Monday 31 January 2005

It must be me, I'm the crazy one!

The American colonists rose up against the British for less injustice than is being inflicted on them by Bush and his cronies.

by Leon Fisher

Well, I guess I still don't get it! After almost forty years of following US foreign policy -- which included the Cuban missile crisis and Bay of Pigs, Vietnam, the Iranian hostage crisis, Desert Storm I, Kosovo, and numerous other coups, proxy wars, and interventions around the World -- I still can't figure out what good any of this has been for the average American.

Unlike a great many of my fellow Americans, who appear to be quite comfortable with whatever nonsense they are told by our glorious leaders, I'm sorry, but I'm not buying any of it.

My attitude, of course, what with everyone you see waving flags and putting ribbons on their SUV's, is not very popular lately. And what's worse is the frustration of trying to convince the faithful supporters of the present crowd in Washington that America is indeed well on its way to its latest foreign policy debacle.

I am beginning to realize what is happening to me. I must be suffering from some mental illness, as I find myself becoming totally outraged at the actions of those who (I believe in my warped mind) have stolen the Government of the People, and replaced it with some sort of corporate, fascist dictatorship, American style.

Yes, that has to be it, mental illness.

When most of my friends and neighbors see things contrary to how I see them, it must be a form of dementia I am suffering from. The President has warned the faithful about people such as myself, who believe the wildest conspiracy theories. Imagine, being so sick as to suspect our own freely elected leaders planned the attacks of 9/11 to advance their agenda, to seize by military means the energy resources of the World! Absolutely insane -- it sounds like something out of a James Bond movie.

I will soon have to seek help, as not even football can distract me from my insane fantasy ...

Full story...

Freedom in Wonderland

War is Peace
Freedom is Slavery
Ignorance is Strength

...and "1984" was a fucking TYPO!


Protected from the American public by legions of imperial storm troopers in a city that appeared to be the very model of a high-tech police state, George W. Bush used the word "freedom" 27 times in his second inaugural address. The word "liberty" appeared 15 times. Under the circumstances, it's worth recalling that "freedom" was also one of Adolph Hitler's favorite themes.

What is even more disturbing is that Hitler and Bush are in general agreement about the definition of "freedom," in their historic use of the term. For both men, "freedom" refers to a policy of militant nationalist unilateralism, free from the restrictions of international law and treaties. In Hitler's case, besides the open rejection of the constraints on German militarism in the Treaty of Versailles, which ended the first World War, "freedom" also applied to the policy of "Lebensraum" (translated as "living space"), by which he meant the preemptive right of the German people to expand into neighboring countries.

Bush's definition is uncannily similar. As Michael Ratner of the Center for Constitutional Rights has described it, "Spreading freedom is [Bush's] code word to hide the continued drive for American hegemony, riches and resources." The so-called "Bush doctrine" is an official policy of taking preemptive military action to advance American "national security" interests (which have historically included America's interest in Middle Eastern oil), and to protect American "freedom."

Thus, Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia and Bush's invasion of Iraq—both employing the rationale of "freedom"—can be seen to have had identical goals: overtly, the "protection" of their respective citizenries; and covertly, the expansion of national wealth and power, and the geopolitical expression of national "will."

Indeed, it is fascinating how often Bush uses the term "will" (or, alternately, "resolve") to characterize what he thinks of as his "triumph" in Iraq. "Triumph of the Will" is, as many readers know, the name of one of the 20th century's most influential propaganda documents: the Leni Riefenstahl-directed film of the 1934 Nazi rally in Nuremberg, Germany, which portrayed Hitler as a kind of political deity. A leader's strong "will" is integral to the "leadership principle," one of the most important components of fascist philosophy.

The Nuremberg rallies were an annual event, organized to build party and national unity. In "Government in the Third Reich," a remarkable firsthand analysis of Nazi Germany published in 1936, Harvard professor Fritz Marx, a German immigrant and a former civil servant in the city of Hamburg, wrote about the 1935 rally:

"The annual National Socialist Party Congress of 1935, held as usual in the castle-crowned city of Nuremberg, met under the official password of 'Freedom.' The freedom that 400,000 went to celebrate was not the liberte of the French Revolution, but . . . regained freedom of action . . ." The reference here is to Hitler's decision to ignore the statutes of the Treaty of Versailles and begin rebuilding the German military—a decision subsequently acceded to by the European powers charged with enforcing the treaty. "In restoring the defensive forces to the prewar tradition of a people's army," Marx continues, "Hitler . . . simply picked the forbidden fruit, and no archangel came to expel him."

The analogy here to Bush's willfully arrogant decision to "pick the forbidden fruit" by ignoring international law and the opinion of the world community when he launched his invasion of Iraq, is hard to miss. This becomes doubly apparent when you realize that both Bush and Hitler believed their actions were divinely inspired. Also analogous is the initial effect on the American public, which is nearly identical to what Marx describes as the German reaction to Hitler's moves:

"It would be a self-deception to attribute the exuberant response of the country to 'freedom' primarily to the effectiveness of National Socialist propaganda. Minister Curtius had measured his words when stressing, in 1931, the nexus between domestic politics and national insecurity—'Germans know from their experience at home how the consciousness of being without military protection . . . besets the soul of a nation and affects every phase of its existence.' What were civil liberties without 'freedom'?"

Marx then goes on to quote from a Nazi government proclamation that is eerily evocative of Bush's inaugural assertion that both "liberty at home" and "peace in the world" depend on "the expansion of freedom abroad," guided, naturally, by American dictate: "The government of the new German Reich, however, desires only one single moral and material power; it is the power to be capable of preserving the peace for the Reich and with it also for the whole of Europe!"

Although there has been some discussion in the international media of Bush's definition of "freedom," there has been (predictably enough) precious little analysis in mainstream American commentary—aside from widespread reflection on the hypocrisy of the fact that, whatever it means, Bush has no intention of expanding "freedom" into countries such as Saudi Arabia or Uzbekistan, our torture-loving brothers-in-arms in the "global war on terror."

The problem with "freedom" is that—by its nature, perhaps—it is an expansive word that means different things to different people, depending on the context. My Webster's unabridged dictionary lists 17 specific definitions, some of which may conflict with one another—again, depending on the circumstances. Ronald Reagan, for example, routinely referred to the Islamic fundamentalists who went on to form al Qaeda as "freedom fighters." But are they still "freedom fighters" today, opposing foreign occupation of yet another Muslim country?

Full story...

Friday 28 January 2005

How Bush's grandfather helped Hitler's rise to power

Fascism is the merger of corporation and state, if that does not describe America in 2005 then I don't know what does. They may not fly the swastika but they are still fucking fascists!

Rumours of a link between the US first family and the Nazi war machine have circulated for decades. Now the Guardian can reveal how repercussions of events that culminated in action under the Trading with the Enemy Act are still being felt by today's president.

George Bush's grandfather, the late US senator Prescott Bush, was a director and shareholder of companies that profited from their involvement with the financial backers of Nazi Germany.

The Guardian has obtained confirmation from newly discovered files in the US National Archives that a firm of which Prescott Bush was a director was involved with the financial architects of Nazism.

His business dealings, which continued until his company's assets were seized in 1942 under the Trading with the Enemy Act, has led more than 60 years later to a civil action for damages being brought in Germany against the Bush family by two former slave labourers at Auschwitz and to a hum of pre-election controversy.

The evidence has also prompted one former US Nazi war crimes prosecutor to argue that the late senator's action should have been grounds for prosecution for giving aid and comfort to the enemy.

The debate over Prescott Bush's behaviour has been bubbling under the surface for some time. There has been a steady internet chatter about the "Bush/Nazi" connection, much of it inaccurate and unfair. But the new documents, many of which were only declassified last year, show that even after America had entered the war and when there was already significant information about the Nazis' plans and policies, he worked for and profited from companies closely involved with the very German businesses that financed Hitler's rise to power. It has also been suggested that the money he made from these dealings helped to establish the Bush family fortune and set up its political dynasty.

Remarkably, little of Bush's dealings with Germany has received public scrutiny, partly because of the secret status of the documentation involving him. But now the multibillion dollar legal action for damages by two Holocaust survivors against the Bush family, and the imminent publication of three books on the subject are threatening to make Prescott Bush's business history an uncomfortable issue for his grandson, George W, as he seeks re-election.

While there is no suggestion that Prescott Bush was sympathetic to the Nazi cause, the documents reveal that the firm he worked for, Brown Brothers Harriman (BBH), acted as a US base for the German industrialist, Fritz Thyssen, who helped finance Hitler in the 1930s before falling out with him at the end of the decade. The Guardian has seen evidence that shows Bush was the director of the New York-based Union Banking Corporation (UBC) that represented Thyssen's US interests and he continued to work for the bank after America entered the war.

