I thought you said Obama and his Administration wouldn't go after the 2nd Amendment.  To quote you on January 13 of last year "I personally hold no fear that Obama is going to come take my guns...".  Here is the thread just in case you want to read the context.

Have you really changed your mind or are you bored and just trying to stir something up?

I knew you'd come around Garrett!!!

Looks like he may be having second thoughts about some of the things his president would like to do for us!!

Agreed.  I wonder if he still believes his statements (from the link above) "I will support this President no matter what his policy ...", and my personal favorite "...you will bow down and take what Obama does...".

Too bad the lights didn't come on for him before last November.  Very, very sad situation.

Hahahahaha...You can bet your guns that I'm still supporting Obama and won't turn my back on a president that wants to do something for this country other than seeing how much he can steal from this country. I never said that Obama was not going to come after our guns...I said that Obama will never be able to take our guns because there are too many of us that will fight to keep them. I also said that the post of David's about Obama causing the shortage of ammo was a blatent lie by the righties,single minded NRA and the ignorant who only vote for their guns while this countries economy is destroyed, we are lead into a war that is a total lie and the guilty are set free. See the thing is that I have a much broader view than the people who will destroy this country with their vote just to keep their guns...which in my mind is more reason for the Dems to try to take them. If our guns were gone then the playing field would be level and the vote would be for who can help the country...and we know what side that will be because the proof is right in front of us. We need to vote for progress in this country not just for a single issue. If you vote with the single issue of keeping your guns then you are directly responsible for the destruction of our economy. Lets think of America not our guns. Lets think of job creation, international affairs and peace instead of guns and war. The truth will come out and you will see that the Bush admin was by far the most destructive, underhanded, deceitful...well disgusting admin in the history of our now not so great country...thanks Mr. Bush. Bush's push for the war in Iraq has put him in the catagory with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and all the others who have commited Genocide on another country's innocent people. As I said I will fight for my guns but will not vote with only a single issue in mind because our country deserves better. It's simple to me...elect a republican and American's worry about losing everything they have worked for their entire life or vote Democrat, keep your job, house, car, credit, savings, retirement and only worry about losing your guns...which in my opinion just is not going to happen...never has...never will. Have a great day.

The above post is absolutely dilusional....

You would be the dilusional one...

Ok, tell me what part is dilusional and I will show you the proof it happened during the bush reign of destruction?

That's deep Garrett...where's all this 'tolerant' speech we keep hearing about?  And really, the Bush did it argument just doesn't cut it any more.  Your current president has had enough time to show his stripes - and shown them he has.

By the way Garrett, as far as your statement that read "I never said that Obama was not going to come after our guns...I said that Obama will never be able to take our guns because there are too many of us that will fight to keep them. " I think you have a little case of "democratitis".  January 13th, 2009 on this thread you said: "I personally hold no fear that Obama is going to come take my guns.".

And frankly, the folks that truly understand the second amendment also understand the broad reason it must continue to exist, as opposed to your post.  They know that without it, our other libierties would be in dire jeopardy.

Garrett, do your homework for once.  There have been many societies through history that were deluded enough (and you're right on Ken) to believe these lies too: England and Australia (violent crime skyrocketing), Russia, and Germany just to name a few....

Couldn't resist this....  :)

Garrett- this is dilusional, "the Bush admin was by far the most destructive, underhanded, deceitful...well disgusting admin in the history of our now not so great country...thanks Mr. Bush. Bush's push for the war in Iraq has put him in the catagory with Hitler, Stalin, Pol Pot, and all the others who have commited Genocide on another country's innocent people."  You asked now I say, prove it.

You wrote (also dilusional)-"I'm still supporting Obama and won't turn my back on a president that wants to do something for this country other than seeing how much he can steal from this country." Just what is the good Obama wants to do for this country?  Prove it.

Don't forget"

"See the thing is that I have a much broader view than the people who will destroy this country with their vote just to keep their guns...which in my mind is more reason for the Dems to try to take them. "

Ummm...so is he saying that law abiding citizens who want to keep their right to protect themselves are destroying this country?  Or, is he saying that the Dems are more motivated to take away the right of self-protection because law-abiding people want to protect themselves?  Combine this with:

"If our guns were gone then the playing field would be level and the vote would be for who can help the country...and we know what side that will be because the proof is right in front of us. We need to vote for progress in this country not just for a single issue."

My question is, what has this Administration done to make anyone feel more secure?  Is progress defined as massive debt, unconstitution expansion of federal power, wealth redistribution, and the reduction of American sovereignty?  Is that somehow added security?  The one thing I agree with Garrett on is that the proof is indeed in front of us -NO!!!!!

I'm going to side with Banjamin Franklin: "They that can give up essential liberty to purchase a little temporary safety, deserve neither liberty nor safety.".  When it comes between believing Obama or our Founders I'll side with the Founding Fathers anytime.

A bit of Government Censored News you won't find on CNN, Faux, ABC, NBC, CBS, World News or any of the mainstream news channels because this was censored by the government.

After Downing Street, July 6, 2007
Title: “Is the United States Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month? Or Is It More?”
Author: Michael Schwartz

AlterNet, September 17, 2007
Title: “Iraq death toll rivals Rwanda genocide, Cambodian killing fields”
Author: Joshua Holland

Reuters (via AlterNet), January 7, 2008
Title: “Iraq conflict has killed a million, says survey”
Author: Luke Baker

Inter Press Service, March 3, 2008
Title: “Iraq: Not our country to Return to”
Authors: Maki al-Nazzal and Dahr Jamail

Student Researchers: Danielle Stanton, Tim LeDonne, and Kat Pat Crespán
Faculty Evaluator: Heidi LaMoreaux, PhD

Over one million Iraqis have met violent deaths as a result of the 2003 invasion, according to a study conducted by the prestigious British polling group, Opinion Research Business (ORB). These numbers suggest that the invasion and occupation of Iraq rivals the mass killings of the last century—the human toll exceeds the 800,000 to 900,000 believed killed in the Rwandan genocide in 1994, and is approaching the number (1.7 million) who died in Cambodia’s infamous “Killing Fields” during the Khmer Rouge era of the 1970s.

ORB’s research covered fifteen of Iraq’s eighteen provinces. Those not covered include two of Iraq’s more volatile regions—Kerbala and Anbar—and the northern province of Arbil, where local authorities refused them a permit to work. In face-to-face interviews with 2,414 adults, the poll found that more than one in five respondents had had at least one death in their household as a result of the conflict, as opposed to natural cause.

Authors Joshua Holland and Michael Schwartz point out that the dominant narrative on Iraq—that most of the violence against Iraqis is being perpetrated by Iraqis themselves and is not our responsibility—is ill conceived. Interviewers from the Lancet report of October 2006 (Censored 2006, #2) asked Iraqi respondents how their loved ones died. Of deaths for which families were certain of the perpetrator, 56 percent were attributable to US forces or their allies. Schwartz suggests that if a low pro rata share of half the unattributed deaths were caused by US forces, a total of approximately 80 percent of Iraqi deaths are directly US perpetrated.

Even with the lower confirmed figures, by the end of 2006, an average of 5,000 Iraqis had been killed every month by US forces since the beginning of the occupation. However, the rate of fatalities in 2006 was twice as high as the overall average, meaning that the American average in 2006 was well over 10,000 per month, or over 300 Iraqis every day. With the surge that began in 2007, the current figure is likely even higher.

Schwartz points out that the logic to this carnage lies in a statistic released by the US military and reported by the Brookings Institute: for the first four years of the occupation the American military sent over 1,000 patrols each day into hostile neighborhoods, looking to capture or kill “insurgents” and “terrorists.” (Since February 2007, the number has increased to nearly 5,000 patrols a day, if we include the Iraqi troops participating in the American surge.) Each patrol invades an average of thirty Iraqi homes a day, with the mission to interrogate, arrest, or kill suspects. In this context, any fighting age man is not just a suspect, but a potentially lethal adversary. Our soldiers are told not to take any chances (see Story #9).

According to US military statistics, again reported by the Brookings Institute, these patrols currently result in just under 3,000 firefights every month, or just under an average of one hundred per day (not counting the additional twenty-five or so involving our Iraqi allies). Thousands of patrols result in thousands of innocent Iraqi deaths and unconscionably brutal detentions.

Iraqis’ attempts to escape the violence have resulted in a refugee crisis of mammoth proportion. According to the United Nations Refugee Agency and the International Organization for Migration, in 2007 almost 5 million Iraqis had been displaced by violence in their country, the vast majority of which had fled since 2003. Over 2.4 million vacated their homes for safer areas within Iraq, up to 1.5 million were living in Syria, and over 1 million refugees were inhabiting Jordan, Iran, Egypt, Lebanon, Turkey, and Gulf States. Iraq’s refugees, increasing by an average of almost 100,000 every month, have no legal work options in most host states and provinces and are increasingly desperate.1

Yet more Iraqis continue to flee their homes than the numbers returning, despite official claims to the contrary. Thousands fleeing say security is as bad as ever, and that to return would be to accept death. Most of those who return are subsequently displaced again.

Maki al-Nazzal and Dahr Jamail quote an Iraqi engineer now working at a restaurant in Damascus, “Return to Iraq? There is no Iraq to return to, my friend. Iraq only exists in our dreams and memories.”

Another interviewee told the authors, “The US military say Fallujah is safe now while over 800 men are detained there under the worst conditions. . . . At least 750 out of the 800 detainees are not resistance fighters, but people who refused to collaborate with occupation forces and their tails.” (Iraqis who collaborate with occupation forces are commonly referred to as “tails of the Americans.”)

Another refugee from Baghdad said, “I took my family back home in January. The first night we arrived, Americans raided our house and kept us all in one room while their snipers used our rooftop to shoot at people. I decided to come back here [Damascus] the next morning after a horrifying night that we will never forget.”

Citation

1. “The Iraqi Displacement Crisis,” Refugees International, March 3, 2008.

UPDATE BY MICHAEL SCHWARTZ

The mortality statistics cited in “Is the United States Killing 10,000 Iraqis Every Month?” were based on another article suitable for Project Censored recognition, a scientific investigation of deaths caused by the war in Iraq. The original article, published in Lancet in 2006, received some dismissive coverage when it was released, and then disappeared from view as the mainstream media returned to reporting biased estimates that placed Iraqi casualties at about one-tenth the Lancet estimates. The corporate media blackout of the original study extended to my article as well, and has continued unabated, though the Lancet article has withstood several waves of criticism, while being confirmed and updated by other studies (Censored 2006, #2).

By early 2008, the best estimate, based on extrapolations and replications of the Lancet study, was that 1.2 million Iraqis had died as a consequence of the war. This figure has not, to my knowledge, been reported in any mass media outlet in the United States.

The blackout of the casualty figures was matched by a similar blackout of other main evidence in my article: that the Bush administration military strategy in Iraq assures vast property destruction and lethality on a daily basis. Rules of engagement that require the approximately one thousand US patrols each day to respond to any hostile act with overwhelming firepower—small arms, artillery, and air power—guarantee that large numbers of civilians will suffer and die. But the mainstream media refuses to cover this mayhem, even after the Winter Soldier meetings in March 2008 featured over one hundred Iraq veterans who testified to their own participation in what they call “atrocity producing situations.” (see Story #9)

The effectiveness of the media blackout is vividly illustrated by an Associated Press poll conducted in February 2007, which asked a representative sample of US residents how many Iraqis had died as a result of the war. The average respondent thought the number was under 10,000, about 2 percent of the actual total at that time. This remarkable mass ignorance, like so many other elements of the Iraq War story, received no coverage in the mass media, not even by the Associated Press, which commissioned the study.

The Iraq Veterans Against the War has made the brutality of the occupation their special activist province. The slaughter of the Iraqi people is the foundation of their demand for immediate and full withdrawal of US troops, and the subject of their historic Winter Soldier meetings in Baltimore. Though there was no mainstream US media coverage of this event, the live streaming on Pacifica Radio and on the IVAW website reached a huge audience—including a vast number of active duty soldiers—with vivid descriptions of atrocities committed by the US war machine. A growing number of independent news sites now feature regular coverage of this aspect of the war, including Democracy Now!, Tom Dispatch, Dahr Jamail’s MidEast Dispatches, Informed Comment, Antiwar.com, and ZNet.

UPDATE BY MAKI AL-NAZZAL AND DAHR JAMAIL

The promotion of US general David Petraeus to head CENTCOM, and General Raymond Odierno to replace Petraeus as commanding general of the Multi-National Force in Iraq, provoked a lot of anger amongst Iraqis in both Syria and Jordan. The two generals who convinced US and international society of improvement in Iraq do not seem to have succeeded in convincing Iraqi refugees of their success.

“Just like the Bush Administration decorated Paul Bremer (former head of the Coalition Provisional Authority), they are rewarding others who participated in the destruction to Iraq,” stated Muhammad Shamil, an Iraqi journalist who fled Iraq to Syria in 2006. “What they call violence was concentrated in some parts of Iraq, but now spread to be all over the country, thanks to US war heroes. People are getting killed, evicted or detained by the thousands, from Basra (South) to Mosul (North).”

Other Iraqi refugees seem to have changed attitudes regarding their hopes to return. Compared to when this story was published in March 2008, the refugee crisis continues to deepen. This is exacerbated by the fact that most Iraqis have no intention of returning home. Instead, they are looking for permanent residence in other countries.

“I decided to stop dreaming of going back home and find myself a new home anywhere in the world if I could,” said thirty-two-year-old Maha Numan in Syria, “I have been a refugee for three years now living on the dream of return, but I decided to stop dreaming. I have lost faith in all leaders of the world after the surges of Basra, Sadr City and now Mosul. This seems to be endless and one has to work harder on finding a safe haven for one’s family.”

Iraqis in Syria know a lot more of the news about their country than most journalists. At an Internet café in Damascus, each of them calls his hometown and reports the happenings of the day to other Iraqi refugees. News of ongoing violence across much of Iraq convinces them to remain abroad.

“There were four various explosions in Fallujah today,” said Salam Adel, who worked as a translator for US forces in Fallujah in 2005. “And they say it is safe to go back! Damn them, go back for what? For roadside bombs or car bombs?”

It has been important, politically, for the Bush administration to claim that the situation in Iraq is improving. This claim has been assisted by a complicit corporate media. However, the 1.5 million Iraqis in Syria, and over 750,000 in Jordan, will tell you differently. Otherwise, they would not remain outside of Iraq.

I guess you will call these soldiers who were there liars.

Sources:
Iraq Vets Against the War, March 13–16, 2008
Title: “Winter Soldier: Iraq & Afghanistan Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations”

War Comes Home, Pacifica Radio, March 14–16, 2008
Title: “Winter Soldier 2008 Eyewitness Accounts of the Occupations”
Co-hosts: Aaron Glantz, Aimee Allison, and Esther Manilla

One World, March 19, 2008
Title: “US Soldiers ‘Testify’ About War Crimes”
Author: Aaron Glantz

The Nation, July 30, 2007
Title: “The Other War: Iraq Vets Bear Witness”
Authors: Chris Hedges and Laila Al-Arian

Student Researchers: April Pearce, Erica Elkington, and Kat Pat Crespán

Community Evaluator: Bob Alpern

Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans are coming forward to recount the brutal impact of the ongoing occupations. An investigation by the Nation (July 2007) and the Winter Soldier hearings in Silver Spring, Maryland, in March 2008, which was organized by Iraq Veterans Against the War and brought together over 300 veterans, have made their experiences public. Soldiers’ harrowing testimony of atrocities they witnessed or participated in directly indicate a structural problem in the US military that has created an environment of lawlessness. Some international law experts say the soldiers’ statements show the need for investigations into potential violations of international law by high-ranking officials in the Bush administration and the Pentagon. Though BBC predicted that the Winter Soldier event would dominate headlines around the world that week, there was a near total back-out on this historic news event by the US corporate media.1

Dozens of veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan occupation publicly testified at the four-day Winter Soldier gathering about crimes they committed during the course of battle—many of which were prompted by the orders or policies laid down by superior officers. Such crimes include targeting innocent, unarmed civilians for murder and detention, destroying property, desecrating corpses, severely abusing detainees (often torturing to death), and using corpses for medical practice.

