MAY PEACE PREVAIL ON EARTH
July 28, 2003
The Hybrid Series #7 (PART 1): A Smorgasbord of Vital Information and News
Hello everyone
Once again here is a hefty 4 parts, 51-page compilation with some pretty extraordinary material for your consideration and networking - if you are so inclined -- thanks for mentioning where you got it from if you circulate this ;-)
There is some pretty cool material from Matthew Ward in this compilation ;-)
Love and blessings to all of you,
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com
This compilation is archived at http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com/Archives2003/Hybrid7.htm
Free subscription to such compilations through this website above or by sending a blank email to earthrainbownetwork-subscribe@lists.riseup.net
"The exploitation of the poor can be extinguished not by effecting the destruction of a few millionaires but by removing the ignorance of the poor and teaching them to noncooperate with the exploiters."
- Mohandas K. Gandhi, Haryan, July 28, 1940
"The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie."
- Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister
(Both quotes above taken from the MOST excellent Global Net News run by "Paul Prior" webmaster@globalcircle.net>. To subscribe (it is free!) send a blank email to GlobalNetNews-Summary-uubscribe@yahoogroups.com>
Worthy of attention
Pathways to Peace Video presentation
Latest Crop Circles
http://www.cropcircleconnector.com/2003/julyl2003b.html
SOME ***REALLY*** NEW AMAZING AND IMPECCABLY LAID CELESTIAL DESIGNS AND, MYSTERIOUSLY, 3 SIMILAR ONES, PLUS ONE THAT IS 420 FEET IN DIAMETER!!
Dean to President Bush: "It's Time For The Truth." (MUST READ! - July 25)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/072703B.shtml
Former Vermont governor says American people should know the true intentions behind Bush administration's agenda - Des Moines, IA--Former Vermont Governor Howard Dean made the following statement today while campaigning in Iowa: "When George W. Bush ran for president three years ago, he promised us an era of responsibility in Washington--instead we've got an era of irresponsibility unparalleled in our history. A week after discovering that the cost of occupying Iraq will be double the original estimates, we found out that the nation's deficit is 50 percent higher than estimated just five months ago. In fact, during his two-and-a-half years in office, the President has misled us, the American people, on nearly every policy initiative his administration has put forth. CLIP
The following was sent by Mark Elsis mark@lovearth.net>
US Attorney General John Ashcroft was visiting an elementary school. After 15 minutes speaking he says, 'I will now answer any questions you have.'
Bobby stands up and says: 'I have four questions':
1. How did Bush win the election with fewer votes than Gore?
2. Why haven't you caught Osama bin Laden?
3. Why are you using the American Patriot Act to limit civil liberties?
4. Where are the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
Just then the bell goes off and the kids rushed out to play. Upon returning, Mr. Ashcroft said: "I am sorry we were interrupted. I will answer any questions you have.'
A little girl called Julie stands up and says: 'I have six questions':
1. How did Bush win the election with fewer votes than Gore?
2. Why haven't you caught Osama bin Laden?
3. Why are you using the American Patriot Act to limit civil liberties?
4. Where are the weapons of mass destruction in Iraq?
5. Why did the bell ring twenty minutes early?
6. Where is Bobby?
CONTENTS
1. Matthew on NESARA and Dove of O
2. Food For The Soul (with Matthew's comment)
3. Statements from Nuns Sent to Prison for Plowshares Action
4. Classified Section of Sept. 11 Report Faults Saudi Rulers
5. For The Coming IMPEACHMENT Record
6. NTRC Releases North Korea Issue Paper
7. Emergency in Korea
8. Depleted Uranium, Killer in the Long Run?
9. Please Sign Open Letter To G.W. Bush on GM Food Labeling
10. Experts at US Conference on Global Warming Say Bush's Position 'Ludicrous'
11. The Skyfish Project
12. THE CHIEF OF GRIEF
13. Weapons of Mass Redaction
See also:
Billionaire's Ads Challenge U.S. Case For Iraq War
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=834&ncid=731&e=10&u=/nm/20030725/wl_india_nm/india_123651
NEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire philanthropist George Soros is running full-page ads in major U.S. newspapers on Sunday challenging the honesty of the Bush administration's case for waging war in Iraq. The ads in The New York Times, the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, and the Houston Chronicle, are titled, "When the nation goes to war, the people deserve the truth." A dozen statements made by President George W. Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld making the case for war are reprinted and described as either exaggerated or false. The statements center on claims about Iraq having weapons of mass destruction and large quantities of poison gasses. The Hungarian-born Soros, 72, emigrated to the United States from Britain in 1956 and built a fortune as a financier. He is founder of a network of philanthropic organizations active in more than 50 countries that focus on education, public health, human rights and economic reform. The ads, estimated to cost about $185,000, were co-sponsored by U.S. philanthropists Dorothy and Lewis B. Cullman. "Both George Soros and Lewis Cullman have been deeply concerned about the deception used to justify the war in Iraq," said Michael Vachon, a spokesman for Soros. "They believe their fellow citizens should also be concerned and took out these ads to move them to action." Bush has defended the case for war, saying he is confident that weapons of mass destruction will eventually be found in Iraq and that criticism of intelligence about Iraq's military capabilities amounts to quibbling. Public opinion on the issue is closely divided, according to a Quinnipiac University Poll released this week. It showed U.S. voters believed the administration did not intentionally exaggerate evidence that Iraq was developing nuclear weapons by 50 to 44 percent with a 3 percent margin of error.
The Real Hero Behind The 'Bravery' Of Private Jessica (but he wasn't
photogenic enough?) The Telegraph - UK 7-27-3
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/07/27/wjess27.xml&sSheet=/news/2003/07/27/ixworld.html
WASHINGTON -- As she watched Private Jessica Lynch's emotional homecoming on television last week, Arlene Walters struggled to suppress her growing anger. For millions of Americans, Pte Lynch's first faltering steps in her home town of Elizabeth, West Virginia, were a moment of high emotion, a happy ending to one of the darkest incidents of the Iraq war. For Mrs Walters, however, the standing ovation and praise lavished on the young woman soldier, who was captured by Iraqi forces and later freed in a dramatic American raid, served only to highlight the contrasting treatment of her dead son, who fought in the same unit. It was, fellow soldiers have told her, Sgt Donald Walters who performed many of the heroics attributed to Pte Lynch in the fanfare of publicity designed to lift the nation's morale, and Sgt Walters who was killed after mounting a lone stand against the Iraqis who ambushed their convoy of maintenance vehicles near Nasiriyah.
NUCLEAR WEAPONS THREATS ABROAD: BUSH'S FOOTBALL IN DIRTY GAME
http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2003/0307nuclear.html
U.S. President George W. Bush's administration is using the issue of nuclear weapons of mass destruction (WMD) as a political and economic football, fabricating non-existent threats while turning a blind eye to real ones. That could have severe negative consequences for the longstanding global effort to promote non-proliferation of nuclear weapons. Although the Bush administration is well aware of the fact that Iraq never posed a nuclear threat to the United States, Washington stands by its claim that former Iraqi President Saddam Hussein's arsenal justified the U.S.-UK invasion of his country. What's more, the administration is rewarding those who produce phony evidence of nuclear threats and refusing to support investigation of possible substantive WMD proliferation. British Prime Minister Tony Blair's administration and U.S. media are playing along in this dangerous game.
MORAL QUESTIONS NEEDING ANSWERS IN LIBERIA
http://www.fpif.org/outside/commentary/2003/0307liberia.html
The articles show how U.S. foreign policy can go to unfortunate extremes. The Reagan administration strongly erred in its initial support of the Doe administration, and Bush continues with his version of benign neglect with Taylor. Liberians and Africans need a democracy and benefactor that does not cater to the prosperous few over the restless many. The $500 million given by the Reagan administration continues similar trends in Latin America that did not serve the interests of the American people nor the hosts of the region. Liberia offers moral questions that need answers.
Kucinich: Bring troops home
http://www.dmregister.com/news/stories/c4789004/21851964.html
The presidential candidate also spoke about education and renewable energy. (...) "This is the time for us to rejoin the world community, rejoin the United Nations and get our troops out of there," said Kucinich, an Ohio congressman, at a forum hosted by U.S. Sen. Tom Harkin of Iowa and televised by C-SPAN. "I don't like the fact that our men and women are being used for targets." Kucinich's comments came as yet another U.S. solider was killed early Sunday south of Baghdad. According to the Associated Press, 163 U.S. soldiers have now died in Iraq, including 48 killed since President Bush declared major combat over on May 1. (...) Aside from the war, Kucinich called Sunday for "deep, fundamental change" and echoed themes from his standard stump speech. "If people elect me president, there will be real changes," he said. He called for cutting the Pentagon's budget by $60 billion to pay for universal pre-kindergarten and canceling President Bush's $1.5 trillion in tax cuts in favor of universal college education. Kucinich said universal health care can be achieved with a system administered by the federal government. Kucinich also said Sunday that the United States should have 20 percent of its energy produced from renewable sources by 2010. Kucinich is in the bottom tier of candidates in terms of fund-raising and national polls. However, some Democratic activists have referred to him as an "up-and-comer" in Iowa, home to the first-in-the nation presidential caucuses Jan. 19.
