Tuesday, August 29, 2006

The Voice of the White House

Washington, D.C., August 27, 2006: “The posting of an intercepted conversation between an official of the Israeli Embassy and a party at AIPAC has drawn an enormous amount of attention. Nearly all of this is positive, I am told, but a number of parties have wondered how it could be authenticated. If they could advise me as to how they feel this conversation, and the many others I am now in the process of working up , can be authenticated, I will be happy to address the issue.

Perhaps a signed, notarized statement from the Israeli official involved might suffice but one has the distinct feeling that such a statement wouild never issue.

The initial conversation between an official of the Israeli Embassy in Washington and someone from the AIPAC, also in Washington, has had a tremendous reception, having been looked at over 100,000 times on our website alone, and has subsequently been reprinted on other websites around the world.

To date, we have had no comment from the Israeli Embassy proclaiming it to be false and there is a great deal of internal evidence that lends credence to its authenticity.

In the final analysis, it is the opinion of the reader that matters....to the reader.

This latest posting is important enough but the reader must know that neither of the parties are identified, although their telephone numbers are. One, the A party, is calling from a telephone located inside Washington’s plush Hay-Adams hotel while the second, the B party, is using the main telephone number of the United States Attorney’s office in New York City. It should be fairly obvious that one of the parties, the one in Washington, has some connection with the staff of the Vice President. The call was recorded on August 18, 2006 and I am only showing a portion of it. The rest of what was a 20 minute call is filled with trivia.

A @ 202 638-6600 (Washington, D.C.)

B @ 212 637-2200 (New York City, N.Y.)

……

A: Of course you never know what is serious, what can happen, what will happen and what is only wishful thinking. But there is enough there….

B: How much have you actually seen…or heard? I mean factually, not just latrine rumors.

A: Plenty. In a twisted way, it makes sense. I suppose it does. Anyway, I have nothing to do with it and just knowing about something in advance is not a crime, unless someone can find a paper or remember a conversation that is.

B: Before the fact.

A: Right. That’s why I say you and your family should leave your nice Big Apple place about the ninth of October and go visit your relatives in Arizona. Then you can watch it on CNN.

B: How long a vacation?

A: Why not a week either way?

B: And you? Any vacation for you? But you don’t have any kids or plants to take care of.

A: True but Georgetown is pretty safe. New York won’t be. God knows what kind of chemicals will be in the air and a good wind coming from Jersey could bring some nasty surprises. Isn’t it better to be safe than sorry?

B: Sure. But packing up means stories to everyone and I would have to be cool and collected about it. The kids would miss Halloween parties if I stay long enough and there is school to consider. I suppose I ought to call home and get them to invite me. I can’t just drop in on them.

A: No but try not to sound concerned. How long since you’ve seen them out there?

B: About a year, give or take. I’ll start on this right away. Will you be involved?

A: Shit no. I told you I want to know nothing about all of this and…

B: No, no, no….I mean will you have to go down there?

A: No. I’m not important enough. He might not even go. He will probably put Bush up to going to show the flag as he could say, while he does what he’s been doing for six years now and that’s running the country. No, he’ll stay right here and make sure he can keep his eyes and his hands on everything. I know he’s been writing speeches and policy statements on this because I’ve seen several when I have been filing.

B: Does he know you look at things?

A: Christ, I hope not. I just smile and look admiring and once in a while, I get a brief smile or a nod. He wants so much to be the real President but it will never happen. Too many people hate him. He’s not all that bad privately but officially, he’s a real Beria, if you know what I mean. Competent, very much so, and cold as ice. Jesus, he really does not like Bush at all. I have heard him say things about him…he thinks he’s a basket case. You know, it’s funny because when he put himself on the ticket, he had no idea Bush would be such an intransigent nut. But he’s been waiting for real power for years and now that he has it, he’s not going to blow it. I don’t know why he just doesn’t cash in his stock options when the term is over and retire and write books. He’s got a really bum ticker and he could go at any time.

B: Quadruple bypass, right?

A: Oh yes, and he takes more pills than a hippie.

B: Then why does he care?

A: His precious party might lose everything he has worked towards for so many years, that’s why. If they lose in November, don’t forget, there could be investigations and I can tell you what with the stock business and the hidden bank accounts, he’d spend his last years in a Federal jail somewhere.

B: They think they’ll never get caught…

A: Or die. Anyway, you know enough not to tell your wife or anyone else about this heads up, don’t you. Two ways to get secret information out. Telephone and tell a woman.

B: My wife isn’t that way at all but I take your drift. I say nothing. But won’t one of the perps get sloshed and tell some cunt about it? Or his priest?

A: Don’t worry about priests. They’re using Jews for this one, like the last time. I think it’s rabbis, not priests.

B: They were involved in 2001…

A: Yes and they passed it on, knowing nothing would be done. And no one is going to nail them on this one because they can snitch about the last one. Hell, they’ve been using that one for leverage for five years now. They’re smart assholes, I’ll give them that.

B: Why that target and not something like the Liberty Bell? Or they could blow up a plane with a lot of top Democrats on board, right?

A: If the refinery goes, you can see and hear it in your apartment. No damage to New York but plenty of dramatic fireworks. Keep the media busy for months. At least it will be better than the Aruba adventure. You have to keep the number of in-the-know people down to about three. The hebe guy running this operation is from DC originally and Interpol is after him for his operation down under. Linden is right on the water and it’s easy in and easy out…if they’re lucky. Oh, and here’s a nice touch. They want to leave a dead raghead behind, like some guard shot him. I mean someone they have in jail, over there, not here, with a long record of militant activity and I mean well-documented. And one of my man’s people will accidentally discover him nice and dead with all kinds of fake evidence in his pockets, for certain putting the blame on bin Laden. And that’s a joke because bin Laden has been dead since ’03.

B: Did we ice him somewhere?

A: No. Kidney failure in a paki hospital. He makes a good boogeyman. You know the drill: If you don’t vote for us, the rotten, weak faggot Democrats will take over and bin Laden will rejoice and kill all of you.

B: It has worked before as I remember. Red Alerts and duct tape.

A: And then we can have real Red Alert days, just before elections.

B: As usual. Not to change the subject but how do you think the immigration votes will go? My people live in Tucson and they are worried sick about all of the beaners shooting each other over drugs. What will happen?

A: What do you think? They supply our friendly agribusiness tycoons with slave labor so we make a lot of noise and do nothing.

B: McCain…

A: He’s a nut. I guess being locked up in a zipperhead jail in solitary for five years snapped him.

…………..

Editor’s note: Bayway Refinery is a refining facility used by ConocoPhillips, located in Linden, New Jersey. This is the northernmost refinery on the East Coast of the United States. The oil refinery converts crude oil (supplied by tanker) into gasoline, diesel fuel, jet fuel, and heating oil. As of 2006, the facility processes approximately 238,000 barrels per day (BPD) of crude oil, producing 145,000 BPD of gasoline and 110,000 BPD of distillates. Its products are delivered to East Coast customers via pipeline transport, barges, railcars and tank trucks.

The facility also houses a petrochemical plant which produces lubricants and additives, a polypropylene plant which produces 775 million pounds per year, and has its own railway container terminal and heliport.

Linden is a City in Union County, New Jersey. Located southwest of Elizabeth, a few miles from New York Harbor. Together with Elizabeth, Linden is home to the Bayway Refinery, a ConocoPhillips refining facility that helps supply petroleum-based products to the New York/New Jersey area.

Monday, August 21, 2006

  Posted by Picasa

Then they came for the bloggers...............

Rex 84: FEMA's Blueprint for Martial Law in America


by Allen L Roland

August 20, 2006
Salon.com Blogs

We are dangerously close to a situation where ~ if the American people took to the streets in righteous indignation or if there were another 9/11 ~ a mechanism for martial law could be quickly implemented and carried out under REX 84.

The Cheney/Bush administration has a plan which would accommodate the detention of large numbers of American citizens during times of emergency.

The plan is called REX 84, short for Readiness Exercise 1984. Through Rex-84 an undisclosed number of concentration camps were set in operation throughout the United States, for internment of dissidents and others potentially harmful to the state.

The Rex 84 Program was originally established on the reasoning that if a "mass exodus" of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA.

Existence of the Rex 84 plan was first revealed during the Iran-Contra Hearings in 1987, and subsequently reported by the Miami Herald on July 5, 1987

" These camps are to be operated by FEMA should martial law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general's signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached."

And there you have it ~ the real purpose of FEMA is to not only protect the government but to be its principal vehicle for martial law.

This is why FEMA could not respond immediately to the Hurricane Katrina disaster ~ humanitarian efforts were no longer part of its job discription under the Department of Homeland Security.

It appears Hurricane Katrina also provided FEMA with an excuse to “dry run” its unconstitutional powers in New Orleans, rounding up “refugees” (now called “evacuees”) and “relocating” them in various camps. “Some evacuees are being treated as ‘internees’ by FEMA,” writes former NSC employee Wayne Madsen.

“Reports continue to come into WMR that evacuees from New Orleans and Acadiana [the traditional twenty-two parish Cajun homeland] who have been scattered across the United States are being treated as ‘internees’ and not dislocated American citizens from a catastrophe"

We are dangerously close to a situation where ~ if the American people took to the streets in righteous indignation or if there were another 9/11 ~ a mechanism for martial law could be quickly implemented and carried out under REX 84.