Full story...

Russian officers 'helped in plot to seize Beslan school'

Listen, governments commit acts of terrorism against their own people to justify repression and FASCISM! It happened here during the "troubles" in Ireland, it happened in Russia and you bet your ass it happened on 9/11. The REAL terrorists are those arrogant wankers in suits sitting in their ivory towers and looking down at the rest of us.

Beslan's increasingly restless residents were told yesterday that high-ranking Russian military officers who "were still at their posts" were suspected of helping Chechen militants seize the town's school last September.

Two men holding a rank "higher than a major and a colonel" were said to be involved in the plot and had apparently deliberately not fulfilled the functions for which they are paid, presumably in exchange for some kind of bribe.

The revelation, disclosed by the parliamentary commission investigating the atrocity, appeared to shatter the illusion that the tragedy was the isolated work of a small band of Chechen separatists.

It is likely to enrage the victims' mothers who are becoming increasingly vociferous in their demands that the president of North Ossetia, the republic where Beslan is located, should resign. Last week they blocked Beslan's main highway for three days to press their demands and are threatening to take further "illegal" action if Alexander Dzasokhov, whom they accuse of failing to protect their children, does not step down.

Alexander Torshin, chairman of the parliamentary commission looking into the bloodbath, said yesterday that "a terrorist act of such a scale would have been impossible to commit without accomplices."

Full story...

Britain 'sliding into police state'

This country gets scarier by the day, this is something we've been saying for years but now, finally, the people at the top are starting to realise it. The government INTENDS to create a police-state, the system will do it regardless of who is in power. Britain has never been a real democracy anyway and now the last remaining pretenses are being removed. Of course all the Sun reading yokels will think this is a good idea because that's what Rupert wants them to think. Mark my words, if we are not careful one day we'll wake up and we'll be living in Orwell's nightmare. THIS is what he was warning us about, like I keep saying; "1984" was a TYPO!

Obey! The home secretary, Charles Clarke, is transforming Britain into a police state, one of the country's former leading anti-terrorist police chiefs said yesterday.

George Churchill-Coleman, who headed Scotland Yard's anti-terrorist squad as they worked to counter the IRA during their mainland attacks in the late 1980s and early 1990s, said Mr Clarke's proposals to extend powers, such as indefinite house arrest, were "not practical" and threatened to further marginalise minority communities.

Mr Churchill-Coleman told the Guardian: "I have a horrible feeling that we are sinking into a police state, and that's not good for anybody. We live in a democracy and we should police on those standards.

He added: "I have serious worries and concerns about these ideas on both ethical and practical terms. You cannot lock people up just because someone says they are terrorists. Internment didn't work in Northern Ireland, it won't work now. You need evidence."

Mr Churchill-Coleman's team had to counter IRA cells which mounted the 1991 mortar attack on Downing Street. His criticism comes as Mr Clarke attempts to convince cabinet colleagues about the need for new powers.

The home secretary has already shown an appetite for the kind of political language favoured by his predecessor, David Blunkett, to justify the tools he says the state needs to fight the ongoing war against terror.

In an interview in today's Daily Telegraph, he warns of the need to monitor not only alleged terror suspects but their family, friends and acquaintances. They could be subjected to potentially daily searches even though they are not accused of any crime, he said.

He said: My first responsibility is to protect people. I don't regard their rights as absolute. There are serious people and serious organisations trying to destroy our society. We are in a state of emergency."

Mr Clarke appeared to be digging in for a long and potentially turbulent fight to achieve his new powers.

As criticism of the proposals grew, Mr Clarke gave a lengthy cabinet presentation on the plans. It is believed that some of the government's own law officers have reservations about the details of the new powers, which are needed to ensure it survives any expected legal challenge under the human rights convention.

Guy Mansfield QC, the chairman of the Bar Council, said yesterday that house arrest without trial was as damaging as imprisonment without trial and would breed resentment among ethnic minorities.

The leftwing Labour MP and QC, Bob Marshall-Andrews, called the proposals "the most substantial extension of the state's executive powers over the citizen for 300 years".

Full story...

Ashes to Ashes

by Chris Floyd

This week, grim ceremonies marked the 60th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz, where the Nazis murdered 1.5 million people. These remembrances of horror provoked extensive commentary, summed up in a single agonizing question: How could this have happened?

Answers -- some simplistic, others more nuanced -- were offered by various pundits and scholars: It was one man's madness; it was the result of unique historical circumstances; it was the inevitable byproduct of a totalitarian system, and so on. Implicit in these comments was the comforting notion that such deliberate mass atrocity is possible only under a tyrannical regime, led by brutal dictators, "madmen" like Hitler, Stalin and Saddam; it could never happen in a democracy, where a free people exercise its electoral will, and strong civic structures curb the excesses of state power. Indeed, in his "fire sermon" at the inauguration, U.S. president George W. Bush claimed that democracy is a divine system, created by God Himself. It could therefore never be an instrument of evil.


Does this stance correspond to reality, to history? To get at the deeper truth, perhaps the question we should ask is not, "How did Auschwitz happen?" but rather, "What exactly happened at Auschwitz?"

Well, here's what happened: Government leaders ordered the murder and torture of innocent people in the defense of "the Homeland" and the superior "moral values" of their culture. They produced copious justifications for their actions, including legal rulings from top government attorneys, while concealing the actual operational details from public knowledge in the name of "national security." When faced with undeniable evidence of atrocity, they blamed "bad apples" in the lower ranks.

Suddenly, viewed in this light, Auschwitz doesn't seem so strange, so otherworldly, so removed from us. For we have seen all of these things come to pass today, perpetrated by the world's greatest democracy, by elected leaders whose initially dubious hold on power has just been ratified by the free vote of a free people. We have seen these democratic leaders launch a war of aggression on false pretenses -- a deliberate action which they knew would lead to mass murder.

We know this war has killed at least 100,000 innocent people, according to a scientific study by the respected medical journal The Lancet. The overwhelming majority of these 100,000 have been killed by direct military action of the U.S.-U.K. coalition, most of them long after "major combat operations" ended, The Lancet reports. (It's fascinating to watch the Bushists quibble over this number -- "The death count's not really that high, it wasn't deliberate, it was collateral damage, it's anti-American propaganda," etc. -- like Holocaust revisionists disputing the reality of Auschwitz: "It wasn't really 1.5 million, it wasn't deliberate, it was disease, overwork, Jewish propaganda, etc.")

We know that thousands of Iraqis have been imprisoned unjustly; up to 90 percent of all detainees were innocent of any offense, the Red Cross reports. We know that many of these innocents have been tortured, using techniques and guidelines laid down by Pentagon chief Donald Rumsfeld and approved by Bush. We know that many people have died from this torture, as the pro-war Times of London reports, not only in Iraq but also in secret CIA prisons around the world, where thousands of people are being held without charges -- and where the administration's tepid restrictions on torture do not apply, as Bush's legal factotum, Alberto Gonzales, admits.

And we know that whenever fragments of truth about this widespread, thoroughgoing program of atrocity do manage to surface from the darkness, Bush and his apologists run for cover and cast the blame on underlings. "This so-called ill treatment and torture in detention centers ... were not, as some assumed, inflicted methodically, but were excesses committed by individual prison guards, their deputies, and men who laid violent hands on the detainees." These words have a familiar ring, echoed almost daily by a Bush official or a right-wing commentator -- but in fact the quote is from Rudolf Hoess, commandant of Auschwitz, as Scott Horton notes in the Los Angeles Times. Horton and other writers also unearthed statements by Nazi leaders and jurists declaring the Geneva Conventions "obsolete" for the "new kind of war" they were fighting against Bolshevik "terrorists" on the Eastern Front -- precise equivalents to the language used by the Bush White House in its "torture memos."

Full story...

Greg Dyke: Two years after the war, one year after Hutton. Why hasn't Blair resigned yet?

Today marks the first anniversary of the publication of the infamous Hutton report which led to my departure from the BBC and that of my chairman, Gavyn Davies. Looking back 12 months, and knowing what we now know, the saga has an unreal quality because, today, there is no doubt that the BBC story which led to our departures was fundamentally right when it said that Downing Street had sexed up the case for going to war in Iraq.

So, if this was true, why did such a bizarre series of events happen, events which led to the departure of the two top players at the BBC? Of course I am not unbiased, but I think the answer can be found in the combination of a conservative and naïve judge in Lord Hutton, a disingenuous Prime Minister, a talented but increasingly unstable head of the government information service in Alastair Campbell, and a gutless bunch of BBC governors who behaved like frightened rabbits.

However, 12 months on, a series of questions still need to be answered. How did Hutton get it so wrong? How did the general public know instinctively that his report was a whitewash? How damaged is the BBC? Did Dr Kelly kill himself? And the biggest question of all, how has the Prime Minister survived the political fallout from Iraq, Hutton and, in particular, the Butler report?