Official Story on Deaths of Saddam's Sons "Wags the Dog" (July 26)
http://globalresearch.ca/articles/CHO307E.html
Michel Chossudovsky is the author of War and Globalisation, the Truth behind September 11 - The deaths of the sons of Saddam Hussein in a high profile "shoot-out" in the northern city of Mosul arrive at a most opportune moment for President Bush and his entourage. Political assassination is tied into the logic of war propaganda. The killings were designed by the Pentagon to uphold theshaky legitimacy of the Anglo-American military axis in the face of Iraqi armed resistance to occupation forces. In the words of President Bush: "their deaths show that the former Iraqi regime will not be coming back." By mobilizing media attention Worldwide on Saddam's two sons, the Mosul event has served to distract Western public opinion from the broader issue of war crimes committed by the Bush administration and its indefectible British ally, not to mention the mysterious death of David Kelly, the senior MI6 official who "pulled the plug" on Tony Blair. Meanwhile, the fake Niger uranium dossier, used in Bush's State of the Union address has been quietly sent to the news archives. The Mosul shoot-out serves to "reduce the heat" and conceal the lies: "The death of the two sons was greeted with jubilation in Washington, where President George Bush has been under growing political pressure..." (Washington Post, 24 July 2003)
Noble Act or Political Assassination? (July 25)
http://www.commondreams.org/views03/0725-05.htm
(...) The ground force commander, General Ricardo Sanchez, was asked by two reporters similar questions Wednesday if the operation was indeed professional. The first reporter asked whether the mission was something of a failure given the value of the sons and the fact that they were armed with light weapons. Pentagon officials say they stormed the house of the sons only after the sons resisted. Sanchez said, ''I would never consider this a failure.'' The second reporter said, ''The Americans are specialists in surrounding places, keeping people in them, holding up for a week if necessary, to make them surrender. These guys only had, it appears, AK-47s, and you had immense amount of firepower. Surely the possibility of the immense amount of information they could have given coalition forces, not to mention the trials that they could have been put on for war crimes, held out a much greater possibility of victory for you if you could have surrounded that house and just sat there until they came out, even if they were prepared to keep shooting.'' CLIP
America's Uday and Qusay Conjuring Trick (July 25)
http://www.joevialls.co.uk/transpositions/hussein.html
Latest White House lies reveal larger hidden untruths - If the latest story about the adventurous American 101st Airborne Division was true, Saddam Hussein's two sons, his grandson and their solitary bodyguard, would have to go down in history as some of the world’s greatest and bravest fighters. According to the media these four heroic individuals, including one cripple and one child, managed to fight off 200 heavily armed and highly aggressive members of the 101st Airborne for six long hours, before finally perishing in a hail of Hellfire missiles launched by helicopter gunships. The only way four lonely defenders could stay alive more than five minutes under these circumstances, would be if they were inside a heavily reinforced underground bunker, protected James Bond-style by automatic or remote controlled heavy weapons. But no, the gang of four were allegedly quietly sipping mint tea in the kitchen of a completely vulnerable Mosul villa, which had earlier been used by members of the 101st Airborne as requisitioned accommodation. (...) If there is anyone out there who still believes that the American Administration has actually captured 34 “wanted criminals” including Lieutenant General Abid Hamid Mahmud al Tikriti, and also killed Uday and Qusay Hussein, then I have failed in my job. Of course, the White House is promising to show you some “selected” photographs of the dead Uday and Qusay in a week or two, presumably when experts have finally finished manufacturing the forged pictures on Adobe or Paint Shop Pro in Washington. The harsh reality is that nearly all of the human Iraqi command, control, communications and intelligence structure is still intact, and currently directing extremely professional counter-insurgency operations against American and British invasion forces. Most “coalition of the willing” soldiers in Iraq are painfully aware of this fact, and no amount of pathetic propaganda peddled by the White House is going to dull their sharp awareness. Put bluntly, coalition soldiers in Iraq, especially Americans, have apparently already reached the critical point where direct action against their own commanders is starting to seem more attractive than simply allowing themselves to be blown apart in a politically-contrived “war”, against a country which has never presented a clear and present danger to America. (...) One thing that stands out very clearly from the photographs of the two cadavers, is that these two unknown men did not die in a hail of gunfire and Hellfire missiles inside a Mosul villa. The massive bruising around and behind the eyes of both men proves that both were beaten severely [tortured] while still alive, most probably by members of Adnan Chalabi’s 21st Century equivalent of the barbaric Iranian Savak. In the large photo below, it can be clearly seen that the severe bruising is only to the face, and possibly to the genitals and feet as is customary for torturers worldwide. We can only speculate on the latter, because Secretary Rumsfeld dare not release full body photographs. In any event, death must have come as an enormous relief for both. CLIP
Conspiracy theories abound as US releases Uday-Qusay photos (July 24)
http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_319008,00050004.htm
US troops turn botched Saddam raid into a massacre By Robert Fisk in Baghdad (July 28)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/fisk/
Obsessed with capturing Saddam Hussein, American soldiers turned a botched raid on a house in the Mansur district of Baghdad yesterday into a bloodbath, opening fire on scores of Iraqi civilians in a crowded street and killing up to 11, including two children, their mother and crippled father. At least one civilian car caught fire, cremating its occupants. The vehicle carrying the two children and their mother and father was riddled by bullets as it approached a razor-wired checkpoint outside the house. Amid the fury generated among the largely middle-class residents of Mansur – by ghastly coincidence, the killings were scarcely 40 metres from the houses in which 16 civilians died when the Americans tried to kill Saddam towards the end of the war in April – whatever political advantages were gained by the killing of Saddam's sons have been squandered. A doctor at the Yarmouk hospital, which received four of the dead, turned on me angrily last night, shouting: "If an American came to my emergency room, maybe I would kill him."
The Straight Dope: Was George W. Bush AWOL during his time in the National Guard?
http://www.straightdope.com/columns/030411.html
Recommended by Suzan Patrick Purpfire@aol.com>
All In A Day's Work For A Mythical Democracy (July 22)
http://www.zmag.org/content/showarticle.cfm?SectionID=22&ItemID=3939
In the mid-Gaza Strip, an old man dressed in white sits on a wooden box, watching an Israeli driven bulldozer destroy his land. The tree leaves are deep green and are crushed and caught in the pusher. This is making the trunks more mangled. He watches. The destruction goes on for hours. There is nothing he can do. Under this 'cease-fire,' the Israeli government continues to send occupation soldiers to rip up trees and crops, creating wastelands that reinforce the myth that this is a land without a people, as if no Palestinian family ever lived here. This practice destroys the livelihood not only of families and communities, but creates Palestinian dependency on Israeli agricultural production. Palestinian commerce remains at a virtual standstill with checkpoints and closures ensuring there is little ability to create Palestinian goods, or to work for the money necessary to rebuild destroyed factories, manufacturing centers, or shops.
9/11 families bitter at 'blackout' (July 25)
http://www.news24.com/News24/World/News/0,,2-10-1462_1392727,00.html
Washington - The United States congress probe into the September 11 2001 attacks may have prompted more questions than it answered when 28 pages on a possible role by Saudi Arabia were blacked out by the Bush administration. The revelation has sparked the indignation of the victims' families. Jean-Charles Brisard, an attorney for the families, said: "The report shows the significant role played by Saudi government agents in the preparations (for the attacks) which benefited from the royal financial generosity," said . "It would be inconceivable for the US government to refuse the victims' families the right to the whole and complete truth," he said.
Bush under pressure to reveal 'Saudi role' in 11 September (July 27)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/americas/story.jsp?story=427819
The Agent Orange of Eternity (July 24) (On the depleted uranium radioactive mess)
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article4210.htm
23 African states facing food emergencies: UN (July 23)
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/cms.dll/html/uncomp/articleshow?msid=91
ROME: Armed conflict and poor weather conditions have led to food emergencies in 23 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, a U.N. food agency reported Wednesday. The main reasons for the emergencies are ``civil strife, drought, the internal displacement of people and economic disruption,'' said the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. Among the countries particularly at risk are war-ravaged Liberia and Congo, as well as Ethiopia, where floods have contributed to acute food shortages, the agency aid. In Liberia, following recent violence in the capital Monrovia, many of an estimated 200,000 refugees ``have fled to the city center and are living in extremely difficult conditions and are dependent on food aid,'' the agency said.
UN report says one billion suffer extreme poverty (July 28)
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2003/jul2003/unpo-j28.shtml
The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) issued its annual Human Development Report for 2003 on July 8. The report documents the progress of 175 of the world's poorest countries in the implementation of eight Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) agreed to at the UN General Assembly summit in 2000. (...) The UNDP report notes that 54 nations are poorer now than they were in 1990. Twenty of these countries are in Sub-Saharan Africa, while 17 are in Eastern Europe and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Life expectancy has fallen in 34 countries due primarily to HIV/AIDS. Of 59 priority nations 24 suffer from a high incidence of HIV/AIDS and 31 have "unusually high foreign debts. " The populations of 21 countries are hungrier today than in 1990. In 14 countries more children are dying before the age of five and primary school enrolment is declining in 12 nations. According to the BBC the UNDP says of its own report that it documents "an unprecedented backslide... in some of the world's poorest nations" and, "More than one billion people still live in extreme poverty, and for many living standards are getting steadily worse." A statement by Deputy Director for the UN Development Program Jean Fabre sheds some light on the massive redistribution of wealth from poorer nations to richer ones over the past decade. CLIP
Future tense (July 25)
http://news.independent.co.uk/world/science_medical/story.jsp?story=427270
Is mankind doomed? Against the background of the war against terror, the march of technology and environmental calamity, this has become the defining question of our age. As politicians warn of the threat from weapons of mass destruction, Prince Charles frets about the world being turned into 'grey goo' by miniature robots. Meanwhile, food campaigners warn by turns that we're going to starve if we don't plant GM crops, and if we do, there's barely time to heed warnings that Sars was just a dress rehearsal for a pandemic that will make Ebola look like the common cold. Charles Arthur weighs fact against hysteria, science against supposition - and assesses our chances of making it to the year 3000
Whale count wrong, DNA study reveals (July 25)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk_news/story/0,3604,1005398,00.html
Two centuries of commercial whaling may have reduced whale numbers to one-hundredth of the original population, according to research published today. Humpback whales in the north Atlantic now number about 10,000, after a 17-year moratorium on whaling. But a team from Harvard and Stanford universities report in the journal Science that there may once have been 240,000 humpbacks in the north Atlantic, and 1.5 million in total.
(It is so sad to think of all the bygone gentle giants!)
Study Warns Against Electronic Voting
http://www.washtimes.com/metro/20030724-102543-4946r.htm
WASHINGTON TIMES - An electronic voting system used in some states and marketed across the nation is so flawed that it could be manipulated easily, computer security researchers concluded in a study released yesterday. The study found "significant security flaws" with the system designed by Diebold Election Systems. The system was vulnerable to unscrupulous voters, as well as "insiders such as poll workers, software developers and even janitors," who could cast multiple votes without a trace, the study reported.
Korean War: The problem of memory (July 26)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Korea/EG26Dg01.html
When the guns finally fell silent across the Korean Peninsula on July 27, 1953, about 2 million people were dead, many more wounded, and countless dislocated and separated from their families. Ironically, all this occurred in a three-year "police action". Now, 50 years later, North Korea and the United States are "drifting toward war, perhaps as early as this year", as former US secretary of defense William Perry was quoted in the Washington Post on July 15.
Top U.S. Sociologist Calls Iran "Most Liberal Country in Mideast" (July 27)
http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=7/27/03&Cat=2&Num=017
States Face Growing Prison Population (July 28)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2959898,00.html
WASHINGTON (AP) - America's prison population grew again in 2002 despite a declining crime rate, costing the federal government and states an estimated $40 billion a year at a time of rampant budget shortfalls. The inmate population in 2002 of more than 2.1 million represented a 2.6 percent increase over 2001, according to a report released Sunday by the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Preliminary FBI statistics showed a 0.2 percent drop in overall crime during the same span.
Global warming is now a weapon of mass destruction (July 28)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1007042,00.html
It kills more people than terrorism, yet Blair and Bush do nothing
Iraq oil output tops 1m barrels (July 28)
http://tinyurl.com/i983
Bring Em On - Unelected, Commander-in-Thief (Various satirical cartoons!)
http://GeorgeWalkerBush.net
The History Of Oil And War + The New U.S. - British Oil Imperialism
http://OilCompanies.net
Also on this site: When Drill Holes Become Rat Holes: + The End Of Oil ( As We Know It )
House Rolls Back "Sneak and Peek" Patriot Act Provisions
http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/072503F.shtml
1.
