Sometimes I can hardly keep up, there's so much going on so fast that we really need to keep our eyes open so that we are not lulled into another lie that will truly put America in a position that we can’t recover from. We as a nation need to stand up and not be led down a path of destuction for the sake of others who could care less about what the consequences are for Americans, and yes I know that some of these same people claim to be Americans but in my eyes if you carry duel citizenship can anyone truly know where your allegiance lies?
January 9, 2007
Who Is Planning Our Next War?
by Patrick J. Buchanan
As George Bush reflects on his legacy, an urgent question must be pressing in upon him each day.
Will I leave here as the man who launched failed wars in Iraq and Afghanistan that cost thousands of U.S. dead, to no avail? Or can I yet enter history as the Churchillian statesman who used U.S. power to save America and Israel from the mortal threat of atomic weapons in the hands of the Iranian mullahs?
Which legacy would Bush prefer? Or Cheney?
As Americans await Bush's address announcing a "surge" of 20,000 to 30,000 U.S. troops to Iraq, we may be missing the larger picture. The War Party is turning its attention from Iraq – to Iran.
Nor is it simply an analysis of the character of George Bush that causes one to so conclude.
Tehran is now two weeks into a 60-day deadline to answer a Security Council resolution directing it to cease enriching uranium. While the sanctions are mild, the resolution passed unanimously and gives Bush the U.N. cover he used to wage war on Iraq. If Iran defies the United Nations, Bush will demand further sanctions. Up the escalator we go.
Moreover, a second U.S. carrier battle group is heading for the Gulf. More interesting, the new CentCom commander, replacing Gen. John Abizaid, is no soldier, but Adm. William J. Fallon, commander in chief of U.S. forces in the Pacific. What Fallon does not know about securing streets, he does know about taking out targets from the air and keeping sea lanes open in a time of war.
Bush may be sending signals, but the Israelis are preparing for war. The London Sunday Times reports that Israeli pilots have been making the 2,000-mile run to Gibraltar to train for strikes with bunker-busting nuclear bombs on Iran's heavy water plant at Arak, the uranium hexaflouride facility at Isfahan and the centrifuge cascade at Natanz.
Israel angrily denies the report. But, on Dec. 30, retired Gen. Oded Tira, who headed up all Israeli artillery units, burst into print with this admonition:
"As an American air strike in Iran is essential for our existence, we must help (Bush) pave the way by lobbying the Democratic Party (which is conducting itself foolishly) and U.S. newspaper editors. We need to do this in order to turn the Iranian issue to a bipartisan one and unrelated to the Iraq failure."
"Bush lacks the political power to attack Iran," writes Tira. Thus, Israel and its U.S. lobbying arm "must turn to Hillary Clinton and other potential presidential candidates in the Democratic Party so that they publicly support immediate action by Bush against Iran."
"The Americans must act," Tira concludes. "If they don't, we'll do it ourselves ... (and) we must immediately start preparing for an Iranian response to an attack."
According to UPI editor-at-large Arnaud De Borchgrave, Tira's line tracks the New Year's Day message of Likud superhawk "Bibi" Netanyahu, the former prime minister.
Said Netanyahu, Israel "must immediately launch an intense, international public relations front first and foremost on the U.S. The goal being to encourage President Bush to live up to specific pledges he would not allow Iran to arm itself with nuclear weapons. We must make clear to the (U.S.) government, the Congress and the American public that a nuclear Iran is a threat to the U.S. and the entire world, not only Israel."
Israel's war, says Bibi, must be sold as America's war.
We are thus forewarned. A propaganda campaign, using Israeli agents and their neocon auxiliaries and sympathizers, who stampeded us into war in Iraq, is being prepared to stampede us into war on Iran.
We are to be convinced that Iran, with no air force or navy to speak of, an economy not 2 percent of ours, which has not started a single war since the revolution, 27 years ago, is about to give to terrorists, to use on us, a nuclear bomb it may be 10 years away from even being able to build.
Will Congress be duped again into giving Bush a blank check for war? Or will this new Congress summon the courage to take the war option out of Bush's hands, to decide itself, for the nation, when, where and whether America should ever go to war against Iran?
Every presidential candidate should be asked: Does President Bush have the authority to attack Iran without specific congressional authorization? And would you support giving him that authority?
Needed today are courageous men and women of both parties who will introduce and pass a congressional resolution stating, "In the absence of a direct Iranian attack on U.S. forces or personnel, or an imminent threat of such an attack, President Bush has no authority to launch a pre-emptive strike or a preventive war on Iran."
If we are going to war, let us do it constitutionally, for once, and not leave it up solely to George W. Bush and Brother Cheney.
Thursday, January 18, 2007
Tuesday, January 09, 2007
I’m not going to let go of this and I would hope that people start to really look into this, there are to many unanswered questions.