Winter Soldier 2008 was organized to demonstrate that well-publicized incidents of US brutality, including the Abu Ghraib prison scandal and the massacre of an entire family of Iraqis in the town of Haditha, were not isolated incidents perpetrated by “a few bad apples,” as many politicians and military leaders have claimed. They are part of a pattern, the organizers said, of “an increasingly bloody occupation.” The veterans also stressed the similarities between the occupations in Iraq and Afghanistan, “. . . units that are getting the exact same training and the exact same orders are being sent to both Iraq and Afghanistan,” explains a former US Army Medic.

The Nation investigation vividly documents the experiences of fifty combat veterans of the Iraq occupation. Their testimonies reveal that American troops lack the training and support to communicate with or even understand Iraqi civilians. They were offered little to no cultural or historical education about the country they control. Translators are in short supply and often unqualified. Interviewed vets said stereotypes about Islam and Arabs that soldiers and marines arrive with tend to solidify rapidly in the close confines of the military and the risky streets of Iraqi cities into a crude racism. Veterans said the culture of this counterinsurgency war, in which most Iraqi civilians were assumed to be hostile, made it difficult for soldiers to sympathize with their victims—at least until they returned home and had a chance to reflect. Former US Army Sergeant Logan Laituri argues, “The problem that we face in Iraq is that policymakers in leadership have set a precedent of lawlessness where we don’t abide by the rule of law, we don’t respect international treaties, so when that atmosphere exists it lends itself to criminal activity.”

International law expert Benjamin Ferencz, who served as chief prosecutor of Nazi War Crimes at Nuremberg after World War II, told OneWorld that none of the veterans who testified at Winter Soldier should be prosecuted for war crimes. Instead, he said, President Bush should be sent to the dock for starting an “aggressive” war. “Nuremberg declared that aggressive war is the supreme international crime.” He said the United Nations charter, which was written after the carnage of World War II, contains a provision that no nation can use armed force without the permission of the UN Security Council.

Many Iraq and Afghanistan veterans return home deeply disturbed by the disparity between the reality of the occupations and the way they are portrayed by the US government and American media. The occupation the vets describe is a dark and even depraved enterprise, one that bears a powerful resemblance to other misguided and brutal colonial wars and occupations, from the French occupation of Algeria to the American war in Vietnam and the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territory. Although international and independent US media covered Winter Soldier ubiquitously, there was an almost complete media blackout on this event by US mainstream media (see Chapter 12).

Citation

1. “Why Are Winter Soldiers Not News?” Fairness & Accuracy In Reporting, March 19, 2008.

UPDATE BY AARON GLANTZ, AIMEE ALLISON,
AND ESTHER MANILLA

The veterans who spoke at Winter Soldier could have stayed silent. They could have accepted parades and accolades of heroism and blended back into society, and the world would have never known about the terrible atrocities they committed or witnessed in Iraq or Afghanistan. By coming forward to share their stories at considerable risk to their honor, however, these veterans have done a great service, permanently changing the historical record of “what happened” in the war zones.

While their testimony continues to be largely ignored by the mainstream media (to date the New York Times, CNN, ABC, NBC, and CBS have failed to cover it), their words were not in vain. Our three-day broadcast lead to a Capitol Hill hearing in front of the Congressional Progressive Caucus. During our March broadcast, we brought on the Caucus’s co-chair, Congresswoman Barbara Lee, as a guest by phone from California and allowed two veterans to join us in conducting the interview. In opening remarks at Winter Soldier on the Hill, Lee referenced that interview.

“I remember one of the persons I talked with wanted to know why there weren’t any members of Congress there,” she said. “And someone asked me over the interview ‘Well, what about having a hearing in Washington, DC?’ And I said ‘Right.’”

On May 15, 2008, nine Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans stood before the Congressional Progressive Caucus, which is co-chaired by Lee and Congresswomen Lynne Woolsey. A half dozen other Congress members also participated and or listened to the three-hour testimony. Many of the representatives in attendance were visibly moved by it and Congresswoman Maxine Waters applauded the veterans for their bravery. KPFA and Pacifica Radio broadcast the hearing live.

Just as importantly, our three-day live broadcast showed many veterans they were not alone. During the course of both broadcasts, we were deluged with phone calls, e-mails, and blog posts from service members, veterans, and military families thanking us for breaking a cultural norm of silence about the reality of war. Since then, we have heard from many veterans about the importance our broadcast and how it impacted them personally. One soldier, Sergeant Matthis Chiroux, said learning about Winter Soldier caused him to refuse his orders to deploy to Iraq.

Before Winter Soldier, Chiroux said he was suicidal. “I just sat in my room reading news about Iraq and feeling completely hopeless, like I would be forced to go and no one would ever know how I felt,” he said. “I was getting looped into participating in a crime against humanity and all with the realization that I never wanted to be there in the first place.”

The turning point, Chiroux said, came when one of his professors at Brooklyn College in New York suggested he listen to a broadcast of March’s Winter Soldier hearings. “Here’s an organization of soldiers and veterans who feel like me,” he said. “All this alienation and depression that I feel started to ease. I found them, and I’ve been speaking out with them ever since.”

Since Silver Spring in March, regional Winter Soldier hearings have been organized across the country. New veterans are stepping forward to tell their stories and those who spoke in Maryland are revealing more about the reality of their service. To date, regional hearings have been held in Los Angeles, Chicago, and Gainesville, Florida. In Seattle, 800 people gathered to hear veterans’ testimonies. Many more are expected to be organized in the future. With their continued testimony, veterans’ stories have become their most powerful weapon.

What the people you want running this country are really doing.

Source:
Diatribune and Daily Kos, March, 30, 2007
Title: “Bush Profiteers Collect Billions From NCLB”
Author: Mandevilla

Researchers: Alan Scher and Sam Burchard

Faculty Evaluator: Karen Grady, PhD

The architect of No Child Left Behind (NCLB), President Bush’s first senior education advisor, Sandy Kress, has turned the program, which has consistently proven disastrous in the realm of education, into a huge success in the realm of corporate profiteering. After ushering NCLB through the US House of Representatives in 2001 with no public hearings, Kress went from lawmaker—turning on spigots of federal funds—to lobbyist, tapping into those billions of dollars in federal funds for private investors well connected to the Bush administration.

A statute that once promised equal access to public education to millions of American children now instead promises billions of dollars in profits to corporate clients through dubious processes of testing and assessment and “supplemental educational services.” NCLB—the Business Roundtable’s revision of Lyndon Johnson’s Education and Secondary Education Act (ESEA)—created a “high stakes testing” system through which the private sector could siphon federal education funds. The result has been windfall corporate profit. What was once a cottage industry has become a corporate giant. “Millions of dollars are being spent,” says Jack Jennings, director of the Center on Education Policy, “and nobody knows what’s happening.”

The wedding of big business and education benefits not only the interests of the Business Roundtable, a consortium of over 300 CEOs, but countless Bush family loyalists. Sandy Kress, chief architect of NCLB; Harold McGraw III, textbook publisher; Bill Bennett, former Reagan education secretary; and Neil Bush, the president’s youngest brother, have all cashed in on the Roundtable’s successful national implementation of “outcome-based education.” NCLB’s mandated system of state standards, state tests, and school sanctions has together transformed our public school system into a for-profit frenzy.

Kress, former president of the Dallas School Board, began “A Draft Position for George W. Bush on K-12 Education” as early as 1999. Working successfully with then-Governor Bush in Texas for years, the Democrat bolstered bipartisan support behind the compassionate marketing promise to “leave no child behind” through the adoption of high state standards measuring school performance. Signed into law in early 2002, NCLB dramatically extended the federal role in public education, mandating annual testing of children in Grades 3 to 8, providing tutoring for children in persistently failing schools, and setting a twelve-year timetable for closing chronic gaps in student achievement. Having then crafted the legislation, Kress transitioned from public servant to corporate lobbyist, guiding clients to the troth of federal funds. By 2005 he had made upwards of $4 million from lobbying contracts.

While the Business Roundtable maintains that the high-stakes tests administered nationwide hold schools accountable to “Adequate Yearly Progress,” NCLB has instead benefited the testing industry in the amount of between $1.9 and $5.3 billion a year. NCLB requires states to produce “interpretive, descriptive, and diagnostic reports,” all of which are provided at a price by members of the industry. Among these are the top four or five players in the textbook market, including the Big Three—McGraw-Hill, Houghton-Mifflin, and Harcourt General—who have, since the passage of NCLB, come to dominate the testing market. Identified by Wall Street analysts in the wake of the 2000 election as “Bush stocks,” all three represent owners like Harold McGraw III, who has longstanding ties to the Bush administration and the lobbying efforts of Sandy Kress.

Other Kress clients, including Ignite! Learning, a company headed by Neil Bush, and K12 Inc., a for-profit enterprise owned by Bill Bennett, tailored themselves to vie for NCLB dollars.

Under NCLB, as school districts receive federal funding they are required by law to hold 20 percent of those funds aside, anticipating that its schools will fail to meet its Annual Yearly Progress formula. When that “failure” is certified by test scores, the district is required to use those set-aside federal funds to pay supplemental education service (SES) providers. Ignite! has placed products in forty US school districts, and K12 offers a menu of services “as an option to traditional brick-and-mortar schools,” including computer-based “virtual academies,” that have qualified for over $4 million in federal grants. Under NCLB, supplemental educational services, whose results are being increasingly challenged, reap $2 billion annually.

Nationally, there are over 1,800 approved providers of supplemental educational services, but little in the way of regulation. To the contrary, Michael Petrilli, former member of the Department of Education, purports, “We want as little regulation as possible so the market can be as vibrant as possible.” To that end, Kress is currently lobbying on behalf of another bipartisan coalition to win reauthorization of NCLB for another six years.

Bombs at WTC.....naw? I guess you will call these firemen and Police Liars too?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3aKj6uJ5Mt4

It was a huge jet fuel fire. I included are very nice picture for you guys. Now tell me about this huge fire that brought down the buildings

RRRRRRRRRRRRRRRIIIIIIIIIGGGGGGggHHHHHHHHHTTTTTTTTTTTTT!!!!! Just keep your heads in the sand.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hT-po-tmJRc

Americans aren't the only ones with questions..

Source:
Rense.com and Rock Creek Free Press, January 14, 2008
Title: “Transcript Of Japanese Parliament’s 911 Testimony”
Author: Benjamin Fulford

Student Researchers: Kyle Corcoran, Alan Scher, Bill Gibbons, and Elizabeth Rathbun

Faculty Evaluator: Mickey S. Huff, MA

Testimony in the Japanese parliament, broadcast live on Japanese television in January 2008, challenged the premise and validity of the Global War on Terror. Parliament member Yukihisa Fujita insisted that an investigation be conducted into the war’s origin: the events of 9/11.

In a parliament Defense and Foreign Affairs Committee session held to debate the ethics of renewing Japan’s “anti-terror law,” which commits Japan to providing logistical support for coalition forces operating in Afghanistan, Fujita opened the session by stating, “I would like to talk about the origin of this war on terrorism, which was the attacks of 9/11, . . . When discussing these anti-terror laws we should ask ourselves, what was 9/11? And what is terrorism?”

Fujita pointed out that, “So far the only thing the government has said is that we think it was caused by al-Qaeda because President Bush told us so. We have not seen any real proof that it was al-Qaeda.” He reminded parliament that twenty-four Japanese citizens were killed on 9/11, yet the mandate of a criminal investigation by the Japanese government never followed. “This is a crime so surely an investigation needs to be carried out,” said Fujita (Censored 2008, #16).

Fujita went on extensively to ask “about the suspicious information being uncovered and the doubts people worldwide are having about the events of 9/11.”

The Japanese parliament viewed several slides from the Pentagon and World Trade Center (WTC) sites as Fujita explained each. The slides showed evidence inconsistent with official explanation: damage in and around the Pentagon was not consistent with the damage a 757 airplane would cause. Fujita noted, “Also, there were more than eighty security cameras at the Pentagon, but officials have refused to release the footage. In any case, as you have just seen, there is no picture of the airplane or of its wreckage in any of these photographs. It is very strange that no such pictures have been shown to us.” A US Air Force official corroborated the fact that the plane executed a U-turn and avoided the Defense Secretary’s office, a feat that would be impossible for an unskilled first-time pilot to maneuver; and no air defense was made in the ninety-minute interval between the initial impact of the planes at the WTC and the Pentagon. Fujita added, “It is baffling that no flight records were found at any of four sites.” On the ground at the WTC sites, both sounds and visual evidence from explosions were verified. Flying debris shot out as far as 150 meters consistent with buildings exploding. A New York fireman during rescue operations confirmed that a series of explosions resembled a professional demolition, and a Japanese survivor heard explosions while fleeing the site. The World Trade Center Building 7 (WTC 7), forty-seven stories high and located one block away, collapsed into its footprint, seven hours after the main WTC buildings were attacked, in five or six seconds, although no plane struck it and it had minimal fire damage. Not only did the 9/11 Commission fail to mention WTC 7, but the US Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA and National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) made no mention of it in their reports.

Fujita went on to detail proof of insider trading from September 6 through 8, when investors executed “put options” to sell stock in United and American Airlines at a fixed price. Finance specialist Keiichiro Asao responded with confirmation that such complex transaction would be the work of insiders rather than al-Qaeda.

Fujita then addressed Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda, “I would like to know why the Prime Minister thinks it was the Taliban who was responsible for 9/11.” He continued, “We need to go back to the beginning and not just simply and blindly trust the US government explanation and indirect information provided by them. . . . We need to look at this evidence and ask ourselves what the war on terrorism really is. . . . We need to ask who the real victims of this war on terrorism are. I think the citizens of the world are its victims.”

“Prime Minister,” Fujita continued, “what about the origin of the War on Terror and the idea of whether it is right or wrong to participate in it? Is there really a reason to participate in this War on Terror?”

Fujita received support for concluding that the reason for participating in the US War on Terror needs to be investigated and analyzed. Opposition blocked the extension of Japan’s anti-terror law and colleagues acknowledged his bravery with congratulatory phone calls.

This came to an end in mid-January when, after months of parliamentary debates and the opposition of at least 50 percent of the Japanese public, Fukuda rammed the anti-terror bill through parliament. After the bill was voted down by opposition in the Upper House plenary session on January 12, the government resubmitted it later that same day to the Lower House, where the ruling conservative party holds the majority, and turned a bill into a law. Thus, they overturned a veto in the Upper House.

This is the first time in half a century that a Japanese government has resorted to such tactics—deemed a drastic measure by Japanese standards.1

According to Christopher W. Hughes, professor of politics and international studies at University of Warwick, “Fukuda’s government was under a lot of US pressure to re-deploy ships, and even if he was always somewhat doubtful about the importance of the mission in military terms and the whole US War on Terror, he perceived passing the bill as very important to US-Japan relations. This was also impressed upon him by a personal meeting with US President Bush.”

Citation

1. Axel Berkofsky, “Japan: The Deployment Dilemma,” International Relations and Security Network, January 24, 2008.

UPDATE BY BENJAMIN FULFORD

If you still believe that the English language corporate media is free, take a look behind the scenes at the Foreign Correspondents Club of Japan (FCCJ) and think again.