From: "Suzy" suzy@matthewbooks.com>
Subject: Matthew on NESARA and Dove of O
Date: 24 Jul 2003
Jean dear, hello!
Here's the the first "plus": Matthew said David Kelly did not commit suicide -- I asked him about this right after this story first hit the news -- and his widow was threatened with death if she disputed the official line or demanded an investigation. Not that this surprised me. If Kelly actually had bled to death from slitting his wrist, why was there no mention of a huge pool of blood (if slit after death, no huge pool necessary); and since the report stated that there was a bottle of painkillers near the body, why didn't he just take the whole bottle, certainly an easier and more comfortable way to go out. Oh, please! It also struck me as unrealistic that his wife made the statements attributed to her about her husband having been under so much stress, etc. -- why not grief, shock, "Please, no interviews now"?
Plus #2: Several people have asked Matthew if NESARA is real and his answers have been brief "yes's." Today his comments included more and I thought you'd be interested. Love as always, Suzy
July 24, 2003
"Now then, you wish to know about NESARA, as do many others. This is valid legislation with far-reaching impact upon many of the current systems plaguing Earth's populations, and as such, it is being opposed by the most powerful forces in darkness on the planet just as it is being fostered by the highest light forces. All of which is to say, there is a battle royal going on and has been going on for the years that the provisions of the legislation have been denied formal announcement. We see such commotion in the field of potential that there is no clear indication when and to what extent the provisions of NESARA will be enacted. However, with or without that formality, the intended benefits of uprooting corrupt political and economic systems and replacing those with honest and just leaders and the fairer sharing of natural resources IS coming to pass.
"I am aware that the names Sananda and especially St. Germaine have long been attached to this US legislation. While indeed light from high soul stations has been beaming and exposing facets of the formerly well-entrenched darkness so healing can happen, I believe that those two souls are being given singular credit for what countless sources of light have been performing. This is not in any way a deterrent to the intended effects of NESARA eventually being obvious, whether via the formal announcement or simply the evidence of the greater light prevailing. Partially this is due to the strong belief that this legislation will come about -- nothing can be created without the belief that it can be!
"My mother's thought is prompting me to clarify something: Even if NESARA is never announced according to the original plan, its reforms are underway! And if it is announced, the delay has not been a deterrent, that is, it has not been holding up the light forces' service in initiating the steps that are leading to the same destination:freeing Earth and all of her life forms from the political, economic and environmental stranglehold of the darkness."
AND MY REPLY WAS:
Thanks Suzy for inquiring about these 2 things. I also immediately suspected, as most of the rest of the world certainly did, that this death is not a suicide. Another blatant and thinly disguised murder to add to the long trail of blood leading to the Bush/Blair criminal ring.
As for Nesara, I'm frankly surprised to read Matthew says it's a valid legislation. My sense so far, looking at the long list of unfulfilled promises networked through someone going under the nickname of Dove_of_O, was that it looked too good to be true and that it was just another red herring carefully promoted for some unclear and/or diversionary purpose - people tend to sit back and wait instead of getting active when they believe some "White Knights" will save the day - and the world! - as if by magic. I'd be curious to see if Matthew has any such supportive comment for this Dove_of_O whom many people still believe is a genuine Light server. Yet, of course, we would all be very happy to learn some day that Nesara-like legislations are being voted but then where are the crowds in the streets asking for it? Where is the huge constituency necessary to press the legislative process forward on this? Nowhere to be seen. The anti-globalization movement that gave rise to huge demonstrations (Seattle, Genoa, Quebec City, etc.) and because of which over 15 millions protesters stood against the Iraq war plans, not to mention countless meetings to devise an alternative to the rule of the rich elite, looks much more real and promising to me. At least for now...
Thanks for keeping me/us posted!
With Love
Jean
AND THEN SUZY REPLIED:
Jean, when Matthew was first asked about NESARA over 1 1/2 years ago (and subsequently), he said it was valid legislation that could provide great benefits to the world if all its provisions were enacted, and "they" could not tell at that time if all would be because of powerful dark opposition. I had heard of NESARA shortly before that first person asked, but I didn't know any of the particulars, just felt it was a really hairbrained idea if not totally bogus scam; Matthew told me then that considering my thoughts about it, it was just as well that I didn't put any energy into them. I've never asked him about Dove personally -- will see if he has anything to say now.
"The person 'Dove' is a passionately dedicated soul of light whose mission is informing about this backbone plan to bring equity and justness to the world in those defined areas of economy and government. The darkness in opposition to such information being released has tried to discredit this messenger as well as derail the legislation, not surprisingly, as the successful enactment of NESARA's provisions would fracture their entire scheme to not only maintain but increase their stranglehold on the masses."
OK -- now we both know! Love, Suzy
2.
Date: July 25, 2003
From: ANONYMOUS
SUBJECT: Food For The Soul
(Hi Jean -- if you share this with others, please do so without including my email address. Thanks! :-) - Richard)
My spirit guides told me during an out-of-body experience today about the importance of not holding onto bitterness and resentment -- whether when other people treat you unfairly and do things that piss you off, or at the government or another country's government for the things they do, or even at life itself for having a life that seems more difficult than that of those around you. Bitterness and resentment are heavy emotions to carry around, and when you eventually die, there they still are within you because you never released them -- only they are magnified and pull you down into one of the darker regions in the afterlife.
Your existence in the afterlife reflects not only the kind of life you lived in terms of physical actions, but also the kind of life you lived emotionally -- how light-hearted you were, or how heavy of heart you were. Eventually, if you persist enough and do a lot of work on yourself, you may learn to leave the darker region for one that's a little lighter, but it is much easier to change how you are in the physical world. Why? Partly because during your lifetime you're around a variety of people, but in the afterlife you gravitate towards the particular area where you're surrounded by people that were most like you during your life -- so that a murderous person is surrounded by other murderous people, a betrayer is surrounded by other betrayers, a resentful bitter person is surrounded by other resentful bitter people, a person who's always gloomy is surrounded by other people who are always gloomy, a kind forgiving person is surrounded by other kind forgiving people, etc. The process is very exacting, like magnetism. And because it's all you see around you, you don't have the good examples of more loving people there for you to observe and apply to yourself as you do in the physical world.
Part of it is also because of how emotion-oriented the spirit world is -- because you're no longer wearing a physical body that tones down the emotions you experience, and instead you experience emotions in their raw, much more powerful form. And this tends to make it more difficult to break habits that you formed during your lifetime.
Another thing that can make it more difficult to progress to a lighter area in the spirit world is that by doing so you will begin encountering people who are more loving, and this can be difficult due to shame and anger at self. Shame for one's past unloving actions, and anger at self for not having been a more loving person than you have been, tend to make a person rather comfortable in the area that they end up in, and can make spiritual progress that much more difficult there.
All of this I have seen for myself during out-of-body experiences. Among other people, I've interacted a number of times with a friend of mine who died in a car wreck back in '92 during her senior year in high school, Jenny. She was bitter at God for having died so early in life, which seemed unfair to her, and she was resentful of her classmates for getting to continue living their lives. And what made feeling bitter and resentful that much easier was how much she had resented her parents for how unloving they sometimes were during her life, as well as how bitter she'd been over relationships with boyfriends that didn't work out very well. And so her emotions magnetized her to one of the darker areas in the spirit world, where she's been surrounded by other resentful, bitter people. Jenny thought that she had it rough during her life, but she's experienced much more difficult things since then. Eventually though she will feel ready to move on and be willing to ask for assistance from those in the lighter areas.
All of this is why it's wiser to endeavor to change how you are now while it's easier, because you reap in the afterlife what you have sown in all areas during your life -- physical, emotional, and mental. I realize that just because the principle of this is simple doesn't necessarily mean that applying it to your life is easy, but this is something that is infinitely worth striving for. And remember -- it's never too late to begin, but it is better to begin sooner than later.
Richard
NOTE FROM JEAN: Before circulating this I wanted to verify how well it matches Matthew Ward’s explanations of how things work in heaven. So I wrote this to Suzy Ward:
Hello Suzy
I found this most interesting and, I feel, quite important letter in my emails tonight from another ERN subscriber and before publishing it I'd like to verify with you and Matthew about how well it matches what Matthew has told us about the afterlife. I would like to include Matthew's comment on this if you both feel it is appropriate.
Whenever you have time to look into this. No rush.
Love and Light
Jean
AND SHE - AND MATTHEW - REPLIED:
From: "Suzy Ward" suzy@pacifier.com>
Subject: Re: Advice requested
Date: 27 Jul 2003
''Jean, my friend, greetings to you! I am pleased to address your request. Indeed that persons's understanding is clear and correct! Actually, many of the passages in the books show that the energy registration of thoughts and feelings and free will actions in physical experiencing are exactly the pathway to the layer of Nirvana to which a soul automatically is led after transition. There is no escaping this! This is not judgment or punishment from any source -- it is the 'like attracts like' universal law in action.
"The negativity of emotions such as bitterness, resentment, greed, envy, hatred and the like cannot enter the same layer of Nirvana as the light-filled emotions such as love, generosity, compassion and forgiveness because the energy vibrations are incompatible. The energy of souls with negative attachments must be free of those attachments before the souls can progress to the lighter layers of the realm, and light constantly is beamed to them to assist in their remembering process of their beginnings in the pure love of Creator. That love vibration is what removes the lower energy frequencies that automatically placed the souls among others of that same low vibrational essence. But free will reigns in this, too, and these souls can accept or refuse the light -- that is, they may choose to rise into the higher density layers or remain where they are.
"Earth is the ideal school for emotional experiencing. Karmic relationships from the original populations are played out there rather than in Nirvana because it is in the planet's density that the acts were committed that incur the need for additional learning of the same chosen experiencing or for a 'role reversal.' Some souls have hundreds or more lifetimes learning just one lesson, say forgiveness instead of burning vengefulness. Others need to learn the emotions of a 'victim' because they already know those of a 'predator.' The souls' understanding of this is clear in Nirvana through the life review process, and their subsequent choice of lessons for the next incarnate lifetime lead to family pre-birth agreements to the benefit of all principal souls involved. Well, to the benefit of those who listen to their soul's urgings once they actually are experiencing in body.
"I believe I have addressed this sufficiently, but if not to your full satisfaction, Jean, as always, I shall welcome your requests for additional information. With love and honor for your light service, this is Matthew."
---
NOTE: To find out more about the 3 books published so far by Suzanne War, please go at http://www.matthewbooks.com
3.
A MOST COURAGEOUS ACTIONS BY 3 PEACE ACTIVISTS HAS BEEN MET WITH AN IGNOMINIOUS SENTENCING IN THE U.S. "JUSTICE" SYSTEM.