Be forewarned ~ the Cheney/Bush administration will stop at nothing to preserve their power and their ongoing neocon mis-adventure and they have currently proposed having executive control over all the states National Guard troops in a national emergency.

Governor Tom Vilsack of Iowa, called the proposal " one step away from a complete takeover of the National Guard, the end of the Guard as a dual-function force that can respond to both state and national needs."

The provision was tucked into the House version of the defense bill without notice to the states, something Vilsack said he resented as much as the proposal itself.

Under the provision, the president would have authority to take control of the Guard in case of " a serious natural or manmade disaster, accident or catastrophe" in the United States.

Do remember, to the Cheney/Bush administration ~ the Mob at the Gates that they truly fear is not terrorists but, instead, the people demanding the truth.



--------------------------------------------------------------------------------


REX 84 AND FEMA

http://www.mindfully.org/Reform/2004/FEMA-Concentration-Camps3sep04.htm

MINDFULLY, 2004 - There over 800 prison camps in the United States, all fully operational and ready to receive prisoners. They are all staffed and even surrounded by full-time guards, but they are all empty. These camps are to be operated by FEMA should martial law need to be implemented in the United States and all it would take is a presidential signature on a proclamation and the attorney general's signature on a warrant to which a list of names is attached. . . The Rex 84 Program was established on the reasoning that if a "mass exodus" of illegal aliens crossed the Mexican/US border, they would be quickly rounded up and detained in detention centers by FEMA.

Rex 84 allowed many military bases to be closed down and to be turned into prisons.

Operation Cable Splicer and Garden Plot are the two sub programs which will be implemented once the Rex 84 program is initiated for its proper purpose. Garden Plot is the program to control the population. Cable Splicer is the program for an orderly takeover of the state and local governments by the federal government.

FEMA is the executive arm of the coming police state and thus will head up all operations. The Presidential Executive Orders already listed on the Federal Register also are part of the legal framework for this operation.

The camps all have railroad facilities as well as roads leading to and from the detention facilities. Many also have an airport nearby. The majority of the camps can house a population of 20,000 prisoners.

Currently, the largest of these facilities is just outside of Fairbanks, Alaska. The Alaskan facility is a massive mental health facility and can hold thousands of people.


--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Centre for Research on Globalization.

To become a Member of Global Research

The Centre for Research on Globalization (CRG) at www.globalresearch.ca grants permission to cross-post original Global Research articles in their entirety, or any portions thereof, on community internet sites, as long as the text & title are not modified. The source must be acknowledged and an active URL hyperlink address to the original CRG article must be indicated. The author's copyright note must be displayed. For publication of Global Research articles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact: crgeditor@yahoo.com

www.globalresearch.ca contains copyrighted material the use of which has not always been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. We are making such material available to our readers under the provisions of "fair use" in an effort to advance a better understanding of political, economic and social issues. The material on this site is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving it for research and educational purposes. If you wish to use copyrighted material for purposes other than "fair use" you must request permission from the copyright owner.

For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com

Sunday, August 20, 2006

  Posted by Picasa

Hmmmmmm.........

Two Strange Deaths in European Wiretapping Scandal
By Paolo Pontoniere and Jeffrey Klein, New America Media
Posted on August 19, 2006, Printed on August 20, 2006
http://www.alternet.org/story/40485/
Just after noon on Friday, July 21, Adamo Bove -- head of security at Telecom Italia, the country's largest telecommunications firm -- told his wife he had some errands to run as he left their Naples apartment. Hours later, police found his car parked atop a freeway overpass. Bove's body lay on the pavement some 100 feet below.

Bove was a master at detecting hidden phone networks. Recently, at the direction of Milan prosecutors, he'd used mobile phone records to trace how a "Special Removal Unit" composed of CIA and SISMI (the Italian CIA) agents abducted Abu Omar, an Egyptian cleric, and flew him to Cairo where he was tortured. The Omar kidnapping and the alleged involvement of 26 CIA agents, whom prosecutors seek to arrest and extradite, electrified Italian media. U.S. media noted the story, then dropped it.

The first Italian press reports after Bove's death said the 42-year-old had committed suicide. Bove, according to unnamed sources, was depressed about his imminent indictment by Milan prosecutors. But prosecutors immediately, and uncharacteristically, set the record straight: Bove was not a target; in fact, he was prosecutors' chief source. Bove, prosecutors said, was helping them investigate his own bosses, who were orchestrating an illegal wiretapping bureau and the destruction of incriminating digital evidence. One Telecom executive had already been forced out when he was caught conducting these illicit operations, as well as selling intercepted information to a business intelligence firm.

About 16 months earlier, in March of 2005, Costas Tsalikidis, a 38-year-old software engineer for Vodaphone in Greece had just discovered a highly sophisticated bug embedded in the company's mobile network. The spyware eavesdropped on the prime minister's and other top officials' cell phone calls; it even monitored the car phone of Greece's secret service chief. Others bugged included civil rights activists, the head of Greece's "Stop the War" coalition, journalists and Arab businessmen based in Athens. All the wiretapping began about two months before the Olympics were hosted by Greece in August 2004, according to a subsequent investigation by the Greek authorities.

Tsalikidis, according to friends and family, was excited about his work and was looking forward to marrying his longtime girlfriend. But on March 9, 2005, his elderly mother found him hanging from a white rope tied to pipes outside of his apartment bathroom. His limp feet dangled a mere three inches above the floor. His death was ruled a suicide; he, like Adamo Bove, left no suicide note.

The next day, Vodaphone's top executive in Greece reported to the prime minister that unknown outsiders had illicitly eavesdropped on top government officials. Before making his report, however, the CEO had the spyware destroyed, even though this destroyed the evidence as well.

Investigations into the alleged suicides of both Adamo Bove and Costas Tsalikidis raise questions about more than the suspicious circumstances of their deaths. They point to politicized, illegal intelligence structures that rely upon cooperative business executives. European prosecutors and journalists probing these spying networks have revealed that:




The Vodaphone eavesdropping was transmitted in real time via four antennae located near the U.S. embassy in Athens, according to an 11-month Greek government investigation. Some of these transmissions were sent to a phone in Laurel, Md., near America's National Security Agency.


According to Ta Nea, a Greek newspaper, Vodaphone's CEO privately told the Greek government that the bugging culprits were "U.S. agents." Because Greece's prime minister feared domestic protests and a diplomatic war with the United States, he ordered the Vodafone CEO to withhold this conclusion from his own authorities investigating the case.


In both the Italian and Greek cases, the spyware was much more deeply embedded and clever than anything either phone company had seen before. Its creation required highly experienced engineers and expensive laboratories where the software could be subjected to the stresses of a national telephone system. Greek investigators concluded that the Vodaphone spyware was created outside of Greece.


Once placed, the spyware could have vast reach since most host companies are merging their Internet, mobile telephone and fixed-line operations onto a single platform.


Germany's Federal Intelligence Service, BND, recently snooped on investigative journalists. According to parliamentary investigations, the spying may have been carried out using the United States's secretive Bad Aibling base in the Bavarian Alps, which houses the American global eavesdropping program dubbed Echelon.



Were the two alleged suicides more than an eerie coincidence? A few media in Italy -- La Stampa, Dagospia and Feltrinelli, among others -- have noted the unsettling parallels. But so far no journalists have been able to overcome the investigative hurdles posed by two entirely different criminal inquiry systems united only by two prime ministers not eager to provoke the White House's wrath. In the United States, where massive eavesdropping programs have operated since 9/11, investigators, reporters and members of Congress have not explored whether those responsible for these spying operations may be using them for partisan purposes or economic gain.

As more troubling revelations come out of Europe, it may become more difficult to ignore how easily spying programs can be hijacked for illegitimate purposes. The brave soul who pursues this line of inquiry, however, should fear for his or her life.

Jeffrey Klein is a founding editor of Mother Jones. Paolo Pontoniere is a New America Media European commentator.

© 2006 Independent Media Institute. All rights reserved.
View this story online at: http://www.alternet.org/story/40485/

Thursday, August 17, 2006

  Posted by Picasa

Pitch Black Void

Pitch Black Void

Freefall

By Manuel Valenzuela

08/15/06 "Information Clearing House" -- -- The towers fell upon their own imprints, floor after floor cascading down upon the next in an avalanche of concrete, glass, steel and flesh, in the process pulverizing everything, and everybody, between them, over 200 combined stories of human ingenuity flattened in the span of seconds, their reign over gravity and the skies eviscerated, falling down to the land of mortals not with the chaos of randomness and malevolent physics but with the unexpected order and perfection of orchestration and wicked pre-planned intentions.

One building was followed by another in a near perfect duplication of the first, almost as if déjà vu had supplanted itself on Manhattan island, after morbidly disturbing airplane crashes had sent the collective conscious of the world on freefall, their fires blazing yet their inferno not scorching enough to melt the reinforced steel of towers designed to withstand airline crashes. Soon after the strikes black and gray smoke billowed out of the crash sites, proof that what had once burned was now dissipating, unable to breathe the oxygen it needed to burn or unable to chemically alter steel skeletons or cause the structural integrity of two separate skyscrapers to be compromised.

