [The Guardian], its doubtful that a majority of
Americans entertain such claims. During a May, 2003 Hardball
appearance, for example, political humorist Bill Maher reflected what
seems to be prevailing attitude towards JFK and Sept. 11 theories.
Uttering a confounded "wow" after Chris Matthews admitted, "I believe in
the single bullet theory," Maher nevertheless balked when an audience
member suggested that Bush might have purposely
[CTRL] CIA Findings Leaked to Bush (Ahmed Amr)
Title: CIA findings leaked to Bush (by Ahmed Amr) - Media Monitors Network (MMN) -Caveat Lector- The CIA leak was more proof that there is another insurgency going on right in the heart of the Beltway by the mainstream intelligence community against the Likudnik cabal that has hijacked American foreign policy. We are now witnessing the post-Plame era of the Iraqi intelligence failure saga. The dirty little secret in Washington is that there was never any intelligence failures. Solid findings by the CIA and DIA had been cherry picked by the over-zealous Israel Firsters of the war party. Their attempt to unload the disastrous results of their meddling in intelligence gathering on the CIA is now meeting stiff resistance from the Agencys rank and file. The leak was an attempt by the CIA to go on record as having fully advised the administration of their assessments. One of the most interesting things about this leak is that it was not made to the usual recipients. The Philadelphia Inquirer was first to report on the CIA findings. This was not a random choice. It indicates that the agency was snubbing the Washington Post and the New York Times. Both papers had been actively involved in the cherry picking operations of the Office of Special Plans (OSP). Judith Miller of the Times and Charles Krauthammer of the Post were for all practical matters OSP operatives who participated in the dumbing down of pre-war intelligence assessments. Moreover, the outing of Plame by Novak was done on the pages of the Washington Post. Last but not least, both papers have used their media muscle to avoid any probe of the Plame affair, the mother of all Watergates. http://usa.mediamonitors.net/content/view/full/2192/ Media Monitors Network CIA findings leaked to Bush by Ahmed Amr (Monday 17 November 2003) "The dirty little secret in Washington is that there was never any intelligence failures." In an effort to avoid another intelligence failure, the CIA recently leaked an assessment of the Iraqi insurgency to the Philadelphia Inquirer. They also leaked the motive behind the leak. Apparently, they had taken note that POTUS, the president of the United States, does not watch TV or read newspapers. The worldview of POTUS is determined by what he gets second hand from his neocon advisers. In an effort to avoid a watering down of CIA findings by these Likudnik operatives, the agency was in effect leaking their assessment to Bush. This has to be one of the more bizarre developments surrounding the myth of intelligence failures. It is a clear sign that the intelligence community wants to reach the president over the heads of his closest advisers. The agency wanted to avoid the usual filtering process by the Office of Special Plans; a rogue intelligence operation set up by Paul Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith. One way or the other, the mainstream intelligence community wanted to be certain that Bush was fully exposed to the reports of the CIA station in Baghdad. Next thing you know, Bremer was hastily summoned to the White House for a series of meetings with Bush. Americas paramount leader in Baghdad had already endorsed the CIA assessment. Bremers endorsement was also leaked to the Philadelphia Inquirer. The essence of the leaked intelligence report was that the situation in Iraq was hardly as rosy as the pronouncements from the White House. The insurgency was growing and the Iraqi resistance was becoming more popular among the average Iraqi citizen. The Iraqi Governing Council had very little public support and some of its members were not even bothering to show up for scheduled meetings. In all, the picture painted was nothing like Rummys finite dead enders who would be taken care of in mop up operations. As if to endorse the Agencys findings, even as Bremer was meeting POTUS, the Iraqis launched a devastating attack against the Italian troops in Nasseryah, deep in the supposedly secure southern zone occupied by the British. After a few days of consultation, Bremer was back in Baghdad implementing a new policy of handing over sovereignty to Iraqis at an accelerated pace. The previously scorned ideas of European allies like France and Germany were now official American policy. The CIA leak was more proof that there is another insurgency going on right in the heart of the Beltway by the mainstream intelligence community against the Likudnik cabal that has hijacked American foreign policy. We are now witnessing the post-Plame era of the Iraqi intelligence failure saga. The dirty little secret in Washington is that there was never any intelligence failures. Solid findings by the CIA and DIA had been cherry picked by the over-zealous Israel Firsters of the war party. Their attempt to unload the disastrous results of their meddling in intelligence gathering on the CIA is now meeting stiff resistance
[CTRL] Fw: Bush Visit to UK (Gordon Thomas)
-Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: GLOBE-INTEL Sent: Monday, November 17, 2003 5:11 AM Subject: BUSH VISIT TO UK BUSH VISIT TO UKbyGordon ThomasPresident Bushs visit to London designed to launch his election year-long campaign as the conqueror of Saddam is already an unprecedented public relations disaster, uniting all shades of British public opinion against the visit.* Royalists are upset that the Presidents neo-conservative religious advisers have cautioned Bush to minimise any photo opportunities with the embattled Prince Charles after the huge publicity about his private life in America.Bush and Charles looking buddy-buddy in public wont play well in the Baptist Southern States where Bush needs crucial votes to get re-elected. It would also do him no favours with the largely conservative Catholic and Jewish block votes in the United States, said an assistant to one of the Presidents key aides, Condoleeza Rice.Born in once racially segregated Birmingham, Alabama, Rice is now Bushs national security adviser.For her the bible is my pillar of my Baptist faith. I pray every day to follow the Word of the Lord. And adultery and homosexuality are not approved of in the Good Book, she once said.She attends the Presidents regular prayer meetings in the White House. Bush has never shaken off his own Bible Belt roots.His other key aides, Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defence Donald Rumsfeld are also experts at quoting Scripture.Both have also advised him he should avoid any formal meeting with Charles and Camilla Parker-Bowles.Given the huge popularity that Princess Diana still commands in this country, Camilla is seen as very much the marriage breaker, said the Rice aide.While Buckingham Palace insisted we never comment on either matters of security or the requests of the Queens personal guests, informed Royal insiders say that the monarch is understandably furious at the attitude of the Presidents advisers.In his wallet, the President carries a biblical passage evangelist Billy Graham gave him after 9/11. It is the words of the prophet Ezekiel to the Philistines: And ye shall know that I am the Lord when I shall lay my vengeance upon you.He may well feel that he needs the prophets protection as he faces the wrath of Britains anti-war demonstrators.* Taxpayers are outraged that the visit is costing $8 million all to be paid out of public funding which is badly needed to refurbish the countrys failing Health Service and public transport and road system.It is also the most expensive State visit in Britains history.Over 5,000 London police officers will guard the closed-off centre of London that houses some of Britains biggest tourist attractions: Buckingham Palace, Big Ben, the House of Parliament, Whitehall, Downing Street, the Mall and the Cenotaph.Tourist officials estimate that the loss of tourist revenue could top several million dollars.* London hospitals and their surgeons and medical staff whose skills are among the best in the world are astonished that Bush is bringing his own operating table and team (based on Air Force One). One surgeon is a specialist in gunshot wounds. Another is equipped to deal with a biological hazard.