From: "Boudewijn Wegerif" wegerif@connectit.co.za>
Subject: Statements from Nuns Sent to Prison for Plowshares Action
Date: 26 Jul 2003
Dear What Matters list members,
Three Dominican nuns, Sr. Jackie Hudson, Sr. Carol Gilbert and Sr. Ardeth Platte have been sentenced to prison for 30, 33 and 41 months respectively for a "swords into plowshares" action - an 'action for the highest good' as I would have it called - in which they broke into a federal missile silo in Colorado, smeared it with their own blood and pounded on it with hammers. The Dominican nuns said the act symbolized that they would rather pour out their own blood than have U.S. weapons take the blood of another.
Below is the E-letter just received from friends at Jonah House, the Plowshares Centre in Baltimore - disarmnow@erols.com - including statements from two of the nuns, Carol Gilbert and Ardene Platte, that deserve careful attention.
In friendship,
Boudewijn Wegerif
http://www.whatmatters.nu
---
Dear Friends
Today, Sisters Ardeth Platte, Carol Gilbert and Jackie Hudson were sentenced for breaking into a federal missile silo in Colorado, smearing it with their own blood and pounding on it with hammers. The Dominican nuns said the act symbolized that they would rather pour out their own blood than have U.S. weapons take the blood of another.
The day began in Colorado with a press conference in front of the Federal building at which the nuns read their pre-sentencing statements; they would not read them in court. Instead, in solidarity with women around the world, they decided to dress as Women in Black and remain mute in the courtroom.
It proceeded with the Judge deciding to consolidate the sentencings - despite his prior refusal of that motion.
Once in court, arguments were made by both sides on the length of sentence. The prosecutor and the probation office requested sentences ranging from 5 to 10 years in prison. The nuns' attorneys argued that when the guidelines for sabotage were set to mandate lengthy sentences, the actions defined under "sabotage" in no way included what the nuns did. The legal precedent is that of Daniel Sicken and Sachio Ko Yin who, some years back, were sentenced in the same court for a similar action. Their judge - Judge Miller - granted downward departure at sentencing saying: "There is sabotage and then there is sabotage!" The prosecution appealed the judge's decision and lost; the 10th circuit court of appeals upheld the judge's decision. The damage in the prior case was far more substantial than that of which the nuns are convicted.
Sr. Jackie Hudson was sentenced to 30 months in prison Sr. Carol Gilbert was sentenced to 33 months in prison Sr. Ardeth Platte was sentenced to 41 months in prison.
In addition, a period of 3 years supervised release follows their prison sentences; no fines were imposed but restitution of $3,081.04 was. They were ordered to self-surrender but refused and were taken immediately into custody. Supporters in the packed courtroom chanted: "Close the silos; free the nuns!" and the courtroom was cleared.
The day began in Baltimore with reading and reflecting on the scripture passages for today. The passage from 2 Corinthians 4: 8ff was a gift for today; it reminded us that the nuns (and through and in solidarity with them, we ourselves) are afflicted, but not constrained; perplexed, but not driven to despair; persecuted, but not abandoned; struck down, but not destroyed.
We are grieved that the nuns will have to serve that kind of time for an action that was totally symbolic; but we are relieved that it is not the 8 -10 years that the prosecution was demanding. The nuns were and are prepared to accept prison, however much they - and we - believe that they committed no crime, certainly no major crime. "We had no criminal intent at any level," said Sr. Ardeth Platte, a member, with Sr. Carol Gilbert, of Jonah House. "We accept the consequences of our actions joyfully.I know it will be a long journey, but we're not afraid." Platte said.
The sisters believe nuclear weapons are the "taproot" of social and Economic injustice because the billions of dollars spent on them could go to programs for the poor and needy. Standing against militarism, they say, is a way to challenge skewed priorities that cause orphanages and soup kitchens to exist in the first place.
The Nuns' "crimes" revealed that we in the U.S. accept rule by our own "evil tyrants who threaten and use weapons of mass destruction and ignore international law." Even more shocking to the current "might makes right" school of "law," the Nuns showed that together we could non-violently accomplish complete nuclear disarmament one weapon at a time starting with open declaration and inspection.
We have no news yet of where the nuns will be taken. We expect they will spend some time in a local or transitory facility before being taken to the federal prisons where they will serve their time. We will be in touch when we have an address for them.
Below are the statements Carol and Ardeth made this morning in front of the courthouse, having determined not to speak in court.
SENTENCING STATEMENT - SISTER CAROL GILBERT, OP JULY 25, 2003
For many months I have pondered what to say, if anything at all. St. Francis once said, "Preach the Gospel at all times, if necessary use words."
It seems that today a few words are necessary.
For the past ten months we have tried to cooperate with these courts. We have been asking since day one - what are the charges? What is Title 18, U.S. Code, Section 2155, if not sabotage?
We are not saboteurs. Today, we ask no more questions.
We know something is very wrong with a system that can incarcerate us for years in prison for inspecting, exposing and symbolically disarming America's Weapons of Mass Destruction.
We know we should be acquitted for upholding the United States Constitution that declares all laws and treaties to be the supreme laws of the country.
Article 6, Section 2 of the United States Constitution "declares this constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof, and all Treaties made, or which shall be made under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding."
We should be acquitted for upholding International laws which this court has deemed unnecessary but which is bound to enforce under Article 6, Section 2 of the U.S. Constitution. It hurts to hear the prosecutor continue to call Frances Boyle a "self-professed international law guru."
We should be acquitted for upholding the highest law - God's Law. Judge Blackburn talked a lot about law. He didn't want this to be a political trial but a case about law. So did we. That was our deepest hope. But, we were not the ones that turned this into a political trial nor will we make of ourselves political prisoners - that will be the prosecutor and judge.
We have read in the press and in our pre-sentencing reports that the lengthy sentence is for deterrence - both for ourselves and others. But, what the government fails to recognize is that long prison sentences will only energize the movement. As a tee shirt in upstate New York reads, "You can jail the resister but not the resistance." We will not be silenced. During our seven months in the Clear Creek County Jail we received thousands of letters from the United States and international community, over a thousand signatures from people who stand in solidarity with us and more than 650 letters were sent to the judge asking for compassion and justice. There have been four plowshares actions since ours - one of them in the United States.
This Memorial Day, four plowshares activists enfleshed the Isaiah and Micah prophecies on the USS Philippine Sea in New York harbor during fleet week naming themselves Riverside Ploughshares. No charges were filed.
No, Judge Blackburn needs no more words from us. Judge Blackburn needs no character witnesses this morning. What Judge Blackburn needs is to listen to his God. He needs to heed these words from one of my church's social justice documents, Gadium et spes.
16. "Deep within their consciences men and women discover a law which they have not laid upon themselves and which they must obey. It's voice, ever calling them to love and to do what is good and to avoid evil, tells them inwardly at the right moment: do this, shun that. For they have in their hearts a law inscribed by God. Their dignity rests, in observing the law, and by it they will be judged. Their conscience is people's most secret core and their sanctuary. There they are alone with God whose voice echoes in their depths."
Tomorrow, non-violent citizens in Colorado will inspect and expose America's weapons of mass destruction, the Minuteman 111 , with Others joining in solidarity in other states and others exposing other Weapons systems at other sites.
Resistance will not be deterred. You cannot silence truth. Truth will be spoken. Law will be upheld.
Judge Blackburn and the prosecutor need to reflect on the story in the Acts of the Apostles of Gamaliel - Chapter 5 vv. 17-42.
Gamaliel was a Pharisee, a member of the Council, and a teacher of the Law. He was highly respected by all the people.
As Peter and the other apostles were taken to the Council and high-priest, Gamaliel cautioned the council not to take any action against the men. He said, "if what they have planned and done is of human origin it will disappear, but if it comes from God, you cannot possibly defeat them."
Someday history will prove what we did on the early morning of October 6, 2002 - inspecting, exposing and symbolically disarming a Minuteman 111, a weapon of mass destruction was legal.
Until that day I will continue being led where I would rather not go. I will continue to resist with every fiber of my being so that not one child will ever ask, "Why were you complicit?" .
Lastly, a few words about fear. I don't fear going to prison. I don't fear loss of freedom to move about. I don't even fear death. The fear that fills me is not having lived hard enough, deep enough and sweet enough with whatever gifts God has given me.
The demons are banished by light and like the prophet Micah, this is what God asks of us, only this - " To act justly, to love tenderly, and to walk humbly with our God."
There is a story told of Daniel Berrigan, Jesuit priest, prophet and friend that he was once asked to give the commencement address at a prestigious university. He stood up, walked to the podium and said, "Know where you stand and stand there" and then he sat down. My friends, "know where you stand and stand there." (Bow)
ELOCUTION AT SENTENCING BY ARDETH PLATTE, O.P.
In front of the Federal District Court House on July 25, 2003
While we were at home at Jonah House, we opened our liturgy with the music, "Here I am God. Is it I God? I have heard you calling in the night. I will go God, if You lead me. I will hold your people in my heart ." We closed the liturgy with: "Be not afraid. I go before you always. Come follow Me and I will give you rest." Faith and the words of the stanzas to these hymns record key notes in my journey of life - in waging peace, led on a quest for a world without war ever again, in an attempt to stop the crimes and sins of government in my name, in disarming weapons of mass destruction and stopping the merchant- sales of the killing machines and technology sold to other nations, and calling for a design of a global economy that will assure people in the entire world all basic human necessities of food, shelter, education and health care, etc.
With a vision for disarmament, a mandate to speak truth, and a mission to halt the sinfulness, illegality and criminality being touted in my name, I march to the Drummer of my soul Who instills faith rather than fear, trust not hopelessness, and love instead of hatred and enemy relationships made through endless threats, innuendos, propaganda, and permanent warmaking.
This journey has included numerous direct actions over decades: forums, vigils, lobby, processions, demonstrations, boycotts, and civil resistance in various areas of the country. Our social analysis, along with the need to unmask urgent and sometimes secretive matters, has led me into nonviolent symbolic public actions of resistance, such as: 1. Christ lives, disarm! Easter Sunday, 1992...entered into a nuclear bunker. 2. Weep for Children Plowshares,1996...at the launching of the 18th Trident. 3. Gods of Metal Plowshares, 1998...bomb bay area of a B-52 used in Iraq. 4. Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares, 2000...the Milstar receiver and an F-18 used in bombing Iraq. 5. Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares II, 2002...Minuteman III Intercontinental Ballistic Missile at N8, threatened and prepared to be used.
Sisters Carol, Jackie and I believe that we had a responsibility to inspect, expose, and symbolically disarm this weapon of mass destruction to avert a crime of our government and uphold the laws of the United States, not break them. Don't people claim today that the citizens of Germany should have blocked the trains carrying people to the crematoriums, dismantled the ovens, or done something to stop the mass murder of people by Hitler? How will future generations judge all of us?
I find the charges in the Sacred Earth and Space Plowshares II bogus. Ours was a simple, measured, nonviolent, symbolic action wherein the liturgical rituals were crystal clear. What were the fears within the prosecutor to call for an "in limine" motion that silenced us on all the laws so pertinent to the threats to use the Minuteman III? What fears were within the judge to grant the silencing? Being stripped of our law defenses made the trial a farce.