What is now clear is that the person who has suffered the most from Lord Hutton's report is Lord Hutton himself, a man now widely regarded as a joke figure. He was a virtually unknown law lord when he was selected to chair the inquiry into the death of Dr David Kelly. He knew nothing of media law and the only inquiry he had held before was into the re-routing of a river in Northern Ireland.

So how come he was chosen? His name was reportedly suggested by Peter Mandelson, clearly as he believed Hutton was likely to support the establishment position - and that's exactly what he tried to do. One of Tony Blair's inner circle, his close friend and pollster Philip Gould, has said as much.

When extracts from my book Inside Story were published in The Observer and The Mail on Sunday in September last year I quoted Gould (now a lord) telling another Labour lord that everything was going to be OK with Hutton because "we appointed the right judge". Initially, Gould not only denied the story but threatened to take legal action. The issue only went away when he discovered we could prove he had said it.

So I think we can assume that Lord Hutton was chosen for particular qualities: as a Northern Irish Diplock judge, he both disliked journalists and had a close relationship with the security services who had protected him and his family many times. The latter is important because, if the saga is about anything, it is a scandal about MI6 and the efforts of people in the secret services to please Blair and Campbell.

Which takes us on to the second question; how did the public recognise the report was a whitewash so quickly? A poll in The Daily Telegraph two days after it was published found that 56 per cent of those interviewed agreed that: "Lord Hutton, as a member of the establishment, was too ready to sympathise with the Government and in the end produced something like a whitewash."

Members of the Government were genuinely shocked by this reaction; they thought they had been cleared, but the public decided otherwise. But, given that it was another six months before the concrete evidence which destroyed Hutton was published with Lord Butler's devastating critique of how Blair runs the Government, how did the public know so early that it was a deeply flawed report?

Here I suspect Lord Hutton was hoist by his own petard. He had held a ground-breaking inquiry: he ran it in a fair way, it was open to the public and all the evidence was available on the internet. The problem was that his findings did not line up with the evidence, which the public had seen and heard for themselves. So they instinctively rejected his ridiculously one-sided findings.

Of course, the BBC governors didn't take the same view as the public and decided to get rid of me as a result. It was a coincidence that they were meeting the day Hutton reported; it was not planned and I suspect if they hadn't met until the following week the outcome would have been different. There would have been no "rush to judgement". But much more important is: What impact has the affair had on the BBC?

Its reputation has been compromised and, as a result, its independence has been questioned, particularly overseas. Whenever I've travelled abroad in the past year I have found a strong belief that it was Blair personally who got rid of Gavyn and I as a means of pulling the BBC into line and to stop it challenging the Government in the future. The feeling abroad is that the BBC had gone along with this to preserve its future.

Now, I don't believe this to be the case but, until the new leaders of the BBC stand up and make their position clear on the Gilligan affair, people won't know for certain whether or not to believe these allegations. Other executives inside the BBC who were intimately involved in the Kelly affair have also gone remarkably quiet since. It is probably time for them to speak out too.

Full story...

China, Canada Agree on Oil, Uranium Development

China and Canada signed agreements in Beijing today to help develop uranium mines and oil reserves, including Canada's oil sand deposits in Alberta, to expand trade between the two countries.

The agreements followed meetings between Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Canada's Prime Minister Paul Martin. Canada's Martin and Trade Minister James Peterson are on a six-day visit to China with representatives of 250 Canadian companies to boost commercial ties with its second-largest trading partner.

"Canada and China have decided to work together to promote cooperation in the oil and gas sector, including Canada's oil sands, as well as in the uranium resources field," the two governments said in a statement. No specifics were given on companies that may be involved, and details of the agreement weren't available on a Web site for Canada's prime minister.

Companies including Exxon Mobil Corp., Royal Dutch/Shell Group and Canadian Natural Resources Ltd. plan to spend billions during the next decade to develop Alberta's unconventional oil deposits as demand for crude rises and output from existing fields decline. Oil-sands output in Alberta may double to 2 million barrels a day by 2013, according to a presentation last week by Enbridge Inc.

Economics, not today's agreements, will decide whether China becomes an investor in the oil-sands projects, said Mike Tims, chairman of Peters & Co., a Calgary brokerage specializing in oil stocks.

"I wouldn't say that anything in this agreement is likely to cause anyone to do anything that isn't fully sensible on a commercial basis,"' Tims said in a telephone interview.

Enbridge, Canada's second-biggest pipeline company after TransCanada Corp., said last week that PetroChina Co. or China Petroleum and Chemical, the country's two biggest oil companies, will agree by next month to buy oil from Alberta oil sands to meet growing energy demand in China. Calgary-based Enbridge is proposing a C$4 billion ($3.25 billion) pipeline to export Alberta's oil to California, China and other markets

Shares of Calgary-based Husky Energy Inc. rallied in November after Toronto's Globe and Mail said China was negotiating to take control of the producer through a state oil company. Chinese buyers may be attracted to Husky because it is developing two oil-sands projects, some analysts have said.

Full story...

Zionist Elite Prepares to Desert America

Not much one can say about this one, I sure would love to know where Vialls gets his information from. Or is he making it all up...? I'll leave it for you to decide that one!

With 'Fortress Americas' now in tatters because of Russia's coalition with Brazil and Venezuela, Wall Street's neocons and other Zionist traitors will desperately try to avoid War Crimes Tribunals and the waiting hangman's noose, by fleeing aboard special jets to a little-known Australian island

by Joe Vialls


As the stolen Boeing 747 lumbered through the night sky on its way from America to Australia, it was difficult for the 250 unshaven occupants to comprehend how they had fallen so far so fast. Their eyes were red from lack of sleep, and from the sudden realization that as the most wanted war criminals in the world, the only place they might find sanctuary was a former penal colony on an obscure island south of Australia.

The El Al pilots on the Boeing's flight deck scanned the horizon nervously, looking for a pair of KC-135 aerial tankers, two of twelve stolen from American taxpayers in early 2003, and dotted along the route in order to keep the big birds and their Ziionist passengers aloft, long enough to reach the only island that might shield them from the hangman's noose.

Fuel was running low and everyone on board was jumpy, especially the pilots, who knew that by now they should be able to see the tanker on their cockpit TCAS (Traffic Alert Collision Avoidance System) screen, which uses secondary radar techniques to detect any other aircraft within 35 miles range, but only if the other aircraft is within a band of airspace extending 9,500 feet above and below the host aircraft. There was still nothing to see, and the El Al captain rapped his fingers impatiently on the cockpit coaming.

As the rising sun started to lighten the eastern horizon, a second aircraft started closing on the Boeing from behind, but in a very stealthy manner. THe light was still too weak to tell whether this smaller aircraft was an American F-15, a British Tornado, a French Mirage, a Russian or Chinese Sukhoi 27, or perhaps a Cuban Mig 29, though positive identification would make no difference to the final outcome. The hunter was well aware of the Boeing's TCAS limitations, and was thus flying at an invisible 12,000 feet below the Zionist Ark, fifteen miles to the rear.

In the dim red glow of the fighter cockpit, the pilot's white-gloved right hand reached out and selected "cannon" on the weapons panel, and then he smoothly slid the twin throttles through the afterburner gate with his left. The attack profile was simplicity itself: Maintain 12,000 feet separation until the fighter was only half a mile behind the Boeing, then chop the afterburners and pull up into a 45 degree climb. The Boeing's TCAS would thus give the El Al pilots less than one second of warning before a hail of high explosive cannon shells opened up the belly of their aircraft like a sardine can, hopefully scattering Zionist war criminal body parts across more than ten square miles.

We will have to wait and see whether the fighter pilot gets it right, and whether or not his colleagues manage to hunt down and destroy the other five Boeing 747 Arks, and eleven KC 135 tankers carrying similar payloads to the same destination. In order to assess the odds and expose the forward planning for this cowardly retreat from America, we need to go back a few years in time.

More than a decade ago, these same Zionists were well on their way to achieving a "New World Order", where theoretically everyone in the brainwashed and subjugated world would gladly kneel obsequiously before their self-appointed Wall Street overlords. The New York master race would not to be a group of tall elegant pedigree Americans or Europeans however. Instead, all Americans and others would be forced to bow the knee to a group of insignificant gray-haired mongrels of extremely doubtful parentage. These clinically insane designers of the N.W.O. were so sure they'd almost won, that they started partying at the Council on Foreign Relations, at the Trilateral Commission, and also at a number of other private mental asylums set aside for like-minded egomaniacs.