* Londons five-star chefs are amazed that the President is bringing his own five chefs to cook personally for him. They are bringing with them his favourite Texas beef (for hamburgers) and Mexican chilli.As well as the massive police presence, there are:* Over 300 MI5/MI6 agents some flown in from Middle East trouble spots specially for the occasion. Their task is to try and spot any Al-Qaeda terrorist in the crowds.The fear that bin Ladens group may try to launch an attack was reinforced earlier in the week by the arrest of an Al-Qaeda operative in Belfast, Northern Ireland.Police say papers in his possession suggest he was involved in a potential terrorist attack in London next week.* In another unprecedented move, Israel has assigned eight top Mossad agents to reinforce security at specific Jewish institutions in London during the Bush visit.But it is the presence of 650 American secret agents that has infuriated Londoners. The agents have demanded:* The names and personal details, including political affiliations, of all those who will attend Bushs planned visit to Parliament.Maverick MP George Galloway, recently sacked from the Labour Party for his support for Saddam Hussein, has called the demand disgraceful and an insult to the home of all democracy.* A similar vetting demand has been made to Buckingham Palace for the names and background of all guests who will attend the State banquet the Queen will host for Bush.US agents have also asked for the names and background of all food suppliers for the banquet.The vegetables will come from Prince Charles Highgrove Gardens. He is expected to attend the banquet.As the volume of protest grows
[CTRL] Hold the Neocons Accountable (Paul Craig Roberts)
Title: Hold the Neocons Accountable by Paul Craig Roberts -Caveat Lector- Neoconservatives have made as big a fool of the American public as they have of President Bush. The US has been tricked into waging a war that already has cost us $200 billion and the sympathy of the world, a war that disrupts the lives of tens of thousands of reserve and national guard families, kills and maims our troops and Iraqi civilians, destroys our alliances and foreign policy, and recruits terrorists for bin Laden. We went to war for false reasons. The costs are enormous. Will the perpetrators be held accountable? http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts17.html Hold the Neocons Accountable by Paul Craig Robertsby Paul Craig Roberts Will neoconservatives be held responsible for orchestrating a war in order to pursue their Middle Eastern agenda? Will they get away with inflicting death and injury on thousands of Iraqis and Americans? Powerful people have good reasons to hold the neocons accountable. Secretary of State Colin Powell is one. Deceived into lying to the United Nations when he presented the case for a preemptive US attack on Iraq, Secretary Powell was ruthlessly used by neocon administration officials.Colin Powell put his reputation on the line when he gave the UN assurances that every statement I make today is backed up by sources, solid sources. These are not assertions. What were giving you are facts and conclusions based on solid intelligence. There was not a word of truth or intelligence in what Powell told the UN. Iraq most certainly was NOT developing chemical, biological and nuclear weapons of mass destruction. Iraq was NOT involved with al Qaida and the September 11 attacks on the US. Saddam Hussein had NO weapons of mass destruction to give to terrorists. President Bush also has good reason to hold the neocons responsible. Deceived and trapped in a war of attrition that can have no successful outcome, Bushs credibility is burdened with speeches even more egregious than Powells UN speech. Fed disinformation, Bush dutifully regurgitated neocon fabrications that Iraq possessed 500 tons of chemical weapons, 25,000 liters of anthrax, 38,000 liters of botulinum toxin, 30,000 prohibited warheads, and uranium from Niger. America had to attack Iraq, Bush said, before these fearsome weapons could be used against us. Vice President Cheneys fear mongering was more extreme than Bushs. Cheney claimed that Iraq had reconstituted nuclear weapons. References to mushroom clouds over American cities made ears deaf to voices of reason. Congress has an incentive to hold the neocons accountable. Fear created by neocon lies caused Congress to emasculate itself, to give up its war powers and to agree to massive sums of money being wasted on a pointless war. The US media has good cause to hold the neocons accountable. Neocons manipulated the media and turned reporters, news networks and publications into war propagandists. Uncritical acceptance of neocon propaganda has made laughingstocks out of conservative media, such as Fox News, the Weekly Standard, National Review and the Wall Street Journal editorial page. For example, the current issue (Nov. 24) of the Weekly Standard confidently reports that a top secret U.S. government memorandum leaked to the magazine proves beyond any doubt that Osama Bin Laden and Saddam Hussein had an operational relationship from the early 1990s to 2003 that involved training in explosives and weapons of mass destruction, logistical support for terrorist attacks, al Qaeda training camps and safe haven in Iraq, and Iraqi financial support for al Qaeda perhaps even for Mohammed Atta. These improbable revelations raised no suspicions at the Weekly Standard or Fox News, which fed the story to the public without checking it out. The US Department of Defense repudiated the story in a November 15, 2003 press
[CTRL] The Inspiration for Operation Iron Hammer (G. Jefferson Price III)
Title: November's lesson of death and chaos in Iraq -Caveat Lector- Consider that Operation Iraqi Freedom, the high-minded sobriquet attached to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, was displaced by Operation Iron Hammer. Then wonder what genius in the Pentagon came up with Iron Hammer. Surely the idea did not come from the State Department. Iron Hammer sounds too much like Iron Fist, the description that successive Israeli leaders have used over the last 20 years to describe how they will deal with Palestinian and Lebanese enemies, the latter of whom drove Israel out of South Lebanon. http://www.sunspot.net/news/opinion/oped/bal-pe.column16nov16,0,2628618.story?coll=bal-oped-headlines November's lesson of death and chaos in Iraq Sponsored by By G. Jefferson Price IIIPerspective EditorNovember 16, 2003 Historians looking back upon the American experience in Iraq may well consider the events of the first two weeks of November to have been critical in determining the success or failure of Operation Iraqi Freedom. In that time, scores of Americans and their allies have been killed by Iraqi insurgents - more than 50 by Friday, including the heavy toll from an attack against an Italian police barracks far south of the so-called Sunni Triangle, 16 Americans killed when a transport helicopter was shot down Nov. 2, and six killed when another chopper was knocked down five days later. Public polling and intelligence surveys in Iraq have discovered that the average Iraqi may be pleased that Saddam Hussein is gone but clearly is not pleased that America is running Iraq. Analysis of a Gallup Poll of Iraqis finds that fewer than 10 percent of them believe that America invaded to help Iraqis, and even fewer believe that the U.S. objective was to establish a true democracy in their land. Meanwhile, the Philadelphia Inquirer got hold of a highly classified Central Intelligence Agency report warning that an increasing number of Iraqis believe that the insurgents can defeat the American-led forces, and that the majority Shiite Muslim population might join the Sunnis to achieve that objective. This assessment reportedly was signed by the CIA station chief in Baghdad and L. Paul Bremer III, leader of the Coalition Provisional Authority (CPA) in Iraq. The picture of chaos was advanced by the sudden summoning of Bremer to Washington for urgent consultations. He was sent back to Baghdad with instructions to speed up the transfer of power from the CPA to the Iraqi Governing Council (the U.S.