Yet less than one hour after each building was struck the monoliths of New York came crashing down, almost in perfect synchronization, more than half an hour apart, one after the other in a display of destruction too perfect to qualify as randomness, a form of controlled chaos never to befall a burning steel skyscraper in the histories of modern civilization or architecture. Strangely, not one hour passed before we were led to believe fire and heat compromised and melted reinforced steel, not for one but two separate buildings, as if lightning had struck twice in the same spot, as if the impossible had become normal, as if black smoke could bend, in the course of an hour, what usually would take multiple hours to achieve.

In America, however, where citizens have the attention spans of gnats, tuning out after ten-second sound bites, one minute news reports and having the patience only to accept rapid video flashes, even orchestrated, criminal mass murder must be accomplished on fast-forward time. And so the destruction by controlled demolition of the WTC, brilliantly executed, monstrously planned, hidden behind the charade of hijacked airliner crashes, yet so easily deciphered by open minds and through the magic of video and the passage of time, became a reality, in a few seconds of malevolent decimation killing close to 3,000 innocent human beings and plunging a nation of 300 million into the freefall of madness, shock, fear, hatred, rage and the collective blindness needed by criminals, warmongers and greed addicts to steer a nation down the precipice of human emotion and into the realm of total control and obedience.

While the nation, indeed the world entire, recovered its collective breath, paralyzed shock and ever-increasing fear at what we had just witnessed – and repeatedly seen over and over again thanks to the corporate media – a rather peculiar, and unexpected, event occurred that hundreds of millions were unable to see, either because of shock, fear or the blindness spawned by the psychological trauma we had just experienced. A few hours after the towers had fallen, entombing thousands and forever altering the course of history, another skyscraper came tumbling down, clandestinely falling almost inconspicuously to the ground below. This building, the fifty story WTC 7, seemingly untouched and unaffected by the destruction of her much larger brothers, with no fires or smoke apparent, with no structural damage noticeable, with no airplane smashing into her, decided to fall to earth in much the same way, falling exactly the way multiple buildings have fallen over the years thanks to controlled demolitions, seemingly imploding from within, her top falling down as if her structural skeleton had been turned to butter. It would later be said by authorities that WTC 7 fell due to structural and fire damage, yet video and eyewitness testimony, as well as the open eyes of any rational human being, beg to differ. If no rational reason can be found to explain how WTC 7 fell in such a “controlled” demolition sort of way, in the absence of damage, what, then, can be deduced? What, then, are we to make of the fate that befell the Twin Towers, in direct contradiction to the laws of physics and those of logic?

Make no mistake, 9/11 was, and continues to be, a war upon the American people, a psychological operation directed at our minds and hearts that was, from the very start, nothing but the catalyst needed to launch Project Empire by the delusional criminals and miscreants in power. The events of 9/11, with the destruction of the World Trade Center, as well as the hit on the Pentagon, were designed by the architects of mass murder as the oil needed to fine-tune and start the engine of the American war machine as well as those sparkplugs of blind and unthinking support, the American people. The targets were largely symbolic, landmarks entrenched into the American psyche, easily recognizable as pillars of American strength, the strikes upon their infrastructure calculated not only to inflict mass murder, but to deeply affect the collective psychology of hundreds of millions of Americans. In 9/11 the enablers of terror would have the birth pangs of their new American Century.

The Throne Determined

The individuals who planned and executed 9/11 knew that with the ascension of George W. Bush to the throne of the American presidency their plans and projects, long since created and written yet for years lacking the keys to power, would have the green-light to commence wars upon the American people as well as those long-planned against the Arab world. Indeed, well before Bush became president the decision had already been made, deep in the dark closets of clandestine meetings and arrangements, where deal making and power decisions are made, to attack and invade Iraq, along with other nations deemed “important,” both for geopolitical and ideological reasons.

These wars and invasions, which were to be the centerpiece of the miscreants’ master plans, creating the birth pangs of a New American Century, one based on unilateralism, resource domination, protection of Israel’s vital interests and unequaled imperial hegemony, would, it was thought, catapult America into the realm of Empire, a kingdom untouched and unrivaled, in control of the world’s energy resources, in full mastery of all potential rivals, possessed of vitally important lands and locations. All that was needed was a stolen election or two, a little luck and a new Pearl Harbor from which to spawn their dogma of controlled chaos upon the globe.

When seen in this light, the importance to the miscreants that George W. Bush become president after the 2000 election, by any means necessary, is more readily understood. To the corporatist and neoconservative cabal that has declared war on the American people, it was imperative that Bush be declared the winner versus Al Gore. Only with a Bush victory could their projects and sinister intentions be born and implemented, thereby creating the conditions needed to control the country and its citizens, and by extension the entire planet, for years and even decades into the future.

Indeed, they knew that to succeed, years and even decades would be needed to transform the world according to their ideology. The Project for the New American Century, or PNAC, full of corporatists and neoconservatives, could only commence their blueprint with the selection, no matter how devious it became or how unscrupulous the methods chosen, of George W. Bush to the White House, and not just for one term. Thus, the stolen election of 2000, especially in the state of Florida, was but one more strategic maneuver designed specifically to set in place the mechanisms by which their ideology could, after years of frustration, finally be allowed to blossom. The ascension of George W. Bush to the American throne thus became an inevitable conclusion well before the first vote was cast. It was the individuals that counted the votes, and not those that cast them, who would decide the 2000 election.

The election of 2000 was orchestrated to perfection by the corporatists and neoconservatives who clandestinely or openly supported the Republican ticket. Using the television and the unrivaled power of the corporate media, with its images, sound bites, editing magic and legions of journalist lackeys, they set out to tarnish the reputation and achievements of Bill Clinton and by consequence, those of his vice-president and most likely Democratic candidate, Al Gore. Knowing how easy the buttons of manipulation can be pressed upon an unsuspecting and dumbed down American populace, they created Clinton fatigue and dislike among millions of potential voters, knowing full well that by destroying the president’s likeability they were at the same time decimating Al Gore’s potential votes among moderates and independents. Using the television to their advantage, they thereby eliminated the president from the election picture, knowing that Clinton, if allowed to campaign for Gore, and ever the political charmer and genius, could have delivered the election to the Democrats, or at the least made Gore a more marketable personality to the electorate.

With Clinton out of the picture, the smearing of Gore and the adulation of Bush commenced, with the corporate media using all tools at its disposal to turn Gore into an unlikable candidate, using clever editing of sound and video, combined with the negative comments of embedded lackey journalists, to turn Gore, a much worthier candidate than Bush could ever become, into a mediocre politician with no personality or popularity. He became the unlikable candidate, the elitist Washingtonian whose candidacy was imputed to Bill Clinton fatigue. The corporate media did everything in its power to sway the unsure voter that Gore was not the right man to be president. In the era of corporatism, it is the corporations that decide who will run and who will win. We the People can only vote for those deemed acceptable by the corporate establishment, those that have shown loyalty not to the People, but to the interests of the corporate world.

Meanwhile, with the complete backing of big business, the military industrial energy complex and the neoconservatives in and out of the media, Bush was transformed from east coast elitist into average Joe six-pack, with the tools of television propelling and marketing Bush as an average middle class American, with a recently purchased Texas ranch to prove it. The creation of the Bush persona was carefully orchestrated, following the results of research, polls and focus groups, trying to recreate or imitate, at least in some psychological way, shape or form, the qualities inherent in or sought by those groups needed for Bush and his still clandestine cabal to garner the most votes in the general election. Meanwhile, the corporate media gave the dimwit Bush a pass at every turn, forgiving his penchant for idiocy and his quite apparent lack of knowledge. His shady past was ignored; his repeated failures as a businessman were glossed over. The corporatist world had its man and the will of the People would not stand in their way.

As such, Bush’s persona is a fiction, in as much as he is made to represent the American middle-class, for deep inside, where genetics and environment and pathology meet on the superhighway of psychological fusion, Bush is a manifestation of the unthinking knuckle-dragger, a slight step above our primate cousins, incapable of deep thought, reasoned intelligence or logical decision making, preferring to dwell in the certainties of black and white thinking and the archaic beliefs of primitive theology. He remains a hollow poster child for elitist juniors, a pampered spoiled little boy given to temper tantrums when he does not get what he wants, a man who for too long nursed off the breast of superiority, apathy and greed, for decades living in a wealth-induced bubble devoid of discipline or suffering.

Deeply flawed mentally, never able to replicate the intelligence or the success of fathers and grandfathers, possessing a lack of empathy and a willingness to inflict suffering onto others, fully aware that everything he has achieved has been due to the laurels of his father and not the talents of his existence, Bush nonetheless exhibits many characteristics of a psychotic, with a penchant for incessant lying, for walking over anybody that gets in his way, for his appetite for destruction and murder, for his indifference for human life, in his ability to bully the world, in his love of greed and power, in his distaste for knowledge and intellectual stimulation, and in the unmistakable reality that whatever he has touched during his life has turned not to gold, but to pure, one-hundred percent fecal matter. This is the George W. Bush chosen by the cabal of corporatists and neoconservatives to help usher in a new era of American imperialism. With such a president at the helm of the most powerful state in the world, a man easily influenced and manipulated, lacking reason, logic and the wisdom of leaders, PNAC found itself the instrument of terror it so desperately needed.