For them, the infamous 1990 Gulf War was merely an exercise to test the extent of Zionist control within the American political and military establishments, and it was judged a resounding success. More than 500,000 American service personnel were forced to attack Kuwait and Southern Iraq on trumped up charges, while at the same time powerful Zionist pharmaceutical lobbies ensured that all experienced servicemen were injected with innovative 'experimental' vaccines. The latter outrage ensured that those who lived and returned home to America, would be artificially undermined both physically and mentally.

So the the entirely one-sided 'Gulf War' was a Zionist win-win situation, with both the Arab Middle East and the U.S. Military severely weakened at one and the same time. You see, while the Zionists obviously wanted the massive oil reserves of the Middle East, they also had a very unpleasant trump card yet to play. The 'one true Zion' prattled on about by religious Jews was not in Palestine at all, but would eventually become the Americas. By way of explanation, I wrote in an earlier report:

"These were the 'Shock and Awe' tactics of David Ben Gurion, founding father of both Zionism and global terrorism. Though obviously clinically insane, this was the man who first drew up the plan for 'Zion', a 'Promised Land for the Jews', which most global citizens erroneously believed, and still believe, to be Palestine. But even as the first Jewish State was being formally declared in 1948, the arrogant Ben Gurion made it very clear that Palestine was not to be the one true Zion. Despite continual frantic urgings by religious Jews, he insisted that this first conquest be called 'Yisrael', and that its citizens, be they Jewish or not, would forever be called "Yisraelim".

"The final Zion, or Promised Land, would be determined by raw wealth and power rather than by mere religious symbolism. While intentionally leaking 'false Zions' including Australia and Argentina to the media, Ben Gurion and his Zionist cohorts ultimately intended to overrun and capture the Americas The problem was that back in 1948 they had no real power, and would have been easily overwhelmed by the vast resources of the U.S. Military in particular.

So conquest of the 'one true Zion', or 'New Zion', was to be a long drawn-out game, with Zionists lobbies in America gradually eating away at the fabric of society. Then, when resistance in the Americas was eventually undermined to a predetermined level, it would be time to strike militarily."

Despite their obvious insanity and arrogance, there were brief episodes of lucid thought, with a handful of Zionists aware that there was a slight chance (say one in a billion?) that Fortress Americas would fail, thus leaving them at the mercy of an outraged American public. This slight possibility caused considerable concern. With unpleasant memories of what England's King Edward I had done to their power-mad ancestors with an executioner's axe, Zionist Jews in particular ran nervous fingers around their collars, and demanded a foolproof exit strategy, which was eventually code-named "Project Ark".

In essence, Project Ark was modeled on the same plans and facilities used during the Cold War with Russia, where (officially), the American President and his advisors would board six specially equipped Boeing 747s at Offutt and Andrews air force bases, and conduct a thermonuclear war from the relative safety of U.S. offshore territorial waters, continually refueled in mid air by KC 135 aerial tankers. Well, that is the cover story that American citizens were asked to believe, and most of them did believe.

The reality was quite different. According to classified documents I had access to at that time, the actual Cold War plan was for the President and several hundred close 'advisors' (to be named directly by the White House before boarding), to travel via Ascension Island, and either Gan or Diego Garcia, to Pine Gap in Central Australia. The KC 135 tankers were there as back up, in the event that either of the two intermediate transit airfields were destroyed by nuclear weapons. Though we were specifically denied access to the passenger lists at my then security level, it is perfectly reasonable to assume the President's banking bosses in New York would be along for the ride, and able to start a new life down, under while ordinary Americans left behind in the U.S. were turned into roman candles by thermonuclear weapons

Back in the seventies, mainland Australia was fine as a destination, because Americans were generally liked by the locals, and even a cowardly defecting American President would have been able to buy a beer in a pub. But all of that changed with America's 1990 Gulf War, which brought into sharp focus America's apparent intent to rule the world by brute force. Australians in general do not like prima donnas, and they certainly don't like dictators, meaning that a far more secure destination had to be arranged for the Zionist Elite, because (perish the though), Australians don't like Zionists much either.

The final destination Project Ark settled on, was the small easily defended Australian Island of Tasmania, which has a climate and scenery not unlike New England, plus a very rich range of food and wine. But scores of subtle preparations had to be made over the years in America and Australia, to ensure that Project Ark would run like clockwork if activated.

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The Mask Is Slipping & The Nightmare Grows

by Jim Kirwan

When the Bush Doctrine of 2002 was implemented, that signaled the world that any country could be next, in our megalomaniacal quest, to own everything and everyone on the planet. At that moment, the rest of the civilized world began to put plans in place to marginalize the USA, to remove us from their horizons. When the theft of the last election became a fact their plans jumped to light-speed in order to be implemented. The entire world has begun to rearrange their priorities to cut us out of the global picture, and that's what awaits us now!

How many of the things you use every day were made in America? What kind of vehicle do you drive, and where was it made. You know that the fuel to operate it doesn't come from here; you can see that the buses, the trains, and most of the rest of what we take for granted are not made here: but what about all the smaller items? China bought out IBM's PC division, and most component parts, no longer come from here. We have outsourced our way of life, along with most of the real jobs, and all that's left are the few occupations that must remain here, because they require some physical act that cannot be done from abroad. We used to lead the world and now we're just one step from beggary.

Reagan began the privatizing that turned this nation into a pink-collar service, back in the 1980's. Bush has now finished off the process by outsourcing even that paltry shadow of an industry. India and China and other places, now have the jobs, to avoid regulations and to allow American owners to vastly increase their profits, with zero oversight. Tax-dodging corporations get corporate welfare to aid them in their quest for dominance over what's left of American business, and there are no discussions. This government has opened the floodgates to mergers and acquisions, and in every field there are ever fewer competitors. What happens when there's nothing left to buy or acquire. What happened to real competition? What will happen when Wal-Mart succeeds in crushing all the competition, we will see their prices soar when there is no longer any choice.

Today our "money" buys about half what it did (in the world), just two years ago. Most are unaware of this, unless they travel outside this country. Under Reagan the USA went from the world's largest creditor nation to the world's largest debtor nation during his term. Clinton reversed that and left the nation with a huge surplus a surplus that George W. Bush promptly turned into the largest debt that this country, or the world has ever seen. This was done while citing Reagan's view that deficits were unimportant., Now we've reached the point where we can no longer pay those debts, and we've begun defaulting on some of them. With nothing much to sell, and too few jobs, and an empty treasury besides - it appears that we're living now on borrowed time.

This situation, for those who have underwritten our obscene debt load has become impossible to bear, so they will soon begin to withdraw their invested capital, as well as their continued interest in our welfare. This is due directly to the policies of this administration, and has only been exacerbated by the arrogance and greed of those who have taken over USA incorporated. America is now known for belligerence and thugery, and that's a lousy business arrangement. Every U.S. taxpayer is also a silent partner with this government, having no say, and no choice in what will be done with either our money, or our military. Why have none of these changes ever been publicly discussed, before they became policies? Bush says it's because "we are at war." But the question lingers: who is the real enemy here?

For decades now, the Neo-Cons has have believed that the United States cannot be allowed to fail, because the entire world would go down with us. They cite the crash of 1929 as proof of that. But it's 2005 now, and money can be moved around the world in the time it takes to make a computer keystroke. We are no longer a manufacturing power, no longer a consumer bulwark, because we've lost too many of the jobs that were the backbone of this nation's health and wealth, in the world at large. Without good jobs there is no money to remain in the consumer class, much less rise to what we may have dreamed of. Because of the new policies of other nations and our own rush to unemploy this nation's working people, we are finding that there is now far less demand for "things American" around the planet.

The world has changed, and we have not kept pace, in fact we're going the other way at light speed. We make some weapons, and we export our garbage, literally. Beyond that this nation is barely a shadow of its former self. Most of these changes owe their existence to either presidential decrees or to shoddy and rushed legislation, with little or no debate. Aside from a handful of legislators, who really cares what happens to us?

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Vortex Mechanics

Our corporatocracy has a long history or supressing any technology that threatens to undermine their power. JP Morgan did this to Nikola Tesla when he realised that Tesla's goal was free energy for everyone. Those same plutocrats have a strangle-hold on this planet, they profit from war and misery and the rest of us are forced to bear the cost. The fact that oil is running out means the bastards are acting out their end-game scenario. I'm sure they have a plan, I'm also sure us little-people want nothing to do with it because their plan is our enslavement.

The Ether Physics Paradigm of Hope Abundance Love and Equity

Tesla When one understands the concepts of Viktor Schauberger and Nikola Tesla, the doorways to "free thinking and free energy" will beunlocked. The lines of control which hold the unfortunate "dumbed down" victims of academia, will be broken. The mental prison of materialistic, scientific reductionism, will be properly dethroned and marginalized, then hope will finally prevail.