I was a member of that club for over two decades, but I had no clue about what it really represented until I tried to stage a press conference about 9/11. From that point on all sorts of nasty things started to happen and I suddenly realized the place seemed more like a nest of spies than a club for journalists.

For example, people I did not know tried to have me evicted from the club, e-mails vanished from my inbox before I got to read them, and people started to spread the word that I had mental issues.

The list of insults to press freedom at the club since that initial conference is too long to write about in detail here, so I will merely cite the most recent example.

Yukihisa Fujita, a member of parliament for the opposition Democratic Party, in a parliamentary debate broadcast nationwide on NHK, asked Prime Minister Yasuo Fukuda about many of the glaring discrepancies in the official US government explanation of what happened on 9/11. A member of parliament in Japan, a US ally, showed powerful evidence on national TV that the US government murdered 3,000 of its own citizens as well as people from Japan and many other nations. I suggested we call him for a press conference, and nine working journalists—representing a potential audience of billions—agreed. Usually, only three or more yes votes from working journalists is enough for an event to go ahead. Despite this, the Wall Street Journal’s James Sims, head of the Professional Activities Committee (PAC), in confederation with FCCJ President Martyn Williams, vetoed the event even though it was subject matter that they, as technical journalists, do not cover. They vetoed it in violation of Article 3 of the club bylaws that call for press freedom. Not only that, they kicked me off the PAC in a blatant attempt to shut me up.

Fujita has since been invited to speak to the EU parliament and many other venues. Fujita has been given a chance to ask more questions in parliament, and many Japanese news magazines have written about his activities. Books about 9/11 are also selling well in Japan. A growing group of Japanese politicians has become aware of what really happened on that day. The Japanese government itself actually knows the truth and is starting to affect the US–Japan alliance in fundamental ways. The Japanese government’s formal replies to Fujita’s questions show it is becoming increasingly suspicious that the US government murdered over twenty Japanese citizens. The long-term repercussions for US security could be huge.

no Habeas Corpus for anyone.

With the approval of Congress and no outcry from corporate media, the Military Commissions Act (MCA) signed by Bush on October 17, 2006, ushered in military commission law for US citizens and non-citizens alike. While media, including a lead editorial in the New York Times October 19, have given false comfort that we, as American citizens, will not be the victims of the draconian measures legalized by this Act—such as military roundups and life-long detention with no rights or constitutional protections—Robert Parry points to text in the MCA that allows for the institution of a military alternative to the constitutional justice system for “any person” regardless of American citizenship. The MCA effectively does away with habeas corpus rights for “any person” arbitrarily deemed to be an “enemy of the state.” The judgment on who is deemed an “enemy combatant” is solely at the discretion of President Bush.
The oldest human right defined in the history of English-speaking civilization is the right to challenge governmental power of arrest and detention through the use of habeas corpus laws, considered to be the most critical parts of the Magna Carta which was signed by King John in 1215.
Alexander Hamilton wrote in The Federalist #84 in August of 1788:

The establishment of the writ of habeas corpus are perhaps greater securities to liberty and republicanism than any it [the Constitution] contains. The practice of arbitrary imprisonments have been, in all ages, the favorite and most formidable instruments of tyranny. The observations of the judicious [British eighteenth-century legal scholar] Blackstone, in reference to the latter, are well worthy of recital:

“To bereave a man of life” says he, “or by violence to confiscate his estate, without accusation or trial, would be so gross and notorious an act of despotism, as must at once convey the alarm of tyranny throughout the whole nation; but confinement of the person, by secretly hurrying him to jail, where his sufferings are unknown or forgotten, is a less public, a less striking, and therefore a more dangerous engine of arbitrary government.”

While it is true that some parts of the MCA target non-citizens, other sections clearly apply to US citizens as well, putting citizens inside the same tribunal system with non-citizen residents and foreigners.
Section 950q of the MCA states that, “Any person is punishable as a principal under this chapter [of the MCA] who commits an offense punishable by this chapter, or aids, abets, counsels, commands, or procures its commission.”1
Section 950v. “Crimes Triable by Military Commissions” (26) of the MCA seems to specifically target American citizens by stating that, “Any person subject to this chapter who, in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States, or one of the co-belligerents of the enemy, shall be punished as a military commission under this chapter may direct.”1
“Who,” warns Parry, “has ‘an allegiance or duty to the United States’ if not an American citizen?”
Besides allowing “any person” to be swallowed up by Bush’s system, the law prohibits detainees once inside from appealing to the traditional American courts until after prosecution and sentencing, which could translate into an indefinite imprisonment since there are no timetables for Bush’s tribunal process to play out.
Section 950j of the law further states that once a person is detained, “ not withstanding any other provision of law (including section 2241 of title 28 or any other habeas corpus provision) no court, justice, or judge shall have jurisdiction to hear or consider any claim or cause of action whatsoever relating to the prosecution, trial, or judgment of a military commission under this chapter, including challenges to the lawfulness of procedures of military commissions.”1
Other constitutional protections in the Bill of Rights, such as a speedy trial, the right to reasonable bail, and the ban on “cruel and unusual punishment,” would seem to be beyond a detainee’s reach as well.
Parry warns that, “In effect, what the new law appears to do is to create a parallel ‘star chamber’ system for the prosecution, imprisonment, and possible execution of enemies of the state, whether those enemies are foreign or domestic.
“Under the cloak of setting up military tribunals to try al-Qaeda suspects and other so-called unlawful enemy combatants, Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress effectively created a parallel legal system for ‘any person’—American citizen or otherwise—who crosses some ill-defined line.”
In one of the most chilling public statements ever made by a US Attorney General, Alberto Gonzales opined at a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Jan. 18, 2007, “The Constitution doesn’t say every individual in the United States or citizen is hereby granted or assured the right of habeas corpus. It doesn’t say that. It simply says the right shall not be suspended.”
More important than its sophomoric nature, Parry warns, is that Gonzales’s statement suggests he is still searching for arguments to make habeas corpus optional, subordinate to the President’s executive powers that Bush’s neoconservative legal advisers claim are virtually unlimited during “time of war.”

Citation
1.  “Military Commissions Act of 2006” Public Law 109-366, 109th Congress. See http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getdoc.cgi?dbname=109_cong_public_laws&docid=f ubl366.109.
UPDATE BY ROBERT PARRY
The Consortium series on the Military Commissions Act of 2006 pointed out that the law’s broad language seems to apply to both US citizens and non-citizens, contrary to some reassuring comments in the major news media that the law only denies habeas corpus rights to non-citizens. The law’s application to “any person” who aids and abets a wide variety of crimes related to terrorism—and the law’s provisions stripping away the jurisdiction of civilian courts—could apparently thrust anyone into the legal limbo of the military commissions where their rights are tightly constrained and their cases could languish indefinitely.
Despite the widespread distribution of our articles on the Internet, the major US news media continues to ignore the troubling “any person” language tucked in toward the end of the statute. To my knowledge, for instance, no major news organization has explained why, if the law is supposed to apply only to non-citizens, one section specifically targets “any person [who] in breach of an allegiance or duty to the United States, knowingly and intentionally aids an enemy of the United States.” Indeed, the “any person” language in sections dealing with a wide array of crimes, including traditional offenses such as spying, suggests that a parallel legal system has been created outside the parameters of the US Constitution.
Since publication of the articles, the Democrats won control of both the House and Senate—and some prominent Democrats, such as Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Patrick Leahy, have voiced their intent to revise the law with the goal of restoring habeas corpus and other rights. However, other Democrats appear hesitant, fearing that any attempt to change the law would open them to charges that they are “soft on terrorism” and that Republicans would torpedo the reform legislation anyway. Outside of Congress, pro-Constitution groups have made reform of the Military Commissions Act a high priority. For instance, the American Civil Liberties Union organized a national protest rally against the law. But the public’s lack of a clear understanding of the law’s scope has undercut efforts to build a popular movement for repeal or revision of the law.

Listen because its really hard to hear the bombs going off.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8n-nT-luFIw&feature=related

Oh No....there was certainly no underhanded preplanning going on here.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T2_nedORjw&feature=related

The Bush admin setting up power that Obama can now use to roundup the nay-sayers and radical Tea Party group who seem so violent. Bummer that Bush set this up for ya.

Student Researcher: Erica Haikara and Celeste Winders
Faculty Evaluator: Ron Lopez, Ph.D.

Under the code name Operation FALCON (Federal and Local Cops Organized Nationally) three federally coordinated mass arrests occurred between April 2005 and October 2006. In an unprecedented move, more than 30,000 “fugitives” were arrested in the largest dragnets in the nation’s history. The operations directly involved over 960 agencies (state, local, and federal) and were the brainchild of Attorney General Alberto Gonzales and US Marshal’s Director Ben Reyna. The DoJ supplied television networks government-shot action videotape of Marshals and local cops raiding homes and breaking down doors, “targeting the worst of the worst criminals on the run,” emphasizing suspected sex offenders. Yet less than ten percent of the total 30,150 were suspected sex offenders and less than two percent owned firearms. The press has not asked, “Who were the others?” And to date, the US Marshal’s office has issued no public statement as to whether the people arrested in Operation Falcon have been processed or released. Author Mike Whitney cautions that Attorney General Gonzales has little interest in the petty offenders who were netted in this extraordinary crackdown. This action is instead, he warns, a practice roundup in the move toward martial law.
Altogether, there were three FALCON Operations, each netting roughly 10,000 criminal suspects. Between April 4–10, 2005, FALCON I swept up 10,340 fugitives in the largest nationwide mass arrest (to that date) in American history. Alberto Gonzalez proudly announced on April 15 through corporate media, “Operation FALCON is an excellent example of President Bush’s direction and the Justice Department’s dedication to deal both with the terrorist threat and traditional violent crime. This joint effort shows the commitment of our federal, state, and local partners to make our neighborhoods safer, and it has led to the highest number of arrests ever recorded for a single initiative of its kind. We will use all of our Nation’s law enforcement resources to serve the people, to pursue justice, and to make our streets and Nation safer.”
Operation FALCON II, carried out the week of April 17–23, 2006, arrested another 9,037 individuals from twenty-seven states mostly west of the Mississippi River. Operation FALCON III, conducted during the week of October 22–28, 2006, netted another 10,733 fugitives in twenty-four states east of the Mississippi River.
The US Marshals Service has not yet disclosed the names of the people arrested in these massive sweeps nor of what crimes they were accused. We have no way of knowing whether they were provided with due process of law, where they are now, or whether they have been abused while in custody.
SourceWatch contributors further ask for clarification, “Although Attorney General Gonzales stated on April 15, 2005 that Operation FALCON was ‘an excellent example of President Bush‘s direction and the Justice Department’s dedication to deal both with the terrorist threat and traditional violent crime,’ where is the connection between the Operation FALCON roundups and catching terrorists? Why did police wait for federally orchestrated raids to arrest known sex offenders and suspected murders? Why were state and federal agencies integrated with local law enforcement to simply carry out routine police work?”
The media played an essential role in concealing the important details of the Operation. In fact, the non-critical “cookie cutter” articles which appeared in newspapers across the country suggest that the media may have collaborated directly with the Justice Department. (see Chapter 9, Fake News) Whitney notes that nearly identical “news” segments and articles put the best possible spin on a story that most Americans might find deeply disturbing, and perhaps frightening.
While mass militarized police roundups make little sense as a method of apprehending fugitives, the FALCON program does make sense as a means of effectively setting up a chain-of-command structure that radiates from the Justice Department and relocates the levers of control to Washington where they can be manned by members of the administration. Whitney warns that the plan behind the FALCON program appears to have been devised to enhance the powers of the “unitary” executive by putting state and local law enforcement under federal supervision, ready for the institution of martial law (see story #2.)

Update by Mike Whitney
Operation FALCON presents the first time in US history that all of the domestic police agencies have been put under the direct control of the federal government. The implications for American democracy are quite profound.
Operation FALCON serves no purpose except to centralize power and establish the basic contours of an American police state. It is not an effective way of apprehending criminals.
For the most part, the media completely ignored FALCON. In fact, these extraordinary police-state sweeps did not elicit even one editorial or one column-inch of commentary from any journalist in the country. Following the government’s version of events, the story was simply brushed aside as trivial. For those who care to explore the media’s true role in undermining the fundamental rights of Americans; FALCON is probably a good place to begin. It illustrates how the media deliberately obscures facts that do not serve the overall interests of the state.
The last FALCON operation was carried out on October 28, 2006. Since then, the project has been put on “hold,” presumably until some time in the future when it will be reactivated by presidential decree. The precedents have now been established for law enforcement agencies across the nation to be taken over by the chief executive at a moment’s notice. If there is another terrorist attack within the United States, or the outbreak of an epidemic, or a natural disaster on the scale of Hurricane Katrina; we can expect that President Bush will consolidate his power by asserting direct control over all of the various federal, state, and local police agencies. Eventually, we will see that FALCON was organized with that very purpose in mind.
Recent changes to the Insurrection Act of 1807 as well as to the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878 allow President Bush to declare martial law at his own discretion and to take control of the National Guard from the state governors. That means that Bush now has a complete monopoly on all the means of organized violence in the country.
With the aid of the corporate media and an alliance of far-right organizations, Bush has successfully removed all the traditional obstacles to absolute power. The groundwork has been laid for an American dictatorship. FALCON is just one small part of that much larger plan.

UPDATE BY ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE
A more recent and less publicized sweep was made March 7, 2007, in Baltimore, with the arrest of about two hundred fugitives. The rationale for this sweep is more puzzling, perhaps, as it was the only city involved. This sweep received only local media attention.
Numerous questions, as stated in the Operation FALCON article, remain unanswered. The mainstream press does not appear to be interested in exploring beyond the initial sweep events.
Both House and Senate committees on the judiciary and government oversight are digging into DoJ operations due to the US attorney firings and politicization of the Department, with all roads leading to the White House. It is not unreasonable to expect that these sweeps may eventually come under investigation as well.
The mainstream press, to my knowledge, has not responded at all to my SourceWatch coverage of this story. The press coverage that Operation FALCON received appears to be limited to DoJ and USMS news releases with the addition of an occasional local interest story. Information on the fate of the 30,000 plus who were arrested is conspicuous by its absence.
Additional information on this story should be available from both the DoJ and USMS. In reality, it most likely will not be, as neither has provided any updates. The SourceWatch article will continue to be updated when or if additional information becomes available.

More Corruption...you should be proud of that 04 vote.

Student Researchers: Madeline Hall and Julie Bickel
Faculty Evaluator: James Dean, Ph.D.

