January 16, 2007

The Perfect Storm Series #9: Hitting The Wall or Breaking Through and Ascending

Hello everyone!

Once again, black clouds of war are gathering on the horizon as the Bush/Cheney war-mongerers, under the cover of escalating (or "augmenting" as Condoleeza would have it) the conflict in Iraq, are massing their evil forces in preparation to launching, 2 months from now, in tandem with their Israel pawns, a massive conventional and nuclear strike against Iran, despite the best advices of their military men, in a futile and desperate attempt to shore up their flagging fortune. This very dangerous plan risks triggering a much wider conflict, not only because of the predictable reaction of Iran now armed with some of the best military technology thanks to their Russian providers, but also because of the possibility that China will not stand idle while its access to oil resources that is vital for its fast expanding economy is being attacked by the Empire of Darkness formed by the United States, Israel and all the other lesser partners coaxed into subservient participation into the Empire's deadly conquests around the world.

This is no time to let our guard down and complacently allow this ongoing regime of terror and destruction to continue spreading its mayhem unchallenged by the Peace Lovers and Light Servers around this now terribly ill planet. The radioactive and humanitarian fallouts from their planned unprovoked attack will make the orgy of violence in Iraq since 2003 pale in comparison. The entire planet will be affected one way or another by this deliriously idiotic and malevolent drive towards oblivion. Not only would the oil price go through the roof if they attack, but the economic repercussions and the sheer cost in human suffering would be a very severe setback for humanity at a time when we should instead dedicate our best talents and all our resources towards countering and hopefully defeating the worst enemy—of our own making!—facing us all right now: runaway global warming and the likely extinction of most Life on Earth, ours included!

You will find all the necessary material in this compilation to back these assertions, in addition to the massive amount of information already networked through this service in the past several years.

Is there a silver lining somewhere in these grave threats we are looking at? Well, for one, people who want to live in peace and who wish only the best for everyone else are the vast, overwhelming majority on Earth. Comparatively, there is only a handful of "bad apple" to contend with, even if they monopolize a disproportionate share of the wealth and resources of this planet and wield enormous power over countless people through the Matrix-like system of deceitful control they have erected through the years to enslave humanity into serving their will, however greedily corrupted and deviously murderous it may be.

As the theme of the current Meditation Focus emphasizes, we are the Key to the future in the sense that once we have found in ourselves the spiritual stamina to sufficiently believe in our Selves as sovereign souls capable of seemingly miraculous feats, and once this "awareness backbone" spreads in hundredth monkey fashion to our entire species, there is nothing the corrupted ones can do to stop the juggernaut of goodwill, spiritual healing and massive remembrance that will "infect" (from their standpoint) the entire human species, the planetary community of souls—in synch with Gaia's all other sentient Life forms—wash over the entire world and dismantle from the inside their hate-dependent citadels of greed, war and violence against Life itself. Just consider how the environmental movement, though years of unrelenting education and action, has now succeeded to establish a keen awareness of the fragility of our ailing planet as the near dominant concern in all forms of decision-making and how this movement, along with the peace movement and all the others benevolent activities undertaken by a vast army of volunteers to tackle all kinds of humanitarian, justice and economic crises, will naturally lead to the kind of Global Spiritual Awakening we, as active Light Servers, are striving to stimulate in our own multitudinous ways.

And remember... We Are Not Alone!

So which horse will be the first one to cross the finish line? The dark horse of Apocalypse, in the sense of "utter destruction" or the white horse of Apocalypse, in the sense of "utter revelation"?

It's in all of us to be wise... and I Know we have already made the Right Enlightened Choice...

Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com

INVITATION from Jean: I've prepared a webpage with 22 of some of the best pictures I've taken in 2005 and 2006 as I was kayaking on the Saguenay River, hiking, canoeing or simply enjoying the many wonders of Nature in our still remarkably pristine environment here in L'Anse-Saint-Jean... To access them, go at http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/BestPics.htm - If you have a phone line connection, it could take a couple minutes to load as they add up to about 3.2 megs. For the best view, enlarge your web browser window to its maximum size.