BUSH INSIDER CLAIMS WTC COLLAPSE BOGUS
DEMOLITION MORE LIKELY
By Greg Szymanski
A former chief economist in the Labor Department during President Bush’s first term now believes the official story about the collapse of the WTC is “bogus,” saying it is likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the twin towers and adjacent building No. 7.“If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9-11, then the case for an ‘inside job’ and a government attack on America would be compelling,” said Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D., a former member of the Bush team who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis, headquartered in Dallas.Reynolds, now a professor emeritus at Texas A&M University, also believes it’s “next to impossible” that 19 Arab terrorists alone outfoxed the mighty U.S. military, adding the scientific conclusions about the WTC collapse may hold the key to the entire mysterious plot behind 9-11.“It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause(s) of the collapse of the twin towers and Building 7,” said Reynolds from his offices at Texas A&M. “If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government’s collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings.“More importantly, momentous political and social consequences would follow if impartial observers concluded that professionals imploded the WTC. Meanwhile, the job of scientists, engineers and impartial researchers everywhere is to get the scientific and engineering analysis of 9-11 right.”However, Reynolds said “getting it right in today’s security state” remains challenging because he claims explosives and structural experts have been intimidated in their analyses of the collapses of 9-11.HASTILY REMOVEDFrom the beginning, the Bush administration claimed that burning jet fuel caused the collapse of the towers. Although many independent investigators have disagreed, they have been hard pressed to disprove the government theory since most of the evidence was hastily removed by the federal government prior to independent investigation. Critics claim the Bush administration has tried to cover up the evidence. The recent 9-11 commission has failed to address the major evidence contradicting the official version of 9-11.Some facts demonstrating the flaws in the government jet fuel theory include:• Photos showing people walking around in the hole in the North Tower where 10,000 gallons of jet fuel supposedly was burning.• When the South Tower was hit, most of the North Tower’s flames had already vanished, burning for only 16 minutes, making it relatively easy to contain and control without a total collapse.• The fire did not grow over time, probably because it quickly ran out of fuel and was suffocating, indicating without added explosive devices the fires could have been easily controlled.• FDNY firefighters still remain under a tight government gag order to not discuss the explosions they heard, felt and saw. FAA personnel are also under a similar 9-11 gag order.• Even the flawed 9-11 commission report acknowledges that “none of the [fire] chiefs present believed that a total collapse of either tower was possible.”• Fire had never before caused steel-frame buildings to collapse, nor has fire collapsed any steel high rise since 9-11.• The fires, especially in the South Tower and WTC-7, were relatively small.• WTC-7 was unharmed by any airplane and had only minor fires on the seventh and 12th floors of this 47-story steel building, yet it collapsed in less than 10 seconds.• WTC-5 and WTC-6 had raging fires but did not collapse despite much thinner steel beams.• It’s difficult if not impossible for hydrocarbon fires like those fed by jet fuel to raise the temperature of steel close to melting.NUMEROUS HOLESDespite the numerous holes in the government story, the Bush administration has ignored all critics. Mainstream experts, speaking for the administration, offer a theory essentially arguing that an airplane impact weakened each structure and an intense fire thermally weakened structural components, causing buckling failures while allowing the upper floors to pancake onto the floors below.Hard evidence is lacking due to FEMA’s quick removal of the structural steel before it could be analyzed. The criminal code requires that crime scene evidence be kept for forensic analysis, but FEMA had it destroyed or shipped overseas before a serious investigation could take place.And even more doubt is cast over why FEMA acted so swiftly since coincidentally officials had arrived the day before the 9-11 attacks at New York’s Pier 29 to conduct a war game exercise, named “Tripod II.”Besides FEMA’s quick removal of the debris, authorities considered the steel quite valuable as New York City officials had every debris truck tracked on GPS and even fired one truck driver who took an unauthorized lunch break.“The government has failed to produce significant wreckage from any of the four alleged airliners that fateful day,” said Reynolds. “The familiar photo of the Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania shows no fuselage, engine or anything recognizable as a plane, just a smoking hole in the ground. Photographers reportedly were not allowed near the hole. Neither the FBI nor the National Transportation Safety Board have investigated or produced any report on the alleged airliner crashes.”
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
BUSH INSIDER CLAIMS WTC COLLAPSE BOGUS
DEMOLITION MORE LIKELY
By Greg Szymanski
A former chief economist in the Labor Department during President Bush’s first term now believes the official story about the collapse of the WTC is “bogus,” saying it is likely that a controlled demolition destroyed the twin towers and adjacent building No. 7.“If demolition destroyed three steel skyscrapers at the World Trade Center on 9-11, then the case for an ‘inside job’ and a government attack on America would be compelling,” said Morgan Reynolds, Ph.D., a former member of the Bush team who also served as director of the Criminal Justice Center at the National Center for Policy Analysis, headquartered in Dallas.Reynolds, now a professor emeritus at Texas A&M University, also believes it’s “next to impossible” that 19 Arab terrorists alone outfoxed the mighty U.S. military, adding the scientific conclusions about the WTC collapse may hold the key to the entire mysterious plot behind 9-11.“It is hard to exaggerate the importance of a scientific debate over the cause(s) of the collapse of the twin towers and Building 7,” said Reynolds from his offices at Texas A&M. “If the official wisdom on the collapses is wrong, as I believe it is, then policy based on such erroneous engineering analysis is not likely to be correct either. The government’s collapse theory is highly vulnerable on its own terms. Only professional demolition appears to account for the full range of facts associated with the collapse of the three buildings.“More importantly, momentous political and social consequences would follow if impartial observers concluded that professionals imploded the WTC. Meanwhile, the job of scientists, engineers and impartial researchers everywhere is to get the scientific and engineering analysis of 9-11 right.”However, Reynolds said “getting it right in today’s security state” remains challenging because he claims explosives and structural experts have been intimidated in their analyses of the collapses of 9-11.HASTILY REMOVEDFrom the beginning, the Bush administration claimed that burning jet fuel caused the collapse of the towers. Although many independent investigators have disagreed, they have been hard pressed to disprove the government theory since most of the evidence was hastily removed by the federal government prior to independent investigation. Critics claim the Bush administration has tried to cover up the evidence. The recent 9-11 commission has failed to address the major evidence contradicting the official version of 9-11.Some facts demonstrating the flaws in the government jet fuel theory include:• Photos showing people walking around in the hole in the North Tower where 10,000 gallons of jet fuel supposedly was burning.• When the South Tower was hit, most of the North Tower’s flames had already vanished, burning for only 16 minutes, making it relatively easy to contain and control without a total collapse.• The fire did not grow over time, probably because it quickly ran out of fuel and was suffocating, indicating without added explosive devices the fires could have been easily controlled.• FDNY firefighters still remain under a tight government gag order to not discuss the explosions they heard, felt and saw. FAA personnel are also under a similar 9-11 gag order.• Even the flawed 9-11 commission report acknowledges that “none of the [fire] chiefs present believed that a total collapse of either tower was possible.”• Fire had never before caused steel-frame buildings to collapse, nor has fire collapsed any steel high rise since 9-11.• The fires, especially in the South Tower and WTC-7, were relatively small.• WTC-7 was unharmed by any airplane and had only minor fires on the seventh and 12th floors of this 47-story steel building, yet it collapsed in less than 10 seconds.• WTC-5 and WTC-6 had raging fires but did not collapse despite much thinner steel beams.• It’s difficult if not impossible for hydrocarbon fires like those fed by jet fuel to raise the temperature of steel close to melting.NUMEROUS HOLESDespite the numerous holes in the government story, the Bush administration has ignored all critics. Mainstream experts, speaking for the administration, offer a theory essentially arguing that an airplane impact weakened each structure and an intense fire thermally weakened structural components, causing buckling failures while allowing the upper floors to pancake onto the floors below.Hard evidence is lacking due to FEMA’s quick removal of the structural steel before it could be analyzed. The criminal code requires that crime scene evidence be kept for forensic analysis, but FEMA had it destroyed or shipped overseas before a serious investigation could take place.And even more doubt is cast over why FEMA acted so swiftly since coincidentally officials had arrived the day before the 9-11 attacks at New York’s Pier 29 to conduct a war game exercise, named “Tripod II.”Besides FEMA’s quick removal of the debris, authorities considered the steel quite valuable as New York City officials had every debris truck tracked on GPS and even fired one truck driver who took an unauthorized lunch break.“The government has failed to produce significant wreckage from any of the four alleged airliners that fateful day,” said Reynolds. “The familiar photo of the Flight 93 crash site in Pennsylvania shows no fuselage, engine or anything recognizable as a plane, just a smoking hole in the ground. Photographers reportedly were not allowed near the hole. Neither the FBI nor the National Transportation Safety Board have investigated or produced any report on the alleged airliner crashes.”