Knowing for months the likely outcome of the 2000 election, after months of research, studies and historical analysis, and millions of dollars invested had shown them the direction, Bush’s handlers focused on the one state they knew would decide the outcome. And so, with months to go before the 2000 election, the Republican machine set out, with help from George W. Bush’s brother Jeb, to embed into the election system the mechanisms needed to steal Florida in favor of Bush, the Republicans, the neoconservatives and the corporatists.

They immediately set out to disenfranchise hundreds of thousands of voters, most of them African-American, through a myriad of illegal yet methodical ways. Felons were purged from the voting records, as were thousands of law-abiding citizens whose names were erased from registration lists. Outdated voting machines, those most likely to tabulate wrong vote counts, were introduced into poor areas for the sole purpose of disenfranchising voters, most of whom would likely vote for Gore. The irregularities were many; the votes purged were in the hundreds of thousands. The corporatist/Republican voter disenfranchisement machine, so adept at Jim Crow, had come calling again.

This election, after all, was of paramount importance, both for the corporatists from the military industrial energy complex, who were depending on Bush for hundreds of billions of dollars in future oil and war profiteering profits, as well as a complete dismantling of burdensome corporate taxes, laws and environmental regulations, not to mention untold billions of dollars in stolen Iraqi money and American taxes, and the neoconservatives, whose main interests were ideological and strategic, through imperial domination of the Middle East and Central Asia, control of oil/gas resources and mechanisms, toward complete American hegemony and eventual Empire building through domination of potential rivals, not to mention the always present protection of Israel and her interests, assuring her regional domination in the Middle East through the elimination of her rivals. By any means necessary, the 2000 election would have to be won, irrespective of the will of the People.

After the Supreme Court selected their man as the new president of the United States, a decision that was a foregone conclusion, the wheels were set in motion, and soon the project for the New American Century would have its new and improved Pearl Harbor, a 21st century Reichstag fire whose usefulness would never subside and whose demons could always, at the whim of expediency, be resurrected. The dreaded Arab terrorist was about to be born, entering the grand stage of American produced enemies, becoming the bogeyman striking fear at the heart of a cowardly majority.

A new America was soon to be born from the smoke, dust and debris of falling monoliths and demolished lives. An obedient populace would soon surface, wide eyed in allegiance to fascism, ready to hate and fear and kill for the sake of the red, white and blue, proud to march lockstep with the drums of war, eager to unleash weapons of destruction upon the lands of the barbarians. Afghanistan, Iraq, Syria and Iran were only months away from being gobbled up, and the Bush cabal, assured by its delusions and its arrogance, could only salivate at the thoughts of what would surely soon arrive.

Enter the Darkness

If we ponder over the horizon of the last five years and ask ourselves who has benefited the most from the tragic events of 9/11 then surely the arrow would point to the Bush administration, along with the clandestine and known neoconservatives and corporatists controlling the military industrial energy complex. As a result of 9/11, these groups, the Bush cabal for short, have seemingly grown in absolute power and wealth, declaring wars, occupying nations, killing hundreds of thousands of human beings, manipulating the American populace, fleecing America’s treasury, making obscene profits from war and death, curtailing Americans’ civil liberties and rights, further instituting corporatist control over government and society, engendering fear and hatred into the people and ignoring the rule of law along with the Constitution of the United States.

The Bush cabal has succeeded in reaching many of the goals it had set for itself before taking office in 2000. In this war against the American people, the cabal has utterly defeated us, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. We are quite impotent, it seems, to their manipulation of our fears and the conditioning of our hatreds. It has been 9/11, that catalyst to population control and manipulation, that has cemented the Bush cabal firmly in power, doing with the American people as they wish, leading us further down the road to corporatism. The cabal has systematically declawed us of our bravery, making us babies crying out for our mother. It has succeeded at manipulating us through the use of fear and terror, actually convincing us to throw away liberties and flush down freedoms for the sake of protection and security, even though the only thing we have to fear is fear itself.

It was 9/11, a devastating conduit of brain wave alteration, more than anything else, that has completely and systematically transformed the American people into the sheeple and lemmings needed by authoritarian rulers everywhere to govern and impose their tyrannical policies. The 9/11 psychological war upon the citizenry, or, in the words of the PNAC, the “new Pearl Harbor,” was designed to nurture perpetual fear and hatred in hundreds of millions of minds, in the process harvesting loyal and obedient citizen soldiers. The attack, taking place on a few city blocks of the largest metropolis in the country, devastated two giant buildings but left the rest of the country, besides the Pentagon, physically unscathed.

What September 11, 2001, did, however, more than anything else, was destroy not the physical infrastructure of America, but the mental energy of the nation and its citizens. It was both a mental manipulation dirty bomb and a weapon of mass deception rolled into one, a direct hit against the very foundation of America’s citizenry, creating the most fragile, and by extension subservient, populace since Nazi Germany. September 11th’s tragedy, its morbid violence, its sinister evils were played and replayed countless times, from every possible angle, sending shockwaves into our pores, fear running through our veins, with every replay our mind succumbing further inside our fragile psyches, searching for answers, and vengeance. The thirst for Arab blood was what the cabal wanted, and it was what it got.

A direct hit upon the American psyche did more damage to the nation than two hits on colossal skyscrapers ever could, yet slowly but methodically, our mind became the dominion of the cabal. We became, over the course of a few days, possessed by the demons of fear and hatred, like zombies sleep-walking through our daily lives, not knowing what to do, experiencing emotions we had never felt, remembering tragedy we had just recently seen, searching in darkness for light, needing to place blind trust in the nation’s authorities, needing to trust our security and freedom and democracy upon the leaders of the country.

We became putty in the hands of the cabal, and they knew it. Everything they wanted we would gladly give them for we had become, in the span of a few days, corralled sheep and caged lemmings, robbed of free thought, our bravery supplanted by the fear hovering throughout the land, our reason destroyed by the hate in our hearts. We wanted security, safety and most of all, vengeance. We failed to think logically about the mess the cabal was immersing us in. We failed to understand the ramifications of entering a hornet’s nest and murdering tens of thousands of people. We failed to comprehend the vicious cycle of violence our acquiescence would soon spawn, nor the disaster that was to unfold. Standing behind the flag and our patriotism blind we became to the view of reality. We wanted revenge for 9/11; we wanted to unleash carnage upon Arab lands, whether they were a threat or not. We fell right into the cabal’s master plans.

The tragic events of 9/11 became an instant myth in our collective consciousness, its story firmly entrenched in our minds, its official narrative becoming both national tragedy and inspiration, its fable unable to be altered, its façade unbending, its reality hidden by blind rage and closed minds. We were conditioned never to question the official narrative, or the obvious 9/11 Commission white wash. To question and even seek truth was to delve in realities we could not bare or wish to understand. The implications would be unfathomable, and deeply disturbing. For if our protectors had committed mass murder in New York and Washington, if our leaders were responsible for 9/11, then who and what was running the nation? If they could kill 3,000 citizens, what was stopping them from murdering many more? It was better to be brainwashed with the official story than to question the uncomfortable. It was easier to never question than to seek the truth. In the end, it was easier to drink the Kool-Aid than enter the rabbit hole.

In the end, it was simple to believe that we had been attacked by what we did not know or understand, by entities that wished to destroy our freedom and our democracy, by brown-skinned bogey men lurking in every corner and underneath every bed, waiting to come out of closets, ready to murder and rape, pillage and devastate. We were made to fear, and with fear we lost reason. We were made to hate, and with hate born free thought died. The Arab and the Muslim had become our enemy; almost overnight more than a billion humans were condemned by a barrage of corporate media propaganda and government manipulation, seemingly too conveniently, too prepared and scripted, as if the enemy had been concocted months and years before, its fault carefully planned and orchestrated, marketed for all its faults and none of its virtues, transforming a group of people into the monsters of our imaginations and the madmen of our corporate media indoctrination.

The Bush cabal had succeeded in concocting an enemy from the same lands and region where it wanted to wage war and occupation. Geopolitics, geostrategy, oil, gas and pipelines, imperial hegemony and absolute power, how lucky for the cabal that America’s new bogeymen hailed from the same nations scheduled for invasion. The cabal’s actions, or inaction, depending on how one looks at 9/11, embedded the lust for vengeance, and thus for war, on the American population. The Bush cabal, fully aware that the American people would never consent or give approval to multiple wars of choice upon lands and peoples that had not done us harm, thus needed a catalyst, a new Pearl Harbor, a 9/11-like event from which to alter the minds of 300 million Americans, making warmongers out of pacifists, vengeance-seekers out of peaceful citizens. Without the trauma and the shock and the fear and the hatred and the blind rage spawned by 9/11, the Bush cabal would never have been able to embark on their warmongering and profiteering ways. The anger and hatred and blind trust engendered thanks to 9/11 made sure that the cabal could proceed with long-held plans and ideologies.

Thus we were fed the lies and the deceits and the manipulations that exist in the lands of authoritarianism, where the citizenry is too dumbed down and unable, or unwilling, to question its own government. We followed the fable and the bull manure, believing, still to this day, a government that has lied about every single issue to ever arise in five years since usurping power. In a world where war is peace, slavery is freedom and ignorance is knowledge, let it also be said that lies are truth in these new days of “new normals” and “birth pangs” and “bringing democracy to the Middle East.” Let it be said we have entered the darkness, from which light dare not enter.