-selected body that Iraqis regarded as dishonest dupes, according to surveys). Beginning a visit to Asia, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, a chief architect of the go-it-alone invasion approach to Iraq, was pleading for help. "We'd like assistance. We'd like troop assistance, we'd like humanitarian assistance, we'd like financial assistance," he said. Read that: Help! We want some other countries to send their troops in here to die. (Thank you, Italy, by the way. Thank you, Great Britain.) We want some other countries to help pay for the monumental cost of this. (But we'll decide who gets the reconstruction contracts.) Then this: After the death of six Americans in the downing of a Chinook helicopter, the American military command decided to launch a heightened offensive against the insurgents. The Pentagon said this offensive would be code-named "Operation Iron Hammer." Set aside for a moment word that the first prominent strike of Iron Hammer was a warehouse on the outskirts of Baghdad where Iraqis were warned in advance of the attack and where nothing of significance was destroyed or found. Consider that Operation Iraqi Freedom, the high-minded sobriquet attached to the invasion and occupation of Iraq, was displaced by Operation Iron Hammer. Then wonder what genius in the Pentagon came up with Iron Hammer. Surely the idea did not come from the State Department. Iron Hammer sounds too much like Iron Fist, the description that successive Israeli leaders have used over the last 20 years to describe how they will deal with Palestinian and Lebanese enemies, the latter of whom drove Israel out of South Lebanon. In Baghdad, Lt. Gen. Ricardo Sanchez actually used the word "war"' to describe what is going on in Iraq. The Bush administration does not like that word because war involves "major combat," which the president proclaimed was over six months and more than 260 American lives ago. "We are not walking away, we are not faltering, we are going to win this battle, and this war," said Sanchez. The definition of the battle and the war may change again before either is won in the way that Sanchez has in mind. For the greatest fear in Washington and elsewhere - especially among America's friends - is not the war; it's the "walking away." When George Bush
[CTRL] A Truly Foolish Adventure (Robert Manne)
Title: A truly foolish adventure - www.theage.com.au -Caveat Lector- As things stand, the coalition must now choose in Iraq between two different kinds of disaster. If their troops stay the course, they seem certain to face increasing popular hostility and military threat. If they depart relatively soon, Iraq will almost certainly descend into chaos of a fearful kind. To remain will be terrible; to leave probably worse. In my years of observing Western foreign policy, I have never witnessed a more foolish adventure than the Anglo-American invasion of Iraq. http://www.theage.com.au/articles/2003/11/16/1068917668650.html A truly foolish adventure November 17, 2003 The Iraq invasion has proved a gigantic disaster by almost every measure. Seven months ago, neoconservative supporters of the war on Iraq proclaimed a stunning victory. Now, as the military situation in that country deteriorates, it is time to attempt a balance sheet on the progress of the invasion and occupation thus far. Concerning the justification for the invasion, overwhelmingly the most important fact is the failure to find even one "weapon of mass destruction". Oddly enough, it is now obvious that Iraq's oft-repeated pre-war claim - that it did not possess WMDs - was true. One of the most important questions the Anglophone democracies must now face is how and why their citizens were so comprehensively misled. At present, best evidence suggests the near-total politicisation of the intelligence process by a Washington pro-war cabal, whose leader was US Vice-President Dick Cheney. It is now known that this cabal created its own intelligence unit, the Office of Special Plans; that stale or worthless intelligence, supplied either by carpetbaggers or Iraqi exiles, was re-analysed to get the required results; that the pro-war group overrode the more cautious judgements of intelligence professionals; and that, in the end, they convinced not only President George Bush but even more intelligent people, such as the Secretary of State, Colin Powell, of the deadly danger of Saddam Hussein's vast WMD arsenal. What has been the human cost of the invasion? The most authoritative estimate of Iraqi civilian war deaths puts the figure at between 7376 and 9178. Since the formal end of hostilities a further 2200 or so Iraqi civilians have died at coalition hands. Strangely enough, no one knows, even approximately, how many Iraqi soldiers were killed. The humanitarian group Medact recently suggested that the number might be as low as 13,500 or as high as 45,000. What is truly astonishing is how little the US military knows about the enemy. It does not know whether or not Saddam is involved. Coalition casualties are precisely known. More than 400 soldiers have died. Recently, the Pentagon revealed that 9000 US soldiers had been evacuated as a result of serious injury or illness, 2000 because of war wounds, 500 because of psychiatric breakdown. What, then, beyond their casualties, have the Iraqi people experienced since the invasion? According to US occupation authorities, supplies of electricity and clean water have now finally reached their (dismal) pre-invasion levels. Urban Iraq faces massive unemployment. According to one common figure, 60 per cent of young men in Baghdad have no work. Health problems of Iraqis seem even worse than before the invasion; that is, after a decade of crippling economic sanctions. These problems are overshadowed in the daily life of urban Iraqis by something quite new. Before the invasion Saddam Hussein set free 100,000 hardened criminals. The occupying powers subsequently dismantled Iraq's army and most of its police. Iraq is awash with weapons. The consequence of all this is the near-total breakdown of law and order. In a recent Gallup poll, 94 per cent of Iraqis said they felt more insecure now than under Saddam; 86 per cent said they or their families felt fearful about leaving their homes at night. An enterprising American journalist, Jerry Fleischmann, visited the Baghdad morgue in September. He discovered that while before the invasion the morgue investigated 20 firearms deaths a month, in August 2003 it investigated 581. A British journalist, Suzanne Goldenberg, recently examined the post- invasion situation of women in Baghdad. She heard story after story of vicious assault and rape. "Under US occupation," she concluded, "working women have reordered their lives, wearing hijab for the first time, or travelling with male relatives. Some barely venture out at all." Through opinion polls we now know a great deal about what the people of Iraq think of the invasion of their country. According to the recent Gallup poll, 43 per cent believe America invaded to "rob Iraq's oil"; 37 per cent to get rid of Saddam Hussein; 6 per cent to change the Middle East in the interest of Israel; 5 per cent
[CTRL] Fw: Bremer Chokes and Announces His Own Departure
Title: MER - www.MiddleEast.org - Mid-East Realities -Caveat Lector- - Original Message - From: MER - Mid-East Realities - MiddleEast.Org To: mer Sent: Sunday, November 16, 2003 3:57 PM Subject: Bremer Chokes and Announces His Own Departure News, Views, and Analysis Governments, Lobbies, and the Corporate Media Don't Want You To Know MER |www.MiddleEast.Org [EMAIL PROTECTED] (202) 362-5266 16 November 2003 Expert Exclusive Insights, Information, and Analysis Available Nowhere Else To receive MER free and easy email [EMAIL PROTECTED] with subject SUBSCRIBE READER'S COMMENT :Dear Mark: Ican not thank you enough for your commitment and innovative ideas, I had been a regular visitor of MER site and always appreciated what you are doing and hope to be of help. Ambassador F. Mehdawi Rresident ambassador of Palestine to Tanzania BREMER CHOKES AND ANNOUNCES HIS OWN DEPARTURE Even before Bremer was recalled to Washington and theevents of the past week, MER published on 9 November that 'Bremer will also be jettisoned' (see below). NEWSFLASH - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 16 November 2003: Paul Bremer, American-installed ruler of Iraq, has announced his own departure. It was all phrased in convoluted and dupliticous language of course, but the reality is that the Bush Administration is strategically floundering and what Bremer told U.S. Sunday talk-shows -- "The American occupation is to end by June but the American presence is to continue" -- attempted to mask a major policy change in Washington. Asked specifically for the first time if this meant he would be leaving Iraq definitely by June Bremer responded, in a low-key uncharacteristic way, "yes" . The realities are that Bremer was urgently called back to Washington just a few days ago where he was told he was