Not Copyrighted. Readers can reprint and are free to redistribute - as long as full credit is given to American Free Press - 645 Pennsylvania Avenue SE, Suite 100 Washington, D.C. 20003
Sunday, January 07, 2007
No matter who starts a war and no matter for what purpose if you look deep enough you will find the true cause, that underlying factor that just happened to go unsaid and unnoticed. If it starts with a lie then as is the case here and when found out another lie is put in place then at that point someone should 1( Ask some questions about the first lie, like why did you lie about the facts that got us into mess? ) 2 ( Look at the next why as a lie as well, because if you lied from the start what would prevent someone from lying again once the first lie fell apart? ). And above all someone, no not someone but those in charge, all of them those that lied and those that helped too keep the lie alive should be held to answer for their crimes, lying to congress and to the people to start a war, sending young men and women off in harms way for a lie, and what really gets me is to have the balls to stand there and imply that he understands how it feels to be away from home, family everything that is anything to you while you stand in harms way when he couldn’t even complete his national guard duty but he has no problem sending others off, and those around him are no better.
The "Demonization" of Muslims and the Battle for Oil
By Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, January 4, 2007
Throughout history, "wars of religion" have served to obscure the economic and strategic interests behind the conquest and invasion of foreign lands. "Wars of religion" were invariably fought with a view to securing control over trading routes and natural resources.
The Crusades extending from the 11th to the 14th Century are often presented by historians as "a continuous series of military-religious expeditions made by European Christians in the hope of wresting the Holy Land from the infidel Turks." The objective of the Crusades, however, had little to do with religion. The Crusades largely consisted, through military action, in challenging the dominion of the Muslim merchant societies, which controlled the Eastern trade routes.
The "Just War" supported the Crusades. War was waged with the support of the Catholic Church, acting as an instrument of religious propaganda and indoctrination, which was used in the enlistment throughout Europe of thousands of peasants, serfs and urban vagabonds.
America's Crusade in Central Asia and the Middle East
In the eyes of public opinion, possessing a "just cause" for waging war is central. A war is said to be Just if it is waged on moral, religious or ethical grounds.
America's Crusade in Central Asia and the Middle East is no exception. The "war on terrorism" purports to defend the American Homeland and protect the "civilized world". It is upheld as a "war of religion", a "clash of civilizations", when in fact the main objective of this war is to secure control and corporate ownership over the region's extensive oil wealth, while also imposing under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank (now under the leadership of Paul Wolfowitz), the privatization of State enterprises and the transfer of the countries' economic assets into the hands of foreign capital. .
The Just War theory upholds war as a "humanitarian operation". It serves to camouflage the real objectives of the military operation, while providing a moral and principled image to the invaders. In its contemporary version, it calls for military intervention on ethical and moral grounds against "rogue states" and "Islamic terrorists", which are threatening the Homeland.
Possessing a "just cause" for waging war is central to the Bush administration's justification for invading and occupying both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Taught in US military academies, a modern-day version of the "Just War" theory has been embodied into US military doctrine. The "war on terrorism" and the notion of "preemption" are predicated on the right to "self defense." They define "when it is permissible to wage war": jus ad bellum.
Jus ad bellum serves to build a consensus within the Armed Forces command structures. It also serves to convince the troops that the enemy is "evil" and that they are fighting for a "just cause". More generally, the Just War theory in its modern day version is an integral part of war propaganda and media disinformation, applied to gain public support for a war agenda.
The Battle for Oil. Demonization of the Enemy
War builds a humanitarian agenda. Throughout history, vilification of the enemy has been applied time and again. The Crusades consisted in demonizing the Turks as infidels and heretics, with a view to justifying military action.
Demonization serves geopolitical and economic objectives. Likewise, the campaign against "Islamic terrorism" (which is supported covertly by US intelligence) supports the conquest of oil wealth. The term "Islamo-fascism," serves to degrade the policies, institutions, values and social fabric of Muslim countries, while also upholding the tenets of "Western democracy" and the "free market" as the only alternative for these countries.
The US led war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region consists in gaining control over more than sixty percent of the world's reserves of oil and natural gas. The Anglo-American oil giants also seek to gain control over oil and gas pipeline routes out of the region. Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, possess between 66.2 and 75.9 percent of total oil reserves, depending on the source and methodology of the estimate. In contrast, the United States of America has barely 2 percent of total oil reserves. Western countries including its major oil producers ( Canada, the US, Norway, the UK, Denmark and Australia) control approximately 4 percent of total oil reserves. (In the alternative estimate of the Oil and Gas Journal which includes Canada's oil sands, this percentage would be of the the order of 16.5%. The largest share of the World's oil reserves lies in a region extending (North) from the tip of Yemen to the Caspian sea basin and (East) from the Eastern Mediterranean coastline to the Persian Gulf. This broader Middle East- Central Asian region, which is the theater of the US-led "war on terrorism" encompasses according to the estimates of World Oil, more than sixty percent of the World's oil reserves. Iraq has five times more oil than the United States. Muslim countries possess at least 16 times more oil than the Western countries. The major non-Muslim oil reserve countries are Venezuela, Russia, Mexico, China and Brazil. Demonization is applied to an enemy, which possesses three quarters of the world's oil reserves. "Axis of evil", "rogue States", "failed nations", "Islamic terrorists": demonization and vilification are the ideological pillars of America's "war on terror". They serve as a casus belli for waging the battle for oil.