Terrorist Cabal

The cabal, it must be understood, is comprised of pure blooded authoritarians, corporatist (fascists) tyrants that care not one ounce for the well-being of the population. To them we are but mere peasants, nothing but peons and pawns and patsies relegated to playing the grand game of geopolitical and greed-mongering chess, doing our part to advance the neocon Machiavelli wet dream of imperial hegemony. The death of 3,000 citizens means nothing to these monsters, much like the murder of 250,000 Iraqis or the death of 2,600 American soldiers. The Bush cabal is made up of madmen and monsters, incapable of living in reality or of understanding truth, yet tyrannical enough to create a new Pearl Harbor through the controlled demolition of the Twin Towers (not to mention WTC 7 and a strike on the Pentagon). They dwell in an infallible bubble of make believe and of unrealistic theories, a land of Kool-Aid drinkers and dependents of delusional cocktails.

The Bush cabal has no morals or scruples, preferring lies to truth, secrecy to transparency, life in a pitch black void over that in translucent light. They have no trouble murdering their own citizens to pursue and achieve their goals and ideology. They are authoritarians, tyrants more comfortable living in a police state than in an open society, inside their pores hating every facet of true democracy, for to them the will of the people should never be heeded. Democracy is a hindrance of governance, an uncomfortable principle that works to destroy their vision, though now made a charade for the masses to believe the system is as it has always been. The death of democracy and of the Constitution would send tears of joy running down their cheeks.

In their view citizens are incapable of making the right decision and should therefore be told what to think, how to act and who to follow and obey. The majority needs to be conditioned as to what to do and how to do it. To them the corporate media is but a tool of control and manipulation, a way to make good sheep and lemmings out of the citizenry, a loudspeaker to proclaim that the state is the only entity capable of protecting the nation, a disseminator of lies and half truths, a gatekeeper telling the people only what the cabal wants us to know.

The Bush cabal cares only about absolute power, hegemony, greed and wealth. They care nothing for American soldiers, all of whom are considered cannon fodder for the military industrial energy complex. Wars are fought not for defending “freedom and democracy,” which to them is nothing more than a catchy focus group catchphrase, rather to expand and defend the interests of American corporations, as well as to enrich the military industrial energy complex. After all, instability in the Middle East is great for energy corporations; the more instability the higher the price of a barrel of crude will be and the higher will thus be a gallon at the American pump. The cabal thinks in black and white, not in shades of grey; it makes policy based on ideology, not reality. It operates under the theory of controlled chaos, unleashing hell to get to an eventual heaven.

The cabal makes enormous profits at our expense, helping shrink our wallets while fattening theirs. The cabal supplies billions of dollars in military arms to the Middle East, and to the world, only to see nations declare war on each other, killing and murdering with our weapons. Human life and human rights, along with international law are but bumps in the road to total hegemony, to be sidestepped on the road to Empire. Civil rights and freedoms in America are contrary to the authoritarian dream; if it was up to them America would be under martial law and under severe police powers, our civil liberties curtailed severely, our freedoms eroded. In time they will inevitably get their wish; each year the threat to our liberties and freedoms is exacerbated, not by terrorists but by the Bush cabal.

For five years we have been told to look far and wide for so-called terrorists, across the Atlantic Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, given a magnifying glass into the Middle East. It is here, we are made to believe, where they hate us for our freedoms and our democracy, for our “grand” way of life, though certainly not for our occupations, undying support for Israel and brutal foreign policy. It is said they hate us for our democracy, yet we refuse to grant them the same freedoms. It is said they strike us for our open society, yet we exploit their lands, rape their women and subjugate their daily lives. For five years our minds have been distracted with the threats posed by Arabs and Muslims, most of which happen to live below the last remaining fields of oil. If the French or the Germans lived in the Middle East, they too would today be America’s enemy, our terrorist barbarians.

For five long years we alone have been responsible for sacrificing our civil liberties and our freedoms, not to mention our democracy, which in essence is today nothing but a charade, a banana republic façade exported to a first world nation. Our fear and cowardice has resulted in the loss of liberty at home and in warmongering escapades abroad, creating in Iraq the worst strategic disaster in the history of the nation. Our almost absurd over-reactions to bull manure infested terror warnings, nothing but control mechanisms implemented to remind us who is protecting us and who deserves our loyalty and our vote, make us the laughing stock of the world. Terror warnings laced in lies and manipulation should be questioned, not religiously followed. They should be understood for what they are, not feared like the end of the world. Terror warnings about dark-skinned Arabs and Muslims are but a ploy to control your thoughts and your lives, designed for you to place allegiance to the cabal, to distract you from the erosion of liberties or the disasters in the Middle East. They are, like 9/11, a figment of our imaginations, nightmares of our conditioned minds, stories meant to frighten us into giving away more of our freedoms and liberties. Sadly, however, these mechanisms seem to be working brilliantly.

All this time we have been looking to the Middle East for the dreaded terrorist, yet since 9/11 we should have been looking for terrorists within our own shores. It is the Bush corporatist and neocon cabal that is the real terrorist organization. It is they, a bunch of miscreants of the highest order, criminal minds addicted to power, wealth and greed, arrogant and monstrous in behavior, that are the cause of terror worldwide. It is they that have made our nation less safe, not more. It is they who are guilty of committing mass murder upon our shores and it is they who will not hesitate to murder many more if it suits their needs.

It is because of them that the so-called war on terror paralyzes and controls us. It is they that spawned it and continue nurturing it, carefully rearing it like a mother does a child, ever so proud of what it has become, looking forward to the greatness it can one day turn into. The war on terror is their brainchild, a creation designed to replicate its malevolent energy over and over, growing and expanding through the vicious cycle of hatred born and murder committed, repeated until a clash of cultures, civilizations and religions sustains and engorges it, creating the controlled chaos needed to satisfy the delusion of the Project for the New American Century.

The so-called war of terror is a figment of their imagination, now lingering in ours, a creation that has become a self-fulfilling prophesy. It was a war started by the cabal, a result of our foreign policy and our destruction of both people and land abroad, a vicious cycle that feeds itself more and more with each new death inflicted by our corporate controlled military. For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction, for every death or maiming the thirst for vengeance grows; for every brutal occupation calls for hatred and revenge arise. With every American made missile launched, artillery exploded, bullet released the war on terror is assured of new recruits, new reactions of opposite and intended consequences. This is the war on terror’s mantra, its slogan, the law created by the cabal so that it never ends, just as it never began. The war on terror is designed to last into perpetuity, for America always needs an enemy to quench its war culture thirst. It always needs war and enemies to cause fright among the populace, the easier to control millions. War means profit, wealth and the sustained viability of the economy. In America, war, and thus enemies, is good for business.

The war on terror is but an illusion, a concoction disseminated by the Bush cabal and its journalist hacks to control the population into submission, into forcing us to abandon the freedoms and democracy we once enjoyed. We are being frightened by the cabal of terrorists using the corporate media and government loudspeakers, our strength and courage evaporating with each new terror threat or warning, with each new sermon advocating still another war of choice. We are being used and abused, our lives transformed, slowly but surely, methodically creating a “new normal,” an American police state, an authoritarian system full of followers, full of yes-men and women, full of sheep and lemmings, unable to comprehend how we allowed our nation to become the reality of our nightmares.

We must open our eyes to the reality of the Bush cabal. They are the real terrorist organization. They are the murderers and the criminals, the destroyers of life and the butchers of the Middle East. They are preparing us for perpetual war, for a future devoid of security or freedom or democracy. The war on terror will not end; our troops will be in Iraq for decades to come; wars against Iran and Syria have been planned. There will be many more 9/11’s to come, some real and some concocted, yet the next one will undoubtedly open the doors to a perpetual police state, altering dramatically our way of life, making George Orwell roll in his grave. According to the cabal of terrorists, it is inevitable.

One more attack on our soil is all it will take for the bastion of democracy and freedom to turn into the cesspool of authoritarian rule. The cabal of terrorists is looking for an excuse, an opportunity. How many of us will die this time? How many of our children will be sent to the next war(s)? How many liberties will we have left? How many of our friends and neighbors will be made to disappear? Will we accept their rule, and continue fighting a charade, or will we finally put an end to this madness? Will we change our ways, or will we continue living like the sheep and lemmings we are being conditioned to become?

We must put a stop to the madness before the madness puts a stop to us. We must reclaim America from the claws of authoritarianism and corporatism. We must show we are not pawns or patsies in the games the neocons play. We must show we are brave and strong, not fearful and weak. They are few, we are many. Truth and fairness and justice are on our side; karma and malevolence on theirs. The time for indifference and passivity are over. Enough fear mongering and war making, enough terror threat manipulation. We must show that we do not hate, that we actually think for ourselves, that we seek peace and international harmony. Enough death and suffering has gone on in our name. America is being made the laughing stock of the world, hated like never before, stirring anger and boiling rage for all we allow to happen. Only this time, the peoples of the world no longer differentiate between the government and the people. We are all hated now. The time to take a stand is now, for if not now, when? We were once loved and admired, respected and an inspiration. Let not five years of disarray become a lifetime of disaster. We know who the real terrorists are. It is up to us to show them that their America is not our America. It is time we show them the door out of the country.

Their America is not our America, for we are the People of the World; they but the Scourge of Humanity. We are Peace and they are War, they are few and we are many, many more.