A report issued in June 2005 by the non-profit organization Action Aid reveals that much of the US tax money earmarked to rebuild Afghanistan actually ends up going no further than the pockets of wealthy US corporations. “Phantom aid” that never shows up in the recipient country is a scam in which paychecks for overpriced, and often incompetent, American “experts” under contract to USAID go directly from the Agency to American bank accounts. Additionally, 70 percent of the aid that does make it to a recipient country is carefully “tied” to the donor nation, requiring that the recipient use the donated money to buy products and services from the donor country, often at drastically inflated prices. The US far outstrips other nations in these schemes, as Action Aid calculates that 86 cents of every dollar of American aid is phantom.
Authors Ann Jones and Fariba Nawa suggest that in order to understand the failure and fraud in the reconstruction of Afghanistan, it is important to look at the peculiar system of American aid for international development. International and national agencies—including the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund and USAID, that traditionally distribute aid money to developing countries—have designed a system that is efficient in funneling money back to the wealthy donor countries, while undermining sustainable development in poor states.
A former head of USAID cited foreign aid as “a key foreign policy instrument” designed to help countries “become better markets for US exports.” To guarantee that mission, the State Department recently took over the aid agency. USAID and the Army Corps of Engineers now cut in US business and government interests from the start, making sure that money is allocated according to US economic, political, strategic, and military priorities, rather than according to what the recipient nation might consider important.
Though Afghans have petitioned to allocate aid money as they find appropriate, donor countries object, claiming that the Afghan government is too corrupt to be trusted. Increasingly frustrated and angry Afghan communities meanwhile claim that the no-bid, open-ended contracts being awarded to contractors such as Kellogg, Brown, and Root/Halliburton, DynCorp, Blackwater, and the Louis Berger Group are equivalent to licensed bribery, corruption, theft, and money laundering.
The Karzai government, confined to a self-serving American agenda, has delivered little to the average Afghan, most of whom still live in abject poverty. Western notions of progress evident in US-contracted hotels, restaurants, and shopping malls full of new electronic gadgets and appliances are beyond the imaginations or practicalities of 3.5 million war torn Afghan citizens who are without food, shelter, sewage systems, clean water or electricity.
Infrastructure hastily built with shoddy materials and no knowledge or respect for geologic or climatic conditions is culminating in one expensive failure after another. USAID’s website, for example, boasts of its only infrastructure accomplishment in Afghanistan—the Kabul-Kandahar Highway—a narrow and already crumbling highway costing Afghanis $1 million a mile. The highway was featured in the Kabul Weekly newspaper in March 2005 under the headline, “Millions Wasted on Second-Rate Roads.” The article notes that while other bids from more competent construction firms came in at one-third the cost, the contract went to the Louis Berger Group, a firm with tight connections to the Bush administration—as well as a notorious track record of other failed and abandoned construction projects in Afghanistan.
Former Minister of Planning, Ramazan Bashardost, complained that when it came to building roads, the Taliban had done a better job. “And,” he also asked, “Where did the money go?” Now, in a move certain to lower President Karzai’s approval ratings and further diminish US popularity in the area, the Bush administration has pressured Karzai to turn this “gift from the people of the United States” into a toll road, charging each driver $20 for a road-use permit valid for one month. In this way, according to American “experts” providing highly paid technical assistance, Afghanistan can collect $30 million annually from its impoverished citizens and thereby decrease the foreign aid “burden” on the United States.
Jones asks, “Is it any wonder that foreign aid seems to ordinary Afghans to be something only foreigners enjoy?”
UPDATE BY Fariba Nawa
Afghanistan, Inc. is a thirty-page report that digs deep into the corruption involved in the reconstruction of Afghanistan. The report focuses on US government-funded companies contracted to rebuild Afghanistan. The importance of this report is that it’s the first serious look at corruption of aid money spending from a grassroots level. It includes an emphasis on various projects in villages and the cities and it covers all sides of the issue. It shows how big money is spent on bad work.
The report was first published in English through CorpWatch, a watchdog of corporations, on May 2, 2006. It was translated into the Persian languages of Dari and Pashto in September 2006. The companies investigated in the report continue to receive millions of dollars in contracts from the US government despite their incompetence and wasteful spending. Louis Berger, Bearing Point, Chemonics, and DynCorp are still taking American taxpayers’ money and showing minimum results in Afghanistan.
Some of the mainstream press gave the report coverage, including NPR’s Morning Edition, KRON Channel 4 news in San Francisco when it was first published, and later on, BBC radio and many other European outlets continue to call and ask the author about the report. However, that’s a limited response to the fact that this was a groundbreaking report with important information for policy change. The report has been a source for many others researching the subject. If you’d like more information on corruption on reconstruction in Afghanistan, please refer to CorpWatch’s website http://www.corpwatch.org. Integrity Watch Afghanistan is another organization that monitors corruption in the country and produces various reports.
UPDATE BY ANN JONES
Nine months later the conundrum I described—no peace, no security, no development—still pertains, and Afghan hopes sour.
The US still looks for a military solution. In the first five months of 2007, seventy-five coalition troops were killed (compared to fifty-three in the same period last year), including thirty-eight Americans. Civilian casualties were variously reported—some sources said “almost 1,800”—including 135 killed by US or NATO forces.
The US position on military “progress” against the Taliban, expressed by Defense Secretary Robert Gates on June 4, 2007, as he prepared to visit Afghanistan, remained “guarded optimism.” Gates told reporters a goal of his trip was to insure close coordination of combat operations and development and reconstruction efforts. That’s a switch, suggesting some clue that reconstruction may be a better way to “kill” the Taliban, but leaving unanswered the question of how to coordinate war and peaceful activity.
The real importance of “Why It’s Not Working in Afghanistan” lies behind the front page military coverage—in what it reveals of the systemic scams and should-be scandals of American aid. The story makes news now and then when billions “disappear” from reconstruction projects in Iraq, but to my knowledge it has yet to be investigated by media or congress. What’s discussed is the occasional budgetary black hole that suggests some random malfeasance, in much the same way that torture at Abu Ghraib was discussed as the work of a few “bad apples.”
Maybe reporters don’t want to take up the story because it’s complicated. It’s about numbers. Like Enron. Dreary, ho-hum, life-shattering stuff. I don’t know. But one curious thing: when my book Kabul in Winter appeared in 2006, a very long section on this topic was the one part no reviewer touched.
Now bigger voices than mine speak out. Abdullah Abdullah, the distinguished former Foreign Minister of Afghanistan, recently complained that of every $100,000 promised to Afghan development, less than a third reaches the country. Matt Waldman, head of Afghanistan policy for Oxfam, one of the most respected humanitarian NGOs in the world, wrote in The Guardian (May 26, 2007) that “America is bankrolling Afghanistan” but “as in Iraq, a vast proportion of aid is wasted.” And more to the point, “Close to half of US development assistance goes to the five biggest US contractors in the country.” Waldman argues that too much aid money is lost to high salaries and living costs of international experts, purchase of non-Afghan resources, and corporate profits. He figures the cost of the average expat (read “American”) expert at half a million dollars a year.
So why is it left to representatives of foreign governments, foreign humanitarian organizations, and foreign press to expose this fraud?

This is what you call the American way?

Student Researcher: Marley Miller
Faculty Evaluator: James Dean, Ph.D.

A provision mysteriously tucked into the Military Commission Act (MCA) just before it passed through Congress and was signed by President Bush on October 17, 2006 (see story #1), redefines torture, removing the harshest, most controversial techniques from the definition of war crimes, and exempts the perpetrators—both interrogators and their bosses—from prosecution for such offences dating back to November 1997.
Author Jeff Stein asks, “Who slipped language into the MCA that would further exempt torturers from prosecution?”
The White House denies any involvement or knowledge regarding the insertion of such language, leaving the origin of adjustments to this significant part of the MCA a mystery.
Motivation for this provision, however, leads clearly to leadership in the Bush administration, as the passage effectively rewrote the US enforcement mechanism for the Geneva War Crimes Act, which would have, upon sworn testimonies of Lieutenant General Randall M. Schmidt, Major General Mike Dunlavey, and US Brigadier General Commander, Janis Karpinski, held former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and President George Bush guilty of active roles in directing acts of torture upon detainees held at Guantánamo and Abu Ghraib (see Censored 2007, Story #7) .
A spokesperson for the Center for Constitutional Rights comments, “The MCA’s restricted definitions arguably would exempt certain US officials who have implemented or had command responsibility for coercive interrogation techniques from war crimes prosecutions. This amendment is designed to protect US government perpetrators of abuses during the ‘war on terror’ from prosecution.”
Joanne Mariner of Human Rights Watch adds that the effect of this provision of the MCA is “that perpetrators of several categories of what were war crimes at the time they were committed, can no longer be punished under US law.”
As a whole, the MCA evolved out of the need to override the June 2006 Supreme Court declaration that the administration’s hastily assembled military commissions were unconstitutional. That momentous Supreme Court decision confirmed that all prisoners in US custody had to be held in accordance with the Geneva Convention’s Article 3, which prohibits “outrages upon personal dignity, in particular, humiliating and degrading treatment.” Through passage of the MCA, Congress and the President negated the corrective role of the courts in checking and balancing executive power.
A Senate aide involved in the drafting of the Senate version of the bill that was agreed upon by John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and John Warner, said, “We have no idea who [the extended impunity provision] came from or how it came to be.” White House spokesperson Dana Perrino said the stealth changes didn’t come from the counsel’s office, “It could have come from elsewhere in the White House or Justice Department,” she said, “but it didn’t come from us.”
Whatever the source, the amended provision was passed and is now a part of US law.

I'm sure you guys are much smarter than these guys.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Khm423m6DD0&feature=related

Metal Columns Prepaired for Building Destruction. Well unless the rescue workers are actually measuring perfect 45 degree angles before they cut the metal to rescue or search...give me a break.

What happened to the man who setup the computer stolen election for Bush/Cheney. What a coincidence and right before he was to testify. HHHHMMMMMM?????????

Student Researchers: Ashleigh Hvinden, Christine Wilson and Alan Grady
Community Evaluator: Mary Ann Walker
Sonoma State University

Karl Rove’s chief IT consultant, Mike Connell—who was facing subpoena in connection with 2004 Presidential election fraud in Ohio—mysteriously died in a private plane crash in 2008.  Connell was allegedly the central figure in a longstanding plot to electronically flip votes to Republicans.

In July 2008, Connell was named as a key witness in the case known as King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell, which was filed against Ohio Secretary of State Kenneth J. Blackwell on August 31, 2006 by Columbus attorneys Clifford Arnebeck and Robert Fitrakis. It initially charged Blackwell with racially discriminatory practices—including the selective purging of voters from the election rolls and the unequal allocation of voting machines to various districts—and asked for measures to be taken to prevent similar problems during the November 2006 election.

On October 9, 2006, an amended complaint added charges of various forms of ballot rigging as also having the effect of “depriving the plaintiffs of their voting rights, including the right to have their votes successfully cast without intimidation, dilution, cancellation or reversal by voting machine or ballot tampering.” A motion to dismiss the case as moot was filed following the November 2006 election, but it was instead stayed to allow for settlement discussions.

The case took on fresh momentum in July 2008 when Arnebeck announced that he was filing to “lift the stay in the case and proceed with targeted discovery in order to help protect the integrity of the 2008 election.” The new filing was inspired in part by the coming forward as a whistleblower of GOP IT security expert Stephen Spoonamore, who said he was prepared to testify to the plausibility of electronic vote-rigging having been carried out in 2004. The stay was lifted September 19, 2008 and Connell was served a subpoena on September 22.

Spoonamore, a conservative Republican who works for big banks, international governments, and the Secret Service as an expert in the detection of computer fraud, found evidence that Karl Rove, with the help of Mike Connell and his company GovTech Solutions, electronically stole the Ohio 2004 election for Bush.

Spoonamore testified that the “vote tabulation system [which Connell designed] allowed the introduction of an additional single computer between computer A and computer B.” This is called a “man in the middle” attack. According to Spoonamore, “This centralized collection of all incoming statewide tabulations would make it easy for a single operator, or a preprogrammed ‘force balancing computer’ to change the results in any way desired by the team controlling the Computer C.” Spoonamore further testified that the only purpose for such man in the middle architecture is to commit crime.
Despite Connell’s efforts to quash his subpoena to testify, he was ordered to appear for a two-hour, closed-door deposition on November 3, 2008, just eighteen hours before the 2008 national election. Though Connell had expressed willingness to testify, he was reticent after receiving threats from Rove.

Arnebeck presents evidence that Karl Rove threatened Connell, cautioning that if Connell didn’t “take the fall” for election fraud in Ohio, Connell would face prosecution for supposed lobby law violations.  After this threat, Arnebeck sent letters to the Department of Justice, as well as messages to high-ranking members of the department, seeking protection for Connell and his family from attempts to intimidate. Despite Connell’s elite status as a top-rung Republican consultant for years, whose firm New Media Communications provided IT services for the Bush-Cheney 2004 campaign, the US Chamber of Commerce, the Republican National Committee, and many Republican candidates and campaigns, witness protection requests went unheeded.

Election fraud analyst and author Mark Crispin Miller notes that the timing and circumstances of Connell’s death—between deposition and trial—are too suspicious and convenient for Rove and the Bush administration, not to merit a thorough investigation. Arnebeck and Fitrakis intended to both further depose and call Connell to testify as key witness in the federal conspiracy case. Connell was also to be questioned about his key role in the disappearance of thousands of White House-RNC email transactions. These emails are believed likely to have shed light on the White House role in the political firings of US Attorneys, as well as decisions to prosecute former Alabama Democratic Governor Don Siegelman.  Attorneys in the case said that Connell’s testimony would likely lead to the subpoenaing and under-oath questioning of Karl Rove.

Connell was an experienced pilot. His plane had been recently serviced. He had been in the nation’s capital on still-unknown business before his single engine plane crashed December 22, 2008 on the way home, just three miles short of the runway in Akron, Ohio.  The cause of the crash remains unknown.

Timing of Connell’s deposition may have saved the 2008 presidential elections from electronic theft. However, Bev Harris at Black Box Voting notes that man in the middle systems are still in place in Illinois, Colorado, Kentucky, and likely across the nation.1

Citation:
Bev Harris, “Man in the Middle Attacks to Subvert the Vote,” Black Box Voting, November 2008.

Update by Larisa Alexandrovna

The extreme vulnerability of electronic voting systems to systematic fraud has fallen out of public awareness because it did not become a major issue during the 2008 elections, but the problem has never been resolved or even seriously examined by any official body.  Questions about alleged vote count irregularities in Ohio during the 2004 election remain the strongest indication of the potential for large-scale tampering with these systems.  The lawsuit, which sought testimony from GOP information technology expert Michael Connell as to any personal knowledge he might have had of those irregularities, has represented the most determined effort to get at the truth beyond these allegations.

Michael Connell testified under subpoena in November 2008 but died the following month, when his single-engine plane crashed as he was attempting to land at an Ohio airport near his home.  At the time of his death, the only mainstream news outlet to even mention Connell’s death and the controversies surrounding his involvement in electronic voting was a single CBS/AP story.
However, there appears to have been no direct response in the mainstream press to the articles on Connell published by Raw Story. In fact, a deafening silence on his alleged relationship with the Bush White House has prevailed, even after his sudden and tragic death in December of 2008.

The case of King Lincoln Bronzeville Neighborhood Association v. Blackwell is still ongoing.
Additional information on the King Lincoln case can be obtained here:
http://moritzlaw.osu.edu/electionlaw/litigation/klbna.php.
An organization that has taken a pro-active role in making public both the case of King Lincoln and the various articles on it is Velvet Revolution. See http://velvetrevolution.us/.

Update by Brad Friedman
Little of note has changed since the death of Mike Connell as this book goes to press.  The National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) is still investigating, but is likely not to release a final report until mid to late 2010. They released a preliminary report, however, indicating decreasing visibility at the Akron airport, with visibility still at 2.5 miles at the time of the crash and temperatures just above freezing.  According to the NTSB report, and confirmed via transcripts and tapes received via FOIA requests, Connell radioed to ask “whether there were any reports of icing, to which air traffic control [ATC] responded that there were no reports.”

The tapes and transcripts indicate that something suddenly happened up there, as his last words to ATC, recorded on tape, were a declaration of emergency followed quickly by “Oh, fuck,” before he was not heard from again.

Curiously, for a man as well connected to the very top echelons of the Republican Party as Connell was, no GOP officials, or George W. Bush, or John McCain, or Karl Rove, to my knowledge, ever issued a public statement upon his tragic death.