The Battle for Oil requires the demonization of those who possess the oil. The enemy is characterized as evil, with a view to justifying military action including the mass killing of civilians. The Middle East Central Asian region is heavily militarized. The oil fields are encircled: NATO war ships stationed in the Eastern Mediterranean (as part of a UN "peace keeping" operation), US Carrier Strike Groups and Destroyer Squadrons in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian deployed as part of the "war on terrorism".
Why?
U.S. WON’T CONDEMN MASS MURDER
AMERICA SUPPORTS ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE OF PALESTINIANS
By Richard Walker
On Nov. 11, the United States for the 38th time since 1972 used its veto in the UN Security Council to protect Israel from condemnation for murdering Palestinian civilians in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.The deaths of the 19 civilians, who included nine children, four women and six men, all from one family, and the injuring of 40 others came at the end of a five-day Israeli military operation in which a total of 50 Palestinians were killed. The 19 who died were asleep in adjoining homes when Israeli artillery shells blew apart their dwellings. The UN resolution condemning Israel for the atrocity had the support of nine members of the 15-member Security Council. Britain, Denmark, Japan and Slovakia abstained, but the United States used its veto power to prevent the resolution’s passage.Aside from a condemnation of Israel, the resolution called for the withdrawal of Israeli military forces from Gaza.There had been several drafts of the resolution offered. The final one also condemned Hamas, calling for an end to the firing of rockets into Israeli territory.Still, U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton (right) claimed the lastdraft was “one-sided and politically motivated.” He complained that it did not use the term “terrorism” to describe the Palestinian government of Hamas. French Ambassador to the UN Jean Mar de Sabliere said he was disappointed by America’s decision because the final draft resolution was a balanced one. Even the word “massacre” had been removed to make it more palatable to the United States and Israel.Arab observers were quick to assail Bolton’s use of the veto, describing it as a deliberate attempt to protect Israel. In their view, it sent the wrong message to the Arab world. Moderate Palestinians, who are opposed to Hamas, viewed the U.S. move as yet another example of its lack of concern for the killing of innocent Palestinians and its acquiesence to the Israeli government.Within the corridors of the UN, America’s heavy use of its veto power to give cover to Israel is regarded as nothing new. Some recent vetoes included a U.S. refusal to pass a resolution condemning Israel for the building of a massive barrier wall. The International Criminal Court in The Hague and major human rights organizations worldwide have described the wall as a criminal act because it splits Palestinian villages and forces some Palestinians off their property.In 2002, a resolution condemning Israel for the killing of three UN staff in Gaza and the West Bank was blocked by then U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte. In language now familiar in American vetoes he described the resolution as “one-sided and politically motivated” and added that its backers, especially Syria, were more intent on condemning Israeli occupation than protecting UN staff. Negroponte unsuccessfully lobbied Syria to remove a reference to Israel in the resolution and to use generalizations to describe the deaths of the UN staffers.Most members of the Security Council felt Israel also deserved criticism for blowing up a World Food warehouse containing 500 tons of food in Beit Lahiya in the Gaza Strip. Only five permanent members of the Security Council have a right of veto—Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States—and while Britain has recently abstained on resolutions condemning Israel the United States has taken the lead in blocking resolutions.Between 1972 and 1997, for example, the United States vetoed 29 resolutions critical of Israel. Had U.S. officials not done so the total number of resolutions condemning Israel throughout that period would have risen to 95. The 66 resolutions that were passed in that time frame represented a unique number in UN history. As a rule, Israel has ignored the UN, always certain in the knowledge that its vassal state, the United States of America, will manage somehow to block any resolution that would require Israel to concede territory to the Palestinians or to negotiate on other disputes with neighbors like Syria or Lebanon. The first U.S. veto in Israel’s favor was cast in 1972 by the then-U.S. Ambassador to the UN George H. W. Bush. A year later, America again blocked a resolution that would have called for Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories as part of previously recommended UN General Assembly proposal for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement. Henry Kissinger, as secretary of state, was fond of using America’s veto power, but his record in no way matched that of his successor, George Schultz, during the Reagan years. In fact, the Reagan administration, until this present one, stands alone in blocking 18 UN resolutions critical of Israel. In 1982 alone, Schultz promoted the use of the veto nine times to prevent the UN Security Council from condemning Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, its killing of civilians and its unwillingness to give up parts of south Lebanon that were at the center of the recent conflict.
The "Demonization" of Muslims and the Battle for Oil
By Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, January 4, 2007
Throughout history, "wars of religion" have served to obscure the economic and strategic interests behind the conquest and invasion of foreign lands. "Wars of religion" were invariably fought with a view to securing control over trading routes and natural resources.
The Crusades extending from the 11th to the 14th Century are often presented by historians as "a continuous series of military-religious expeditions made by European Christians in the hope of wresting the Holy Land from the infidel Turks." The objective of the Crusades, however, had little to do with religion. The Crusades largely consisted, through military action, in challenging the dominion of the Muslim merchant societies, which controlled the Eastern trade routes.
The "Just War" supported the Crusades. War was waged with the support of the Catholic Church, acting as an instrument of religious propaganda and indoctrination, which was used in the enlistment throughout Europe of thousands of peasants, serfs and urban vagabonds.
America's Crusade in Central Asia and the Middle East
In the eyes of public opinion, possessing a "just cause" for waging war is central. A war is said to be Just if it is waged on moral, religious or ethical grounds.