failing and was going to be out. About the same time a 'top secret' CIA analysis was somehow leaked warning that the US now risked losing in Iraq. Thus the reasons for Washington's abrupt shift are largely political at this point in time. The Bushies want to be sure their man can claim 'progress' in Iraq by next summer before the election no matter what. Bremer was told to go back to Baghdad, to shake-up the American-chosen-installed Governing Council, to change the focus from real elections and a new Constitution to chosen representatives and an 'interim Constitution', and to proclaim a return to 'Iraq sovereignty' sooner rather than later. Oh yes, there is to be a little 'side- agreement', according to Bremer, between the American-chosen-installed Governing Council and the U.S. that American troops (and corporations) will stay. Sovereignty will be proclaimed in words, denied in reality -- the Americans are getting good at this kind of thing with practice now in so many places around the world including Occupied Palestine with all the talk of a 'Palestinian State' that is in reality will certainly not be anything of the sort. Wearing the red-white-and blue -- blue shirt, red and white striped tie -- Bremer was told to rush his announcement by appearing on a number of the network Sunday talk-shows. He was not his usually combative and assertive self. He was doing what he had been told in Washington he must -- announce his own departure no later than next June. But who knows...Washington is indeed strategically floundering and June is a very long time to go with the US troops dying and bleeding at an escalating pace and public awareness growing about how American multi-billions are flowing from Congress to Baghdad and then into the pockets of US corporate titans closely linked to top players in the Bush regime. Meanwhile...the region is being prepared for still greater warfare as the Pentagon/neo-con/Israeli 5-year plan to regime change at least seven countries proceeds (with Pakistan and Saudi Arabia not even on that list). Of course...this all depends on Cheney, Rummie, Wolfowitz, Feith, Abrams and their dozens of senior operatives retaining power in the election now less than a year away. Among other things they may be counting on some new 9/11 taking place so they can rally the country behind their crusade one more time come what may. Published by MER on 9 November: U.S. COUNCIL Dumps Turks,U.S. Bremer Threatens to Dump COUNCIL,Pentagon Wants to Dump Bremer MID-EAST REALITIES - MER -
[CTRL] Bush Says U.S. Would Wage War Again to Make World Safe
Title: Yahoo! News - Bush Says U.S. Would Wage War Again to Make World Safe -Caveat Lector- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storyu=/nm/20031117/ts_nm/britain_bush_dc_1 Bush Says U.S. Would Wage War Again to Make World SafeNovember 17, 2003 LONDON (Reuters) - The United States would wage war again, and alone if necessary, to ensure the long-term safety of the world, President Bush (news - web sites) said in an interview published Monday. Bush told Britain's leading tabloid newspaper, the Sun, on the eve of a state visit that he felt compelled to act following the September 11, 2001 attacks in New York and Washington. "I was at Ground Zero after the attacks," he said. "I remember this haze and the smells and the death and destruction. I'll always remember that. "I made up my mind right then. We were at war and we were going to win the war. And I still feel that determination today." The paper quoted Bush as saying U.S. forces and their coalition allies had ended the tyranny of Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) in Iraq (news - web sites), smashed the grip of Osama bin Laden (news - web sites)'s al Qaeda network in Afghanistan (news - web sites) and forced the United Nations (news - web sites) to stop turning its back on terror. The mass-selling Sun newspaper, best known for its semi-naked Page Three girls, is owned by tycoon Rupert Murdoch's News Corp., the most influential media empire in Britain. Bush's choice to grant it an interview raised eyebrows among American journalists, who questioned its suitability for a president who has publicly embraced evangelical Protestantism. "After coming to office with a vow to restore dignity to the White House, the president... granted an exclusive interview to a British tabloid that features daily photographs of nude women," the Washington Post said in an article on its Web site. The Post said the president had gone "down market" and pointed out that he had not given an exclusive interview to many of the U.S. national newspapers this year. UNPOPULAR IN BRITAIN Bush, unpopular in Britain following the U.S.-led war on Iraq, arrives Tuesday for a visit that includes meetings with Queen Elizabeth and British Prime Minister Tony Blair (news - web sites), his closest wartime ally. In another interview with a British newspaper, influential Pentagon (news - web sites) adviser Richard Perle echoed Bush's comments, saying the possibility of future conflicts could not be ruled out. "Of course he (Bush) is going to stick with that principle, because it is fundamental to fighting and winning the war against terror," Perle, one of the architects of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, told the Daily Telegraph. "So, does this entail a risk we will find ourselves in conflict... with other governments? Sure, it does." While in Britain, Bush will stay at the queen's London residence, Buckingham Palace, visit Blair's northern English constituency and talk to relatives of British soldiers killed in Iraq. Thousands plan to demonstrate against Bush, whose decision to invade Iraq was opposed by a majority of Britons, even though it was backed by the government. In a YouGov poll for London's Sunday Times newspaper Bush was branded a threat to world peace by 60 percent of those questioned, while 37 percent said Bush was "stupid." Blair's ratings have plunged since the Iraq war and the failure to find weapons of mass destruction -- the government's main justification for launching the military campaign -- but Bush said the decision to go to war should not be judged on short-term results. "I set big goals," he said. "I know what we're doing is going to have a positive effect on this world." 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]/ 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
[CTRL] 4 Israeli Ex-Security Chiefs Denounce Sharon's Hard Line
Title: 4 Israeli Ex-Security Chiefs Denounce Sharons Hard Line -Caveat Lector- http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/15/international/middleeast/15MIDE.html?th=pagewanted=printposition= November 15, 2003 4 Israeli Ex-Security Chiefs Denounce Sharon's Hard LineBy GREG MYRE ERUSALEM, Nov. 14 In a joint interview published Friday, four former heads of the Shin Bet security service delivered a blistering collective criticism of Israel's tough military policies toward the Palestinians, saying Israel urgently needed a political solution to the Middle East conflict. "We are taking sure, steady steps to a place where the state of Israel will no longer be a democracy and a home for the Jewish people," said Ami Ayalon, the Shin Bet chief from 1996 to 2000. Israel's largest circulation daily, Yediot Ahronot, splashed a huge front-page headline over the interview with the ex-chiefs of Shin Bet, or the General Security Service. "Four directors of G.S.S. warn: Israel in grave danger," read the headline above photos of the four, who ran the agency for nearly two decades. Interviewed, besides Mr. Ayalon, were Carmi Gilon, Yaakov Perry and Avraham Shalom. The blunt critique of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policies was the latest in a series by security officials and soldiers, current and former, questioning Israel's strategy in its battle against the three-year-old Palestinian uprising. Last month, the army chief of staff, Lt. Gen. Moshe Yaalon, said the network of restrictions placed on the Palestinian population had proved counterproductive, breeding greater militancy. Mr. Sharon, a former general, has relied heavily on the military, and has insisted that Palestinian violence cease before the two sides can restart negotiations toward a settlement. Granting concessions during the fighting would be "rewarding terrorism," he has often said. A solid majority of Israelis has backed his aggressive military approach, according to polls. Mr. Sharon, Israel's most prominent hawk, has won two landslide elections, in March 2001 and in January of this year. But the army has not been able to halt