Manuel Valenzuela is a social critic and commentator, international affairs analyst and Internet columnist. His articles as well as his archive can be found at his blog, http://www.valenzuelasveritas.blogspot.com and at http://www.informationclearinghouse.info as well as at other alternative news websites from around the globe. Mr. Valenzuela is also author of Echoes in the Wind, a fiction novel. Mr. Valenzuela welcomes comments and can be reached at manuel@valenzuelas.net.

Wednesday, August 16, 2006

The UK 'Terror Plot' -
What's Really Going On?
By Craig Murray
8-15-6


Mr. Murray was the British Ambassador to Uzbekistan from August 2002 to October 2004
----

I have been reading very carefully through all the Sunday newspapers to try and analyse the truth from all the scores of pages claiming to detail the so-called bomb plot. Unlike the great herd of so-called security experts doing the media analysis, I have the advantage of having had the very highest security clearances myself, having done a huge amount of professional intelligence analysis, and having been inside the spin machine.

So this, I believe, is the true story.

None of the alleged terrorists had made a bomb. None had bought a plane ticket. Many did not even have passports, which given the efficiency of the UK Passport Agency would mean they couldn't be a plane bomber for quite some time.

In the absence of bombs and airline tickets, and in many cases passports, it could be pretty difficult to convince a jury beyond reasonable doubt that individuals intended to go through with suicide bombings, whatever rash stuff they may have bragged in internet chat rooms.

What is more, many of those arrested had been under surveillance for over a year - like thousands of other British Muslims. And not just Muslims. Like me. Nothing from that surveillance had indicated the need for early arrests.

Then an interrogation in Pakistan revealed the details of this amazing plot to blow up multiple planes - which, rather extraordinarily, had not turned up in a year of surveillance. Of course, the interrogators of the Pakistani dictator have their ways of making people sing like canaries. As I witnessed in Uzbekistan, you can get the most extraordinary information this way. Trouble is it always tends to give the interrogators all they might want, and more, in a desperate effort to stop or avert torture. What it doesn't give is the truth.

The gentleman being "interrogated" had fled the UK after being wanted for questioning over the murder of his uncle some years ago. That might be felt to cast some doubt on his reliability. It might also be felt that factors other than political ones might be at play within these relationships. Much is also being made of large transfers of money outside the formal economy. Not in fact too unusual in the British Muslim community, but if this activity is criminal, there are many possibilities that have nothing to do with terrorism.

We then have the extraordinary question of Bush and Blair discussing the possible arrests over the weekend. Why? I think the answer to that is plain. Both in desperate domestic political trouble, they longed for "Another 9/11". The intelligence from Pakistan, however dodgy, gave them a new 9/11 they could sell to the media. The media has bought, wholesale, all the rubbish they have been shovelled.

We then have the appalling political propaganda of John Reid, Home Secretary, making a speech warning us all of the dreadful evil threatening us and complaining that "Some people don't get" the need to abandon all our traditional liberties. He then went on, according to his own propaganda machine, to stay up all night and minutely direct the arrests. There could be no clearer evidence that our Police are now just a political tool. Like all the best nasty regimes, the knock on the door came in the middle of the night, at 2.30am. Those arrested included a mother with a six week old baby.

For those who don't know, it is worth introducing Reid. A hardened Stalinist with a long term reputation for personal violence, at Stirling Univeristy he was the Communist Party's "Enforcer", (in days when the Communist Party ran Stirling University Students' Union, which it should not be forgotten was a business with a very substantial cash turnover). Reid was sent to beat up those who deviated from the Party line.

We will now never know if any of those arrested would have gone on to make a bomb or buy a plane ticket. Most of them do not fit the "Loner" profile you would expect - a tiny percentage of suicide bombers have happy marriages and young children. As they were all under surveillance, and certainly would have been on airport watch lists, there could have been little danger in letting them proceed closer to maturity - that is certainly what we would have done with the IRA.

In all of this, the one thing of which I am certain is that the timing is deeply political. This is more propaganda than plot. Of the over one thousand British Muslims arrested under anti-terrorist legislation, only twelve per cent are ever charged with anything. That is simply harrassment of Muslims on an appalling scale. Of those charged, 80% are acquitted. Most of the very few - just over two per cent of arrests - who are convicted, are not convicted of anything to do terrorism, but of some minor offence the Police happened upon while trawling through the wreck of the lives they had shattered.

Be sceptical. Be very, very sceptical.

Tuesday, August 15, 2006

Monday, 14 August 2006
While your attention has been diverted by the proxy war in Lebanon, the civil war in Iraq, the still-hot shootin' war in Afghanistan and the coming war with Iran, the Bush Regime been busy waging -- and winning -- another take-no-prisoners, give-no-quarter conflict right in the sacred Homeland itself: class war.

I know, I know: we don't have "classes" in America. No, our society is flatter than a flitter; we're all born on the same level playing field, lined up together at the same starting gate, given the same amount of seed corn to plant on identical plots of rich topsoil. We're all subject to the same laws, which are applied equally to everybody, all the time, regardless of race, creed, color, national origin or sexual orientation. Who would deny these self-evident truths -- except perhaps for those same churls who refuse to acknowledge the seasonal beneficence of Santa Claus or the wonder-working power of the Easter Bunny?

And in truth, the epic despoliation now being wrought by the Bush Regime upon the overwhelming majority of the American people does not fall neatly into classic (or classist) Marxist categories. For one thing, Marx's bête noir, the bourgeoisie, are getting it in the neck along with everybody else. In fact, now that the poor have essentially been erased from public consciousness, wiped out by decades of savage Right-wing rollback, and "tough love" from corporate-coddling, welfare-whacking "New" Democrats, the middle class and its "privileges" -- higher education, affordable health care, job security, pensions, government services and regulatory protections, civil liberties, etc. -- have become primary targets of the Bushists' bold attempt to return American society to the glory days of the Gilded Age, where rapacious robber barons held untrammeled sway.

Dispatches from the Bush Faction's war on America come in every day, piecemeal, the dots rarely if ever connected. Last week saw a bumper crop of precision strikes, hitting an array of some of the Regime's favorite targets: the cannon fodder they've used up in their wars of crony conquest then tossed aside like so much bad meat; the two million Americans that have been clapped behind bars by the Bush Regime -- more prisoners both in sheer numbers and percentage of the population than any nation on earth; and those ever-popular punching bags, the unwealthy sick.

First up, from USA Today: Center for war-related brain injuries faces budget cut. Excerpts:


Congress appears ready to slash funding for the research and treatment of brain injuries caused by bomb blasts, an injury that military scientists describe as a signature wound of the Iraq war. House and Senate versions of the 2007 Defense appropriation bill contain $7 million for the Defense and Veterans Brain Injury Center — half of what the center received last fiscal year.

Proponents of increased funding say they are shocked to see cuts in the treatment of bomb blast injuries in the midst of a war. "I find it basically unpardonable that Congress is not going to provide funds to take care of our soldiers and sailors who put their lives on the line for their country," says Martin Foil, a member of the center's board of directors...George Zitnay, co-founder of the center, testified before a Senate subcommittee in May that body armor saves troops caught in blasts but leaves many with brain damage. "Traumatic brain injury is the signature injury of the war on terrorism," he testified.

The Brain Injury Center, devoted to treating and understanding war-related brain injuries, has received more money each year of the war — from $6.5 million in fiscal 2001 to $14 million last year. Spokespersons for the appropriations committees in both chambers say cuts were due to a tight budget this year.

"Honestly, they would have loved to have funded it, but there were just so many priorities," says Jenny Manley, spokeswoman for the Senate Appropriations Committee.


Boy, they're not even trying very hard to put a plausible spin on these things, are they? No "budget flexibility" to fund treatment for the heads being battered, splattered and bashed in Bush's lie-greased, blood-sodden "war of choice" in Iraq.? The Republicans couldn't even find $7.5 million in chump change just to keep the current level of funding? Seven-and-a-half million dollars -- Dick Cheney could pay that much with a personal check with scarcely a flutter in his bank balance. Halliburton and Boeing charge the taxpayers that much in "overhead" before they sit down to breakfast every day. George Widowmaker Bush could chip in that much with just a chunk of the windfall he'll get from his elimination of inheritance taxes. And how much money have they given the Moonies to peddle "abstinence" in the public schools?

The Republicans are slashing war-related brain trauma treatment for one reason only: they don't give a good goddamn about the rabble they send off to kill and die in their crusade for loot and dominion. That's all there is to it. If they wanted to fund it, if it was important to them, they'd fund it. But they don't, and it isn't, so they won't.

Buried deep in the story is yet another twist of the knife. It seems the Center has also offended the Lord High Warlord, Don Rumsfeld. How so? Here's how:


… The center has clashed with the Pentagon in recent months over a program to identify troops who have suffered mild to moderate brain injuries in Iraq from mortars, rocket-propelled grenades and roadside bombs — the most common weapons used by insurgents. Preliminary research by the center shows that about 10% of all troops in Iraq, and up to 20% of front line infantry troops, suffer concussions during combat tours….The center urged the Pentagon to screen all troops returning from Iraq in order to treat symptoms and create a database of brain injury victims. Scientists say multiple concussions can cause permanent brain damage.

The Pentagon so far has declined to do the screening and argues that more research is needed.