For the time being, the Ohio voting rights case has been stalled since Connell’s death. Cliff Arnebeck continues to investigate how he plans to move forward, and is considering broader subpoenas in hopes of taking depositions from, among others, Karl Rove, as he widens the scope of his conspiracy case.

Take a listen.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G6gtqAr241I&NR=1

Totally laughable...these guys are still alive and you still believe the republican lies.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0Rqe3WeSyN0&feature=related

Very interesting video but I'm sure you are smarter than the actual pictures...just explain it to me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SaBzjd8ejGY&feature=related

Banks bailed out by Bush stealing...this was in 2008.

Student Researcher: Valerie Janssen and Aimee Drew
Faculty Evaluators: BC Franson, JD, SMSU and Robert Girling, PhD, SSU,
Southwest Minnesota State University and Sonoma State University

A 2008 study done by the Government Accountability Office (GAO) reported that eighty-three of the top publicly held US companies have operations in tax havens like the Cayman Islands, Bermuda, and the Virgin Islands. Fourteen of these companies, including AIG, Bank of America, and Citigroup, received money from the government bailout. The GAO also reported that activities of Union Bank of Switzerland (UBS) are directly connected to tax avoidance.

Swiss banking giant UBS has enabled wealthy Americans to use tax schemes—some of which are illegal— to cheat the IRS out of over $20 billion in recent years, according to the Department of Justice.  UBS, a sponsor of the prestigious Miami Art Basel show, takes advantage of this public event to build relationships with the rich by helping them find ways to avoid paying taxes in the US. Art Basel Miami Beach is the most important art show in the United States, a cultural and social highlight for the Americas. Its sister event, Switzerland’s Art Basel, is considered the most prestigious art show worldwide. UBS uses the show to find clients looking for advice on tax shelters and how to take advantage of bank secrecy rules in Switzerland, Lichtenstein and other places. Other locations for hiding funds include Austria, Luxembourg, the Channel Islands, Singapore, Hong Kong, Andorra, Monaco, and Gibraltar. In the Caribbean, the established havens are the Bahamas, Bermuda, and the Cayman Islands. Some of the newer countries with bank secrecy are the Cook Islands, Turks, and Calicos.

For corporations the process of geographic tax avoidance is fairly simple. A US corporation will sell at reduced rates, even a loss to their own offshore subsidiaries, and then resell the products at higher prices, paying little or no taxes in the foreign country.

In December 2008, the bank holding company Goldman Sachs reported its first quarterly loss. On the heels of this announcement, Goldman Sachs issued a statement confirming that its tax rate was dropping from 34.1 percent to 1 percent. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., which got $10 billion and debt guarantees from the US government in October 2008, expects to pay only $14 million in taxes worldwide for 2008, compared with $6 billion in 2007. The New York-based Goldman Sachs cited “changes in geographic earnings mix” as the reason behind the decrease. 
According to US Representative Lloyd Doggett, the shifting of income to countries with lower taxes is cause for concern.  “The problem is larger than Goldman Sachs,” Doggett said, “With the right hand out begging for bailout money, the left is hiding it offshore.”

On February 19, 2009, UBS for the first time agreed to release to the US Department of Justice (DOJ) an as yet undetermined number of the names of bank account holders. Anywhere from just 250 to 19,000 of US taxpayers with Swiss bank accounts face the prospect of IRS examination of their bank documents with an eye to prosecution and/or civil litigation of the account holders. The DOJ has demanded UBS bank account documents for a total of 52,000 additional depositors. 

UBS and Swiss banking authorities are claiming that their guarantee of absolute banking privacy will somehow survive this attack—“Banking secrecy remains intact,” declared Hans-Rudolf Merz, Switzerland’s president and its finance minister.

There is, however, much more money escaping taxation through entirely legal means—through provisions in the US tax code—and there is an accurate accounting of the revenues that are lost. Every year, the Congressional Joint Committee on Taxation puts out an illuminating but little-read document with the bestselling title “Estimates of Federal Tax Expenditures,” subtitled this year, “For Fiscal Years 2008-2012.”

1. “International Taxation:  Large US Corporations and Federal Contractors with Subsidiaries in Jurisdictions Listed as Tax Havens or Financial Privacy Jurisdictions,” GAO US Government Accountability Office, December 18, 2008,
http://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-09-157.

Update from Rachel Keeler, Dollars & Sense, May-June 2009 Issue:
Over the years, trillions of dollars in both corporate profits and personal wealth have migrated offshore in search of rock bottom tax rates and the comfort of no questions asked. This was a significant contributing factor to international economic downturn in 2008. The G20 meetings in April of 2009 declared a crackdown on tax havens as the first step to financial recovery. However, the offshore banking world now harbors $11.5 trillion in individual wealth alone, and many countries will continue to resist regulation and inspections from outside their borders

Bush was so honest.

A French book Bin Laden, la verite interdite (Bin Laden, the forbidden truth) claims that the Bush Administration halted investigations into terrorist activities related to the bin Laden family and began planning for a war against Afghanistan before 9-11.

The authors, Jean-Charles Brisard and Guillaume Dasquie, are French intelligence analysts. Dasquie, an investigative reporter, publishes Intelligence Online, which is a respected newsletter on economics and diplomacy. Brisard worked for French secret services and in 1997 wrote a report on the Al Qaeda network.

In 1996, high-placed intelligence sources in Washington told the Guardian, “There were always constraints on investigating the Saudis.” The authors allege that under the influence of US oil companies, George W. Bush and his administration initially halted investigations into terrorism, while bargaining with the Taliban to deliver Osama bin Laden in exchange for economic aid and political recognition. The book goes on to reveal that former FBI deputy director John O’Neill resigned in July of 2001 in protest over the obstruction of terrorist investigations. According to O’Neill, “The main obstacles to investigating Islamic terrorism were US oil corporate interests and the role played by Saudi Arabia in it.” The restrictions were said to have worsened after the Bush administration took over. Intelligence agencies were told to “back off” from investigations involving other members of the bin Laden family, the Saudi royals, and possible Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan. John O’Neil died on 9/11 in the World Trade Center.

An FBI file coded 199, which means a case involving national security, records that Abdullah bin Laden, who lived in Washington, originally had a file opened on him “because of his relationship with the Saudi-funded World Assembly of Muslim Youth - a suspected terrorist organization.” The BBC reiterated a well-known claim, made by one of George W. Bush’s former business partners, that Bush made his first million dollars 20 years ago from a company financed by Osama’s elder brother, Salem. It has also been revealed that both the Bushs and the bin Ladens had lucrative stakes in the Carlyle Group, a private investment firm that has grown to be one of the largest investors in US defense and communications contracts.

Brisard and Dasquie contend that the government’s main objective in Afghanistan was to unite the Taliban regime in order to gain access to the oil and gas reserves in Central Asia. Brisard and Dasquie report that the Bush government began negotiations with the Taliban directly after coming into power and representatives met several times in Washington, Islamabad, and Berlin.

There were also claims that the last meeting between the United States and Taliban representatives took place only five weeks before the attacks in New York and Washington.

Long before the September 11th attacks, the United States had decided to invade Afghanistan in the interest of oil. In February of 1998, at the hearing before a sub-group of the Committee on International Relations, Congress discussed ways to deal with Afghanistan to make way for an oil pipeline. Jane’s Defense News reported in March 2001 that an invasion of Afghanistan was being planned.

Times of India reported that in June of 2001, the US Government told India that there would be an invasion of Afghanistan in October of that year. By July of 2001 George Arney, with the BBC, also reported the planned invasion.

UPDATE BY AUTHOR AMANDA LUKER: Paula Zahn was right. If “Bin Laden: la verite interdite” is correct, it is huge. But, the national media will never give it a second glance.

The release of this book not only corroborates other investigations placing US big oil interests in Central Asia negotiating a pipeline in the ‘90s, but also exposes oil interests in the Bush administration, including Vice President Dick Cheney, National security advisor Condoleeza Rice, and Bush, both senior and junior. With this book, Guillaume Dasquie and Jean-Charles Brisard question America’s war time intentions: Is the United States protecting “enduring freedom” or are the bombings really a means of securing a pliant regime in Afghanistan so the United States can gain control over future oil veins pumping across the Middle East?

The mainstream coverage was dismissive. Dr. Daniel Goure, member of the conservative think-tank The Lexington Institute casually dismissed it on Minnesota Public Radio as a conspiracy theory, “debunked right, left and center,” even comparing it to the theory that Americans never went to the moon, that “it was all done in a studio in Hollywood.” He neglects to mention the book was not written by conspiracy nuts but by two esteemed French intelligence experts. And who debunked it? He doesn’t say.

At this moment [June 2002], the media is just beginning to skewer Bush for not increasing national security while knowing Taliban threats before Sept. 11. Some are beginning to ask, “If he knew this, what else did he know?” Just a few months ago, the notion that Bush knew pre-Sept. 11 was also dismissed as a conspiracy theory.

Americans should be given tools to questions those in power. Not every theory will be correct, but I, for one, am desperately curious what two European intelligence experts would have to say about US foreign policy.

Dasquie and Brisard’s book is still only available in French. On the Web site Intelligence Online (which Dasquie edits), the first chapter can be viewed in French.

For more information: Intelligence Online http://www.intelligenceonline.com/
Editor in Chief, Guillaume Dasquie (author of “Bin Laden: la verite interdite")
E-mail: redaction@indigo-net.com

Consortium News’ Bush Family “Oiligarchy” series http://www.consortiumnews.com/2000/081400a1.html

Z Net http://www.zmag.org

Fortunate Son: George W. Bush and the Making of an American President
by J. H. Hatfield, Mark Crispin Miller

Unholy Wars: Afghanistan, America and International Terrorism by John K. Cooley

UPDATE BY THE GUARDIAN FOR AUTHOR GREG PALAST: Within two months of the attack on the World Trade Center, the Guardian investigative team and BBC Television’s Newsnight obtained documents, evidence and insider interviews exposing the Bush Administration’s pre-September 11 directives to intelligence agencies blocking inquiries into the bin Laden family and Saudi Arabian financing of terror networks. Driving this policy of deliberate blindness, we have further reported, were the ill combination of petroleum politics and financial conflicts of interest: the Bush family and allies deep ties to Saudi Arabian royals, banks and arms dealers.

The story should be understood as one of our continuing series on Bush family finances by the Guardian Group (Guardian and Observer) and BBC Newsnight. The first of these in November 2000 exposed the purge of Black voters from Florida’s voter rolls which the US Civil Rights Commission called, “the first hard evidence of deliberate violations of civil rights.

The team’s reports have been virtually blacked-out in the USA - though widely reported and lauded worldwide; in the case of the Bin Laden report, from the Times of India across to Latin America’s top publications. American journalist Palast had to relocate to Europe to write and broadcast this series.

Not all responses are kind. The story (and a follow-up report by BBC) drew threats of lawsuit from a Saudi “charity.” This is serious stuff in a land lacking a First Amendment. A mining corporation which hired the senior Bush as a consultant did sue the Guardian over one of the reports; the successful defense bled our thin finances.

Despite the cost (admittedly with some of our network and newspaper executives biting their nails) we have soldiered on with the investigations. Our general theme - Bush family finances and oil - led us to break the story this month (again, not covered in the USA), that Hugo Chavez survived an attempted coup d’etat because of warnings to him in advance by the secretary-general of OPEC.

On the intelligence story, we are debriefing an arms dealer and other sources about a 1996 meeting between Al Qaida’s financial representative, gun merchants and Saudi royals. Most important to us are US agencies’ knowledge of the meeting and follow-up (or lack thereof). The print report also notes “Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan.” The creation of the “Islamic” bomb is another target of our research.

Dan Rather, a guest on our BBC program last week, admitted the US press coverage of bin Laden and war has been twisted into an unquestioning outlet of official PR. As a result, American public debate has been reduced to shouting between conspiracy theorists and the willfully ignorant ‘patriots.’ Our reports, that economic interests blinded official America to security threats, is not part of the dialogue.

Recognition in the US by Project Censored would encourage BBC and Guardian’s risk taking work.

Note: These stories are the result of a large team effort. Therefore, we would appreciate your recognizing the work of BBC Newsnight producer Meirion Jones and Guardian chief of investigations, David Leigh.

In addition, it is important to include with the Guardian story, the transcripts of the companion 7 November 2001 BBC Newsnight (attached below) - especially as Newsnight put up all the cash for this particularly costly segment of the investigation.

BBC: DID BUSH TURN A BLIND EYE TO TERRORISM?

UPDATE BY AUTHOR DAVID PALLISTER: I endorse Greg Palast’s update response.

I would add that this was a significant story in exposing the ultra-sensitive relationship that exists between the US and Saudi (because of oil, obviously) that tends to preclude any recognition of the fact that Saudi has provided the money, the cadres and the ideology that had driven Al Qaida. The Guardian has investigated in depth the connections between Saudi-sponsored charities and terrorism since 9/11, as well as exposing the appalling human rights record of the Saudi regime in terms on torturing citizens of Britain, Belgium and Canada to make forced and false confessions of involvement in terrorist bombing.

More honesty.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUXglJU2w6U&feature=related

An you hear the gross analogy that Bush was the conservation president...totally laughable.

Faculty evaluator: Dorothy Friedel
Student researcher: Derek Fieldsoe

The Bush administration’s energy plan will actually increase air pollution in the United States. The plan calls for increased fossil fuel consumption, and for decreased funding for research into renewable, clean energy development. The plan also lowers upgrade requirements on 30- to 60-year-old power plants that often emit four to ten times as much sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide, and mercury as newer power plants. The administration stands behind this plan despite higher smog levels, increased respiratory related hospital visits, and record high asthma cases on the East Coast last year,

Although Bush conceded earlier in his presidency that global warming is underway and that steps must be taken to reduce emissions, the U.S. is still responsible for 25% of the world’s emissions. The Bush plan puts into jeopardy the New Source Review (NSR) provision, which is a vital part of the Clean Air Act. The NSR requires facilities to offset pollution increases with reductions elsewhere in the facility or demonstrate that the facility is using the best available pollution control. Major power, coal, and oil companies who own power plants that were built between 1940 and 1970, have sought to ease the restrictions of the NSR claiming that the law hurts their business due to high costs to upgrade to the best available pollution control technology. The EPA and several states have successfully sued a number of large utilities for violation of this NSR provision. These legal victories have led to millions of dollars in penalties.

Power plant air pollutants in some regions are known to cause as much damage to human lungs as smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. According to Carl Pope, executive director of the Sierra Club, “President Bush’s invitation to weaken these pollution controls is an invitation to increase asthma and other health problems triggered by power plant smog.”

While East Coast record smog levels have resulted in 6 million asthma attacks and 212,000 hospital visits due to respiratory problems last summer, George Bush claims his energy plan will be good for the environment and the economy. After rejecting the 1997 Kyoto accord (which was supported by every other industrialized nation in the world), Bush declared that, “Our immediate goal is to reduce America’s greenhouse gas emissions relative to the size of our economy.” While this sounds like a positive statement, it should be known that what the Bush energy plan actually means is that the rate of emission production must stay below the rate of economic growth but will result in increasing pollution by 14% over the coming decade. So the plan calls for no immediate reduction, only slower increases. Emission producing businesses would only have to monitor and report their emissions to receive pollution credits, which can then be sold to other companies to increase their emissions.

Additionally, the Bush plan calls for a slashing of funding in research for renewable, clean forms of energy such as wind and solar power, which can provide very effective amounts of energy for U.S. consumption. The slashing of funding for research into clean renewable energy and increased dependence on fossil fuels will speed up the effects of global warming and have a detrimental effect on our health and environment.