attacks, prompting some calls for a greater emphasis on diplomacy. Mr. Sharon is currently considering whether to hold talks with the recently installed Palestinian prime minister, Ahmed Qurei. The former security chiefs said the government was focused almost entirely on military solutions, at the expense of finding ways to reach a permanent peace deal. "It is dealing solely with the question of how to prevent the next terrorist attack," said Mr. Gilon, the Shin Bet chief during the mid-1990's, in the interview. Israeli leaders are not addressing "the question of how we get out of the mess we find ourselves in today." The former security chiefs hold no important posts at present. But their views are generally respected, based on their years of firsthand experience in dealing with Palestinians, in particular the militant groups. Mr. Sharon's government did not respond to the criticism. But a former Israeli president, Ezer Weizman, told Israeli television: "This really makes me furious. We have a country that is in a very delicate situation." Mr. Ayalon is the only one of the four men who has sought to maintain a high public profile recently. He joined forces with a leading Palestinian moderate, Sari Nusseibeh, to campaign for a swift resumption of negotiations with the aim of reaching a permanent peace deal and creating a Palestinian state. "Many Israelis thought we could defeat the Palestinians by military means, and this would solve our problems," Mr. Ayalon said Friday in a separate interview. "But this hasn't worked. Our economy is deteriorating and we have to change directions." The former security chiefs also said that peace plans calling for gradual steps were likely to fail. Neither the Israelis nor the Palestinians are prepared to take a major risk that could break the current stalemate unless they can expect a major reward, they said. The Palestinian leadership is unlikely to crack down on violent factions, risking a civil war, without a guarantee that a viable Palestinian state will emerge, Mr. Ayalon said. In turn, he said, Israel was unlikely to uproot settlements in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip unless it believed that the Palestinians were sincere about ending the conflict. The former Shin Bet chiefs also said that any peace deal would require Israel to abandon most of its nearly 150 settlements, where
[CTRL] Rumsfeld's Propaganda Ministry (James Ridgeway)
Title: The Village Voice: Nation: Mondo Washington: Rumsfeld's Propaganda Ministry by James Ridgeway -Caveat Lector- http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0347/mondo6.php Mondo Washingtonby James RidgewayRumsfeld's Propaganda MinistryThe Pentagon's Ever-Changing War StoriesNovember 14th, 2003 10:30 AM WASHINGTON, D.C.As the other countries of the world try to wiggle out of their commitments to the "coalition" that seeks to liberate Iraq, the Rummy ship of state keeps on going. Brushing aside suggestions that he resign, the Secretary of Defense, like any war lord, instead reaches for more power over his fiefdom. The immediate case is the right to overhaul work rules covering 746,000 civilian employees of the Pentagon. Congress meekly complied so that Rummy might better organize and administer the workforce to fight terrorists. Now, in the process of fighting the war on terror, Rumsfeld can use the new system to limit workers' rights to collective bargaining. "By giving the Secretary of Defense the authority to decide who reviews disputes, the issues to be reviewed, and the standard of review, this bill appears to hand one party the final say on all labor and management issues," said Senator Daniel Akaka, the Hawaii Democrat, during the debate. "This language is inconsistent with the concept of good-faith bargaining between equals." Meanwhile, in Washington Rummy has transformed himself from corporate henchman to a crusty old guy who can say anything any time with few repercussions. Last year he wanted to set up a special propaganda bureau called the Office of Strategic Influence, but he had to close it down amid reports it was putting out false information in an effort to sway public opinion. In late October he told The Washington Times he wants a "21st-century information agency in the government" to help fight a "war of ideas." Office or no office, Rumsfeld goes forward. Take for example a deal inked recently between 18 local stations and the Pentagon. According to The Washington Post, Rumsfeld plans to "blitz" the country with individual interviews on stations from Boston to Seattle over a three-week periodprovided that each station also agree to air interviews with Rumsfeld's underlings at the Pentagon, such as Paul Wolfowitz, Occupation Chief Paul Bremer, and General John Abizaid, who runs the Central Command. The right-wing pols just adore Rummy. "I wish you could be in the den of our home sometime when Don Rumsfeld is being interviewed by the press, how he can handle it," Jesse Helms told the crowd in Greensboro, North Carolina, last month at the opening of a building named in the former Senator's honor. "He makes . . . a lot of them regret that they asked the question the way they did. [Laughter.] . . . There is no spin with this gentleman. He tells the truth. He always calls it as he sees it. And America is lucky to have him serving at such a critical time." When it comes to the war, with or without the 21st-century bureau of propaganda, Rumsfeld's Pentagon says one thing one day and something else the next. Take the case of the so-called foreign fighters who the Pentagon has been insisting are staging the guerrilla attacks in the Sunni triangle. Last month Rumsfeld and the Pentagon spinsters were saying the guerrillas were foreign terrorists who had infiltrated Iraq from places like Syria, and were indeed members of the same groups fighting the Israelis. "Asked where those conducting the attacks are coming from," The Washington Times reported in late October, "Mr. Rumsfeld said one suspected terrorist arrested in the last 48 hours claimed to be Syrian. 'I think he was probably a Yemeni,' Mr. Rumsfeld said, adding that between 200 and 300 non-Iraqis have been arrested in Iraq 'and the high percentage were from Syria and Lebanon." But on November 13 The Washington Post reported that intelligence officers in Iraq think the guerrillas are not from outside the country, but Iraqis. The Post writes, "Earlier this week Army Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez said that only "probably a couple hundred" fighters have come from Syria, Egypt, Yemen, Sudan, and other countries in the region." So, in late October the 200-300 fighters were cited as evidence of the foreign terrorists at work in Iraq, while in early November the 200-300 foreigners are evidence of how small the foreign influence appears to be. What endears Rummy to the press is the way he calmly sails ahead. Consider this exchange at a recent press conference: Q: Mr. Secretary? Rumsfeld: Yeah. Q: At the same time, Mr. Secretary, your Deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, was there last week at the Al Rashid Hotel and there was an attack and, in fact, one American officer was killed. Mr. Wolfowitz was shaken up. Isn't that evidence that in fact things are not as peaceful there as sometimes you would like to see them portrayed? Rumsfeld: It seems to me that doesn't really follow. The fact
[CTRL] Lockheed Martin and Israel