The elements of the charges were not substantiated beyond a reasonable doubt by the prosecutor. The jury did not recognize the ongoing change in the wording of the charges throughout the trial: from an indictment under sabotage by a grand jury, citing a specific intent to obstruct the national defense, then use of vandalism and trespass, and finally use of destruction of national defense premises recorded on the verdict form. Even the government's witnesses claimed under oath that the national defense was never jeopardized. How can a national offensive first strike weapon be launched as a national defensive weapon? Deliberation by the jury seemed brief and without researching answers to the complexities in such a serious case. Are we charged with sabatoge? Yes! Isn't that the reason I face 92 to 115 months in prison?
Could peacemakers lives be that expendable? Will the punitive measures taken against dissenters, enforced under Patriot Bills I and II, be so harsh that any lawlessness on the part of government officials will go unchallenged in the future? Who will be courageous enough to reveal the lies and stop the murderous conduct in Afghanistan and Iraq? Who will demand an end to U.S. interventionism? Who will stand in behalf of the people contaminated by depleted uranium? Who will be there for prisoners illegally detained in Guantanamo? Who will teach the treaties and U. S. Constitution and who will demand the implementation by every court of the land? Who will bring nonviolence into the forefront for conflict-solving?
The sentencing consequences are exaggerated; the prosecutor and probation offices' research is skewed. Why would multi-hundreds of letters and more than 1,000 solidarity communications have no effect for downward departure? Why has the prosecutor's statements to the press been considered acceptable - that a long sentence for us will deter others. Four plowshare actions have been carried out since ours - one on Memorial Day on the USS Philippine Sea with the use of blood poured out on the bomb hatches and hammers used in the same symbolic way? Yet no charges were brought forth.
How will we wage the struggle together to keep democracy alive, to bring our nation from its killing mode to a life-giving mode, to keep the tenets of the beatitudes, commandments and Sermon on the Mount practiced by the nation as well as by us as individuals? Tomorrow's direct action at the silos and bases to inspect, expose and demand disarmament is a bold and worthy beginning. We join you in spirit with deepest gratitude. Whatever sentence I receive today will be joyfully accepted as an offering for peace. With God's help it will not injure my spirits. In the sacred moments or years of imprisonment, I will remain with you in prayer and walk together with you for the good of all humanity and creation. My love and gratitude always.
---
See also:
Nuns Sentenced to Prison for Colorado Nuclear Protest (July 26)
http://commondreams.org/headlines03/0726-01.htm
DENVER - Three Roman Catholic nuns who defaced a Colorado nuclear missile silo with their own blood as part of a peace protest last year were sentenced on Friday to prison terms ranging from 30 to 41 months by a judge who called them "dangerously irresponsible."
NOTE FROM JEAN: This issue was featured in my last compilation.
Citizen Weapons Inspectors Convicted (featured in my previous compilation)
http://www.yesmagazine.org/26courage/indicatoreckert.htm
4.
From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/072703A.shtmlv
originally from: http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/26/national/26SAUD.html
Classified Section of Sept. 11 Report Faults Saudi Rulers
By David Johnston New York Times
26 July 2003
WASHINGTON, July 25 - Senior officials of Saudi Arabia have funneled hundreds of millions of dollars to charitable groups and other organizations that may have helped finance the September 2001 attacks, a still-classified section of a Congressional report on the hijackings says, according to people who have read it.
The 28-page section of the report was deleted from the nearly 900-page declassified version released on Thursday by a joint committee of the House and Senate intelligence committees. The chapter focuses on the role foreign governments played in the hijackings, but centers almost entirely on Saudi Arabia, the people who saw the section said.
The Bush administration's refusal to allow the committee to disclose the contents of the chapter has stirred resentment in Congress, where some lawmakers have said the administration's desire to protect the ruling Saudi family had prevented the American public from learning crucial facts about the attacks. The report has been denounced by the Saudi ambassador to the United States, and some American officials questioned whether the committee had made a conclusive case linking Saudi funding to the hijackings.
The public report concluded that the F.B.I. and C.I.A. had known for years that Al Qaeda sought to strike inside the United States, but focused their attention on the possibility of attacks overseas.
The declassified section of the report discloses the testimony of several unidentified officials who criticized the Saudi government for being uncooperative in terrorism investigations, but makes no reference to Riyadh's financing of groups that supported terror.
Some people who have read the classified chapter said it represented a searing indictment of how Saudi Arabia's ruling elite have, under the guise of support for Islamic charities, distributed millions of dollars to terrorists through an informal network of Saudi nationals, including some in the United States.
But other officials said the stricken chapter retraces Saudi Arabia's well-documented support for Islamic charitable groups and said the report asserts without convincing evidence that Saudi officials knew that recipient groups used the money to finance terror.
The public version of the report identified Omar al-Bayoumi, a Saudi student who befriended and helped finance two Saudi men who later turned out to be hijackers.
Mr. Bayoumi helped pay the expenses for the men, Khalid Almidhar and Nawaq Alhazmi. Mr. Bayoumi, the report said, "had access to seemingly unlimited funding from Saudi Arabia." The report said Mr. Bayoumi was employed by the Saudi civil aviation authority and left open his motivations for supporting the two men.
The Saudi ambassador to the United States has angrily denied that his country had failed to cooperate with the F.B.I. and C.I.A. in fighting terrorism and dismissed accusations that it helped finance two of the hijackers as "outrageous."
Prince Bandar bin Sultan, the Saudi ambassador, said in a statement after the report was released on Thursday that his country "has been one of the most active partners in the war on terrorism, as the president and other administration officials have repeatedly and publicly attested."
Prince Bandar dismissed the report's assertions about Saudi involvement in the hijackings.
"The idea that the Saudi government funded, organized or even knew about Sept. 11 is malicious and blatantly false," Prince Bandar said. "There is something wrong with the basic logic of those who spread these spurious charges. Al Qaeda is a cult that is seeking to destroy Saudi Arabia as well as the United States. By what logic would we support a cult that is trying to kill us?"
He added: "In a 900-page report, 28 blanked-out pages are being used by some to malign our country and our people. Rumors, innuendos and untruths have become, when it comes to the kingdom, the order of the day."
Asked to comment on the report today, a Saudi Embassy representative said Prince Bandar was out of town and could not be reached.
Today, a senior Democratic senator wrote to President Bush asking for the White House to demand that the Saudis turn over Mr. Bayoumi, who is believed to be residing in the kingdom.
"The link between al-Bayoumi and the hijackers is the best evidence yet that part of official Saudi Arabia might have been involved in the attacks," said Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York. "If the Saudi royal family is as committed to fighting terrorism as it claims, it will turn this guy over to U.S. officials immediately so that we can finally get to the bottom of his role in the attacks and his links to Al Qaeda."
Behind the immediate issue of whether Saudi Arabia played any role in terrorism are a complex web of political, military and economic connections between the two countries. Successive Republican and Democratic administrations have aggressively sought to maintain the relationship with a huge producer of oil and an ally in the Arab world.
One section of the report took issue with Louis J. Freeh, the former F.B.I. director, who testified to the joint committee that the bureau "was able to forge an effective working relationship with the Saudi police and Interior Ministry."
The report quoted several senior government officials, who were not identified, expressing contradictory views. One government official told the panel "that he believed the U.S. government's hope of eventually obtaining Saudi cooperation was unrealistic because Saudi assistance to the U.S. is contrary to Saudi national interests."
Another official said: "For the most part it was a very troubled relationship where the Saudis were not providing us quickly or very vigorously with response to it. Sometimes they did, many times they didn't. It was just very slow in coming."
---
See also:
The full September 11 Report
http://news.findlaw.com/hdocs/docs/911rpt/index.html
White House, CIA Kept Key Portions of Report Classified (July 25)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A43291-2003Jul24.html
President Bush was warned in a more specific way than previously known about intelligence suggesting that al Qaeda terrorists were seeking to attack the United States, a report on the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks indicated yesterday. Separately, the report cited one CIA memo that concluded there was "incontrovertible evidence" that Saudi individuals provided financial assistance to al Qaeda operatives in the United States.
Findings on Saudis Blacked Out (July 25)
http://www.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,4057,6807875%5E28101,00.html
5.
Sent by Ken NCEpanacea@aol.com on July 24
For The Coming IMPEACHMENT Record
Presidential record....
GUESS WHO?
I lied and ruthlessly attacked and took over two oil rich countries.
I spent the US surplus and bankrupted the Treasury.
I shattered the record for the biggest annual deficit in history.
I set an economic record for the most private bankruptcies filed in any 12 month period.
I set all-time record for the biggest drop in the history of the stock market.
I am the first president in decades to execute a federal prisoner.
I am the first president in US history to enter office with a criminal record.
In my first year in office I set the all-time record for most days on vacation by any president in US history.
After taking the entire month of August off for vacation, I presided over the worst security failure in US history.
I set the record for most campaign fund raising trips by any president in US history.
In my first two years in office over 2 million Americans lost their job.
I cut unemployment benefits for more out-of-work Americans than any other president in US history.
I set the all-time record for most foreclosures in a 12-month period.
I appointed more convicted criminals to administration positions than any president in US history.
I set the record for the fewest press conferences of any president since the advent of TV.
I signed more laws and executive orders amending the Constitution than any other US president in history.
I presided over the biggest energy crisis in US history and refused to intervene when corruption was revealed.
I presided over the highest gasoline prices in US history and refused to use the national reserves as past presidents have.
I cut health care benefits for war veterans.
I set the all-time record for most people worldwide to simultaneously take to the streets to protest me (15 million people), shattering the record for protest against any person in the history of mankind.
I dissolved more international treaties than any president in US history.
I've made my presidency the most secretive and unaccountable of any in US history.
Members of my cabinet are the richest of any administration in US history.
I am the first president in US history to have all 50 states of the Union simultaneously go bankrupt.
I presided over the biggest corporate stock market fraud in any market in any country in the history of the world.
I am the first president in US history to order a US attack and military occupation of a sovereign nation, and I did so against the will of the United Nations and the world community.
I have created the largest government department bureaucracy in the history of the United States.
I set the all-time record for biggest annual budget spending increases, more than any other president in US history.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the USA from the Human Rights Commission.
I am the first president in US history to have the United Nations remove the USA from the Elections Monitoring Board.
I removed more checks and balances, and have the least amount of congressional oversight than any presidential administration in US history.
I rendered the entire United Nations irrelevant.
I withdrew from the World Court of Law.
I refused to allow inspectors access to US prisoners of war and by default no longer abide by the Geneva Conventions.
I am the first president in US history to refuse United Nations election inspectors access during the 2002 US elections.
I am the all-time US (and world) record holder for most corporate campaign donations.