UPDATE BY AUTHOR DAVID CORN: One trouble with the mainstream media is that, generally, its reporters and editors feel uncomfortable pointing an accusing finger at a subject-the President, for example-and say, “You’re lying,” or “That’s ridiculous.” When President George W. Bush finally released a plan to “address” global warming, the story-to the extent it was covered-was that he was issuing a proposal, not that he was being disingenuousness. A reporter did not have to look too closely to see Bush’s proposal would allow the amount of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to increase. Yet the people who run most media outlets do not believe they can publish a headline saying, “President Offers Misleading Global Warming Scheme.” Perhaps consequently, Bush has continued to play games with global warming. In the end of May 2002, his EPA released a report confirming global warming was under way and caused by the burning of fossil fuels. He tried to distance himself from the report-while his administration used it to justify opposing emissions reductions (for the report also said global warming had progressed so far that emissions reductions might not remedy the situation). But, at the same, time, the Bush White House continued to claim Bush cared about the matter and used the occasion to promote his global warming plan. So he and his aides were dismissing the report and embracing its too-late-to-do-anything conclusion but still maintaining their do-little plan would make a difference. It was a hurricane of spin-and one that few reporters bothered to deconstruct or report.

UPDATE BY AUTHOR CAT LAZAROFF: Since July 2001, the Bush energy plan has been challenged and debated in Congress, the courts, and in newspapers across the nation. The collapse of energy giant Enron has led to new questions about the role that the fossil fuel industries played in crafting the White House energy plan and in steering it away from cleaner power sources and energy conserving strategies.

Major energy legislation (HR 4) has been passed by both the U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate. Both versions of the bill, now headed for a conference committee showdown, would enact key portions of the Bush energy plan, including increased subsidies for nuclear power, clean coal and other fossil fuel sectors, while boosting tax incentives for energy efficiency and alternative energy sources such as wind, solar and fuel cells.

The bills both fail to tackle some prominent sources of air pollution, including vehicle emissions, which could be slashed if Congress approved higher fuel efficiency standards for passenger vehicles. However, the Senate version would triple the amount of ethanol added to gasoline across the nation by 2012, a step that could help states meet clean air standards without using water polluting MTBE.

President George W. Bush moved to reduce power plant emissions of three major pollutants - sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and mercury - through his Clear Skies initiative, unveiled in February 2002. Critics say the largely voluntary program, which would set nationwide emissions caps that companies could meet by trading pollution credits and other market based mechanisms, could actually increase the real emissions of these pollutants.

The Clear Skies initiative also aims to cut the nation’s so called carbon intensity, a measure of carbon emissions tied to U.S. economic activity. The proposal has been widely criticized both at home and abroad as an inferior tool for combating global climate change, when compared to the international Kyoto Protocol that President Bush has rejected.

A number of states have passed or are reviewing legislation to curb carbon emissions from fossil fueled power plants, a trend that could eventually prompt calls by the energy industry for uniform nationwide standards.

Legal challenges to the new source review (NSR) provisions of the Clean Air Act continue, with hearings on a landmark case brought by the federally operated Tennessee Valley Authority beginning in May. Senior administration officials have said repeatedly that the NSR rule should be overhauled, and the EPA is still reviewing the provision, having missed several self imposed deadlines for announcing any planned revisions.

In January 2002, the Justice Department announced that enforcement actions taken under NSR are legal and consistent with the Clean Air Act and the Administrative Procedure Act. EPA Administrator Christie Whitman has reportedly advised regional EPA offices to continue to seek new cases that can be prosecuted under NSR, while at the same time counseling utilities cited under NSR to avoid settling their cases until the Tennessee Valley Authority’s case is decided.

Meanwhile, evidence continues to mount regarding the link between air pollution and human health problems. In April 2002, for example, a report released by a consulting firm and a former enforcement officer from the EPA charged that almost 6,000 premature deaths can be blamed each year on pollution from 80 power plants in the Midwest and Southeast.

Nothing like hitting the bee hive with a stick to get things going.

According to a classified document, “Special Operations and Joint Forces in Countering Terrorism” prepared for Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld by his Defense Science Board, a new organization has been created to thwart potential terrorist attacks on the United States. This counter-terror operations group- the “Proactive Preemptive Operations Group” (P2OG) will require 100 people and at least $100 million a year. The team of covert counter-intelligence agents will be responsible for secret missions designed to target terrorist leaders. The secret missions are designed to “stimulate reactions” among terrorist groups, provoking them into committing violent acts which would then expose them to “counterattack” by U.S. forces.

This means that the United States government is planning to use secret military operations in order to provoke murderous terrorist attacks on innocent people. In a strange twist of logic, it seems the plan is to somehow combat terrorism by causing it. According to the report, other strategies include stealing money from terrorist cells or tricking them with fake communications. The Defense Department already maintains a secretive counter-terror operations group known as Delta Force that is called in when a crisis happens.

Exactly what type of actions would be required to “stimulate reactions” by terrorist groups has yet to be revealed. When asked questions regarding what measures would be taken, Pentagon sources responded with, “Their sovereignty will be at risk.”

The current P2OG program is not entirely new to the United States. One similar program was Operation Northwoods. In 1963, America’s top military brass presented a plan to President John Kennedy that called for a fake terrorist campaign - complete with bombings, hijackings, plane crashes and dead Americans - to provide “justification” for an invasion of Cuba, a Mafia/corporate fiefdom which had recently been lost to Castro. Kennedy rejected the plan, and was killed a few months later. Now Rumsfeld has resurrected Northwoods, but on a far grander scale, with resources at his disposal undreamed of by his predecessors, and no counterbalancing global rival to restrain him.

Former president Nixon wanted such a group, but congress denied it; President Reagan tried to use the National Security Council instead, but ran into trouble with the Iran-Contra affair. Now, President Bush may finally realize the dream.

UPDATE BY CHRIS FLOYD: Appropriately enough for a story about the deepest possible covert operation - penetrating terrorist cells and provoking them into action - the saga of the Pentagon’s “Proactive, Preemptive Operations Group” (P2OG) went straight back into the dark after strutting its brief hour upon the stage. There has been no new information about the group since it was first mentioned nationally in the Los Angeles Times as part of a larger story on Pentagon plans for new “secret armies.” Was it funded? Is it operational? Has it “flushed out” any terrorists lately by goading them into “action”? Are any of the post-Iraq War spate of terrorist atrocities linked to P2OG activities? We don’t know. And with Donald Rumsfeld’s openly avowed penchant for “strategic misinformation,” how will we ever know? Certainly the mainstream press has done nothing to enlighten us. Although the CounterPunch article (which appeared simultaneously in The Moscow Times) provoked a lively response in the “alternative” media (print, web and radio), there has not been a single subsequent mention of the group in the U.S. national press. In the UK, John Pilger has raised warning flags about P2OG in The New Statesman and the Daily Mirror, while The Ecologist also ran a version of the CounterPunch article. The rest is silence. At first glance, this decided lack of interest might seem a curious reaction, given the American media’s insatiable-and profitable-obsession with terrorism. But the media’s equally intense, and equally profitable, abhorrence of moral ambiguity-especially when it involves possible American complicity in mayhem and murder-makes the silence easier to understand.

Awwwww...now they would never lie to us....you can trust Bush.

First covered by Amy Goodman on Democracy Now!

Throughout the winter of 2002, the Bush administration publicly accused Iraqi weapons declarations of being incomplete. The almost unbelievable reality of this situation is that it was the United States itself that had removed over 8,000 pages of the 11,800 page original report.

This came as no surprise to Europeans however, as Iraq had made extra copies of the complete weapons declaration report and unofficially distributed them to journalists throughout Europe. The Berlin newspaper Die Tageszetung broke the story on December 19, 2002 in an article by Andreas Zumach.

At the same time, according to the investigation by Michael Niman, the Iraq government sent out official copies of the report on November 3, 2002. One, classified as “secret,” was sent to the International Atomic Energy Agency, another copy went to the UN Security Council. The U.S. convinced Colombia, chair of the Security Council and current target of U.S. military occupation and financial aid, to look the other way while the report was removed, edited, and returned. Other members of the Security Council such as Britain, France, China and Russia, were implicated in the missing pages as well (China and Russia were still arming Iraq) and had little desire to expose the United States’ transgression. So all members accepted the new, abbreviated version.

But what was in the missing pages that the Bush administration felt was so threatening that they had to be removed? What information were Europeans privy to that Americans were not?

According to Niman, “The missing pages implicated twenty-four U.S.-based corporations and the successive Ronald Reagan and George Bush Sr. administration in connection with the illegal supplying of Saddam Hussein government with myriad weapons of mass destruction and the training to use them.” Groups documented in the original report that were supporting Iraq’s weapons programs prior to Iraq’s 1990 invasion of Kuwait included:

- Eastman Kodak, Dupont, Honeywell, Rockwell, Sperry, Hewlett-Packard, and Bechtel,
- U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Energy, Department of Agriculture and Department of Defense,
- Nuclear weapons labs such as Lawrence-Livermore, Los Alamos and Sandia.
Beginning in 1983, the U.S. was involved in eighty shipments of biological and chemical components, including strains of botulism toxin, anthrax, gangrene bacteria, West Nile fever virus, and Dengue fever virus. These shipments continued even after Iraq used chemical weapons against Iran in 1984. Later, in 1988 Iraq used the chemical weapons against the Kurds.

But perhaps most importantly, the missing pages contain information that could potentially make a case for war crimes against officials within the Reagan and the Bush Sr. administrations. This includes the current Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld - for his collaboration with Saddam Hussein leading up to the massacres of Iraqi Kurds and acting as liaison for U.S. military aid during the war between Iraq and Iran.

UPDATE BY MICHAEL I. NIMAN: The first time I had a story nominated for a Project Censored award was in 1989 after I went into the bush on Costa Rica’s remote Osa Peninsula to track pirate gold miners and the U.S. military. I drank stagnant water to battle dehydration and picked ticks from my body. In short, I went after the story.

This was different. I didn’t break this story. It was broken by German reporter Andreas Zumach and brought to the U.S. by Amy Goodman on her Democracy Now radio show. No media outlet in my hometown of Buffalo covered it, so I added some media analysis, a few rants about censorship, and ran it in Buffalo’s weekly ArtVoice. Since the national media never picked up the story, The Humanist took my story nationwide. I didn’t use primary sources for this story. I just monitored the alternative and foreign press. With such thorough self-censorship in the U.S. press - reading the international press is now akin to going into the remote bush.

It is now five months later and there are still no new developments regarding this story. No corporate or government figures have been indicted. There is no investigation. The major media still hasn’t carried the story. In its place, however, most media outlets ran false pronouncements from the Bush administration about pending Iraqi weapons programs. We now know that these weapons no longer existed. And that the Bush administration was able to hijack the U.S. into war based on a combination of misinformation and missing information

We never lost any rights during Bushstruction.

As reported widely in the mainstream press, the new Department of Homeland Security (DHS) represents the most extensive restructuring of the U.S. government since 1947 - the year the Department of War was combined with the Army, Navy, Marines, Coast Guard, and Air Force, to create the Department of Defense. The new Department of Homeland Security combines over one hundred separate entities of the executive branch, including the Secret Service, the Coast Guard, and the Border Patrol, among others. The DHS employs over 170,000 federal workers and commands a total annual budget of $37 billion. But what does this mean for the people of the United States? What sort of long-term implications will it have on the day to day lives of average Americans? These questions have received scant attention in the corporate media.

The concept of Homeland Security was thrown around the Pentagon long before the events of 9/11. Originally titled “Homeland Defense,” it was placed within the Pentagon’s “Operations Other Than War (OOTW)” command, under the stand-alone civil disturbance plan called the “Garden Plot.” Over the years, homeland defense has been extended by a host of Presidential Decision Directives and Executive Orders. Now, following the events of 9/11, the initial concept has ballooned into a vast, powerful, and far-reaching department.

One DHS mandate largely ignored by the press requires the FBI, CIA, state, and local governments to share intelligence reports with the department upon command, without explanation. Civil rights activists claim that this endangers the rights and freedoms of law-abiding Americans by blurring the lines between foreign and domestic spying (as occurred during the CointelPro plan of the ‘60s and ‘70s). According to the ACLU, the Department of Homeland Security will be “100% secret and 0% accountable.” Meanwhile, the gathering, retention, and use of information collected is a central focus of the Bush administration’s new agenda. Officially established to track down terrorists, information can be collected on any dissenter, American citizen or not, violent or not. The classification of recent peace marches and protests as “terrorist events” within DOD and FEMA documents is one example of the dangerous potential of these mandates.

As part of Homeland Security, the PATRIOT Act of 2001 allows the government increased and unprecedented access to the lives of American citizens and represents an unrestrained imposition on our civil liberties. Wiretaps, previously confined to one phone, can now follow a person from place to place at the behest of government agents and people can now be detained on the vague suspicion that they might be a terrorist - or assisting one. Detainees can also be denied the right to legal representation (or the right of private counsel when they are allowed to meet with their attorneys).

William Safire, a writer for the New York Times, defined the first Patriot Act as a Presidential effort to seize dictatorial control. No member of Congress was given sufficient time to study the first Patriot Act that was passed by the house on October 27, 2001. In some cases, while driving the Act through Congress, Vice-President Cheney would not allow the legislation to be read; publicly threatening members of Congress that they would be blamed for the next terrorist attack if they did not vote for the Patriot Act.

The “Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003” (AKA Patriot Act II) poses even greater hazards to civil liberties. The draft proposal of Patriot Act II was leaked from Ashcroft’s staff in February of 2003 and is stamped ‘Confidential - Not for Distribution.’ Patriot Act II was widely editorialized against in the U.S. media but full disclosure on the contents, implications and motivations were under developed. In particular, there are three glaring areas that warranted greater coverage by the American media:

The second Patriot Act proposes to place the entire Federal government and many areas of state government under the exclusive jurisdiction of the Justice department, the Office of Homeland Security and the FEMA NORTHCOM military command.

Under section 501, a U.S. citizen engaging in lawful activity can be picked off the streets or from home and taken to a secret military tribunal with no access to or notification of a lawyer, the press, or family. This would be considered “justified” if the agent ‘inferred from conduct’ suspicious intention. One proposed option is that any violation of Federal or State law could designate a U.S. citizen as an ‘enemy combatant’ and allow him or her to be stripped of citizenship.

Section 102 states that any information gathering can be considered as the pursuit of covert intelligence for a foreign power - even legal intelligence gathering by a U.S. reporter. This provision could make newsgathering illegal, and therefore an act of terrorism.

In addition, the Bush administration is calling for a repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act of 1878, a law passed after the Civil War to prohibit the deployment of federal military forces onto American streets to control civil action - otherwise known as Martial Law.

One fear among civil rights activists is that, now that the details of the Domestic Security Enhancement Act/Patriotic Act II have been revealed, the proposals contained therein will be taken apart, renamed, and incorporated into other, broader pieces of legislation within the Department of Homeland Security.

UPDATE BY FRANK MORALES: To further prepare for new “law enforcement” missions for the military within America, overseen by the Northern Command, the Center for Law and Military Operations, based in Charlottesville, Virginia, recently published the legal rationale for these developments. Entitled, Domestic Operational Law Handbook for Judge Advocates, the document reflects the growing momentum towards the repeal of the Posse Comitatus Act. Virtually unreported in any media, and published prior to 911, the document states that although “the Founding Fathers’ hesitancy to raise a standing army and their desire to render the military subordinate to civilian authority” is “rooted in the Constitution,” “exceptions to the restrictions on employment of federal armed forces to assist state and local civil authorities are also grounded in the Constitution, which provides the basis for federal legislation allowing military assistance for civil disturbances.” The JAG handbook attempts to solidify, from a legal standpoint, Pentagon penetration of America and it’s “operations other than war,” essentially providing the U.S. corporate elite with lawful justification for its class war against the American people, specifically those that resist the “new world law and order” agenda.