Title: Lockheed Martin, Israel Air Force Celebrate Inauguration of Newest F-16 Jet Fighter -Caveat Lector- Apparently from the standpoint of certain sectors of the American military-industrial complex, Israel's conflicts with its neighbors are an excellent opportunity to transfer wealth from American taxpayers into their coffers. Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, Halliburton, Bechtel and similar companies have a strong financial interest in stirring up and exploiting conflict and violence in the Mideast and the rest of the world. http://biz.yahoo.com/prnews/031114/daf026_1.html Press Release Source: Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company Lockheed Martin, Israel Air Force Celebrate Inauguration of Newest F-16 Jet FighterFriday November 14, 12:00 pm ET FORT WORTH, Texas, Nov. 14 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ -- Lockheed Martin (NYSE: LMT - News) and the Israel Air Force (IAF) celebrated its first F-16I aircraft of a new purchase program in ceremonies today. This F-16 acquisition is the fifth for the nation of Israel. Shaul Mofaz, Israel's Minister of Defense, accepted the aircraft on behalf of his nation. "This is a key moment in our national defense history," Mofaz said. "The F-16I's strong characteristics elevate our air force to a new level of capability. This acquisition not only enhances our military strength but contributes to our nation through significant industrial cooperation." Lockheed Martin was represented by Dr. Vance Coffman, chairman and chief executive officer of Lockheed Martin Corp.; Dain M. Hancock, executive vice president of Lockheed Martin Corp., and president of Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company, and John Bean, vice president of F-16 programs. "We are proud to provide the IAF with the hallmark of their arsenal of modern fighter aircraft," Bean said. "This program illustrates the strong bond between Lockheed Martin and Israel; we hope to strengthen that relationship through our continuing commitment to this program." This purchase program, called Peace Marble V, contains 102 two-seat aircraft and is the largest Israeli acquisition yet, raising the total number of IAF F-16s to 362. Among Lockheed Martin's 24 F-16 customers, Israel's Fighting Falcon fleet is second in number only to the United States Air Force. The program also involves a large military industrial cooperation program, providing $1.5 billion in offsets directly contributing to Israeli industry. The F-16I is specially designed for Israel. Named the "Soufa," or "storm" in Hebrew by the IAF, it will provide a key element of Israel's defense posture. It will incorporate the latest technology and capabilities in an air combat fighter, such as modern core avionics, color cockpits featuring moving maps, conformal fuel tanks and advanced electronic warfare displays. The APG- 68(V)9 multimode radar includes Synthetic Aperture Radar ground mapping capability. The F-16I is powered by the Pratt and Whitney F100 Improved Performance Engine, with the capability to carry 52,000 lbs. in takeoff gross weight, the most ever for an F-16. It incorporates a dorsal equipment compartment and a fully missionized rear cockpit. Along with hosting the latest in electronic countermeasures equipment, the F-16I will be compatible with a wide variety of stores including day/night navigation and targeting pods, advanced air-to-air missiles, and precision "smart" weapons. The F-16 is the choice of 24 countries. More than 4,000 aircraft have been delivered worldwide from assembly lines in five countries. The F-16 program recently marked 25 years of continuous production deliveries and has forged relationships leading to unprecedented international cooperation, including the participation of Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI), Elbit, and other Israeli industrial partnerships. Hundreds more aircraft are on order, and production is expected to continue beyond 2010. Major upgrades for all F-16 versions are being incorporated to keep the fleet modern and fully supportable over the aircraft's long service life. Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Co., a business area of Lockheed Martin, is a leader in the design, development, systems integration, production and support of advanced military aircraft and related technologies. Its customers include the military services of the United States and allied countries throughout the world. Products include the F-16, F/A-22, F-35 JSF, F-117, T-50, C-5, C-130, C-130J, P-3, S-3 and U-2. Headquartered in Bethesda, Maryland, Lockheed Martin employs about 125,000 people worldwide and is principally engaged in the research, design, development, manufacture and integration of advanced technology systems, products and services. The Corporation reported 2002 sales of $26.6 billion. For additional information, visit our website: http://www.lockheedmartin.com
[CTRL] CIA Says Experts See 'Darker Bioweapons Future'
Title: Yahoo! News - CIA Says Experts See 'Darker Bioweapons Future' -Caveat Lector- http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=storycid=570ncid=753e=3u=/nm/20031114/sc_nm/security_bioweapons_dc Science - Reuters CIA Says Experts See 'Darker Bioweapons Future' Fri Nov 14, 5:11 PM ET Add Science - Reuters to My Yahoo! By Tabassum Zakaria WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A panel of outside experts told the CIA (news - web sites) that advances in technology due to genomic research could produce the worst known diseases and the "most frightening" biological weapons, a CIA report said on Friday. "The effects of some of these engineered biological agents could be worse than any disease known to man," the panel told the CIA. The unclassified two-page CIA report dated Nov. 3, 2003, and titled "The Darker Bioweapons Future," was posted on the Federation of American Scientists Web site at http:/www.fas.org/irp/cia/product/bw1103.pdf. It summed up a January workshop of a panel of non-government science experts who discussed with the CIA the potential threat from new biological weapons. Growth in biotechnology and a knowledge explosion due to the genomic revolution which provided an understanding of genes and how they work could be used in unpredictable ways, the panel warned. "The same science that may cure some of our worst diseases could be used to create the world's most frightening weapons," the report said. In the next decade or beyond, some of the unconventional pathogens that could arise included binary biological warfare agents that only become effective when two components are combined, such as a mild pathogen and its antidote, the panel of experts said. There could be development of "designer" biological warfare agents created to be antibiotic-resistant or evade an immune response, weaponized gene therapy vectors that cause permanent change in the victim's genetic makeup, or a "stealth" virus which could lie dormant inside the victim for an extended period before being triggered, the report said. STEALTH VIRUS ATTACK One panelist gave as an example the possibility of a stealth virus attack that could cripple a large portion of people in their forties with severe arthritis, leaving a country with massive health and economic problems. "The resulting diversity of new BW (biological warfare) agents could enable such a broad range of attack scenarios that it would be virtually impossible to anticipate and defend against," the report said. "As a result, there could be a considerable lag time in developing effective biodefense measures." Traditional intelligence methods for monitoring development of weapons of mass destruction "could prove inadequate" in dealing with the threat from advanced biological weapons, the report said. Detecting the development of novel bioengineered pathogens will increasingly depend on human intelligence and require a closer working relationship between the intelligence and biological sciences community, the report said. One panelist proposed that the bioscience community help government by acting as a "living sensor web" at international conferences, in university labs and through informal networks, to identify and alert about new technical advances with weaponization potential, the report said. "The quality of intelligence can only improve from the rough and tumble of peer review and outside input," said Steven Aftergood, director of the government secrecy project at the Federation of American Scientists. "In the past, CIA has been completely insular, they have been unwilling to engage with outside experts," he said, "and so this is a welcome departure from that norm." 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
[CTRL] Antiwar Backlash Batters Bush (Jim Lobe)