America's Crusade in Central Asia and the Middle East is no exception. The "war on terrorism" purports to defend the American Homeland and protect the "civilized world". It is upheld as a "war of religion", a "clash of civilizations", when in fact the main objective of this war is to secure control and corporate ownership over the region's extensive oil wealth, while also imposing under the helm of the IMF and the World Bank (now under the leadership of Paul Wolfowitz), the privatization of State enterprises and the transfer of the countries' economic assets into the hands of foreign capital. .
The Just War theory upholds war as a "humanitarian operation". It serves to camouflage the real objectives of the military operation, while providing a moral and principled image to the invaders. In its contemporary version, it calls for military intervention on ethical and moral grounds against "rogue states" and "Islamic terrorists", which are threatening the Homeland.
Possessing a "just cause" for waging war is central to the Bush administration's justification for invading and occupying both Afghanistan and Iraq.
Taught in US military academies, a modern-day version of the "Just War" theory has been embodied into US military doctrine. The "war on terrorism" and the notion of "preemption" are predicated on the right to "self defense." They define "when it is permissible to wage war": jus ad bellum.
Jus ad bellum serves to build a consensus within the Armed Forces command structures. It also serves to convince the troops that the enemy is "evil" and that they are fighting for a "just cause". More generally, the Just War theory in its modern day version is an integral part of war propaganda and media disinformation, applied to gain public support for a war agenda.
The Battle for Oil. Demonization of the Enemy
War builds a humanitarian agenda. Throughout history, vilification of the enemy has been applied time and again. The Crusades consisted in demonizing the Turks as infidels and heretics, with a view to justifying military action.
Demonization serves geopolitical and economic objectives. Likewise, the campaign against "Islamic terrorism" (which is supported covertly by US intelligence) supports the conquest of oil wealth. The term "Islamo-fascism," serves to degrade the policies, institutions, values and social fabric of Muslim countries, while also upholding the tenets of "Western democracy" and the "free market" as the only alternative for these countries.
The US led war in the broader Middle East Central Asian region consists in gaining control over more than sixty percent of the world's reserves of oil and natural gas. The Anglo-American oil giants also seek to gain control over oil and gas pipeline routes out of the region. Muslim countries including Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Iran, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Yemen, Libya, Nigeria, Algeria, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, Malaysia, Indonesia, Brunei, possess between 66.2 and 75.9 percent of total oil reserves, depending on the source and methodology of the estimate. In contrast, the United States of America has barely 2 percent of total oil reserves. Western countries including its major oil producers ( Canada, the US, Norway, the UK, Denmark and Australia) control approximately 4 percent of total oil reserves. (In the alternative estimate of the Oil and Gas Journal which includes Canada's oil sands, this percentage would be of the the order of 16.5%. The largest share of the World's oil reserves lies in a region extending (North) from the tip of Yemen to the Caspian sea basin and (East) from the Eastern Mediterranean coastline to the Persian Gulf. This broader Middle East- Central Asian region, which is the theater of the US-led "war on terrorism" encompasses according to the estimates of World Oil, more than sixty percent of the World's oil reserves. Iraq has five times more oil than the United States. Muslim countries possess at least 16 times more oil than the Western countries. The major non-Muslim oil reserve countries are Venezuela, Russia, Mexico, China and Brazil. Demonization is applied to an enemy, which possesses three quarters of the world's oil reserves. "Axis of evil", "rogue States", "failed nations", "Islamic terrorists": demonization and vilification are the ideological pillars of America's "war on terror". They serve as a casus belli for waging the battle for oil.
The Battle for Oil requires the demonization of those who possess the oil. The enemy is characterized as evil, with a view to justifying military action including the mass killing of civilians. The Middle East Central Asian region is heavily militarized. The oil fields are encircled: NATO war ships stationed in the Eastern Mediterranean (as part of a UN "peace keeping" operation), US Carrier Strike Groups and Destroyer Squadrons in the Persian Gulf and the Arabian deployed as part of the "war on terrorism".
Why?
U.S. WON’T CONDEMN MASS MURDER
AMERICA SUPPORTS ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE OF PALESTINIANS
By Richard Walker
On Nov. 11, the United States for the 38th time since 1972 used its veto in the UN Security Council to protect Israel from condemnation for murdering Palestinian civilians in the Gaza town of Beit Hanoun.The deaths of the 19 civilians, who included nine children, four women and six men, all from one family, and the injuring of 40 others came at the end of a five-day Israeli military operation in which a total of 50 Palestinians were killed. The 19 who died were asleep in adjoining homes when Israeli artillery shells blew apart their dwellings. The UN resolution condemning Israel for the atrocity had the support of nine members of the 15-member Security Council. Britain, Denmark, Japan and Slovakia abstained, but the United States used its veto power to prevent the resolution’s passage.Aside from a condemnation of Israel, the resolution called for the withdrawal of Israeli military forces from Gaza.There had been several drafts of the resolution offered. The final one also condemned Hamas, calling for an end to the firing of rockets into Israeli territory.Still, U.S. Ambassador to the UN John Bolton (right) claimed the lastdraft was “one-sided and politically motivated.” He complained that it did not use the term “terrorism” to describe the Palestinian government of Hamas. French Ambassador to the UN Jean Mar de Sabliere said he was disappointed by America’s decision because the final draft resolution was a balanced one. Even the word “massacre” had been removed to make it more palatable to the United States and Israel.Arab observers were quick to assail Bolton’s use of the veto, describing it as a deliberate attempt to protect Israel. In their view, it sent the wrong message to the Arab world. Moderate Palestinians, who are opposed to Hamas, viewed the U.S. move as yet another example of its lack of concern for the killing of innocent Palestinians and its acquiesence to the Israeli government.Within the corridors of the UN, America’s heavy use of its veto power to give cover to Israel is regarded as nothing new. Some recent vetoes included a U.S. refusal to pass a resolution condemning Israel for the building of a massive barrier wall. The International Criminal Court in The Hague and major human rights organizations worldwide have described the wall as a criminal act because it splits Palestinian villages and forces some Palestinians off their property.In 2002, a resolution condemning Israel for the killing of three UN staff in Gaza and the West Bank was blocked by then U.S. Ambassador John Negroponte. In language now familiar in American vetoes he described the resolution as “one-sided and politically motivated” and added that its backers, especially Syria, were more intent on condemning Israeli occupation than protecting UN staff. Negroponte unsuccessfully lobbied Syria to remove a reference to Israel in the resolution and to use generalizations to describe the deaths of the UN staffers.Most members of the Security Council