P.S. Your feedbacks are as always welcomed and may be included in a coming compilation - unless you prefer they are not. Circulating this compilation (or any part of it) and personally inviting your correspondents to subscribe to this list would also help enlarge the circle of people who have access to this material. Please include the following note and the URL address for the archived copy below along with your forwards, so others may have the opportunity to explore the original copy, if they so choose.

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THE QUOTES

"Give me the money that has been spent in war and I will clothe every man, woman, and child in an attire of which kings and queens will be proud. I will build a schoolhouse in every valley over the whole earth. I will crown every hillside with a place of worship consecrated to peace."

— Charles Sumner


"I dream of giving birth to a child who will ask, 'Mother, what was war?'"

— Eve Merriam (Both quotes above were sent by Stan Penner (stanp@mts.net) (the quote expert!)


"The ultimate weakness of violence is that it is a descending spiral, begetting the very thing it seeks to destroy. Instead of diminishing evil, it multiplies it. Through violence you may murder the liar, but you cannot murder the lie, nor establish the truth. Through violence you murder the hater, but you do not murder hate. In fact, violence merely increases hate. Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that."

— Martin Luther King, Jr., quote from his 1967 book


"The Bush regime is counting on us to be silent in the face of this escalation. They know that millions of us hate this war. And they know they have no easy solution to winning the war. In this kind of situation, imagine what it would mean if massive resistance from millions of people inside the US demanding the war end now and the Bush regime step down. Imagine if colleges and universities went on strike in protest. Imagine if the streets filled like they did in the spring of 2003. Imagine if celebrities and religious leaders devoted their lives to ending the war. Imagine if among the troops being called up for their third or fourth tour of duty followed the example of people like Ehren Watada and refuse to fight in an unjust war. Now don't just imagine. Make it happen. It’s in moments like these, when the Bush regime faces huge problems with (even as Bush acknowledged) no easy solutions, and opposition to their new strategy inside the government, that the actions of millions of people can change the course of history. End the War Now! Drive Out the Bush Regime!

— Taken from Bush's New Strategy: An ESCALATION of the War by the people of The World Can't Wait movement who are organizing a Jan. 27 Protest in Washington DC - Stop the War Now! IMPEACH BUSH FOR WAR CRIMES! They also wrote in an email today: "George Bush has a dramatic and risky plan to escalate and expand the war, not all of which he’s revealed. As he was speaking last Wednesday, US forces went into Kurdish territory, broke into an Iranian diplomatic building, and seized files and people, in violation of the sovereignty of both Iran and the Kurdish region – a clear provocation. Now, 3 aircraft carriers are in the Persian Gulf. As someone said at the World Cant’ Wait meeting this past weekend, “this is the start of another war, not just the expansion of this one.” There is no way a president who has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity should be in office. Now he’s pledged to commit more and worse – he is moving towards war with Iran. A president who has no popularity and little legitimacy should have none."


“We have a very bad reputation,” Alex Collier indicates, “because we are the only human race in the galaxy that kills itself, that turns on itself. We are the only race [human] that allows itself to live in poverty. We are the only ones who allow members of our race to starve. We are the only ones that allow members of the race to be homeless. We are the only race that would sell itself into slavery. I don’t like the reflection they give me of us. It’s not that they are judging. They just don’t understand why we do it. If anyone’s got an answer for it, I’m open. Yes, we’ve been manipulated by belief systems, but why do we believe these belief systems?” According to testimony by Alex Collier, associated with alleged ET contacts, Earth Humans “are the only race of human beings which oppresses and kills itself.”