The biggest lifetime contributor to my campaign, who is also one of my best friends, presided over one of the largest corporate bankruptcy frauds in world history (Kenneth Lay, former CEO of Enron Corporation).
I spent more money on polls and focus groups than any president in US history.
I am the first president to run and hide when the US came under attack (and then lied, saying the enemy had the code to Air Force 1).
I am the first US president to establish a secret shadow government.
I took the world's sympathy for the US after 911, and in less than a year made the US the most resented country in the world (possibly the biggest diplomatic failure in US and world history).
I am the first US president in history to have a majority of the people of Europe (71%) view my presidency as the biggest threat to world peace and stability.
I am the first US president in history to have the people of South Korea more threatened by the US than by their immediate neighbor, North Korea.
I changed US policy to allow convicted criminals to be awarded government contracts.
I set the all-time record for the number of administration appointees who violated US law by not selling their huge investments in corporations bidding for government contracts.
I have removed more freedoms and civil liberties from Americans than any other president in US history.
In a little over two years I have created the most divided country in decades, possibly the most divided that the US has been since the civil war.
I entered office with the strongest economy in US history and in less than two years turned every single economic category heading straight down.
6.
From: "The Justice Project" webmaster@justice.policy.net>
Subject: NTRC Releases North Korea Issue Paper
Date:25 Jul 2003
The Nuclear Threat Reduction Campaign Releases Briefing Book Updates
The Nuclear Threat Reduction Campaign is pleased to announce the addition of a new issue paper to our Weapons of Mass Destruction Reference Guide, Protecting America: Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Weapon Threat Reduction.
The new issue paper is titled, "North Korea" and can be found online at:
http://justice.policy.net/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=34586
The paper on North Korea traces developments from the period shortly before the Agreed Framework was signed in 1994 up through the current crisis. Essentially, it demonstrates that the options of military action and attempting to bring about a collapse of the current regime are so fraught with dangers--to hundreds of thousands of Korean, Japanese, and American lives--as to be reckless alternatives to an overdue effort to achieve an enforceable agreement producing the verifiable abandonment of North Koreaâs nuclear weapons.
In addition to the new issue paper, the Nuclear Threat Reduction Campaign has updated two of the original issue briefs:
"Securing Vulnerable Nuclear Materials Outside Russia"
http://justice.policy.net/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=33030
AND
"Development of New Nuclear Weapons"
http://justice.policy.net/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=33201
These updates contain new information and studies about the issues as well as any new legislative devolpments on Capitol Hill.
We will continue to keep the book current by providing new issue briefs and updating existing ones on a regular basis. You can find all of these updates plus the latest news about WMD from Capitol Hill by visiting:
http://www.nuclearthreatreduction.org
*You must be a registered user in order to view the Briefing Book. To sign up or sign in, please visit:
http://www.nuclearthreatreduction.org/register/r-goupdate.vtml
7.
From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_03/072503I.shtml
Originally in French from http://www.lemonde.fr/article/0,5987,3208--328744-,00.html
Emergency in Korea
Le Monde | Editorial
24 July 2003
In the dream world of American neo-conservatives, crossing North Korea off the planet would be a technically easy operation-the country is an economic ruin-and morally tempting-there is nothing sympathetic about the regime.
After having taken part in all kinds of international terrorist and bandit operations over the years, now Pyongyang offers itself the ultimate luxury: trying to guarantee its perpetuity by threatening to proclaim itself a nuclear power soon.
This unheard of blackmail legitimately gives the shudders not only to South Korea, a prosperous democracy, but also to the Japanese and Chinese neighbors of the peninsula. Beyond that, it should sound alarm bells for all powers responsible for global security.
In place of which, the Korean nuclear crisis, ongoing for a year, has left the American administration torn, as in Iraq, between the ideological desire to impose its will, by force if necessary, and the necessity of acknowledging the practical limits of that ambition.
Because, in the real world, Kim Jong-Il’s North Korea is not Saddam Hussein’s Iraq. Without an air force or weapons of military projection, Baghdad’s dictator was incapable of responding to America’s ground invasion, as well as of leading an attack against Israel, an idea that haunted all Washington strategists. Kim Jong-Il, however, holds the capital of the United States’ South Korean ally within range of his old-fashioned artillery. Use of force against North Korea for its nuclear adventures, whether punitive or preventative, would set off carnage on the peninsula.
Above all, the crisis results in part from a strategic misdirection. However odious the North Korean regime’s balance sheet, with its forced labor camps, famines, foreign assassinations, the evil does not come from the grotesque government swathed in its half-Stalinist, half-sectarian propaganda alone. It is the result of an extreme nationalism that follows its own logic. Under his outrageous façade, Kim Jong-Il is a cold calculator whose determination it would be very dangerous to underestimate.
Pyongyang functions on a programmatic basis by which the realities of the post-World War II world are perceived in the reverse of Washington. For example, the regime, which survived the Korean War only at the cost of a terrible butchery, remains persuaded that it won this conflict and they commemorate its inconclusive end fifty years ago. If this logic is false, it is, nonetheless, armed with a potential nuclear capacity, which incites us not to neglect it and to take all emergency measures to resolve the crisis. Any error or delay now risks producing a nuclear arms race across the region.
-------
Translation: TruthOut French language correspondent Leslie Thatcher.
8.
Date: 26 Jul 2003
Subject: FWD: Depleted Uranium, Killer in the Long Run?
From: Bruce Hunter earthlife@juno.com>
[In re the article below--]
Isn't it time we demand that the whole DU ammunition program be scrapped? In fact isn't it time we consider OUTLAWING WAR altogether, gradually reducing or replacing the bristling armies of the world's sovereign nations with the adoption of a modicum of supranational law --outlawing war/ torture/ military submarines and planes and regulating the use of the world's air and waters, etc-- backed up with the formation of just ONE truly multi-cultural armed enforcement element, a Global Security Force?
This would be far less drain on the physical and fiscal resources of all these bellicose nations, plus would end the era of 'Might makes Right' which now allows a mighty nation like ours to invade a weaker nation like Granada or Iraq at will, or a petty but well-armed dictatorship like Iraq invading a virtually defenseless neighbor, like Kuwait.
Had this arrangement been in place a dozen odd years ago, Saddam H. and his generals would have been tracked down, put on trial and would now be serving time in prison for their illegal invasion of Kuwait!! And GWBush and the military industrial complex would have had NO plausible excuse for invading Iraq. Think about it!!
Pro-environment folks need to do a lot more jaw-boning and networking if we're ever going to get politicians to hold the line on the steady degradation that the ignorance, greed and apathy of our fellow humans are wreaking on our poor battered blue spaceship Earth.
--Bruce Hunter (DU article follows--)
-----Original Message-----
From: Peace and Justice peace@boo.net>
Subject: Depleted Uranium, Indiscriminate Killer in the Long Run? [WHO is making the profits from selling this dangerous stuff, anyway??]
Depleted Uranium
Killer in the Long Run?
By Robert Younes, M.D.
During the last decade, Iraq, Kuwait, the Balkans and Afghanistan were used as a vast testing ground for depleted uranium (DU) ammunition, the newest weapon of choice in the arsenals of fifteen armies* around the world. DU weapons have also been used on practice ranges on Vieques, Puerto Rico, Okinawa, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the U.S. It may be in use on a training range in Lancelin, Western Australia.
Internal documents show that the U.S. Department of Defense has known about the harmful environmental and health consequences of radioactive weapons since 1943. Despite this knowledge the Department of Defense has denied medical care to people exposed to DU, refused to clean up the environmental mess left behind by the weapon and has continued to lie about the adverse effects on people exposed to DU. In 1991, an internal U.S. Army memo recognized how effective DU munitions were against Iraqi armor, but warned that if environmental and health impact of these weapons became widely known, their use may become politically unacceptable and they would have to be removed from the arsenal. The UN Commission on Human Rights has categorized DU weapons alongside nuclear, chemical, biological, napalm, and cluster bombs as a “weapon of indiscriminate effect.”
What is this substance? DU is the non-fissionable U-238 isotope residue after most of the fissionable U-235 isotope is “depleted” or removed from uranium. Fissionable U-235 in the form or uranium hexafluoride is extracted from uranium by either centrifuges or gas diffusion for the production of fissionable material for nuclear weapons and nuclear fuel for atomic power plants. Natural uranium contains 0.7 % of U-235. The fuel assemblies that power a nuclear reactor generally require uranium with a 4% - 5% concentration of U-235. Only 0.2% of U-235 remains in DU after extraction from uranium and the rest is 99.8% U-238.
After more than 60 years of U-235 production, the United States has 1.5 billion pounds of DU in its stockpiles. DU has military uses and has been mainly employed as armor plate to improve tank survivability when hit by conventional tank rounds. Because DU is 1.7 times as dense as lead, DU is incorporated into tank and machine gun ammunition and dramatically increases the destructiveness and lethality of these munitions.
The governments and the people of Europe became alarmed when DU was used in large amounts in Bosnia in 1995 and in Kosovo in 1999. The UN found radioactivity in 8 of 11 sites tested in Kosovo. The 11 sites tested were among 112 sites hit by DU munitions. The UN reported in May 2000 that Kosovo’s water may be too contaminated to drink. These concerns are legitimate since DU is not only a toxic metal but is also radioactive. Thus far, however, evidence of human health effects remains inconclusive or unknown. Major studies up to thus point have not been completed that delineate this weapon’s short and long term health effects. Common sense would dictate that it is unwise to use a weapon that distributes large quantities of a toxic waste in areas where people live, work, grow food, or draw water.
Approximately 350 metric tons of DU (900,000 projectiles) were used by Coalition Forces in the 1991 Gulf War and five times more (1750 tons) were used in the Second Gulf War. Although DU was touted to be the anti-tank munition of choice, of the 3700 Iraqi tanks destroyed by coalition forces in the 1991 Gulf War, only 500 were destroyed by DU ammunition, of these, 400 tanks were destroyed by American tanks using DU rounds. The Maverick missile and other munitions were far more efficient in destroying the vast majority of Iraqi tanks. Well over 80% of the DU ammunition (by weight) used in the Gulf War did not hit a hard target. This means that 280 metric tons of DU remains in the soil of southern Iraq. Because DU has a half life of 4.4 billion years, these toxic and radioactive projectiles will forever remain in the soil of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Southern Iraq and eventually will contaminate ground water and the food chain. .
A DU round from a tank contains a rod of solid U-238 and acts like a high velocity, kinetic energy penetrator. When a DU round hits an object like a tank, because of its high density, it bores through the armor like a hot knife into butter and at the same time burns at 10,000 degrees centigrade incinerating everything in its pathway. Seventy percent of DU, on hitting its target, combusts as it fragments leaving uranium oxide dust in the area up to 400 meters from the target. It has been reported that wind has carried uranium oxide dust up to 42 kilometers from its point of origin. One 120 mm round of DU will produce about a kilogram of DU dust that has the consistency of flour. During a single attack by an aircraft shooting a burst of 30 mm DU ammunition, between 300 grams to 1000 grams of DU dust aerosol will be produced. The un-combusted uranium U-238 penetrator rods remaining in the battlefield are often picked up by civilians unaware of the rods’ radioactivity.