felt Israel also deserved criticism for blowing up a World Food warehouse containing 500 tons of food in Beit Lahiya in the Gaza Strip. Only five permanent members of the Security Council have a right of veto—Britain, France, China, Russia and the United States—and while Britain has recently abstained on resolutions condemning Israel the United States has taken the lead in blocking resolutions.Between 1972 and 1997, for example, the United States vetoed 29 resolutions critical of Israel. Had U.S. officials not done so the total number of resolutions condemning Israel throughout that period would have risen to 95. The 66 resolutions that were passed in that time frame represented a unique number in UN history. As a rule, Israel has ignored the UN, always certain in the knowledge that its vassal state, the United States of America, will manage somehow to block any resolution that would require Israel to concede territory to the Palestinians or to negotiate on other disputes with neighbors like Syria or Lebanon. The first U.S. veto in Israel’s favor was cast in 1972 by the then-U.S. Ambassador to the UN George H. W. Bush. A year later, America again blocked a resolution that would have called for Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories as part of previously recommended UN General Assembly proposal for a Palestinian-Israeli settlement. Henry Kissinger, as secretary of state, was fond of using America’s veto power, but his record in no way matched that of his successor, George Schultz, during the Reagan years. In fact, the Reagan administration, until this present one, stands alone in blocking 18 UN resolutions critical of Israel. In 1982 alone, Schultz promoted the use of the veto nine times to prevent the UN Security Council from condemning Israel’s invasion of Lebanon, its killing of civilians and its unwillingness to give up parts of south Lebanon that were at the center of the recent conflict.
Thursday, January 04, 2007
Well I guess it will be UPS and FEDEX from now on, this guy is a nut job and everyone talks about how stupid he is but if that's the case then what are we?
New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
W pushes envelope on U.S. spying
BY JAMES GORDON MEEKDAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU Thursday, January 4th, 2007 WASHINGTON -
President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.
The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.
That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.
Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.
"Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.
Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.
"The [Bush] signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.
"The danger is they're reading Americans' mail," she said.
"You have to be concerned," agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush's claim. "It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we've ever known."
A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised, "It's something we're going to look into."
Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval.
Yet in his statement Bush said he will "construe" an exception, "which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner consistent ... with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances."
Bush cited as examples the need to "protect human life and safety against hazardous materials and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection."
White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore denied Bush was claiming any new authority.
"In certain circumstances - such as with the proverbial 'ticking bomb' - the Constitution does not require warrants for reasonable searches," she said.
Bush, however, cited "exigent circumstances" which could refer to an imminent danger or a longstanding state of emergency.
Critics point out the administration could quickly get a warrant from a criminal court or a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to search targeted mail, and the Postal Service could block delivery in the meantime.
But the Bush White House appears to be taking no chances on a judge saying no while a terror attack is looming, national security experts agreed.
Martin said that Bush is "using the same legal reasoning to justify warrantless opening of domestic mail" as he did with warrantless eavesdropping.
New York Daily News - http://www.nydailynews.com
W pushes envelope on U.S. spying
BY JAMES GORDON MEEKDAILY NEWS WASHINGTON BUREAU Thursday, January 4th, 2007 WASHINGTON -
President Bush has quietly claimed sweeping new powers to open Americans' mail without a judge's warrant, the Daily News has learned.
The President asserted his new authority when he signed a postal reform bill into law on Dec. 20. Bush then issued a "signing statement" that declared his right to open people's mail under emergency conditions.
That claim is contrary to existing law and contradicted the bill he had just signed, say experts who have reviewed it.
Bush's move came during the winter congressional recess and a year after his secret domestic electronic eavesdropping program was first revealed. It caught Capitol Hill by surprise.
"Despite the President's statement that he may be able to circumvent a basic privacy protection, the new postal law continues to prohibit the government from snooping into people's mail without a warrant," said Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Calif.), the incoming House Government Reform Committee chairman, who co-sponsored the bill.
Experts said the new powers could be easily abused and used to vacuum up large amounts of mail.
"The [Bush] signing statement claims authority to open domestic mail without a warrant, and that would be new and quite alarming," said Kate Martin, director of the Center for National Security Studies in Washington.
"The danger is they're reading Americans' mail," she said.
"You have to be concerned," agreed a career senior U.S. official who reviewed the legal underpinnings of Bush's claim. "It takes Executive Branch authority beyond anything we've ever known."
A top Senate Intelligence Committee aide promised, "It's something we're going to look into."
Most of the Postal Accountability and Enhancement Act deals with mundane reform measures. But it also explicitly reinforced protections of first-class mail from searches without a court's approval.
Yet in his statement Bush said he will "construe" an exception, "which provides for opening of an item of a class of mail otherwise sealed against inspection in a manner consistent ... with the need to conduct searches in exigent circumstances."
Bush cited as examples the need to "protect human life and safety against hazardous materials and the need for physical searches specifically authorized by law for foreign intelligence collection."
White House spokeswoman Emily Lawrimore denied Bush was claiming any new authority.
"In certain circumstances - such as with the proverbial 'ticking bomb' - the Constitution does not require warrants for reasonable searches," she said.
Bush, however, cited "exigent circumstances" which could refer to an imminent danger or a longstanding state of emergency.
Critics point out the administration could quickly get a warrant from a criminal court or a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court judge to search targeted mail, and the Postal Service could block delivery in the meantime.
But the Bush White House appears to be taking no chances on a judge saying no while a terror attack is looming, national security experts agreed.
Martin said that Bush is "using the same legal reasoning to justify warrantless opening of domestic mail" as he did with warrantless eavesdropping.
Monday, January 01, 2007
I saw this and by the time I had finished reading I wanted to make sure those people who peek at my site from time to time would see this. I will link to the site where I first saw this, it's a great site so take a look and see for yourself and if you follow some of my links you may find some you may like.