— Taken from Scientists find Extraterrestrial genes in Human DNA below


“Although I grew up a vegetarian, I have never felt to convince others to follow the same path. Far be it from me to interfere into anyone's life. That was until last year. When we played at the Omega Yoga Conference in September we were deeply touched by a discussion panel on vegetarianism, hosted by David Life and Sharon Gannon. The figures showing how much impact eating meat has on the environment were mind blowing. Not to mention the suffering caused to the animals themselves. Here is some information you may like to digest (excuse the pun!): More than 25 billion animals are killed each year for food in the United States alone. That statistic is staggering considering the fact that there are only 6 billion human beings in the entire world. Eating meat takes an environmental toll that generations to come will be forced to pay. Raising animals for food causes more water pollution in the U.S. than any other industry - because animals raised for food create 130 times the excrement of the entire human population---87,000 pounds per second! Much of the waste from factory farms and slaughterhouses flows into streams and rivers, contaminating water sources. More than 260 million acres of U.S. forest have been cleared to grow crops to feed animals raised for meat, and another acre of trees disappears every eight seconds. The tropical rain forests are also being destroyed to create grazing land for cattle. Fifty-five square feet of rain forest may be razed to produce just one quarter-pound burger. More than half the water consumed in the U.S. is used to raise animals for food. It takes 2,500 gallons of water to produce a pound of meat, but only 25 gallons to produce a pound of wheat. A totally vegetarian diet requires 300 gallons of water per day, while a meat-eating diet requires more than 4,000 gallons of water per day. You can also learn more about the global impact of what we eat in John Robbins‚ The Food Revolution: How Diet Can Help Save Your Life And Our World. Like I said, I'm the last one to stand up on a soap box, but these figures just cry out to be considered. "

— Deva Premal -- Taken from http://www.mitendevapremal.com/community/deva_letter_jan2007.html and forwarded by Rudolf Schneider (res@ipsgeneva.com). Note from Jean: I recommend making time to explore Deva Premal and Miten's website at http://www.mitendevapremal.com to listen to their wonderful music and also to check the beautiful pictures in their gallery.



CONTENTS

1. Feedback Kathleen
2. Land of Enchantment and Impeachment
3. 100,000 mercenaries, the forgotten "Surge"
4. Terrified Soldiers Terrifying People
5. The long view
6. Fatah Moves Toward Coup Against Hamas
7. EU: Climate Change Will Transform the Face of the Continent
8. Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012
9. "Wacky Weather" Is Deadly Global Heating
10. How Business Saw the Light
11. THE SINISTER SACKING OF THE WORLD'S LEADING GM EXPERT
12. BIG MONEY OVER PUBLIC HEALTH
13. The $10 Solution
14. Laurence Gardner on Ancient Secret Science
15. Letter from Suzanna
16. African Lion Kisses, Hugs Woman Who Saved It
17. Scientists find Extraterrestrial genes in Human DNA
18. Thoughts



WORTHY OF YOUR ATTENTION

Fastwalkers
http://www.fastwalkers.com/
Fastwalkers, a feature length documentary discloses for the first time, information you were never meant to know. Amazing UFO photos and footage you were never meant to see. Recommended by Kathleen Roberts (weerkhr@pacbell.net) who wrote: "If you liked the Project Disclosure DVD you'll love this!

US Petition
Just when we thought the war in Iraq couldn't get any worse - it has. Lastnight, President Bush rejected reality, spurned the American people's verdict, and announced his new policy: MILITARY ESCALATION IN IRAQ. The good news is that the newly elected United States Congress can stop this madness. We're launching an immediate campaign to let the Congress hear from global voices - placing an ad with the number of signatures to our petition in "Roll Call", an influential political paper sent to every member of the US Congress. Click below to see the ad, and sign the petition: http://www.avaaz.org/en/iraq_campaign_jan_2007/

A Time to Break Silence - "A time comes when silence is betrayal." By Rev. Martin Luther King (Audio and transcript)
http://tinyurl.com/45hm9
In his "Beyond Vietnam" speech delivered at New York's Riverside Church on April 4, 1967 -- a year to the day before he was murdered -- King called the United States "the greatest purveyor of violence in the world today."