The handbook notes that “the Department of Defense Civil Disturbance Plan, named GARDEN PLOT, provides guidance and direction for planning, coordination, and executing military operations during domestic civil disturbances.” Operation Garden Plot, originating in 1968 and continually updated, is according to the JAG handbook, tasked with the mission of conducting “civil disturbance operations throughout the United States,” providing “wide latitude to a commander to use federal forces to assist civil law enforcement in restoring law and order.” And it’s exactly this type of “wide latitude” that we’ve witnessed at recent protests in NYC and Oakland.

United States Army Field Manual 19-15, entitled Civil Disturbances, issued in 1985, is designed to equip soldiers with the “tactics, techniques and procedures” necessary to suppress dissent. The manual states that “crowd control formations may be employed to disperse, contain, or block a crowd. When employed to disperse a crowd, they are particularly effective in urban areas because they enable the control force to split a crowd into smaller segments.” Sound familiar? If you were at the February 15 NYC Peace Rally it certainly does. The manual goes on to state that “if the crowd refuses to move, the control force may have to employ other techniques, such as riot control agents or apprehensions…” The Army “civil disturbance” manual, correlated to present day realities, also makes the point that “civil disturbances include acts of terrorism,” which “may be organized by disaffected groups,” who hope to “embarrass the government,” and who may in fact “demonstrate as a cover for terrorism.”

The sophistry involved in turning a peace rally into a pro-al Qaeda rally is precisely the logic that is operative within Pentagon driven civil disturbance planning situated within the broader context of so-called “homeland defense.” In fact, rather than protest being the occasion of “terrorism,” the “war on terrorism” is the cover for the war on dissent. But don’t take my word for it. Listen to what the California Anti-Terrorism Information Center spokesman Mike Van Winkle had to say recently to the Oakland Tribune (5/18/03): “You can make an easy kind of link that, if you have a protest group protesting a war where the cause that’s being fought against is international terrorism, you might have terrorism at that protest…You can almost argue that a protest against that is a terrorist act.”

Title: “Bush Planned Iraq ‘regime change’ before becoming President”
Author: Neil Mackay

Over the last year corporate media have made much of Saddam Hussein and his stockpile of weapons of mass destruction. Rarely did the press or, especially, television address the possibility that larger strategies might also have driven the decision to invade Iraq. Broad political strategies regarding foreign policy do indeed exist and are part of the public record. The following is a summary of the current strategies that have formed over the last 30 years; strategies that eclipse the pursuit of oil and that preceded Hussein’s rise to power:

In the 1970s, the United States and the Middle East were embroiled in a tug-of-war over oil. At the time, American military presence in the Gulf was fairly insignificant and the prospect of seizing control of Arab oil fields by force was pretty unattainable. Still, the idea of this level of dominance was very attractive to a group of hard-line, pro-military Washington insiders that included both Democrats and Republicans. Eventually labeled “neoconservatives,” this circle of influential strategists played important roles in the Defense Departments of Ford, Reagan and Bush Sr., at conservative think tanks throughout the ‘80s and ‘90s, and today occupies several key posts in the White House, Pentagon, and State Department. Most principal among them are:

·Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld, our current Vice-President and Defense Secretary respectively, who have been closely aligned since they served with the Ford administration in the 1970s;
·Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz, the key architect of the post-war reconstruction of Iraq;
·Richard Perle, past-chairman and still-member of the Pentagon’s Defense Policy Board that has great influence over foreign military policies;
·William Kristol, editor of the Weekly Standard and founder of the powerful, neo-conservative think-tank, Project for a New American Century.

In the 1970s, however, neither high-level politicos, nor the American people, shared the priorities of this small group of military strategists. In 1979 the Shah of Iran fell and U.S. political sway in the region was greatly jeopardized. In 1980, the Carter Doctrine declared the Gulf “a zone of U.S. influence.” It warned (especially the Soviets) that any attempt to gain control of the Persian Gulf region would be regarded as an assault on the vital interests of the U.S. and repelled by any means necessary, including military force. This was followed by the creation of the Rapid Deployment Force - a military program specifically designed to rush several thousand U.S. troops to the Gulf on short notice.

Under President Reagan, the Rapid Deployment Force was transformed into the U.S. Central Command that oversaw the area from eastern Africa to Afghanistan. Bases and support facilities were established throughout the Gulf region, and alliances were expanded with countries such as Israel, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.

Since the first Gulf War, the U.S. has built a network of military bases that now almost completely encircle the oil fields of the Persian Gulf.

In 1989, following the end of the Cold War and just prior to the Gulf War, Dick Cheney, Colin Powell, and Paul Wolfowitz produced the ‘Defense Planning Guidance’ report advocating U.S. military dominance around the globe. The Plan called for the United States to maintain and grow in military superiority and prevent new rivals from rising up to challenge us on the world stage. Using words like ‘preemptive’ and military ‘forward presence,’ the plan called for the U.S. to be dominant over friends and foes alike. It concluded with the assertion that the U.S. can best attain this position by making itself ‘absolutely powerful.’

The 1989 plan was spawned after the fall of the Soviet Union. Without the traditional threat to national security, Cheney, Powell and Wolfowitz knew that the military budget would dwindle without new enemies and threats. In an attempt to salvage defense funding, Cheney and company constructed a plan to fill the ‘threat blank’. On August 2, 1990 President Bush called a press conference. He explained that the threat of global war had significantly receded, but in its wake a new danger arose. This unforeseen threat to national security could come from any angle and from any power.

Iraq, by a remarkable coincidence, invaded Northern Kuwait later the same day.

Cheney et al. were out of political power for the eight years of Clinton’s presidency. During this time the neo-conservatives founded the Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The most influential product of the PNAC was a report entitled “Rebuilding America’s Defense,” (http://www.newamericancentury.org) which called for U.S. military dominance and control of global economic markets.

With the election of George W. Bush, the authors of the plan were returned to power: Cheney as vice president, Powell as Secretary of State, and Wolfowitz in the number two spot at the Pentagon. With the old Defense Planning Guidance as the skeleton, the three went back to the drawing board. When their new plan was complete, it included contributions from Wolfowitz’s boss Donald Rumsfeld. The old ‘preemptive’ attacks have now become ‘unwarned attacks.’ The Powell-Cheney doctrine of military ‘forward presence’ has been replaced by ‘forward deterrence.’ The U.S. stands ready to invade any country deemed a possible threat to our economic interests.

UPDATE BY DAVID ARMSTRONG: Just days after this story appeared, the Bush administration unveiled its “new” National Security Strategy, which effectively validated the article’s main thesis. The NSS makes clear that the administration will pursue a policy of pre-emption and overwhelming military superiority aimed at ensuring US dominance. Since that time, the major media have generally come around to the point of view presented in the article. The New York Times, which originally rejected the article’s premise, now makes a virtual mantra of the notion that the current security strategy is little more than a warmed-over version of the policy drafted during the first Bush administration of preventing new rivals from rising up to challenge the US in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. The article circulated widely, particularly in the run up to the war in Iraq, and was entered into the Congressional Record. It also became a topic of discussion on such outlets as the BBC, NPR, MSNBC, various talk radio shows, and European newspapers. In the process, it has substantially helped shape the debate about the Bush administration’s foreign policy.

UPDATE BY BOB DREYFUSS: For months leading up to the war against Iraq, it was widely assumed among critics of the war that a hidden motive for military action was Iraq’s oil, not terrorism or weapons of mass destruction. In fact, “No Blood for Oil” became perhaps the leading slogan and bumper sticker of the peace movement. Yet, there was very little examination in the media of the role of oil in American policy toward Iraq and the Persian Gulf, and what coverage did exist tended to pooh-pooh or debunk the idea that the war had anything to do with oil. So, I set out to place the war with Iraq in the context of a decades-long U.S. strategy of building up a military presence in the region, arguing that even before the war, the U.S. had turned the Gulf into a U.S. protectorate. Perhaps most importantly, I showed that a motive behind the war was oil as a national security issue, as a strategic commodity, not as a commercial one - and that, in fact, most of the oil industry itself was either opposed to or ambivalent about the idea of war against Saddam Hussein. Yet the neoconservatives in the Bush administration, whose forebears had proposed occupying the oil fields of the Gulf in the mid-1970s, sought control of the oil in the region as the cornerstone of American empire.

Since the end of this war, it has become clear that the United States (and the U.K.) have aggressively sought to maintain direct control over Iraq’s oil industry. When looters devastated Baghdad, only the Ministry of Oil was unscathed, since U.S. marines protected it. Since then, handpicked Iraqi officials have been installed in the ministry, under the supervision of U.S. military and civilian officials, and there is movement toward privatization of Iraq’s oil industry, a point that I emphasized in my writing on the topic before the war. Not only that, but it is increasingly clear that France, Russia, and China are likely to be excluded from either rebuilding the industry and securing contracts for future Iraqi oil delivery.

I can’t say that the media followed up on my exposure of this issue, except that I appeared on a number of radio and television talk show programs as a result of my writing on Iraq, in both Mother Jones and The American Prospect, as well as C-Span, CNBC, and CBC-TV in Canada. I was also invited to make a presentation on “The Thirty-Year Itch” at the Transnational Institute in Amsterdam. According to Mother Jones, the article drew more traffic to its web site than any other article.

U.S. Dollar vs. the Euro: Another Reason for the Invasion of Iraq

President Richard Nixon removed U.S. currency from the gold standard in 1971. Since then, the world’s supply of oil has been traded in U.S. fiat dollars, making the dollar the dominant world reserve currency. Countries must provide the United States with goods and services for dollars - which the United States can freely print. To purchase energy and pay off any IMF debts, countries must hold vast dollar reserves. The world is attached to a currency that one country can produce at will. This means that - in addition to controlling world trade - the United States is importing substantial quantities of goods and services for very low relative costs.

The Euro has begun to emerge as a serious threat to dollar hegemony and U.S. economic dominance. The dollar may prevail throughout the Western Hemisphere, but the Euro and dollar are clashing in the former Soviet Union, Central Asia, Sub-Saharan Africa, and the Middle East.

In November 2000, Iraq became the first OPEC nation to begin selling its oil for Euros. Since then, the value of the Euro has increased 17%, and the dollar has begun to decline. One important reason for the invasion and installation of a U.S. dominated government in Iraq was to force the country back to the dollar. Another reason for the invasion is to dissuade further OPEC momentum toward the Euro, especially from Iran- the second largest OPEC producer, who was actively discussing a switch to Euros for its oil exports.

It is estimated that the dollar is currently overvalued by at least 40%, burdening the United States with a huge trade deficit. Conversely, the euro-zone does not run huge deficits, uses higher interest rates, and has an increasingly larger share of world trade. As the euro establishes its durability and comes into wider use, the dollar will no longer be the world’s only option. At that point, it would be easier for other nations to exercise financial leverage against the United States without damaging themselves or the global financial system as a whole.

Faced with waning international economic power, military superiority is the United States’ only tool for world domination. Although, the expense of this military control is unsustainable, says William Clark, “one of the dirty little secrets of today’s international order is that the rest of the globe could topple the United States from its hegemonic status whenever they so choose with a concerted abandonment of the dollar standard. This is America’s preeminent, inescapable Achilles Heel.” If American power is ever perceived globally as a greater liability than the dangers of toppling the international order, the U.S. systems of control can be eliminated and collapsed. When acting against world opinion - as in Iraq - an international consensus could brand the United States as a “rogue nation.”

UPDATED BY WILLIAM CLARK: Only time will tell what will happen in the aftermath of the Iraq war and U.S. occupation, but I am hopeful my research will contribute to the historical record and help others understand one of the important but hidden macroeconomic reasons for why we conquered Iraq. The Bush/Cheney administration probably believes that the occupation of Iraq and the installation of a large and permanent U.S. military presence in the Persian Gulf region will stop other OPEC producers from even considering switching the denomination of their oil sales from dollars to Euros. However, using the military to enforce dollar hegemony for oil transactions strikes me as a rather unwieldy and inappropriate strategy. Regrettably, President Bush and his neo-conservative advisors have exacerbated “anti-American” sentiments by applying a military option in Iraq that is in essence an economic problem. History may not look kindly upon their actions.

Despite the U.S. media reporting otherwise, the current wave of ‘global anti-Americanism’ is not against the American people or against American values - but against the hypocrisy of militant American Imperialism. The foreign polices of the neoconservatives may be creating the regrettable emergence of a possible European-Russian-Chinese alliance in an effort to counter American Imperialism. It appears that the structural imbalances in the U.S. economy, along with the Bush administration’s flawed tax, economic, and most principally their overtly imperialist foreign polices could result in the dollar’s reserve currency status and/or oil transaction currency status being placed in jeopardy or at the very least significantly diminished over the next 1-2 years. In the event that my hypothesis materializes, the U.S. economy will require restructuring in some manner to account for the reduction of either of these two pivotal advantages.

What is needed is a multilateral meeting of the G-7 nations to reform the international monetary system. Given that future wars will become more likely over oil and the currency of oil, the author advocates that the global monetary system be reformed without delay. This would include the dollar and euro being designated as equal international reserve currencies, and placed within an exchange band along with a dual-OPEC oil transaction currency standard. Additionally, the G-7 nations should also explore a future third reserve currency option regarding a yen/yuan bloc for East Asia. A compromise on the euro/oil issues via a multilateral treaty with a gradual phase-in of a dual-OPEC transaction currency standard could minimize economic dislocations within the U.S.

While these proposed multilateral reforms may lower our ability to finance our current massive levels of debt and maintain a global military presence, the benefits would include improving the quality of our lives and that of our children by reducing animosity towards the U.S., while we rebuild our alliances with the E.U. and world community. Creating balanced domestic fiscal polices along with global monetary reform is in the long-term national security interest of the United States, and necessary for the Global economy. Hopefully these proposed monetary reforms could mitigate future armed or economic warfare over oil, ultimately fostering a more stable, safer, and prosperous global economy in the 21st century.

UPDATE BY CÓILÍN NUNAN: At the time this article was written, the suggestion that Iraq’s move to selling oil for euros had something to do with the US threatening war against the country was just a theory. It still is a theory, but a theory which subsequent US actions have done little to dispel: the US has invaded Iraq, installed its own authority to rule the country and as soon as Iraqi oil became available to sell on the world market, it was announced that payment would be in dollars only (1). But the story doesn’t end there: the US trade deficit is still widening and the dollar falling. More and more oil exporters are talking openly about selling their commodity for euros instead of greenbacks. While Indonesia has only been considering it (2), Malaysia’s Prime Minister Dr Mahathir has been strongly encouraging his country’s oil industry to actually do it (3), which has led the European Union’s Energy Commissioner, Loyola de Palacio, to comment that she could see the euro replacing the dollar as the main currency for oil pricing (4). Iran meanwhile has been giving all the signs that it is about to switch to the euro: it has been issuing eurobonds, converting its foreign exchange reserves from dollars to euros and having warm trade negotiations with the EU. According to one recent report it has even started selling its oil to Europe for euros and encouraging Asian customers to pay in euros too (5). Should US talk of ‘regime change’ in Iran not be seen in the light of these facts? The media largely appear to think not since there has been little discussion of the dollar-euro connection with the ‘war on terror’. What discussion there has been may well be expanded upon in the future as neither the threat to the dollar and the US economy or the US threat to world peace are likely to go away any time soon.

It was JET FUEL I SWEAR!!! These stupid Americans believe anything.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lv2ck2qsiGA&feature=related

It was the Giant fires in WTC 7 that brought it down I swear...or did they pull it? What does "pulled it" mean.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j2q2mD2HaKA&feature=related

How Bush handled the financial crisis.