Official Lies, Dogma and Unaccountable Power
The New Dark Age
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
In her historical mystery, "The Daughter of Time," Josephine Tey (a pen name of Elizabeth MacKintosh), has Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant, while confined to his hospital bed, solve the 15th century murder of the two York princes in the Tower of London. The princes were murdered by Henry VII, and the crime was blamed on Richard III in order to justify the upstart Tudor's violent seizure of the English throne.
Tey makes the point that if a 20th century mystery writer can detect the truth about a 15th century murder, historians have no excuse to persist in writing in school textbooks that Richard murdered his nephews. British historians remained loyal to the Tudor propaganda long after the Tudors were no longer around to be feared or served.
At the beginning of the scientific era, men had the hope that the ability to discover truth would free mankind from superstition, dogma, and the service of power. The belief in truth was powerful. Truth would deliver justice and bring an end to status-based privileges and the falsehoods propagated by privilege. The faith in truth was short-lived. Today propaganda is everywhere in the ascendency.
Every week another apologist for President Bush compares "Bush's fight for Iraqi freedom" to Abraham Lincoln's "fight to free the slaves." The American civil war was not fought to "free the slaves," as Thomas DiLorenzo and other scholars have thoroughly documented, any more than the purpose of Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq was to "bring freedom to Iraqis." The freedom excuse was invented after it became impossible to maintain the fictions about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein's connections to Osama bin Laden. Bush has yet to tell the real reason he invaded Iraq.
In the US today, demonization and propaganda substitute for facts and analysis. Professors and journalists are quick to lend their names and voices to the untruths that rule our lives. Just as Hitler's foreign policy was based in propaganda, so is Bush's and Blair's.
The success of propaganda enhances government's illusion that it has a monopoly on truth. It is the monopoly on truth that gives the Bush regime the right to define the "Iran problem," the "Syria problem," the "Lebanon problem," and the "Korea problem" and to apply coercion in place of understanding and negotiation.
Secure in its possession of truth, the Bush administration refuses to talk to the enemies it has manufactured. It will only fight them.
When scholars, such as John Walt and Stephen Mearsheimer, or President Jimmy Carter who has tried harder than anyone else to achieve Arab-Israeli peace, point out that Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians is a cause of Middle East turmoil, they are immediately denounced as anti-semites. Columnists and academics who know nothing about the Middle East or its troubles nevertheless know what they are supposed to say whenever anyone mentions Israel in any critical context. And they have no compunction about saying it, the truth be damned.
Without commitment to truth, science, justice, and debate falter and disappear.
The belief in truth is fading from our society. It is unclear that scientists themselves any longer believe in truth or the ability to discover it.
The discovery of truth is no longer the purpose of our criminal justice system. Once prosecutors believed that it was better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent person to be wrongfully convicted. Today prosecutors believe in high conviction rates to justify their budgets and re-election.
In the past police solved crimes. Today they round up suspects and pressure them.
There was no debate in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, and none today in the US. Many Americans, who imagine themselves to be conservatives even though they have never read, nor could they identify, a conservative writer, equate truth-telling with hatred of America. They are of Bush's mindset: "you are with us or against us." Bush supporters respond to factual articles about Iraq and the rending of the US Constitution by suggesting that as the writer hates America so much, he should move to Cuba or China.
In America today each faction's "truths" are defined by the faction's dogma or ideology. Each faction bans factual analysis that it doesn't want to hear. This is as true within the universities as it is at political rallies. The old liberal notion that "we shall follow the truth wherever it may lead" has long departed from America. Think tanks reflect the views of the donors. Studies are no longer independent of their financing. In America, truth has become partisan.
All societies have elements of myth, untruths that nevertheless serve to unite a people. But many myths serve as camouflage for evil. One of the greatest myths is that "GIs have died for our freedom." GIs have died for American empire, for the American elite's commitment to England, and for the military-industrial complex's profits. Some may have died in Korea for the freedom of South Koreans, and some may have died trying to save South Vietnamese from the North Vietnamese communists. But it is hogwash that GIs died for our freedom.
There was no prospect of North Korea attacking America in the 1950s or Vietnam attacking America in the 1960s and none today. The Nazis were defeated by Russia before US troops landed in Europe. The US never faced any threat of invasion from Germany, Italy, or Japan.
America's wars have created hysteria that endanger our freedom. Abraham Lincoln shut down the freedom of the press and arrested editors and state legislators. Woodrow Wilson arrested war critics. Franklin Roosevelt interred American citizens of Japanese descent. George W. Bush has destroyed most of the Bill of Rights. In 2006 Congress appropriated funds for building concentration camps in the US.
Recently, Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, said that freedom of speech is inconsistent with "the war on terror" If it takes a police state to fight terror, the country is lost even if Muslim terrorists are defeated. Americans have far more to fear from a homeland police state than from terrorists.
The vast majority of the world's terrorists are the recent creations of Bush's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and of Israel's invasion of Lebanon and brutality toward the Palestinians. Bush is simultaneously creating terrorists and a police state. It serves no one but the police to make their power unaccountable.
On December 26 Jeff Cohen explained on Truthout how war propaganda took over TV news and demonized everyone who spoke the truth about Iraq, while pushing war fever to a frenzy. Fox "News" was the worst with its ranks of generals and colonels who sold their integrity for dollars and TV exposure. One of Fox's loudest voices for war was a retired general who sat on the board of a military contractor.
When the Clinton administration allowed the media concentration in the 1990s, the independence of the American media was destroyed. Today there are a few large conglomerates whose values depend on broadcast licenses from the government. The conglomerates are run by corporate executives who are not journalists and whose eyes are on advertising revenues. They publish and broadcast what is safe. These conglomerates will take no risks in behalf of free speech or truth.