Title: Antiwar Backlash Batters Bush, by Jim Lobe -Caveat Lector- Raising questions about Bush's neocon-directed Iraq War is as American as apple pie... http://www.antiwar.com/ips/lobe111403.html Antiwar Backlash Batters Bushby Jim LobeNovember 14, 2003 Popular doubts about President George W. Bush's credibility and his justification for going to war in Iraq are on the rise, according to a new survey conducted by the University of Maryland's Program on International Policy Attitudes (PIPA). The survey of a random sample of more than 1,000 voters, which echoes the results of other recent national polls, found that 55 percent of respondents believed the administration went to war on the basis of incorrect assumptions, particularly the notion that Iraq posed an imminent threat to the United States or its allies. And despite subsequent denials by senior administration officials, an overwhelming 87 percent of the public felt that the administration before the war portrayed Iraq as an imminent threat. While 42 percent believed that the administration did have the evidence to justify such a depiction, a strong majority of 58 percent said that it did not. This disparity, according to PIPA, which conducted the survey between Oct. 31 and Nov. 10, has translated into major questions about the president's personal veracity and credibility. Only 42 percent of those polled said they believed that Bush was "honest and frank," while 56 percent said they had doubts about the things he says. Moreover, 72 percent (up from 63 percent in July) said that when the administration presented evidence of Iraqi weapons of mass destruction (WMD) one of its two major prewar reasons for attacking Iraq it was either presenting evidence it knew was false (21 percent) or "stretching the truth" (51 percent), according to the survey. That represents a sharp rise in public skepticism about the war's justifications from five months ago. Last June, 39 percent of respondents said they thought the administration was being truthful in its prewar assertions about the threat posed by Baghdad. That percentage has now fallen to 25 percent. And the 21 percent who now believe the administration was, in effect, lying in its claims about Iraqi WMD is more than double the 10 percent who told pollsters that five months ago. These changes are particularly significant for Bush's reelection prospects, according to PIPA's director, Stephen Kull, who noted that trust in the credibility of candidates is one of the most reliable indicators of voting behavior in the United States, even higher than party affiliation. Indeed, those who said they believed the president was being truthful about the prewar situation were 11 times more likely to say they intended to vote for Bush next year than those who expressed doubts. Kull also told the media that the decline in Bush's credibility might be the single most important factor in a sharp rise in the number of voters who say the president's handling of Iraq has made them less likely to vote for him in the November 2004 presidential elections. As recently as two months ago, a plurality of 35 percent of respondents said Bush's performance on Iraq would make them more likely to vote for him, as opposed to 31 percent who said it would not affect their vote either way, and 30 percent who said it would make them less likely to back him. While the same percentage of voters (35 percent) insists his performance in Iraq will still incline them to vote for Bush, 42 percent now say they are less likely to vote for him for that reason. "For the first time, the president's handling of Iraq has shifted from a net positive to a net negative for his electoral prospects," said Kull. While the increasingly violent resistance to the US occupation in Iraq was a factor, he added, the fact that more people believe the administration lied or was "stretching the truth" about the reasons for going to war was the main reason for the rise in the "less likely" category, he added. Echoing the findings of most prewar polls, which, until immediately before the war, showed that majorities of the public favored giving United Nations arms experts more time and seeking more international support before invading Iraq, the new survey finds that Americans have returned to their prewar views. A majority of 61 percent said the administration should have taken more time to find out
[CTRL] Let us honor our heroes, not hide them (Bill Press)
Title: WorldNetDaily: Let us honor our heroes, not hide them -Caveat Lector- Rising opposition against the Bush War all across the political spectrum, on the left, middle and right... The last people Americans want to hear from now are deranged Aussies accusing them of being "anti-American" for raising questions about how George W. Bush has handled the Iraq War. http://worldnetdaily.com/news/printer-friendly.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35598 This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=35598 Friday, November 14, 2003 Let us honor our heroes, not hide them Posted: November 14, 20031:00 a.m. Eastern By Bill Press ©2003Tribune Media Services, Inc. When it comes to the brave men and women who lost their lives in Iraq, President Bush has adopted a strange policy: What you don't see, doesn't exist. Under the newly promulgated Bush edict, for the first time in modern warfare, TV crews are prohibited from filming flag-draped coffins of American casualties coming home from Iraq. No cameras at their transfer point, Ramstein Air Base in Germany. None at their first stop in the United States, Delaware's Dover Air Force Base. The ban on cameras, the White House piously insists, is enforced out of respect for the victims' families. Those families who lost a son or daughter in Iraq have already suffered enough, says press secretary Scott McClellan. They shouldn't have to suffer the insensitivity of seeing their soldier's coffin on national television. How sweet and how phony. There's only one reason President Bush doesn't want videos of dead soldiers coming back from Iraq: To hide the truth from the American people. As of this writing, 400 American troops have sacrificed their lives in the Iraq war 261 since the president declared "Mission Accomplished" on May 1. Forty, so far, have been killed this month alone. As long as we don't see their coffins, the president apparently believes, maybe we'll forget about them. He's wrong. We won't forget their sacrifice. We won't forget their bravery under fire. And we won't forget how many young Americans never came home from a war that, to this day, President Bush is still trying to find a reason for just like he's still trying to find weapons of mass destruction, yellow-cake uranium, long-range missiles, bomb-carrying drones, Osama bin Laden and Saddam Hussein. The White House has it backward. The purpose of broadcasting videotape of flag-draped coffins coming home to the United States is not to show disrespect for our slain soldiers. It's to honor them. The same way we welcomed home, and honored, those who gave their lives in Vietnam, Desert Storm or Afghanistan. No one tried to hide those coffins. Nor was there any media blackout at Ground Zero. Who can ever forget that emotional scene, every time a fallen first responder was found beneath the rubble? A whistle blew. All activity ceased. Workers lined up and saluted as uniformed police or firemen carried the flag-draped body of their comrade through the debris to a waiting ambulance. Last month, cable networks broadcast an equally moving ceremony when the body of a firefighter killed in the San Diego brush fire was put aboard a plane for burial in Northern California. What was true for Desert Storm, Ground Zero and the California brush fires is true for the war in Iraq. Then, as now, seeing the homecoming coffins of those killed in action is a solemn reminder for all of us to give thanks to those in uniform, mourn our losses and pray for the victims and their families. President Bush doesn't want pictures of flag-draped coffins on television for the same reason he has yet to attend the funeral of one American soldier killed in Iraq. He doesn't want to be seen standing next to a coffin. It might remind people of what's really going on in Iraq: American troops dying every day, because there's no postwar strategy, not enough troops and no plan for getting out. Sure, the president expressed sympathy for the families of those 16 Americans killed when their Chinook helicopter was shot down. He did so at a fund-raiser in Alabama. He also mourned the loss of six Americans killed in the Blackhawk helicopter crash. At still another fund-raiser, in Tennessee. As Don Imus observed on Nov. 10: "You got him running around the country raising $200 million, while these kids are dying." Isn't it sad that a
[CTRL] The 911 Coverup Continues