Large caliber DU ammunition is used by tanks and small caliber bullets are used by machine guns mounted on aircraft, tanks, and fighting vehicles. Up to seven tons of DU may also be used to armor “bunker busting bombs” so that deeper ground penetration occurs before the bomb explodes. It is estimated that between 1000 and 2000 tons of DU bombs were used by coalition forces during the 3 week Second Iraq War in 2003. A substantial number of DU bombs were dropped on Baghdad thus contaminating vast areas of a densely populated urban center.
DU is thought to be relatively harmless unless it enters the body by inhalation, ingestion or by contamination of wounds. Once inside the body, DU decays into thorium 234, protactinium and other uranium isotopes and at the same time emits alpha, beta and gamma radiation. This radioactivity causes cell death and genetic mutations that may result in cancer and other diseases as well as genetic abnormalities in the contaminated person’s descendents. Heavy exposure to DU causes acute toxicity that damages the exposed individual’s kidneys. Heavily contaminated individuals have DU deposited in their bones and liver. DU contaminated with plutonium makes DU even more hazardous since plutonium is 100,000 times more radioactive than DU. Plutonium contaminates DU when spent fuel rods from nuclear power plants are reprocessed to extract any remaining U-235. UN officials reported in January 2001 that in Kosovo traces of elements were found indicating the presence of plutonium, the source of which could only have been the uranium processing plants in Paducah, KY, Portsmouth, OH, and Oak Ridge, TN.
After a battle, scavenging civilians and children playing in or around DU contaminated equipment will ingest or inhale significant amounts of DU. Children will play with the un-combusted and radioactive uranium rods left over from tank fire. Military medical personnel engaged in battlefield rescue and first aid activities have become contaminated with DU. The 4.4 billion year half life of DU means that the DU used in the first and second Gulf Wars will forever remain a threat to the local Iraqi population.
Does DU cause health problems as some claim? Of the 697,000 U.S. troops stationed in the Gulf during the war, over 200,000 veterans are now chronically ill with complaints of respiratory, liver and kidney dysfunction, memory loss, depression, headaches, fever, and low blood pressure - the same set of symptoms found in ill uranium processing workers. Many claim that the Gulf War Syndrome is caused by soldiers ingesting or inhaling small particles of DU. Claims have been made that soldiers returning from the battlefield father children with congenital defects. In the years following the 1991 Gulf War, Iraqi doctors report that they have observed a five fold increase in cancers in the population heavily exposed to DU in Southern Iraq. Some Gulf War veterans have DU in their urine up to nine years after exposure. Some veterans show urine levels of DU hundreds and thousands of times over the safe limit.
In a decade of operation, the DoD DU Program has assessed the health status of only seventy of the 866 to 932 soldiers conservatively estimated to have had moderate to heavy DU exposure during the 1991 Gulf War. It is unlikely that any firm conclusions can be drawn from such a small sample.
The Veterans Administration now officially recognizes 220,000 veterans as being disabled by participation in the 1991 Gulf War. Of this number, 159,000 veterans who participated in the war have become disabled and 8000 have died. Of the soldiers who occupied the toxic wasteland of Iraq after the 1991 war, 60,000 veterans have become disabled and 2000 have died. About 110,000 veterans have 10% or more disability. Contrast these figures with the 800 killed and wounded in the 1991 Gulf War reported by the U.S. military obsessed with a short war and low casualties. The military wanted a quick victory with minimal casualties in the 1991 Gulf War but what it got was just the opposite result.
A highly decorated Army officer, and an expert on DU, and 100 men and woman in his decontamination unit were ordered to clean up battlefield DU contamination resulting from friendly fire after the first Gulf War. They did not wear protective gear (mask filters would have been useless anyway) and as a result suffered DU induced illness. Within 72 hours they were getting sick with respiratory symptoms and rashes that bled. Thirty people in his unit have already died and all but one is sick. The officer was fired from his position after he warned the Army about the liability connected with the radioactive contamination of a U.S. base in Alabama. He is now on 40% disability after discharge from the Army due to an illness characterized by respiratory distress due to reactive airway disease, immune system problems, and malfunction of one eye due to occupational exposure to U-238. He has had fifteen operations on his liver. His urine has 5000 times the permissible amount of DU.
In the 2003 Gulf War, already reports of U.S. troops exposed to DU are becoming sick. On July 17, 2003 the Saudi Al-Watan newspaper reported that U.S. soldiers deployed around Baghdad Airport started showing symptoms of mysterious fever, itching, scars, and dark brown spots on the skin. Three soldiers were flown back to Washington for treatment. NATO experts tend to believe that the illness was a result of direct exposure to nuclear radiation from bombs armored with DU used on Iraqi Republican Guard forces deployed to defend the vicinity of Baghdad Airport. Secrecy about the illness has been imposed by American officials on the issue. NATO experts confirmed that there were levels of radioactive pollution in the area that had destructive impact on man and the environment that may lead to risks of illness in future generations.
Health concerns about DU induced the U.S. Navy to replace DU ammunition with titanium shells for its Phalanx Missile Defense System. The British switched to titanium shells for its Challenger II tanks. The US Marines have decided to forgo the use of DU in favor of titanium ammunition for its Advanced Amphibious Assault Vehicle.
Any conclusions about the risk of DU exposure are problematic since there are very few systematic investigations of this substance. The Department of Defense (DoD) has overplayed the safety of DU and, at the same time, has stonewalled attempts to study Gulf War veterans and their exposure to DU.
The DoD claims that a soldier’s boots and uniform will protect the soldier against external sources of alpha and beta radiation while gamma radiation is too low to be of any danger. The DoD admits that inhaled and ingested DU or DU contaminated wounds may pose a long term health hazard. By its actions subsequent to the 1991 Gulf War, the DoD, despite its public pronouncements about the safety of DU, believes that environmental DU is also hazardous since it has recommended that any area contaminated with DU should be cordoned off to prevent contamination of civilian and military populations. Further, protective gear and respirators must be used by soldiers when investigating military equipment contaminated with DU. The DoD also recommends that heavily exposed soldiers require long term follow-up. In addition, the DoD has ordered that that troops undergo training to orient them to DU weapons so that troops will understand the possible health hazards of DU exposure.
The British government is more proactive and has ordered that British soldiers returning from Iraq in 2003 are offered urine testing for DU. The Royal Society has also recommended that the Iraqi civilian population should be monitored by checking milk and water samples for DU over a prolonged period of time.
The United States government announced in April 2003 that it had no intention of cleaning up the Iraqi battlefields since it believes that DU poses no danger to the Iraqi population. Unless the US government allows full disclosure of information about DU and undertakes a thorough investigation of the short and long term effects of DU, it will never be known if DU represents a significant health hazard to military troops and civilian populations.
*Britain, U.S.A., France, Russia, Greece, Turkey, Israel, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Egypt, Kuwait, Pakistan, Thailand, Iraq, and Taiwan.
9.
From: Lightparty@aol.com
Date: 28 Jul 2003
Subject: Please Sign Open Letter To G.W. Bush on GM Food Labeling
We encourage you to add your signature to the open letter to G.W. Bush on GM food labeling.
Copy of the letter:
The Honourable George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr President,
The European Union is about to approve laws on the mandatory labeling of genetically modified food and feed. The idea behind these laws is both deeply democratic and market oriented; to let people make their own choice. When the laws come into force Europeans will be able to make an informed choice. When they choose a product to buy they will see if it contains GM ingredients or not.
Ninety four per cent of Europeans want their food labeled. This you might expect. But what may come as a surprise to you is that almost as many Americans want labeling of GM food -- 93 per cent, according to an ABC News telephone poll from June 2001. And, according to the same survey, 52 per cent believe that genetically altered foods are unsafe. Unfortunately, Americans do not have the choice to either eat or avoid GM food. This is a choice that you should give them.
As Europeans we share your concern for poverty and starvation in Africa. We welcome your commitment to increasing aid and look forward to the day when America will bring its spending on overseas development assistance up to -- or even beyond -- the European average. This will be of much greater help to developing countries than the GM food you currently send them.
On the subject of Africa, Mr President, you should stop making false claims on behalf of the bio-tech industry. You assert that a reluctance to grow GM crops in Africa is responsible for famine there. This is simply not true, and the best proof of this comes from your own country. The US grows the highest percentage of GM crops of any country in the world. Yet 5.6 million American adults and 2.7 million children are classified as 'hungry' by your national Census Bureau. 20 million adults and 13 million children additionally live in households classified as "food insecure". The fight against hunger, it would appear, is dependent less on GM crops than on good politics.
Mr President your country is called the 'land of the free'. But to be free means to have a choice, and only informed people can make a good choice. In a spirit of solidarity we believe that Americans should have the same right as Europeans will now have under our GM labeling laws -- the right to choose. Give your people a choice, Mr Bush: label GM food!
[Your Name]
To sign the letter, go to:
http://greens-efa.org/pdf/events/LabelGMFood/index_FRfinal.php/ (lettre en français)
http://greens-efa.org/pdf/events/LabelGMFood/index_ESfinal.php/ (Carta abierta en español)
http://greens-efa.org/pdf/events/LabelGMFood/index_ITfinal.php (Lettera in italiano)
http://greens-efa.org/pdf/events/LabelGMFood/index_ENfinal.php/
Jean Kutten
Web & communication
Greens/EFA
http://www.greens-efa.org
Phone : +32-2-2841664
10.
Also from "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@vitelcom.net>
From: http://commondreams.org/headlines03/0726-03.htm
Experts at US Conference on Global Warming Say Bush's Position 'Ludicrous'
July 26, 2003
by Scott Sonner
RENO, Nevada - International experts at a gathering of more than 1,000 scientists studying climate change and the future of mankind say the threat of global warming is real and getting worse.
One leading researcher at the weeklong conference said it was "ludicrous" that the Bush administration has refused to acknowledge the increasing dangers of greenhouse gases.
"The voluntary measures the administration is proposing are going to get us nowhere," Raymond Bradley said Friday. Bradley is the director of the University of Massachusetts' Climate System Research Center at Amherst, Mass.
"Right now, we have good, strong scientific evidence supported by the vast majority of scientists who studied the problem to say we are facing a serious problem," he told the Associated Press on Friday.
Bradley criticized the White House decision this week to make the study of natural cycles in climate change the chief goal of a new 10-year plan addressing global warming.
President Bush and his advisers maintain that reducing emissions through costly near-term measures is unjustified. The White House argues that forecasting climate change is too imprecise to agree to long-term, international, mandatory cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.
"It is only imprecise if you choose to consider what I would describe as fringe science," Bradley told AP. "Politicians are always faced with making decisions in the face of uncertainty, but I think the uncertainty over this issue is relatively low."