Martin Luther King, "It's A Dark Day In Our Nation" (circa 1967)
"Why I Am Opposed to the War in Vietnam" - Audio and transcript
http://tinyurl.com/yxmj9y
"I call on the young men of America who must make a choice today to take a stand on this issue. Tomorrow may be too late. The book may close. And don't let anybody make you think that God chose America as his divine, messianic force to be a sort of policeman of the whole world. " Highly recommended by Tom Feeley (emailtom@cox.net)

War costs are hitting historic proportions
http://fairuse.100webcustomers.com/fairenough/latimes738.html
The price tag for the Iraq conflict and overall effort against terrorism is expected to surpass Vietnam's next year.

View Point: Being Happy (January 2007) A MOST INTERESTING TOPIC!
http://www.gvnr.com/118/viewpoint.htm
Happiness is our basic state of being according to Robert Holden, founder of the Happiness Project. This article, taken from his talk at the The Spirit of Healing Conference at Findhorn, explains how his work is encouraging the men and women of the manic society to slow down and stop, to enquire more deeply, ‘what is happiness?’ (...) In my work I create opportunities for people to move beyond the thin conversations of our everyday life so that we can explore what happiness is together. Every normal healthy parent wants their children to be happy and yet, when I ask them how much time they spend talking about happiness with their children, it is remarkably little. In relationships it is the same. Every normal healthy person wants their partner to be happy, but having a conversation about it is still a rare thing. Carl Jung said: “Most people suffer not from physical illness but from spiritual aimlessness. They have lost their aim. They have lost sight of who they really are and what is really valuable.” It’s easy to do in this day and age. Every year in a Western culture the average adult will be exposed to over a hundred thousand advertisements telling us what we should truly value. I believe our job, as friends to the world, is to distinguish between desire and truth. When we ask ourselves what happiness is, we are really asking what is real. (...) Amongst advanced industrialised societies there is practically no relationship between income level and subjective well-being. Making more money, the aim of so many in the western world, does not breed bliss. We are better paid, fed, housed, educated and healthier than ever before with more human rights, faster communication and more convenient transportation than we have ever known and yet ironically, since the 70s, divorce rates have doubled, teenage suicides have tripled, the recorded violent crime rate has quadrupled and prison populations have quintupled. The World Bank and World Health Organisation have both published reports that we, the children of the golden era, are more susceptible to depression than our parents. (...) I became interested in the Happiness Project because I wanted to remember the truth of who I am and to be able to support others in that. That’s what being a true friend to the world really is; helping to heal people’s forgetfulness, to heal the amnesia which says that somehow who I am isn’t about happiness. But it is. It’s what we are. Wholeness is not something you travel to. It’s something you carry within you. Krishnamurti said: “truth is a pathless land.” There’s no path, only acceptance that we are ‘it’ already. (...) Happiness is a compass. It helps you to see that you are on track with your purpose and your values. So, if you don’t feel happy, get curious and let your happiness teach you how you can show up in the world and be who you really are. The Project believes that happiness isn’t the absence of sadness, but it is actually the capacity to heal your sadness. It is the ability to be truthful about your unhappiness, enquire, learn about it and to use the experience to evolve you. It’s really an emotional healing project. Embracing our happiness teaches us to let go of our past. Anybody who has made it to the age of 30 already has enough reasons to be miserable for the rest of their life but happiness teaches you to let go because fundamentally you can’t be happy and be a victim to your past. That’s the gift of happiness. It’s about finding the now, finding your now. Your now is in the timeless values you carry with you. It’s in the constant principles that inspire your actions and the inner wisdom that coaches your every moment. Your now is the portal to grace and inspiration. You find what’s valuable to you wherever you are. Happiness is the realisation that ultimately the whole of your life is right here, right now. So, commit to it. Get your heart wide open, just jump in and give it everything you have. Contact: The Happiness Project: http://www.happiness.co.uk -- To access the rest of this January issue of the Global Village News, go at http://www.gvnr.com/