In other words, the Pentagon doesn't want to acknowledge all the brain injuries being borne by returning troops -- because then they'd have to pay to treat them. And they don't want to pay. Bush and Rumsfeld need that money for the black-hole warpits they've already dug, and the one they're planning for Iran. (As Sy Hersh notes this week: "A former intelligence officer said, "We told Israel, 'Look, if you guys have to go, we're behind you all the way. But we think it should be sooner rather than later - the longer you wait, the less time we have to evaluate and plan for Iran before Bush gets out of office.'") They don't care if the soldiers they've ordered into battle come back damaged, crippled, irradiated or diseased. They don't want to know about it. All they really care about is that these soldiers have the good grace to kick off quietly and cheaply somewhere after their service, so their deaths won't add to the politically-charged body count of the Bush wars.

Next up, from the New York Times: Panel Suggests Using Inmates in Drug Trials. Excerpts:


An influential federal panel of medical advisers has recommended that the government loosen regulations that severely limit the testing of pharmaceuticals on prison inmates, a practice that was all but stopped three decades ago after revelations of abuse.

The proposed change includes provisions intended to prevent problems that plagued earlier programs. Nevertheless, it has dredged up a painful history of medical mistreatment and incited debate among prison rights advocates and researchers about whether prisoners can truly make uncoerced decisions, given the environment they live in.

Supporters of such programs cite the possibility of benefit to prison populations, and the potential for contributing to the greater good.

Until the early 1970’s, about 90 percent of all pharmaceutical products were tested on prison inmates, federal officials say. But such research diminished sharply in 1974 after revelations of abuse at prisons like Holmesburg here, where inmates were paid hundreds of dollars a month to test items as varied as dandruff treatments and dioxin, and where they were exposed to radioactive, hallucinogenic and carcinogenic chemicals.

In addition to addressing the abuses at Holmesburg, the regulations were a reaction to revelations in 1972 surrounding what the government called the Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis in the Negro Male, which was begun in the 1930’s and lasted 40 years. In it, several hundred mostly illiterate men with syphilis in rural Alabama were left untreated, even after a cure was discovered, so that researchers could study the disease.

“What happened at Holmesburg was just as gruesome as Tuskegee, but at Holmesburg it happened smack dab in the middle of a major city, not in some backwoods in Alabama,” said Allen M. Hornblum, an urban studies professor at Temple University and the author of “Acres of Skin,” a 1998 book about the Holmesburg research. “It just goes to show how prisons are truly distinct institutions where the walls don’t just serve to keep inmates in, they also serve to keep public eyes out.”

...“It strikes me as pretty ridiculous to start talking about prisoners getting access to cutting-edge research and medications when they can’t even get penicillin and high-blood-pressure pills,” said Paul Wright, editor of Prison Legal News, an independent monthly review. “I have to imagine there are larger financial motivations here.”


This story speaks -- screams -- for itself. It's part of that grand rollback mentioned earlier. The Hard Right and its present avatars in the Bush Faction really do want to repeal and destroy all of the advances in civil rights and civic rights and human rights won -- at such tremendous sacrifice -- over the past century. It's not just about dismantling the Great Society or undoing the New Deal; it's about going all the way back to the post-Civil War era, when the powerful few could prey without let or hindrance upon the wretched many, and government was a brutal tool in the robber baron's arsenal. These guys don't just have Franklin Roosevelt in their sights; they're going after Teddy Roosevelt too, with all the trust-busting and major social reforms of his era (many of which he gets unearned credit for, but that's another story). -- And of course, a goodly number of these Hard-Righters don't want to stop at the post-Civil War era; they'd like to restore the "honor" and "morality" of the antebellum South as well.

Anyone who wants to understand the roots -- and future goals -- of the Hard Right's penal philosophy should check out David Oshinsky's searing 1996 book, Worse Than Slavery: Parchman Farm and the Ordeal of Jim Crow Justice. You might have trouble finding it (I ran across my copy in the remainder bin in a Nashville bookstore): hard truths don't hang around on the shelves as long as the latest Harry Potter. But if you want to see where the Hard Right is coming from -- and what they "admire" when, like John Ashcroft and Trent Lott, they hark back to the good old days -- the book is well worth the effort of looking up.

Like America's soldiers, America's two million prisoners are worthless trash in the eyes of the elite. The former are to be denied medical treatment; the latter are to be subjected to medical experiments. Either way, they're just things, just ciphers to be moved around in the great game of grabbing loot. You ditch the soldiers so you can take the money that should have been used to heal them and either stuff it in your trousers or ladle it out as pork or payoff in some backroom deal. And you use the prisoners as guinea pigs to pump profits for Big Pharma. As for the usual porous "protections" outlined in the measure, one expert noted: “They’re also the parts of the report that faced the strongest resistance from federal officials, and I fear they’re most likely the parts that will end up getting cut as these recommendations become new regulations.”

Finally, a week wouldn't be complete with yet another Bush bashing of the sick and old and poor. Once more into the breach with the NYT: Planned Medicaid Cuts Cause Rift With States. Excerpts:


The White House is clashing with governors of both parties over a plan to cut Medicaid payments to hospitals and nursing homes that care for millions of low-income people. The White House says the changes are needed to ensure the “fiscal integrity” of Medicaid and to curb “excessive payments” to health care providers....

More than 330 members of Congress, including 103 Republicans, have objected to the plan. A letter signed by 82 House Republicans says it “would seriously disrupt financing of Medicaid programs around the country.” A bipartisan group of 50 senators recently urged President Bush to scrap the proposed rules, which were set forth in his 2007 budget and could be issued before the end of this year.

Medicaid finances health care for more than 50 million low-income people, with money provided by the federal government and the states. Under the White House plan, the federal government would reduce Medicaid payments to many public hospitals and nursing homes by redefining allowable costs. It would also limit the states’ ability to finance their share of Medicaid by imposing taxes on health care providers. About two-thirds of the states have such taxes.


Ah, there's the rub, you see. There's the heart of the matter: limiting "the states' ability to finance their share of Medicaid by imposing taxes on health care providers." How dare these commie bastard states try to help the poor and sick by begging a nickel from the billionaires of Big Medicine like Bill Frist.


State and local officials, members of Congress, hospitals, nursing homes and advocates for poor people make several arguments. First, they say, Mr. Bush is doing by regulation what he unsuccessfully asked Congress to do by legislation in the last two years. Second, they say, prior administrations and the Bush administration itself approved many of the state taxes that would be deemed improper under the new rules.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, a Republican, said, “The administration is attempting to reverse decades of federal Medicaid policy through the regulatory process,” less than a year after “Congress rejected these misguided cuts.”

In Missouri, Gov. Matt Blunt, a Republican, said the change “could mean a loss of more than $84.9 million” for his state. That, he said, would “jeopardize the continuity of care for Medicaid recipients” and set back efforts to improve care in nursing homes....

The cuts contemplated by the White House would not reduce the cost of care. But state officials said the changes would put pressure on states to reduce Medicaid benefits, restrict eligibility or lower payments to health care providers...

Dr. Bruce A. Chernof, director of the Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, said the cuts would “reduce access to services in a county where 33 percent of residents are uninsured.” The county’s five public hospitals operate trauma centers and burn treatment units for all patients, not just Medicaid recipients, he said.

The effects are magnified by the way Medicaid is financed. For each dollar that a state loses in provider tax revenue, the federal government will reduce its contributions — by $1 in California and Connecticut, and by $3 in a poor state like Mississippi.


In other words, the point is to kick people off the Medicaid rolls, make it much harder to get treatment (just as it's now harder for students to go to college), and re-define whole sections of the population out of eligibility. And in classic Bush style, the poorest of the poor, as in Mississippi, will lose the most.

Every day, the Regime makes it abundantly, overwhelmingly, undeniably clear that there is only one thing that sick poor people -- and used-up soldiers and chained-up prisoners -- can do to play their part in Bush's noble vision for American society: they should all slink off into the dark somewhere and die.

That is the very quintessence of Bushism. That is now the actual, actionable platform of the modern Republican Party. This is the reality they want to create behind the words "the United States of America

Saturday, August 12, 2006

Voice of the White House

Israelis Caught Red Handed
Planning 'Arab' Terrorism
The Voice of the White House
8-12-6


WASHINGTON, DC -- "Here, as promised, is an interesting conversation that somehow accidentally got intercepted and transcribed. There are lots more where this came from!"

Transcription of telephone conversation on August 3, 2006

from
Israeli Embassy, Washington D.C. Telephone Number (202) 364-5582.

to
unidentified individual at AIPAC , Washington D.C., Telephone Number (202) 639-5201

Commenced 1821 hrs, concluded 1826 hrs.

Speaker A: Reuven Azar - Counselor for Political Affairs, Embassy of Israel

Speaker B: Unidentified individual located at AIPAC headquarters

A. Well, things are going as well as expected, better perhaps than expected. There is military progress there (Lebanon) and we have wonderful cooperation here.

B. For sure, but don't forget the dangers in having too much cooperation. All right for this moment but in the long run, this can certainly backfire on us. You know, we are seen as being too much influential with the Bush people.

A. I wouldn't worry too much about that. The media is certainly not to worry about and most Americans really do not care about things there (Lebanon) The main point is that by the time the U.S. makes itself felt at the UN, we will have accomplished our goals and established the buffer we need.