From this free and enlightened vista of thinking the world view of abundance and a lifestyle of peace, prosperity, and freedom are the foundation. These virtuous aspirations transcend the dreary scientific and current religious/governmental/corporate/academic view of a world of scarcity. War and survival, financial ruin and the destruction of our personal freedoms and our environment are the fruits of this doomed view.

In a world of abundance and negentropy there is no need to fight over dwindling resources. Water can be desalinated and transported great distances to arid regions without the massive energy costs. There would be no "have nots". Everyone's basic needs would be assured. Starvation would cease to exist. If we all want it to. The technological possibilities are limitless with Tesla and Schauberger's insights and inventions relating to free energy. The Ether Physics they believed in, is the Physics of love, hope and abundance.

It is easy to imagine a world without war, because everyone would be working towards the goal of bringing civilization back into a harmonious relationship with nature for the sake of our mutual survival. We would see the end of the fossil/nuclear fuel age and an end to all of the cancer causing pollution of this insidious academic crime. Also, an end to the pyramid types of hierarchical political, financial, media and religous control, where wealth and power are dangerously concentrated into a hands of few jaded, impostors.

Look around you and you will see opportunity everywhere, because of the enormous destruction caused by corporate America and it's international allies.

Most of the dams will need to be torn down and the rivers restored to their natural states. All of the academic projects built by the Army Corp of Engineers, where they built straight canals to move water, will have to be rebuilt according to natural principles. This way, we won't have anymore multi-billion dollar failures of one of their "sceintifically" designed levy, canal or dam systems.

The entire infrastructure of pipes that move our water on this planet will have to be replaced if we want to reverse the present plague of Cancer. If doing things right, were the priority, there would be work for everyone. Just imagine the labor involved in this project alone.

With everyone's basic needs covered we could all go to work saving this world before we destroy it. With the vast array of new spin off technologies there would be fulfilling work for everyone. The war could shift from the phony excuses used now to the real threat we all are facing, which is the wholesale destruction of our beautiful planet.

Imagine soldiers planting billions of trees in our clear cut forests, instead of killing other unfortunate human beings, birds, plants and animals. We need to plant 100 billion new trees immediately if we want to turn the tide of our self made destruction. We would be fighting against the true "evil doers", those who wantonly destroy our small planet using deception and trickery for personal financial gain, vanity and power (The Federal Reserve, the corporations and media and their elected leaders ).

Imagine silent, hovering aircraft, dropping mineralized rock dust on reclaimed forests to fertilize them, rather than extremely noisey jets and helicopters dropping Napalm, Daisy Cutters, Depleted Uranium, Micro Nukes and other types of "Destructive Ordinance" on poor innocent victims, other wise known as "collateral damage". How much of the planet's natural beauty, forests and waters have been lain waste thanks to military actions? Just watch some war footage of bombing campaigns and you will get a glimpse of a fraction of the damage.

Or, these same silent craft tending to our agricultural needs by automated satellite control and managing unending fields of Cannabis Hemp for replacing oil, pharmaceutical, clothing and timber products, to name a few.

Viktor Schauberger was the pioneering environmentalist who discovered natural solutions to all of the most pressing problems relating to our poor health and continuing destruction of this planet through the ignorant and negligent treatment of our Earth, Air and Water.

His work should be required reading in all schools, because it is a virtuous foundation for life, health and sanity in an insane world. As long as Corporate America controls our schools with "sound science" the truth will never be taught.

Full story...

MORE STORIES:
Tesla's Electromagnetic Pyramids
Free Energy Anyone?

Feith May Be Charged With Leaking Intelligence

Some good news to end the week on! I want to see Feith and his other neo-con friends arrested, charged, put on trial, convicted and sentanced to spend the rest of their (short miserable) lives cleaning up the DU they dumped on Iraq. The amount of fear and death they have caused must not go unanswered, they seek to use fear to control us and they must not be allowed to succeed.

Good Riddance, Douglas Feith

by Kurt Nimmo


Reuters reported last night that undersecretary of defense for policy, Douglas Feith, the third ranked civilian in the Pentagon, has announced his resignation, not due immediately, unfortunately. "Douglas Feith, the Defense Department's top policy officer and an architect of the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, announced Wednesday that he would leave his job this summer for personal and family reasons," reports Reuters. "Before the Iraq war, Feith oversaw Defense Department officials accused of selectively using uncorroborated intelligence reports to build what turned out to be the false case that President Saddam Hussein had stockpiles of banned deadly weapons."

But here's what Reuters failed to mention: Feith may end up in the hoosegow "for leaking classified information to The Weekly Standard," according to Karen Kwiatkowski, who once had the misfortunate of working with the "arrogant" Strausscon. The memo, dated October 27, 2003, alleges Osama and Saddam were buddies, an accusation we know is pure horse feathers. Laura Rozen, writing for the American Prospect, however, believes it is "unlikely that Feith will face time for the leaked memo. But he may well be forced to look for a new job soon. As he knows all too well, regime change isn't pretty."

And so it appears this is what has finally happened. Naturally, when a politico is booted out because he is a political liability, it is politely described as a departure for "personal and family reasons."

Two down-the first being Richard Perle, who resigned as chairman of the Defense Policy Board due to "ethical problems" related to his shady dealings with Global Crossing, the bankrupt telecommunications company-and about half the Pentagon to go, or at least it's "civilians," who are almost exclusively Strausscons.

In the past, both Perle and Feith have been accused of passing classified information to Israel, a crime punishable by a firing squad in some countries. Due to his treachery, Feith was forced to leave the National Security Council, but he was soon back in government, his crimes apparently forgiven, or at least overlooked. In August, Feith's name was linked to Lawrence Franklin, who served in the military attache's office in the U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv in the late 1990s. Franklin is suspected of passing classified information about Iran to the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee and Israel. Fore more background on the Lawrence Franklin espionage scandal, see Juan Cole's Pentagon/Israel Spying Case Expands: Fomenting a War on Iran.

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Tuesday 25 January 2005

Corporatocracy, Corporatism, Fascism

by Jim Kirwan

"Fascism should more appropriately be called corporatism because it is the merger of state and corporate power." - Benito Mussolini

This is indeed a fascinatingly and disgusting story - premised on absolute control over all people. Back when people were actually almost "free" (immediately after WWII), when public education was not just another empty promise - and the trend in life was toward a better tomorrow for everyone - at that time "control" was in retreat, and progress was the theme of every hour. Now what we have is control of every idiotic facet of everyday existence - rules for every waking act, every thought that is not controlled is seen as the enemy of the state (the corporatocracy).

Our entire way of life has been stolen and shall never return to the lazy and hopeful days of living and loving, of joy and promise, with the possibility for doing real and meaningful things with one's own life - not to mention being able to envision a better world for more and more people - whose lives were so far below the levels we enjoyed. Instead of that promise, instead of that possibility - what we have now is the outright worship of Mistrust, of Fear, and of Paranoia - along with obscene profits for those who have purchased all the politicians, and who control every facet of this once nearly free society.

If American life were a sporting event - today's game would be one in which all the officials and the referees had all been pre-purchased by what would obviously be the winning team. Now companies "police" their own activities, deciding for themselves when they've gone too far - or stolen too much. The original point behind government providing a watchdog over industry - was to keep the playing fields equal - between players and owners. Now the games continue but only the owners win anything - the players are degenerating from just being slaves to becoming everyday targets for anyone who hates their owners: Hence the Iraq's of this world will focus the herd's mind on what it really means to be an American today (a blood-stained thug, whether in a uniform or with a contract and a pen) - we are attempting to steal all that's still sacred - in what has become a profane and truth-less world.

Like Humpty-Dumpty we will never be able to put the world back together again - not here anyhow. Too much has been lost in too many generations that have passed through this new agenda of "me first, me only." In that process all guidelines have been destroyed, and there is no longer any "out-of-bounds" - everything is now fair game: and now the world KNOWS this for what it actually means, which is a rather subdued type of anarchy that favors only the very rich.

Whether nationally or internationally, what we have consecrated by our actions is the outlaw behavior of the corporatocracy - world wide. It is therefore not surprising that Bush would want to claim the mantle of 'Dictator for All the Known World,' even though he is nothing but the token puppet in the front row.

He can do this because the bought and paid for US Congress will not really give him any trouble (if they did they'd all be charged with aiding and abetting all the crimes committed so far) - and the courts have already made clear their preferences: so the only thing left in opposition is the besieged and downtrodden public. Those same people who must pay for all this criminality in dollars and in blood.