Title: Deal on 9/11 Briefings Lets White House Edit Papers -Caveat Lector- http://www.rcn.com/internet/news-tips/index.html November 14, 2003 Deal on 9/11 Briefings Lets White House Edit PapersBy PHILIP SHENON ASHINGTON, Nov. 13 The commission investigating the Sept. 11 terror attacks said on Thursday that its deal with the White House for access to highly classified Oval Office intelligence reports would let the White House edit the documents before they were released to the commission's representatives. The agreement, announced on Wednesday, has led to the first public split on the commission. Two Democrats on the 10-member panel say that the commission should have demanded full access to the intelligence summaries, known as the President's Daily Brief, and that the White House should not be allowed to determine what is relevant to the investigation. An umbrella group of victims' families joined the criticism, saying the terms of the accord should be public. While spokesmen for panel refused again to provide the terms, citing the sensitivity of the talks with the White House, its executive director acknowledged that the White House would be able to remove information from the reports unrelated to Al Qaeda and to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. "An entire P.D.B. will have articles about China, South Africa, Venezuela," the executive director, Philip D. Zelikow, said in an interview. "The notion that the commission should want to read P.D.B. articles that have nothing to do with Al Qaeda would be a novel suggestion. The commission has not asked to see the country's most sensitive intelligence information on China or North Korea." A Democrat on the panel who has criticized the accord, former Representative Timothy J. Roemer of Indiana, said in an interview that he believed that the panel had agreed to terms that would let the White House edit the reports to remove the contexts in which the intelligence was presented and to hide any "smoking guns." "The President's Daily Brief can run 9 to 12 pages long," Mr. Roemer said. "But under this agreement, the commission will be allowed to see only specific articles or paragraphs within the P.D.B.'s. Our members may see only two or three paragraphs out of a nine-page report." He said the commission should have insisted on access to the full reports, because "you need the context of how the P.D.B. was presented to the president in order to determine whether or not there were smoking guns." The other Democratic critic on the panel, former Senator Max Cleland of Georgia, has described the agreement as unconscionable. Administration officials have acknowledged that they are concerned that intelligence reports received by Mr. Bush in the weeks before 9/11 might be construed to suggest that the White House failed to respond to evidence suggesting that Al Qaeda was planning a catastrophic attack. The White House acknowledged last year in response to news reports that a copy of the Daily Brief in August 2001 noted that Al Qaeda might use hijacked planes in an attack. Commission officials have said that under the agreement the panel will be able to designate four members to read the reports. They will be allowed to take notes on the documents, and the White House will be allowed to review and edit the notes to remove especially sensitive information. In its statement, the victims' family group, the Family Steering Committee, said the agreement would "prevent a full uncovering of the truth and is unacceptable." The group is led by many advocates who were most responsible for pressuring Congress to create the commission last year over the initial objections of the White House. "As it now stands, a limited number of commissioners will have restricted access to a limited number of P.D.B. documents," the group said. "The commission should issue a statement to the American public fully explaining why this agreement was chosen in lieu of issuing subpoenas to the C.I.A. and executive branch." The group said, "All 10 commissioners should have full, unfettered and unrestricted access to all evidence, including but not limited to all Presidential Daily Briefings." A spokesman for the group, Kristen Breitweiser, whose husband, Ronald, was killed at the World Trade Center, said the families were alarmed that the terms of the accord were kept secret. `'I think this entire deal needs to be explained to the public," Ms. Breitweiser said. "This is an independent
[CTRL] How Bush betrayed Blair (Sidney Blumenthal)
Title: Salon.com | How Bush betrayed Blair -Caveat Lector- More evidence of Israeli control over Bush foreign policy: In the internal struggle over peace in the Middle East, the neoconservatives within the administration prevailed. Elliott Abrams, chief of Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, was their point man. During the Iran-contra scandal of the Reagan presidency, Abrams was a player in setting up a rogue foreign policy operation as the assistant secretary of state for Latin America. His solicitation of $10 million from the sultan of Brunei for the illegal enterprise turned farcical when he transposed numbers on a Swiss bank account and lost the money. He wound up pleading guilty to lying to the Congress and was eventually pardoned by former President Bush. He spent his purgatory as the director of a neoconservative think tank, denouncing the Oslo Accords and arguing that "tomorrow's lobby for Israel has got to be conservative Christians, because there aren't going to be enough Jews to do it." Abrams was rehabilitated when George W. Bush appointed him to the NSC in December 2002. In his new position, Abrams immediately set to work trying to gut the text of the road map. He was suspicious of the Europeans and British, considering them to be anti-Israel if not inherently anti-Semitic, and spoke vituperatively against them to his colleagues. But working in league with his neoconservative allies in the vice president's office and at the Department of Defense, Abrams was unable to prevent Blair from persuading Bush to issue the road map at last. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2003/11/14/blair_bush/print.html How Bush betrayed BlairThe British P.M. thought he had a deal: He'd support the war and Bush would stand up to Ariel Sharon. But administration neoconservatives, led by Elliott Abrams, killed the deal. - - - - - - - - - - - -By Sidney Blumenthal Nov. 14, 2003 | Tony Blair, about to welcome George W. Bush to London for a state visit on Nov. 18 with pomp and circumstance, has assumed the mantle of tutor to the unlearned American president -- a pedagogical role that defines the latest phase of the hallowed special relationship. Bush originally came to Blair determined to go to war in Iraq, but without a strategy. Blair instructed him that the casus belli was Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction, urged him to make the case before the United Nations, and when the effort to obtain a U.N. resolution failed, persuaded Bush to revive the Middle East peace process between Israel and Palestine that Bush had abandoned. The new "road map" for peace there was the principal concession that Blair wrested from Bush. Blair argued that renewing the negotiations was essential to the long-term credibility of the coalition goals in Iraq and the whole region. But within the councils of the Bush administration that initiative was systematically undermined. Now Blair welcomes a president who has taught him a lesson in statecraft he refuses to acknowledge. Flynt Leverett, a former CIA analyst, revealed to me that the text of the road map was ready to be made public before the end of 2002: "We had made high-level commitments to key European and Arab allies. The White House lost its nerve. It took Blair to get Bush to put it out. But even then the administration wasn't really committed to it." Leverett is also a former senior director for Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, one of the authors of the road map, and now a fellow at the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution. "We needed to work this issue hard, but because we didn't want to make life difficult with Ariel Sharon, we undercut our credibility." In the internal struggle over peace in the Middle East, the neoconservatives within the administration prevailed. Elliott Abrams, chief of Middle East affairs at the National Security Council, was their point man. During the Iran-contra scandal of the Reagan presidency, Abrams was a player in setting up a rogue foreign policy operation as the assistant secretary of state for Latin America. His solicitation of $10 million from the sultan of Brunei for the illegal enterprise turned farcical when he transposed numbers on a Swiss bank account and lost the money. He wound up pleading guilty to lying to the Congress and was eventually pardoned by former President Bush. He spent his purgatory as the director of a neoconservative think tank, denouncing the Oslo Accords and arguing that "tomorrow's lobby for Israel has got to be conservative Christians, because there aren't going to be enough Jews to do it." Abrams was rehabilitated when George W. Bush appointed him to the NSC in December 2002. In his new position, Abrams immediately set to work trying to gut the text of the road map. He was suspicious of the Europeans and British, considering them