The challenges that America faces are not terrorism and oil supply. The challenges that we face are the police state that Bush has created and the disrespect for truth that is endemic in government, the universities, and the media. The US has entered a dark age of dogmas and unaccountable power.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
Official Lies, Dogma and Unaccountable Power
The New Dark Age
By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS
In her historical mystery, "The Daughter of Time," Josephine Tey (a pen name of Elizabeth MacKintosh), has Scotland Yard Inspector Alan Grant, while confined to his hospital bed, solve the 15th century murder of the two York princes in the Tower of London. The princes were murdered by Henry VII, and the crime was blamed on Richard III in order to justify the upstart Tudor's violent seizure of the English throne.
Tey makes the point that if a 20th century mystery writer can detect the truth about a 15th century murder, historians have no excuse to persist in writing in school textbooks that Richard murdered his nephews. British historians remained loyal to the Tudor propaganda long after the Tudors were no longer around to be feared or served.
At the beginning of the scientific era, men had the hope that the ability to discover truth would free mankind from superstition, dogma, and the service of power. The belief in truth was powerful. Truth would deliver justice and bring an end to status-based privileges and the falsehoods propagated by privilege. The faith in truth was short-lived. Today propaganda is everywhere in the ascendency.
Every week another apologist for President Bush compares "Bush's fight for Iraqi freedom" to Abraham Lincoln's "fight to free the slaves." The American civil war was not fought to "free the slaves," as Thomas DiLorenzo and other scholars have thoroughly documented, any more than the purpose of Bush's illegal invasion of Iraq was to "bring freedom to Iraqis." The freedom excuse was invented after it became impossible to maintain the fictions about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction and Saddam Hussein's connections to Osama bin Laden. Bush has yet to tell the real reason he invaded Iraq.
In the US today, demonization and propaganda substitute for facts and analysis. Professors and journalists are quick to lend their names and voices to the untruths that rule our lives. Just as Hitler's foreign policy was based in propaganda, so is Bush's and Blair's.
The success of propaganda enhances government's illusion that it has a monopoly on truth. It is the monopoly on truth that gives the Bush regime the right to define the "Iran problem," the "Syria problem," the "Lebanon problem," and the "Korea problem" and to apply coercion in place of understanding and negotiation.
Secure in its possession of truth, the Bush administration refuses to talk to the enemies it has manufactured. It will only fight them.
When scholars, such as John Walt and Stephen Mearsheimer, or President Jimmy Carter who has tried harder than anyone else to achieve Arab-Israeli peace, point out that Israel's mistreatment of Palestinians is a cause of Middle East turmoil, they are immediately denounced as anti-semites. Columnists and academics who know nothing about the Middle East or its troubles nevertheless know what they are supposed to say whenever anyone mentions Israel in any critical context. And they have no compunction about saying it, the truth be damned.
Without commitment to truth, science, justice, and debate falter and disappear.
The belief in truth is fading from our society. It is unclear that scientists themselves any longer believe in truth or the ability to discover it.
The discovery of truth is no longer the purpose of our criminal justice system. Once prosecutors believed that it was better for ten guilty men to go free than for one innocent person to be wrongfully convicted. Today prosecutors believe in high conviction rates to justify their budgets and re-election.
In the past police solved crimes. Today they round up suspects and pressure them.
There was no debate in Nazi Germany and Stalinist Russia, and none today in the US. Many Americans, who imagine themselves to be conservatives even though they have never read, nor could they identify, a conservative writer, equate truth-telling with hatred of America. They are of Bush's mindset: "you are with us or against us." Bush supporters respond to factual articles about Iraq and the rending of the US Constitution by suggesting that as the writer hates America so much, he should move to Cuba or China.
In America today each faction's "truths" are defined by the faction's dogma or ideology. Each faction bans factual analysis that it doesn't want to hear. This is as true within the universities as it is at political rallies. The old liberal notion that "we shall follow the truth wherever it may lead" has long departed from America. Think tanks reflect the views of the donors. Studies are no longer independent of their financing. In America, truth has become partisan.
All societies have elements of myth, untruths that nevertheless serve to unite a people. But many myths serve as camouflage for evil. One of the greatest myths is that "GIs have died for our freedom." GIs have died for American empire, for the American elite's commitment to England, and for the military-industrial complex's profits. Some may have died in Korea for the freedom of South Koreans, and some may have died trying to save South Vietnamese from the North Vietnamese communists. But it is hogwash that GIs died for our freedom.
There was no prospect of North Korea attacking America in the 1950s or Vietnam attacking America in the 1960s and none today. The Nazis were defeated by Russia before US troops landed in Europe. The US never faced any threat of invasion from Germany, Italy, or Japan.
America's wars have created hysteria that endanger our freedom. Abraham Lincoln shut down the freedom of the press and arrested editors and state legislators. Woodrow Wilson arrested war critics. Franklin Roosevelt interred American citizens of Japanese descent. George W. Bush has destroyed most of the Bill of Rights. In 2006 Congress appropriated funds for building concentration camps in the US.
Recently, Newt Gingrich, the former Speaker of the House, said that freedom of speech is inconsistent with "the war on terror" If it takes a police state to fight terror, the country is lost even if Muslim terrorists are defeated. Americans have far more to fear from a homeland police state than from terrorists.
The vast majority of the world's terrorists are the recent creations of Bush's invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq and of Israel's invasion of Lebanon and brutality toward the Palestinians. Bush is simultaneously creating terrorists and a police state. It serves no one but the police to make their power unaccountable.
On December 26 Jeff Cohen explained on Truthout how war propaganda took over TV news and demonized everyone who spoke the truth about Iraq, while pushing war fever to a frenzy. Fox "News" was the worst with its ranks of generals and colonels who sold their integrity for dollars and TV exposure. One of Fox's loudest voices for war was a retired general who sat on the board of a military contractor.
When the Clinton administration allowed the media concentration in the 1990s, the independence of the American media was destroyed. Today there are a few large conglomerates whose values depend on broadcast licenses from the government. The conglomerates are run by corporate executives who are not journalists and whose eyes are on advertising revenues. They publish and broadcast what is safe. These conglomerates will take no risks in behalf of free speech or truth.
The challenges that America faces are not terrorism and oil supply. The challenges that we face are the police state that Bush has created and the disrespect for truth that is endemic in government, the universities, and the media. The US has entered a dark age of dogmas and unaccountable power.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at: paulcraigroberts@yahoo.com
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