However - the public listens to the mouthpiece that has become the outlaws wholly owned whore. Completely owned and operated by those same interests that are behind the corruption - what they tell the world has little to do with actual truth, or the facts of anything that happens in the world today. If the public is to understand anything at all - then they will have to rely on their own gut instincts and what they can find on the net to corroborate or dispute what they suspect. This is why the games we play today are so fraught with corruption, deception and duplicity on nearly every side - but - humanity has survived before when threatened by empirical demands, so perhaps there may yet be an opportunity to reverse this insanity that has become a cancer on the world. . . If not then we'll all be returned to the Dark Ages once again (but this time on a planet that's been nearly destroyed by our lapsed custodianship) - because we are obviously unfit to manage for ourselves, never mind for others - in the real life of this world.

Monday 24 January 2005

A fantasy of freedom

Bush talking about freedom is like Pinochet talking about human rights, or Hitler talking about multi-culturalism or Mao talking about agricultural reform, or Stalin talking about fucking labour rights. It's a fucking sham and he insults our intelligence with his bullshit. He must think that we're all as brainless and barbaric as he is. If you ask me Bush Jnr. is the Paris Hilton of politics!

If Bush wanted to tackle tyranny, he could start with regimes under US control. But liberty clearly has limits.

by Gary Younge


There is one tiny corner of Cuba that will forever America be. It is a place where innocent people are held without charge for years, beyond international law, human decency and the mythical glow of Lady Liberty's torch. It is a place where torture is common, beating is ritual and humiliation is routine. They call it Guantánamo Bay.

Last week the new United States secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, listed Cuba, among others, as "an outpost of tyranny". A few days later President Bush started his second term with a pledge to unleash "the force of freedom" on the entire world. "The best hope for peace in our world is the expansion of freedom in all the world," he said

You would think that if the Americans are truly interested in expanding freedom and ending tyranny in Cuba, let alone the rest of the world, Guantánamo Bay would be as good a place to start as any. But the captives in Guantánamo should not ask for the keys to their leg irons any time soon. Ms Rice was not referring to the outpost of tyranny that her boss created in Cuba, but the rest of the Caribbean island, which lives in a stable mixture of the imperfect and the impressive.

In short, while the US could liberate a place where there are flagrant human rights abuses and over which they have total control, it would rather topple a sovereign state, which poses no threat, through diplomatic and economic - and possibly military - warfare that is already causing chaos and hardship.

Welcome to Bush's foreign policy strategy for the second term. His aim is not to realign the values at Guantánamo so that they are more in line with those championed by the rest of the world. It is to try and realign the rest of the world so that it is more in keeping with the values that govern Guantánamo, where human rights and legal norms are subordinated to America's perceived interests.

Under this philosophy, the Bush administration understands the words "tyranny" and "freedom" in much the same way as it understands international law. They mean whatever the White House wants them to mean. Bush is happy to support democracy when democracy supports America, just as he is happy to dispense with it when it does not. Likewise, when tyranny is inconvenient, he will excoriate it; when it is expedient, he will excuse it.

Take Uzbekistan, one of the most repressive regimes in central Asia. In April 2002, a special UN rapporteur concluded that torture in the country was "systematic" and "pervasive and persistent... throughout the investigation process". In the same year, Muzafar Avazov, an opposition leader, was boiled alive for refusing to abandon his religious convictions and attempting to practise religious rites in prison. In 2003, Bush granted a waiver to Uzbekistan when its failure to improve its human rights record should have led to its aid being slashed. In February 2004 the US secretary of defence, Donald Rumsfeld, visited the country's dictator, Islam Karimov, and said: "The relationship [between our countries] is strong and growing stronger. We look forward to strengthening our political and economic relations."

Yet the US continues to shower the country with aid, docking a mere $18m last year (around 20% of the total) after expressing its "disappointment" that Mr Karimov had not made greater strides towards democracy. Pan down the shopping list of tyrannical states in Ms Rice's in-tray (Iran, Burma, North Korea, Zimbabwe, Belarus and Cuba) and you will find no mention of Uzbekistan. Why? Because Uzbekistan, with an estimated 10,000 political prisoners, hosts a US military base that offers easy access to Afghanistan and the rest of the region.

So for every tenet that Mr Bush claimed last week to hold dear, it was possible to pick out a country or place he is bankrolling or controlling that is in flagrant violation, and where he could improve conditions immediately if he wished. The point here is not that the US should intervene in more places, but that it should intervene consistently and honestly or not at all.

Bush's inauguration speech was packed with truisms, axioms, platitudes and principles that appear reasonable at first glance. The trouble is they are contradicted by the reality he has created and continues to support.

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It's Time To Ignore Michael Ruppert

Never ignore anyone! Just take what they say with a grain of salt. Mike's book is excellent and still worth reading, anyone who says it should be dismissed probably has not read it.

Never forget, young padawan, that you're in Chapel Perilous, stay alert at all times and MAKE YOUR OWN MIND UP ABOUT EVERYTHING TO SEE, HEAR, READ AND FIND ON THE INTERNET!


In my opinion, Mike Ruppert is at best a blowhard gatekeeper who only cares that he is the ultimate mouthpiece of the alternative and Internet media, cashing in big time, or at worst, he is is a disinformation agent for one or more of our international alphabet soup intel agencies. When he first came to my attention, I bought his early 9/11 video.

I was impressed, though a little bothered over how he gloated over getting CIA Director Deutch's goat at the Compton meeting, a meeting inspired by Gary Webb's "Dark Alliance" series in which Mike inserted himself as the star.

What bothered me even more in that same video is how he totally dismissed the possibility of ANY Israeli or Mossad involvement with 9/11. He never expressed that as an opinion. He authoritatively made it into a fact, despite so many reports involving Israeli spies posing as art students, suspicious moving vans with traces of explosives, the high-fivers with the Israeli moving company that promptly disappeared, and on and on. Not to rush to judgment, Mike, but those are critical areas to investigate ...unless there is an agenda NOT to.

Back to Ruppert's association to Gary Webb. Neat job of positioning on that meeting, which was assembled due to Gary's diligent journalistic efforts. Mike got the sound bite. Stole the show. Very impressive, and useful too. As Mike Ruppert eulogized Gary Webb's recent demise, all the while asserting it was a suicide and calling anyone who dared challenge that verdict as "Internet trailer park trash", I was reminded of a politician eulogizing an important figure more to grandstand than express true loss and regret.

As Mike waxed on with his "tribute" to Webb, he constantly inserted himself as someone who was a virtual buddy and prodigy of Gary in real life, urging us to be Webb like and not make hasty conclusions about Gary Webb being assassinated. Here's what Gary Webb himself said about Mike Ruppert, from a Boston Globe article on Ruppert a while back:

** Gary Webb, whose explosive 1996 ''Dark Alliance'' series in the San Jose Mercury News alleged CIA complicity in the Los Angeles crack epidemic, says, ''Mike is a real conundrum. I think he's a sincere guy, concerned about the right things, and he was quite supportive of my efforts to expose the interplay between the CIA and drug traffickers. But he's also written stories expounding a theory about the genesis of my Mercury News series that were, quite frankly, ridiculous.''

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Friday 21 January 2005

Confessions of an Economic Hit Man

I've read it and it is superb, if you want to understand how the world really operates then read this book! Click here to link to Amazon so you can buy it.

by John Perkins (Preface)

Economic hit men (EHMs) are highly paid professionals who cheat countries around the globe out of trillions of dollars. They funnel money from the World Bank, U.S. Agency for International Development, and other foreign “aid” organizations into the coffers of huge corporations and the pockets of a few wealthy families who control the planet's natural resources. Their tools include fraudulent financial reports, rigged elections, payoffs, extortion, sex, and murder. They play a game as old as empire, but one that has taken on new and terrifying dimensions during this time of globalization.

I should know; I was an EHM.

I wrote that in 1982, as the beginning of a book with the working title Conscience of an Economic Hit Man. The book was dedicated to the presidents of two countries, men who had been my clients, whom I respected and thought of as kindred spirits—Jaime Roldós, president of Ecuador, and Omar Torrijos, president of Panama. Both had just died in fiery crashes. Their deaths were not accidental. They were assassinated because they opposed that fraternity of corporate, government, and banking heads whose goal is global empire. We EHMs failed to bring Roldós and Torrijos around, and the other type of hit men, the CIA-sanctioned jackals who were always right behind us, stepped in.

I was persuaded to stop writing that book. I started it four more times during the next twenty years. On each occasion, my decision to begin again was influenced by current world events: the U.S. invasion of Panama in 1980, the first Gulf War, Somalia, and the rise of Osama bin Laden. However, threats or bribes always convinced me to stop.

In 2003, the president of a major publishing house that is owned by a powerful international corporation read a draft of what had now become Confessions of an Economic Hit Man. He described it as “a riveting story that needs to be told.” Then he smiled sadly, shook his head, and told me that since the executives at world headquarters might object, he could not afford to risk publishing it. He advised me to fictionalize it. “We could market you in the mold of a novelist like John Le Carre or Graham Greene.”