American energy giant, Enron, and telecommunications company, WorldCom, committed massive corporate fraud and illegal acts. Declaring bankruptcy in December 2001, they left thousands of American workers jobless and without pensions. The Institute for Policy Studies in Washington D.C. and Corpwatch, a multinational watchdog group, has uncovered evidence of bribery scandals, environmental degradation and violations of international and labor laws. Yet Enron still has 25% interest in a Bolivian oil company called Transredes. Working with Shell Oil, the company is building a pipeline through Bolivia’s Chaco Forest region, an area internationally known for its biodiversity, endangered species and the ancestral homeland of the indigenous Guarani and Guianeck peoples. In December 2002, Transredes was granted $220 million in loans from the International Development Bank, to be backed by U.S. taxpayer dollars.

Enron was also responsible for cutting down the last intact, dry tropical forest in the world, Bolivia’s 15-million acre Chiquitano Forest, for another gas pipeline. The Chiquitano Forest was home to the endangered marsh deer, maned wolf, jaguar, ocelot and the hyacinth macaw. The World Wildlife Fund ranked the area one of the world’s 200 most endangered eco-regions. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), during the Clinton administration in 1999, approved loans for Enron’s pipeline, which could have skirted the forest at an additional expense to the company. Officially, OPIC is mandated to protect ecologically sensitive areas.

WorldCom still profits from its extensive telephone and internet networks throughout Latin American, Asia, Europe and Africa. Enron has additional business interests throughout Central and South America. In northwest India a power plant, which they co-own with Bechtel and General Electric, is so controversial that Enron officials face threats of being arrested on the spot if they enter the country. According to Nadia Martinez of the Institute for Policy Studies, “Enron and WorldCom are just symptoms of the way companies are able to do business without accountability.”

In 2000, Clinton issued an order that provide clear guidelines regarding the awarding of federal contracts. The new “contractor responsibility rule” specified that federal officers should weigh “evidence of repeated, pervasive or significant violations of the law,” for example cheating on prior contracts, violating environmental and safety laws, labor rights, consumer protection laws, and antitrust activities. President Bush quietly killed the rule requiring officials to ban federal contractors with a record of violations of workplace safety and other laws.

The Congressional Research Service issued an opinion concluding that the secret suspension of the rule (no issuing of public notice or soliciting of comments) was probably illegal, but the move went virtually unreported in the media. The government does not maintain a central database to store information on contractors’ records of compliance with the law. The EPA and OSHA maintain their own lists of corporate violations, but parent companies are not always linked to their subsidiaries. “There’s no process built into the review system,” says Gary Bass, executive director of OMB watch, a Washington-based advocate of government accountability.

A six-month investigation by Mother Jones of the nation’s 200 largest contractors found that the government continues to award lucrative contracts to dozens of companies that it has repeatedly cited for serious workplace and environmental violations. Among the findings: forty-six of the biggest contractors were prosecuted by the Justice Department and ordered to pay cleanup costs after they refused to take responsibility for dumping hazardous waste and various other environmental violations. General Electric-which received nearly $9.8 billion from the government, making it the nation’s 10th largest contractor-topped the list with 27 cases of pollution for which it was held solely or jointly liable. Subsequently GE was fined total of only $369,363 for its combined EPA (27) and OSHA (48) violations.

UPDATE BY EMAD MEKAY: The story was an attempt to direct public attention to the corporate mismanagement, executive greed and malpractice of multi-national corporations, particularly the same ones that stirred public controversy last year in the U.S. over their fraudulent dealings, in the developing countries.

Unless they are very well regulated and very well supervised, the economies of the poor nations tend to be a subject for all kinds of abuse by fly-by-night operators. But because of pressure from public international financial institutions, like the World Bank and the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to deregulate their economies and dismantle public monitoring agencies, the risk of multinational engaging in corrupt activities overseas is far higher.

According to recent documents obtained from the U.S. Treasury department, U.S. energy company Enron, one of the companies referred to in the story, managed to secure government assistance to its problematic overseas investments through hefty contributions to different U.S. administrations and access to government officials.

Enron has regularly sought aid from staff from the Treasury and the State Department to favorably resolve its problems and disputes with foreign governments over its subsidiaries; activities particularly in countries like Argentina, India, Nigeria, the Dominican Republic and Turkey.

According to Public Citizen, which is using Freedom of Information Act to obtain documents from the U.S. Treasury, the shamed company also played a major role in the exporting California-style deregulation to poor countries. This has often proved catastrophic for the citizens of those countries. Brazil, for example, now says it will investigate allegations that U.S. energy giant AES Corp. and Enron Corp. conspired to rig the 1998 bidding process for Latin America’s largest electric utility, Eletropaulo. Enron decided not to bid for the project in return for other potentially lucrative energy deals with AES.

Brazil now wants to know whether the utility could have fetched a higher price and to what extent the under-the-counter deal between the two multinationals hurt the Latin American country’s interests.

The U.S. government also continued to back another company caught in financial scandals and mentioned in the story, WorldCom, despite its now established record of fraud. In May, MCI, the telephone division of bankrupt giant WorldCom, said it had received a contract from the U.S. Defense Department to install wireless phone service in Iraq. The company declined to discuss details of the contract, citing “an agreement with our client.”

Despite of laudable attention the mainstream media gave to the Enron scandal in the United States very little has been published about the role of the same company, among many controversial ones, in the defenseless poor nations.

It's been coming for a long time, you keep voting for it and blaming others for the mistakes that destory this country and our freedom.

Powerful Group of Ultra-Conservatives Has Secret Plans for Your Future

SYNOPSIS: Observers of the nation's political scene, who wonder why the United States took a sharp right turn in 1994, should know about the Council for National Policy (CNP). In May 1981, under a tent in the backyard of political strategist Richard Viguerie's suburban Virginia home, 160 new-right political leaders celebrated their political fortunes and the election of President Ronald Reagan the previous November.

This elite group of administration officials, congressmen, industrialists, and conservative Christians -- including Interior Secretary James Watt, Office of Management and Budget Director David Stockman, Phyllis Schlafly, Joseph Coors, Sen. John East (R-NC), Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT), and Paul Weyrich, founding president of the Heritage Foundation, a right-wing think tank-launched a political federation to coordinate their own political agenda.

Weyrich, reportedly the single most important person of CNP once proposed that the Republicans include a plank in their 1988 platform that AIDS be controlled by "reintroducing and enforcing antisodomy laws." And GNP's R.J. Rushdoony, a leader of the Christian Reconstruction movement, argues that right-thinking Christians should take "dominion" over the United States and do away with the "heresy" that is democracy.

After the public inauguration of the group, the CNP went underground. As investigative journalist Joel Bleifuss notes, "we do not know much about the CNP's actions or agenda," but we do know that the radical right is on the ascendant within the Republican Party and has taken over state GOP organizations in Texas, California, Minnesota, Hawaii, Iowa, Nevada, Arizona, Idaho, and Virginia.

Russ Bellant, author of The Coors Connection, said the meetings of this little-known organization are often a spring-board for radical-right campaigns and long-term planning. "But these efforts will seldom be traced to the CNP." The group meets quarterly behind closed doors and is so secretive that the group's Washington office will neither confirm nor deny where, or even if, the group meets.

While the roster of the 500 members of the organization is confidential, it is known to include Jerry Falwell, of the Liberty Alliance; Oliver North, CNP executive committee member; Sen. Don Nickles (R-OK); Sen. Trent Lott (R-MS); Sen. Jesse Helms (R-NC); Rep. Bob Doman (R-CA); Brent Bozell III, of the Media Research Center; Iran-contra figure Gen. John Singlaub; Richard Shoff, former leader of the Ku Klux Klan in Indiana; Republican pollster Richard Wirthlin; Robert Weiner, head of Maranatha, a Christian cult; Howard Phillips of the Conservative Caucus; Linda Bean Folkers of the L.L. Bean Co.; televangelist John Ankerberg; Bob Jones III, president of the Bob Jones University; and former attorney general Edwin Meese, CNP president in 1994.

To emphasize the secret nature of their meetings, CNP Executive Director Morton C. Blackwell wrote a memor-andum to members attending a meeting in St. Louis in 1993 instructing them that all remarks made at the conference were to be strictly private. "The media should not know when or where we meet or who takes part in our programs, before or after a meeting."

And, with the exception of the alternative press, the Council for National Policy has managed to escape the attention of the media.

Did you see any democrats in that bunch?

Garrett, I asked you to prove your statements, not cut and paste a bunch of garbage, from leftist student "researchers" and conspiracy theories.  Come on man, come up with an original thought of your own!  I doubt there is a flavor of Kool Aid you don't like!

You have however proved that you are dilusional and an insecure conspiracy theorist. 

You know Garrett, you haven't proved a thing, except that you are truly a sad, sad, puppy.  

To start, this whole 911 'truther' thing, that somehow just about EVERYONE within the U.S. Government would lie about 911 just so Cheney could load-up Halliburton with contracts?  Truly pathetic. 

And your friend Benjamin Ferencz?  He believes there is no such thing as a just war.  To quote him in a 2001 interview, right after 911, he said: "I prefer law to war under all circumstances.".  Deep thought there Ben - who doesn't?  His plan would have had the US draw up charges against Afghanistan and submit them to the UN, negotiate with the terrorists/Taliban, and bring the perpetrators to justice in an international court.  If they didn't bring the perpetrators to justice then a UN force could be used.  My point is this: America, once attacked, according to Ferencz's plan was just supposed to sit there and potentially be attacked again while a bunch of UN bureaucrats decide her fate (kinda like Clinton and the UN's inaction in Rwanda)? Yeah, RIGHT.  Besides, the only thing Osama Bin Laden has ever understood was force...his words in 1998 to America: "Nothing could stop you except perhaps retaliation in kind.".  This Ferencz is nothing but a back door one-world mouthpiece for the UN in my opinion.

And the 2008 Winter Soldier thing, if it was handled the same way as John Kerry and cohorts handled their's back in the early '70s, was a farce as well.  I don't believe that 1,000,000 Iraqi 'innocents' were killed by the U.S. military, which was the indirect assertion of one of your articles.  

And, I could go on.  But, since to date you have not listened to anyone up there in that rarified air you breathe I doubt something as fundamental as reason will help you now.  I wish it did. 

For Garrett, who loves a good conspiracy theory!http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index1367.htm

US Orders Blackout Over North Korean Torpedoing Of Gulf Of Mexico Oil Rig

By: Sorcha Faal, and as reported to her Western Subscribers

A grim report circulating in the Kremlin today written by Russia’s Northern Fleet is reporting that the United States has ordered a complete media blackout over North Korea’s torpedoing of the giant Deepwater Horizon oil platform owned by the World’s largest offshore drilling contractor Transocean that was built and financed by South Korea’s Hyundai Heavy Industries Co. Ltd., that has caused great loss of life, untold billions in economic damage to the South Korean economy, and an environmental catastrophe to the United States.

Most important to understand about this latest attack by North Korea against its South Korean enemy is that under the existing “laws of war” it was a permissible action as they remain in a state of war against each other due to South Korea’s refusal to sign the 1953 Armistice ending the Korean War.

To the attack itself, these reports continue, the North Korean “cargo vessel” Dai Hong Dan believed to be staffed by 17th Sniper Corps “suicide” troops left Cuba’s Empresa Terminales Mambisas de La Habana (Port of Havana) on April 18th whereupon it “severely deviated” from its intended course for Venezuela’s Puerto Cabello bringing it to within 209 kilometers (130 miles) of the Deepwater Horizon oil platform which was located 80 kilometers (50 miles) off the coast of the US State of Louisiana where it launched an SSC Sang-o Class Mini Submarine (Yugo class) estimated to have an operational range of 321 kilometers (200 miles).

On the night of April 20th the North Korean Mini Submarine manned by these “suicidal” 17th Sniper Corps soldiers attacked the Deepwater Horizon with what are believed to be 2 incendiary torpedoes causing a massive explosion and resulting in 11 workers on this giant oil rig being killed outright. Barely 48 hours later, on April 22nd , this North Korean Mini Submarine committed its final atrocity by exploding itself directly beneath the Deepwater Horizon causing this $1 Billion oil rig to sink beneath the seas and marking 2010’s celebration of Earth Day with one of the largest environmental catastrophes our World has ever seen.

To the reason for North Korea attacking the Deepwater Horizon, these reports say, was to present US President Obama with an “impossible dilemma” prior to the opening of the United Nations Review Conference of the Parties to the Treat on the Non-Proliferation of Nuclear Weapons (NPT) set to begin May 3rd in New York.

This “impossible dilemma” facing Obama is indeed real as the decision he is faced with is either to allow the continuation of this massive oil leak catastrophe to continue for months, or immediately stop it by the only known and proven means possible, the detonation of a thermonuclear device.

Russian Navy atomic experts in these reports state that should Obama choose the “nuclear option” the most viable weapon at his disposal is the United States B83 (Mk-83) strategic thermonuclear bomb having a variable yield (Low Kiloton Range to 1,200 Kilotons) which with its 12 foot length and 18 inch diameter, and weighing just over 2,400 pounds, is readily able to be deployed and detonated by a remote controlled mini-sub.

Should Obama choose the “nuclear option” it appears that he would be supported by the International Court of Justice who on July 8, 1996 issued an advisory opinion on the use of nuclear weapons stating that they could not conclude definitively on these weapons use in “extreme circumstances” or “self defense”.

On the other hand, if Obama chooses the “nuclear option” it would leave the UN’s nuclear conference in shambles with every Nation in the World having oil rigs off their coasts demanding an equal right to atomic weapons to protect their environment from catastrophes too, including Iran.

To whatever decision Obama makes it remains a fact that with each passing hour this environmental catastrophe grows worse. And even though Obama has ordered military SWAT teams to protect other oil rigs in the Gulf of Mexico from any further attack, and further ordered that all drilling in the Gulf of Mexico be immediately stopped, this massive oil spill has already reached the shores of America and with high waves and more bad weather forecast the likelihood of it being stopped from destroying thousands of miles of US coastland and wildlife appears unstoppable.

And not just to the environmental catastrophe that is unfolding the only devastation to be wrecked upon the United States and South Korea by this North Korean attack as the economic liabilities associated with this disaster are estimated by these Russian reports to be between $500 Billion to $1.5 Trillion, and which only a declaration of this disaster being an “act of war” would free some the World’s largest corporations from bankruptcy.

Important to note too in all of these events was that this was the second attack by North Korea on its South Korean enemy, and US ally, in a month as we had reported on in our March 28th report titled “Obama Orders ‘Immediate Stand-down’ After Deadly North Korean Attack” and which to date neither the Americans or South Korea have retaliated for and giving one senior North Korean party leader the courage to openly state that the North Korean military took “gratifying revenge” on South Korea.

And for those believing that things couldn’t get worse, they couldn’t be more mistaken as new reports coming from Japanese military sources are stating that North Korea is preparing for new launches of its 1,300 kilometer (807 miles) intermediate range ballistic “Rodong” missile which Russian Space Forces experts state is able to “deploy and detonate” an atomic electromagnetic pulse (EMP) device, and which if detonated high in the atmosphere could effectively destroy the American economy for years, if not decades, to come.

Sigh...

This person named Garrett.............WOW! He has to be a card carrying Communist.He is way past the plain Liberal.He has done nothing more than be a parrott of the very sick & dillusional.I would feel sorry for him If I was not so much against communism & socialism.He may snap out of it one of these days but I do believe he is way to far gone.I would offer an invitation to come hunt in Sutton County, there are several places on 20,000 acres I would love to show him.......just once.