Bradley co-authored a study of tree rings and ice cores that determined 10 of the hottest years globally over the past 600 years have come since 1990 - the hottest in 1998.
"We need to put our present state in perspective for politicians and others who are not yet convinced things need to be taken seriously," he said in a speech Thursday.
"Most of the major developments in this area have taken place in the last 30 years," Bradley said. "One-half of all the greenhouse gases have been added since I was a grad student," he said, mostly in the form of emissions from carbon dioxide and methane.
"This change is clearly unprecedented, it is abrupt and it's of a magnitude larger than anything we have ever experienced. And whatever we've seen in the recent past, those changes are destined to be overshadowed by changes in the near future," he told the International Union for Quaternary Research. INQUA was formed in 1928 by scientists seeking to understand environmental changes on Earth since the Quaternary Period, which spans approximately the past 2 million years.
Other papers presented at the conference include the findings of James Knox of the University of Wisconsin - that flooding of the Upper Mississippi River over the past 7,000 years was "strongly linked to relatively modest climate changes."
The high frequency of large floods on the (river) since about 1950 have occurred during a period of rapid global warming, he said. David Sauchyn of the University of Regina in Saskatchewan said his research suggests global warming could result in Canada's prairie environment becoming much drier.
U.S. Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham has said the administration is "already engaged in an active, aggressive and multi-pronged campaign to address climate change."
The new program introduced this week "will find the answers to the many unanswered questions about climate change, and identify the most promising areas for investment in future technology research and development," he said.
James Schlesinger, former energy secretary under President Carter, said at a recent Energy Department symposium that the idea the "science is settled" on global warming is "far from the truth. "We cannot tell how much of the recent warming trend can be attributed to the greenhouse effect and how much to other factors. In climate change, we have only a limited grasp on the overall forces at work," he said. Bradley said there were times in history where higher levels of carbon dioxide likely existed.
"But there weren't 6 billion people living on a knife's edge when those levels were reached in the past," he said. "For the first time in history, human beings are having a global impact on the most remote parts of the planet. When you go to the South or North pole, you see the evidence of what is happening 10,000 miles away."
The INQUA conference, the first in the United States since it met in Colorado in 1965, is hosted by the Desert Research Institute and continues through Wednesday.
On the Net:
International Union for Quaternary Research Conference: http://inqua2003.dri.edu/
---
AUTO POLLUTION? NO. IT'S THOSE KILLER TREES Energy Secretary Spencer Abraham meets reporters in Washington Thursday, July 24, 2003 to announce the Bush plan to study global warming. Abraham, a former Republican Senator from Michigan, was the top recipient of campaign contributions from the automotive industry during 1999-2000, receiving more than $700,000 for his failed Senate run in 2000 from contributors including General Motors, Ford and Lear Corp. The chief goal of the $130 million study is learning more about natural causes of climate change, drawing criticism from environmentalists who say reducing US carbon dioxide emissions is the real problem.
11.
From: http://www.skyfishproject.org/
This is the Skyfish Project
High in the mountains of northern British Columbia is a lake the Tahltan people call
Skyfish. It exists still as it has existed always – guarded by strong forests, water so clear you can see the fish strike. It is a world of biodiversity and tranquility. A world with clean air, abundant food, and fresh water. Skyfish is a world to which everyone should have the right.
But most of us live in another world - a place where consumption and excess exists beside poverty and pollution. We exist in a schizophrenic society, in a time when we can no longer afford to be unawarse of the consequences of pollution and globalization, or of the values of our current economic system - when the effects of one nation's lifestyle can have an impact on all others. Now, more than ever, we live in a time when our thoughts and actions really matter.
The Skyfish Project is an arena for thoughts and action. A forum for examining and questioning the world we live in, and the world we are creating. To talk about the way we live our lives, and the way we’d like to live. If we want to move towards a better, balanced way of living, we must first identify a new vision of the future.
The Skyfish Project is a place to connect on ideas and issues. It’s a place to learn from others, and share what you know. It’s an invitation to question the world you live in; and a challenge to take action and responsibility for the way you live your life.
---
From: http://www.skyfishproject.org/ror.html
RECOGNITION OF RESPONSIBILITY
This is a statement of intent for our generation. Our nation represents a small fraction of the world's population, but uses far more than our share of the world's energy, and emits a large percentage of the world's carbon dioxide pollution. We are a country with a huge ecological footprint. Our current lifestyle comes at the expense of the health of the planet and its people. As a citizen in one of the most industrialized, wealthy, and powerful countries in the world, I recognize that with these privileges comes responsibility. I recognize that the Earth is finite and in a finite world, steady growth forever is impossible. I see that measures of economic growth are not directly correlated with human well-being or happiness. I recognize that my everyday actions continue to affect communities on a local and global scale, today and in the future, for better or for worse.
Today, I commit to a more sustainable lifestyle. I will take environmental responsibility and promote sustainable development in my daily life by:
I.Respecting and protecting ecological integrity by:
a.Exploring my local natural environment.
b.Supporting efforts to conserve natural resources and ecosystems.
c.Avoiding products damaging to humans and the natural world.
d.Supporting and promoting the humane treatment of all life.
II.Promoting a culture of democracy, social justice, and peace by:
a.Learning about international social, political, and environmental issues and recognizing how they are interconnected.
b.Advocating the basic human right to clean air and water.
c.Making my voice heard through voting and social activism.
d.Respecting everyone's right to free speech and opinion.
e.Supporting efforts to use non-violence in conflict resolution.
f.Investing my money in a socially, ethically, and environmentally responsible manner.
III.Reducing my consumption of resources by:
a.Resisting the urge to buy things I don't need.
b.Understanding the environmental and social impact of the things I do buy.
c.Reducing the amount of garbage I create.
d.Reducing my waste of fresh water.
e.Recycling and buying items made from recycled or reused material where possible.
f.Travelling by foot, bike, public transit, train, and carpool when possible.
g.Being aware of where my food comes from and making best efforts to buy food produced locally and sustainably.
I also call on our elder generations and those in power to support and mentor
this vision -- to help shape the present so that the future citizens will not
remember this time as one of wasteful consumerism and social blindness. Today,
I take responsibility, so that the generations of tomorrow will think of this era as
one of responsible living and positive change.
SIGN THE RECOGNITION OF RESPONSIBILITY at http://www.nytimes.com/2003/07/23/opinion/23DOWD.html
OP-ED COLUMNIST
Weapons of Mass Redaction
By MAUREEN DOWD
This correspondence from the Office of the Vice President to the ambassador to the U.S. was redacted by the Office of the Vice President for national and electoral security reasons:
Dear Prince bin ,
Thank you, my friend, for the falcon. It survived the trip on your Gulfstream. It is now eating small endangered woodland creatures at my Jackson Hole ranch.
We are pumped about the double rubout of the Hussein boys. We really needed that win. It could be a game-changer for us. The stock market killed on the killings. And the timing will help cover your royal , too.
When the 9/11 commission report comes out tomorrow, I think you will be well satisfied with our efforts to keep you guys out of it.
We have almost as much experience as you at keeping private matters veiled. It's not good to overburden the American people with too much complicated information.
We didn't let a thing slip on our private energy meetings where we took care of our mutual friends in the industry; we kept the bidding closed on the Halliburton contracts to rebuild Iraq, and we set up our own C.I.A. within the Pentagon to produce the intelligence we wanted to link Al Qaeda to Saddam rather than to your country.
We've classified the entire section of the 9/11 report that deals with the family's support of charitable groups that benefit terrorists, including mentions of your wife's checks inexplicably winding up in the bank accounts of two of the hijackers. (Lynn says to tell Princess we have four tickets for the ballet at the Kennedy Center.)
We're not even letting Bob Graham mention the name of your country. We threatened to throw him in the federal slammer if he calls anything but "a foreign government."
Not to worry that the report will shed any light on the ties between the hijackers and your government agent al- .
I know you're worried that the whiny widows of 9/11 will throw another hissy-fit when they see all the blacked-out material, like they did when you whisked Osama's family out of the U.S. on a private jet right after the attacks. But we didn't go this far down the road of pushing aside incriminating evidence about you guys and blaming 9/11 on Saddam to turn back now because a few thousand families can't get their darn closure.
Buddy, we go back a long way. You've been a great host to the Bushes and you've been generous with rides on your Airbus and Gulfstream and with invites to your beautiful estates in and and .
But now you have to throw us a bone. Al Qaeda cells are crawling all over your kingdom, planning attacks around the world. They've gotten even stronger since the May bombing of Western compounds in . We need a little more than lip service about quelling anti-American fervor over there and cracking down on phony charities. You've got to at least give the F.B.I. something to work with. Don't worry. They'll screw it up anyway.
Rest assured that the F.B.I.'s taking the heat for 9/11 in the report tomorrow, not you.
I hear you want to behead that ex-spook Robert Baer, who's been all over TV talking about the way you lavish money to influence U.S. politics, donating millions to presidential libraries and the like. But after all, every million spent on a congressman's favorite charity is one less million for a terrorist's fake charity.
Here in the House, we've mastered the art of moving beyond what people once thought was important to look for. First, we switched from looking for Osama to looking for Saddam. Then we switched from looking for "weapons" to looking for "weapons programs." Now Wolfie has informed the public that we need to worry less about finding weapons in Iraq than building democracy.
The trick is to keep moving. Just yesterday, we shifted the blame for the uranium debacle in the president's State of the speech from George Tenet at the C.I.A. to Stephen Hadley at the N.S.C.
I'd like to return your many acts of generosity. Why not come to dinner at my Secret Undisclosed Location? Here's the address: in .
All the best, Dick.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO INFORM OTHERS ABOUT THIS NETWORKING SERVICE
The Earth Rainbow Network (ERN), founded in February 1997, has an extensive list of more than 2,650 people in approximately 50 countries sharing information, visions and feedbacks on a broad range of subjects as a way to expand and deepen global awareness and the sense of forming a global spiritual community gradually empowering itself to contribute in shaping the future of this world. If you would like to regularly receive the material prepared by the coordinator of this network from a wide variety of sources, as well as a new Meditation Focus suggested every 2 weeks (details at http://www.aei.ca/~cep/focusgroup.htm), simply send a blank email to globalvisionary@cybernaute.com with "Add me to the ERN list" in the subject field of your email. To have an idea of the kind of material you will receive, you may review some of the latest compilations archived at http://www.EarthRainbowNetwork.com (scroll near the bottom). Subscription is free but donations in support of this networking service are welcomed.
SUBSCRIPTION TO THE EARTH RAINBOW NETWORK E-LIST
If you would like to subscribe to the Earth Rainbow Network automated listserver and regularly receive similar compilations covering a broad range of subjects, including each new Meditation Focus issued every two week, simply send a blank email at earthrainbownetwork-subscribe@lists.riseup.net from the email account to which you want to receive the material compiled and networked by the Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator. Subscription is FREE!
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