But this is not fiction. It is the true story of my life. Amore courageous publisher, one not owned by an international corporation, has agreed to help me tell it.

This story must be told. We live in a time of terrible crisis—and tremendous opportunity. The story of this particular economic hit man is the story of how we got to where we are and why we currently face crises that seem insurmountable. This story must be told because only through understanding our past mistakes will we be able to take advantage of future opportunities, because 9/11 happened and so did the second war in Iraq, because in addition to the three thousand people who died on September 11 at the hands of terrorists, another twenty-four thousand died from hunger and hunger-related causes. In fact, twenty-four thousand people die every single day because they are unable to obtain life-sustaining food. Most importantly, this story must be told because today, for the first time in history, one nation has the ability, the money, and the power to change all this. It is the nation where I was born and the one I served as an EHM: the United States of America.

What finally convinced me to ignore the threats and bribes?

The short answer is that my only child, Jessica, graduated from college and went out into the world on her own. When I recently told her that I was considering publishing this book and shared my fears with her, she said, “Don't worry, dad. If they get you, I'll take over where you left off. We need to do this for the grandchildren I hope to give you someday!”

The longer version relates to my dedication to the country where I was raised, my love for the ideals expressed by our founding fathers, my deep commitment to the American republic that today promises “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness” for all people, everywhere, and to my determination after 9/11 not to sit idly by any longer while EHMs turn that republic into a global empire. That is the skeleton version of the long answer; the flesh and blood are added during the chapters that follow.

This is a true story. I lived every minute of it. The sights, the people, the conversations, and the feelings I describe were all a part of my life. It is my personal story and yet it happened within the larger context of world events that have shaped our history, brought us to where we are today, and form the foundation for our children’s futures. I have made every effort to present these experiences, people, and conversations accurately. Whenever I discuss historical events or re-create conversations with other people, I do so with the help of several tools, including published documents; personal records and notes; recollections—my own and those of others who participated; the five manuscripts I began previously; and historical accounts by other authors, most notably recently published ones that disclose information that formerly was classified or otherwise unavailable. Footnotes and references are provided to allow interested readers to pursue these subjects in more depth.

My publisher asked whether we actually referred to ourselves as economic hit men. I assured him that we did, although usually only by the initials. In fact, on the day in 1971 when I began working with my teacher Claudine, she informed me, “My assignment is to mold you into an economic hit man. No one can know about your involvement—not even your wife.” Then she turned serious. “Once you're in, you're in for life.” After that she seldom used the full name, we were simply EHMs.

Claudine's role is a fascinating example of the manipulation that underlies the business I had entered. Beautiful and intelligent, she was highly effective; she understood my weaknesses and used them to her greatest advantage. Her job was typical of the cogs that keep the system on track. Claudine pulled no punches when describing what I would be called upon to do. My job, she said, was “to encourage world leaders to become part of a vast network that promotes U.S. commercial interests. In the end, those leaders become ensnared in a web of debt that ensures their loyalty. We can draw on them whenever we desire—to satisfy our political, economic, or military needs. In turn, they bolster their political positions by bringing industrial parks, power plants, and airports to their people. The owners of U.S. engineering and construction companies become fabulously wealthy.”

Today we see the results of this system run amok. Executives at our most respected companies hire people at near-slave wages to toil under inhuman conditions in Asian sweatshops. Oil companies wantonly pump toxins down rain forest rivers, consciously killing people, animals, and plants and committing genocide among ancient cultures. The pharmaceutical industry denies life-saving medicines to millions of HIV-infected Africans. Twelve million families in our own United States worry about their next meal. The energy industry creates an Enron. The accounting industry creates an Andersen. The income ratio of the one-fifth of the world’s population in the wealthiest countries to the one-fifth in the poorest went from 30:1 in 1960 to 74:1 in 1995. The United States spends over $87 billion conducting a war in Iraq while the United Nations estimates that for less than half that amount we could provide clean water, adequate diets, sanitation services, and basic education to every person on the planet.

And we wonder why terrorists attack us?

Some would blame our current problems on an organized conspiracy. I wish it were so simple. Members of a conspiracy can be rooted out and brought to justice. This system, however, is fueled by something far more dangerous than conspiracy. It is driven not by a small band of men but by a concept that has become accepted as gospel: the idea that all economic growth benefits humankind and that the greater the growth, the more widespread the benefits. This belief also has a corollary: that those people who excel at stoking the fires of economic growth should be exalted and rewarded, while those born at the fringes are available for exploitation.

The concept is, of course, erroneous. We know that in many countries economic growth benefits only a small portion of the population and may in fact result in increasingly desperate circumstances for the majority. This effect is reinforced by the corollary belief that the captains of industry who drive this system should enjoy a special status, a belief that is the root of many of our current problems and perhaps is also the reason that conspiracy theories abound. When men and woman are rewarded for greed, greed becomes a corrupting motivator. When we equate the gluttonous consumption of the earth's resources with a status approaching sainthood, when we teach our children to emulate people who live unbalanced lives, and when we define huge sections of the population as subservient to an elite minority, we ask for trouble. And we get it.

In their drive to advance the global empire, corporations, banks, and governments (collectively the corporatocracy) use their financial and political muscle to ensure that our schools, businesses, and the media support both the fallacious concept and its corollary. They have brought us to a point where our global culture is a monstrous machine that requires exponentially increasing amounts of fuel and maintenance, so much so that in the end it will have consumed everything in sight and will be left with no choice but to devour itself.

The corporatocracy is not a conspiracy, but its members do endorse common values and goals. One of corporatocracy's most important functions is to perpetuate and continually expand and strengthen the system. The lives of those who “make it,” and their accouterments—their mansions, yachts, and private jets—are presented as models to inspire us all to consume, consume, consume. Every opportunity is taken to convince us that purchasing things is our civic duty, that pillaging the earth is good for the economy and therefore serves our higher interests. People like me are paid outrageously high salaries to do the system's bidding. If we falter, a more malicious form of hit man, the jackal, steps to the plate. And if the jackal fails, then the job falls to the military.

This book is the confession of a man who, back when he was an EHM, was part of a relatively small group. People who play similar roles are more abundant now. They have more euphemistic titles, and they walk the corridors of Monsanto, General Electric, Nike, General Motors, Wal-Mart, and nearly every other major corporation in the world. In a very real sense, Confessions of an Economic Hit Man is their story, as well as mine.

It is your story too, the story of your world and mine, of the first truly global empire. History tells us that unless we modify this story, it is guaranteed to end tragically. Empires never last. Every one of them has failed terribly. They destroy many cultures as they race toward greater domination, and then they themselves fall. No country or combination of them can thrive in the long term by exploiting others.

This book was written so that we may take heed and remold our story. I am certain that when enough of us become aware of how we are being exploited by the economic engine that creates an insatiable appetite for the world's resources and that results in systems that foster slavery, we will no longer tolerate it. We will reassess our role in a world where a few swim in riches and the majority drown in poverty, pollution, and violence. We will commit ourselves to navigating a course toward compassion, democracy, and social justice for all.

Admitting to a problem is the first step toward finding a solution. Confessing a sin is the beginning of redemption. Let this book, then, be the start of our salvation. Let it inspire us to new levels of dedication, and drive us to realize our dream for balanced and honorable societies.

BUY THIS BOOK NOW!

The End of Oil?

The true state of oil reserves in the world is another of the Big Lies that you are being told. Wake up and smell the (dwindling) hydrocarbons people!

by Mark Williams

If the actions—rather than the words—of the oil business’s major players provide the best gauge of how they see the future, then ponder the following. Crude oil prices have doubled since 2001, but oil companies have increased their budgets for exploring new oil fields by only a small fraction. Likewise, U.S. refineries are working close to capacity, yet no new refinery has been constructed since 1976. And oil tankers are fully booked, but outdated ships are being decommissioned faster than new ones are being built.

If those clues weren’t enough, here’s a news item that came out of Saudi Arabia on March 6, 2003. Though it went largely unremarked, the kingdom’s announcement that it could not produce more oil in response to the Iraq War was of historic importance. As Kenneth Deffeyes notes in Beyond Oil: The View from Hubbert’s Peak, it meant that as of 2003, there was no major underutilized oil source left on the planet. Even as established oil fields have reached their maximum production capacity, there has been disappointing production from new fields. Globally, according to some geologists’ estimates, we have discovered 94 percent of all available oil.

The Saudis’ announcement arrived right on schedule—at least, once the three-year delay imposed by OPEC’s anti-U.S. embargo and production cutbacks of the 1970s was factored in. In 1969, the prominent geologist M. King Hubbert predicted that a graph of world oil production over time would look like a bell curve, with a peak around the year 2000. Thereafter, he argued, production would drop—slowly at first, then ever faster.