B. Absolutely butthere is still the future to think about.

A. Who cares? Once we establish the buffer, the rest is just shit. It will all be hidden soon in the coming press reports of Arab 'attacks' on the U.S. This is for the voting in November. You know, 'many Arab groups will for sure attack American targets.' They (the U.S. Government) will choose so-called target areas where they need the most support. We don't need to worry about Miami, Skokie or Beverly Hills after all. (Laughter) and this is a little crude but the public here is terribly stupid and the warning color days worked before, didn't they?

B. Yes, but there are second thoughts on all of that. If you go to the well too often, there are problems. People lose interest.

A. The British are being such swine about this, aren't they? They are causing trouble about the bombs these days.

B. Just a few troublemakers. The press here does not cover that and who reads the foreign media? Most Americans can't read anyway. But there is danger that the U.N. might be motivated to move a peace keeping force into Lebanon and this might negate our purposes. Hesbollah must be utterly wiped out and Syria must be made to realizewith force if necessarythat it cannot supply the terrorists with more Iranian rockets. Maybe an accidental airstrike on Syrian military units could say to them to mind their own business. We have done this before.

A. It is too bad that we cannot teach Tehran a lesson. The ultimate goal would be to have America attack Iran but I am afraid the American military is dead set against this

B. They are all Jew-haters up there.

A. For sure, but we know that Americans can bomb the shit out of Tehran and hopefully kill off a number of the militants, probably disrupt their atomic program and teach all of the area that the U.S. means business. We support them, they support us. But they cannot send in ground troops and if we did that, our losses would not be borne at home. As it is, there are the usual malcontents bleating about the Lebanon business.

B. They are just afraid they will get a rocket on their house and there are the same ones here. The Lieberman business is not that good, after all. Yes, of course he is a liberal Democrat but his support of us is too obvious. He could be a little critical too. We see the Bush people doing this, just to keep the people quiet. Yes, they say, see, we too are actually critical of Israel.

A. But not too critical, right?

B. No, never that. Too many pictures of dead jerks for example. We need to see more pictures of grieving Israelis, mourning lost sons and children. Can't we get more of those? Fuck the Arabs.

A. I feel sorry for the American media. Their instincts are to defend dead Arab children

B. But nits make lice, don't they? Who mourns dead Israeli children?

A. I'm sure there would be more on this but not enough children are dead.

B. Not yet, anyway. But if they rocket Tel Aviv

A. Well, then, for sure.

B. We should have pictures all ready if that happens. Do you think it will?

A. Tehran directs that part of the business. We don't have as much inside gen on them there

B. The fucking Russians are on their side.

A. We have always had trouble with those Slavic pricks. First weapons

B. The Chinese assholes also do this, don't forget.

A. No one around here will forget that, be assured. The time will come when we get them too. Say we cut off their oil from the Gulf? What then? They will dance to our tunes then, not Tehran's.

B. If we had oil

A. But we do not. The filthy Putin has the oil. They should get rid of him while they are at it. Our people almost had it but he forced them out.

B. They can always come back. The people here would really support this. We put our people back in after we get rid of Putin and then a guaranteed flow of oil to America.

A. And Russia is off the chessboard too.

B. They all want that badly here, too. Cheney is the strongest supporter of cutting the nuts off of RussiA. The military here are against fishing in troubled waters.

A. They can't be replaced, Bush can't sack them all.

B. Set an example. Sack a few more of the assholes and the rest will shut up. They always do. So, send me your latest list and I'll see what I can do here.

A. Send someone to pick it up. The mail here is awful. It will take a week if some black doesn't steal it, throw it away or wipe his ass with it.

B. Tomorrow for sure.

A. OK. And one other matter. We feel very strongly that if the current people get kicked out in November, as it looks like they might, we owe them to help them stay right where they are. It has taken a long time and much money to get all the ducks lined up and we don't want to have to start in again. We can generally rely on sympathy from the Democrats but they will not support any more military ventures over there. That's for sure.

B. Then what do you suggest?

A. The terrorism card works wonders. We were going to release a statement that Arabs were going to attack an El Al plane on takeoff, with rockets.

A. Probably leftovers from the CIA businesses in Afghanistan.

A. Let's not get into that now. But this scare would only affect flights to Israel and we don't think it would have any impact on the election.

B. Well then, why not have these attacks aimed at American aircraft? Where would they attack from?

A. Say at the perimeter fence lines at airports. Or better still, why not a plan cooked up to smuggle explosives on board transatlantic flights to or from America? Something clever that will catch the public imagination.

B. That stupid bomb in the shoe routine?

A. Don't knock it. It worked, didn't it? We can always find some suckers with a bent to this we can fill up with real enthusiasm and then turn them in, complete with plans. They actually believe they are going to paradise and fuck virgins and we have another propaganda coup. Let's give this some effort. You know, a terrified public will not want to change horses in mid stream. So far, the Rove people have a good line: If you're against the Republicans, you're encouraging the evil terrorists sthick.

B. Well, they did that with the alert warnings and it workedmore or less.

A. Face it, they aren't too bright here. They ran it into the ground, had to fire Ridge and Ashcroft, one of our very best friends ever, and put those things on ice. They need to discover a huge plot but in America

A. You know, as you said, infiltrate a group of crazies, plant things on them, call the FBI

B. Oh, they do that themselves. That business in Florida was pathetic

A. But it worked, didn't it?

B. For about ten minutes at six o'clock for about three days.

A. Well, think about it and get back to me.

B. Right.

A. What's the situation with your two people? Are they going to be tried or not?

B. Probably not, as far as the Bush people are concerned. But it is up to the courts and we are very careful not to fuck with them. They are expected to have the charges thrown out soon

A. Well, I'll pray for them. I have to go now so I'll get back to you later. Don't forget to send someone for the list

B. OK.

(Conversation terminated)

This is just the tip of a very large iceberg. Other inside information will be published in upcoming editions. On Monday, August 14, I will put up a complete listing of all members of Congress who have received money from AIPAC, state by state, amount by amount.

Dear old crazy, and defeated, Lieberman, shrieking with rage at seeing all his extra income flowing down the drain, has received over $227,758 so far from AIPAC . Tell me, children, what did he do for all that money? There are many more names and amounts to entertain you as well as to give you a concrete guide as to your voting in November next.

As far as the recent stories about "terrorist attacks" coming from England, don't believe them. It is well known around the White House that this invented story is designed to offset the crushing defeat of the Administration's darling liberal, Lieberman. This theme, by the way, according to position papers circulating here, is the main theme of the November elections. The thesis? Why the Iron Trio of Bush/Cheney/Rumsfeld have protected, and will continue to protect, innocent America from evil terrorist threats.

Of course, if you vote Democratic, all bets are off and armies of rabid Muslim (read non Christian) fascists will at once invade America, to rape, loot and pillage while setting off bombs in the Des Moines Public Library. Please note that in spite of all the shit the Bush people have spread around about "proctecting America" there has not been one proven incident of any real terrorist group caught or no attack thwarted. The WMD lies were the father and the "terrorist threats" and the illegitimate child of this corrupt and dangerous gang."

Thursday, August 10, 2006

Fake Terror Obfuscates Lebanon and Iraq Failures
Thursday August 10th 2006, 7:10 am

Unable to window dress the obvious failure to eradicate growing resistance in Lebanon, Iraq, and Afghanistan—even with the mighty propaganda power of a complaisant media—the neocon intelligence apparatus has staged yet another terrorist event, or would be terrorist event.

“The 21 terrorist suspects arrested in the U.K. overnight had a ‘well-advanced plan’ to detonate electronic devices or liquid explosives disguised as beverages or onboard U.S.-bound aircraft, a sophisticated plot suggestive of al-Qaeda, Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said,” reports Bloomberg. “The attacks were aimed at U.S.-bound planes of United Airlines, American Airlines and Continental Airlines at London’s Heathrow Airport, the Associated Press reported, citing unidentified [undoubtedly neocon] U.S. counter-terrorism officials in Washington.”

According to White House propaganda minister, Tony Snow (Job), “The president, prime minister and their key intelligence, law enforcement and security officials have been in close and regular contact. And as you would expect, he has spoken to Prime Minister Blair about these developments in recent days.”

Considering past events, including the “terrorist events” of seven-seven and nine-eleven, we can assume select “law enforcement and security officials” were “in close and regular contact” prior to this latest would-be attack as well.

In standard fashion, in order to apply the correct spin from the outset, we are told this latest operation has “global dimensions,” that is to say it will be billed as not only an “al-Qaeda” operation but other designated “global” enemies will be fingered as well.

“Last month, the global militant group al Qaeda called on Muslims to fight those who backed Israel’s attacks on Lebanon and warned of more attacks unless U.S. and British forces pulled out of Iraq and Afghanistan,” reports Reuters.

In the coming hours and days, we can expect the corporate media, eager stenographers for the neocon plan, to connect the dots—blame will be affixed to Iran, Syria, and their “proxy,” Hezbollah, through “al-Qaeda,” now dedicated (or scripted) to help Hezbollah, not that the homegrown resistance group needs any help, especially from a CIA-ISI engineered terror group.

Finally, as attention has now shifted to Muslim bad guys (either imagined or a parade of patsies), Israel will likely increase the severity of its criminal behavior against the civilians of Lebanon and those of Gaza as well, as the American public will be navel gazing video footage of inconvenienced air travel passengers.

Monday, August 07, 2006

  Posted by Picasa