Hubbert had a track record as a prophet: his 1956 forecast that U.S. domestic oil production would peak in the early 1970s proved correct. Kenneth Deffeyes, who started out in 1958 as a young petroleum geologist at Shell’s Houston labs working alongside Hubbert, became so convinced by the man’s theories that by 1963 he had left the oil business, except for occasional consulting work; he is now a professor emeritus of geosciences at Princeton University. In Beyond Oil, Deffeyes takes readers through Hubbert’s analysis in a highly readable style, even boiling down the complex mathematics into a few pages of graphs.

The prognosis? Deffeyes has no doubt that by 2019, the year in which Hubbert’s theories indicate global oil production will drop to 90 percent of current rates, human ingenuity will have found replacement energy sources (see “What Energy Crisis?”, p. 19). But Deffeyes is optimistic about the long term only because he believes that by 2010, pressures will grow so intense that they’ll create the resolve necessary to develop a new energy ­economy. In the short term, he foresees continually rising oil prices that force industry after industry closer to the wall. He fears not just escalating resource wars around the world but also mass starvation in some countries, since the 6.4 billion people living on the earth today are fed thanks largely to the successes of the 20th century’s “green revolution,” which, among other innovations, brought petrochemical-based fertilizers into wide use.

Because 15 years ago we failed to begin developing the new energy sources and technologies we need now, Deffeyes argues, in the immediate future we’ll have to rely on what we’ve got. In Beyond Oil, he examines how we might optimize the use of our geologically derived energy sources.

Deffeyes suggests that coal will make a comeback and that Fischer-Tropsch conversion—the process by which the Nazi regime turned coal into gasoline to keep its Panzers running during WWII—might become commonplace. He grants that there’ll be an outcry over the ecological costs of burning coal; similarly, there’ll be much agonizing as nuclear power plants are again rolled out. But Deffeyes believes that M. King Hubbert, whose 1956 paper predicting the U.S. oil production peak is titled “Nuclear Energy and the Fossil Fuels,” was right: nuclear power will be part of our response to decreasing reserves of oil and natural gas, as necessity overrides any political opposition.

Ultimately, says Deffeyes, we may just have to resign ourselves to relying more on coal, wind, and nuclear fission for ­electricity and switching to high-efficiency diesel and hybrid automobiles in order to ration our remaining oil reserves for as long as possible. Abundant energy from fossil fuels was a one-time gift, Deffeyes concludes, that lifted humanity up from subsistence agriculture and has led to a future based on renewable resources.

Full story...

Auschwitz - The Final Count

The problem with History is that it is always written by the victors. If you examine in detail what you learned at school most of it starts to come apart very quickly indeed. I'm not denying that the holocaust happened but there are a lot of people who think that the numbers were a bit off.

A thought-provoking new anthology edited by English historian Vivian Bird casts stark new light on what really happened at Auschwitz during World War II. As the evidence shows, the official "facts" just don't add up.

In the summer of 1997 I was invited to speak at a California college seminar about my book, Final Judgment, which contends that Israel's intelligence agency, the Mossad, played a front-line role in the JFK assassination conspiracy alongside the CIA. Almost instantaneously I was hit by a media barrage orchestrated by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) of B'nai B'rith, a lobby for Israel.

The ADL told the press I was "a Holocaust denier" and, for that reason alone, I should not be allowed to discuss my book (which, incidentally, never once mentions the Holocaust). Evidently the ADL was determined to shift the focus away from what my book really does address, so they determined the best way to discredit me was to smear me as "a Holocaust denier" (which I am not).

The ADL's tactic succeeded, setting off a firestorm of opposition-a "holocaust," so to speak-and the seminar was canceled, illustrating one point most clearly: The Holocaust has become a powerful propaganda tool for the state of Israel.

And what is important to remember is this: What did-or did not-happen at the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland is, in fact, integral to the foundation of the basic story of the Holocaust.

Auschwitz is central to the Holocaust legend. If it can be proved that the official stories we have been told about Auschwitz are not true, the entire fabric of the Holocaust ultimately has to unravel. What, then, did happen at Auschwitz?

On April 18, 1945, in the immediate aftermath of World War II, The New York Times reported that 4 million people died at Auschwitz. This "fact" was reported over and over again during the next half-century, without being questioned.

However, on January 26, 1995, commemorating the 50th anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation, both The Washington Post and The New York Times itself reported that the Polish authorities had determined that, at most, 1.5 million people (of all races and religions)-not "4 million"-died at Auschwitz of all causes, including natural causes.

Yet this was not the first time this drastically reduced figure appeared in the major media. Almost five years previously, on July 17, 1990, The Washington Times reprinted a brief article from The London Daily Telegraph. That article stated:

Poland has cut its estimate of the number of people killed by the Nazis in the Auschwitz death camp from 4 million to just over 1 million . . . The new study could rekindle the controversy over the scale of Hitler's "final solution"

Full story...

Thursday 20 January 2005

Iraq Abuse Pictures

The squaddies involved should NOT be the ones on trial! Your basic soldier doesn't take a crap without getting an order so it is their superiors, INCLUDING TONY "The Warmonger" BLAIR, who should be on trial for putting the troops into Iraq ILLEGALLY and allowing this sort of abuse to happen in the first place by ORDERING THEM TO DO IT. These images are sick, pornographic and disturbing but they shame us all so the least we can do is look at them because this shit is being done in our names! This is not a symptom of a "few rotten apples" this is a systemic problem in a society which is corrupt, violent, heartless, cruel and rotten to the fucking core!

SHAME ON US ALL FOR LETTING THIS CONTINUE!!!!!


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Lance Corporal Cooley driving fork lift truck with an Iraqi detainee tied to it.


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Corporal Kenyon (r) leaning over an Iraqi detainee.


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Iraqi detainees forced by British soldiers to "simulate" sexual acts.


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Iraqi detainees being forced to "simulate" sexual acts.


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Iraqi detainees during "simulated" oral sex.


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Iraqi detainees "simulating" sexual acts.


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Lance Corporal Larkin standing on an Iraqi detainee while Corporal Kenyon takes a photograph.


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A soldier "simulating" kicking an Iraqi detainee lying in a patch of water.


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An Iraqi detainee bound in netting.


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Lance Corporal Cooley "simulating" a punch to

The Chain of Command

Prime Minister Tony Blair
Tony Blair, who has suffered a serious backlash over taking Britain to war, yesterday condemned as "shocking and appalling" the photographs of alleged abuse by British troops.

Defence Secretary Geoff Hoon
Has yet to make any statement.

General Sir Mike Jackson
Chief of the General Staff (head of the Army). Had overview of the Iraq military operation, but control on the ground was left to Air Marshal Burridge. General Jackson said on Tuesday he "utterly condemned" all abuse.

Air Marshal Brian Burridge
UK commander in Iraq. In control of 45,000 UK forces. Based at US Central Command HQ. Ex-Nimrod pilot has since been promoted to Air Chief Marshal.

Chief of Staff Major-General Peter Wall
Chief of Staff to Air Marshal Burridge, he was in charge of battle strategy in Iraq, directing operations, including those undertaken by the Fusiliers. He would not have been expected to be involved in the day to day running of units.

Major-General Robin Brims
Commander of the UK Ground Forces in Iraq, consisting of 16 Air Assault Brigade, 3 Commando Brigade, and 7 Armoured Brigade. Later awarded a DSO.

16 Air Assault Brigade: 6,000-strong. Based in Colchester. Aviation and parachute capabilities.

3 Commando Brigade: 3,500-strong. Fighting force of the Royal Navy. Trained for combat in extreme conditions

7 Armoured Brigade: Desert Rats, commanded by Brigadier Graham Binns. Part of 1 UK Armoured Division, 17,000-strong in Iraq.

Lt Col David Paterson
Senior officer in the 7th Armoured Brigade, in charge of the 1st Battalion The Royal Regiment of Fusiliers. Reportedly approved Major Taylor's Operation Ali Baba to tackle looters. Awarded an OBE after Iraq war.

Major Dan Taylor: Assigned to the humanitarian aid camp Camp Bread Basket near Basra. Under his command, 100 British soldiers set out to capture looters to "work them hard". Court martial heard operation apparently breached the Geneva Convention. Due to give evidence today.

Lance Cpl Darren Larkin: Aged 30 from Oldham. Admits one charge of assaulting an Iraqi civilian and denies another of forcing two Iraqi males to undress.

Lance Cpl Mark Cooley: Aged 25 from Newcastle upon Tyne. Faces two counts of conduct to the prejudice of good order and military discipline and a further charge of disgraceful conduct.

Cpl Daniel Kenyon: Aged 33, from Newcastle upon Tyne, faces total of six charges. Among them is the charge that he allegedly forced two Iraqis to strip and simulate sex acts.