TAKE ACTION! Let the Ugandan President and Parliament know rainforests and their ecological services are invaluable
http://www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp?id=uganda
The rainforest destruction crisis in Uganda, which we first informed you of in December, has worsened considerably. The Ugandan President now proposes to degazette over nine additional municipal forest reserves, presumably to spur industrial and agricultural development. This is in addition to two existing proposed large agricultural plantation projects in an important protected rainforest, and another forest that buffers Lake Victoria, to grow palm oil and sugar cane crops. Destruction of Uganda's surviving forests will have grave ecological consequences, changing the country's climate including more frequent droughts and floods, threatening hundreds of rare species, sparking soil erosion, and further reducing the health and water volume of Lake Victoria. Please contact the Ugandan government to insist these projects be abandoned and that existing protected forests maintain their status, informing the government that Uganda needs more not less intact protected and restored rainforests if they are to develop in an ecologically sustainable manner and have any hope of alleviating poverty in the long-term. TAKE ACTION NOW at: http://www.rainforestportal.org/alerts/send.asp?id=uganda

Steorn announces plans for widespread deployment of its free energy technology post-validation
http://www.steorn.net/en/news.aspx?p=2&id=981
Dublin, 11th January 2007: Steorn, the Irish technology development company, has today announced that its free energy technology will be made widely available to the development community immediately after the independent scientific validation process that is currently underway. Under the terms of a modified general purpose licence and for a nominal fee, Steorn's intellectual property will be made available concurrently to all interested parties, from individual enthusiasts to larger research organisations. Steorn is taking this bold move to accelerate the deployment and acceptance of its technology for both humanitarian and commercial products.Steorn's technology is based on the interaction of magnetic fields and allows the production of clean, free and constant energy. The technology can be applied to virtually all devices requiring energy, from cellular phones to cars. Steorn placed an advertisement in The Economist in August 2006 to attract the attention of the world's leading scientists working in the field of experimental physics. It has now completed the selection of its jury of scientists who have embarked on the testing of the technology prior to publishing their results worldwide. Sean McCarthy, CEO of Steorn, commented: "We have experienced enormous levels of interest in our free energy technology from the product development community."Experience tells us that opening up access to technology to all interested parties via the internet allows for rapid third party development. We believe that our technology can have a profound impact on people's lives and are confident that the delivery of our intellectual property via this type of online development and engineering support environment will lead to the rapid deployment of all kinds of different products." Check the extensive Press coverage they've got at http://www.steorn.net/en/news.aspx?task=coverage&p=2 and read the Guardian story on the inventors at http://www.steorn.net/en/news.aspx?p=2&id=261

Check also Stephen Kaplan's website at http://www.newconnexion.net/kaplan/home.html?CFID=4704091&CFTOKEN=95988210 for much, much more info about various new energy devices and theories. A visit to Tom Bearden's website at http://www.cheniere.org/ is also a must for anyone interested in this topic. I've often mentioned in previous compilations (see at http://tinyurl.com/y3rylv) his "Motionless Electromagnetic Generator" (MEG) which has still not been mass-produced because of insufficient funding. Here is what he mentions on his site: "Factoid: the MEG's development has been funded entirely by the inventors' savings and a few modest donations. America's civilian nuclear technology cost a total of a trillion federal dollars yet delivers less energy than wood. The Economist says of nuclear power plants that “not one, anywhere in the world, makes commercial sense.” Hot fusion research has received billions of dollars of Government money for over 50 years, AND HAS YET TO PUT A SINGLE WATT OF POWER INTO THE GRID." --- And in a long comment about the Steorn's unique initiative to break through the barrier of skepticism and covert effort to derail any new energy sources that could threaten the suicidal dominance of oil and other fossils fuels in the market, here is (in part) what Tom Bearden wrote:

"Thanks Jean! Let’s fervently hope that:

(1) The “jury of 12 good scientists” selected by Steorn does indeed resoundingly validate the Steorn technology. At that point, Steorn will have vaulted right over the usual fierce scientific rejection and opposition fence, and also will have bypassed all the professional skeptics. The Steorn group will have bluntly faced science with the scientific method itself: If the experiments contradict the theory, then to practice science one must change the theory, not continue to suppress the experiments. (...)
(2) The immediate and wide release of the already-validated Steorn technology occurs, with worldwide production and use for very reasonable fees. In that move, Steorn will also have vaulted right over the usual suppression of funds for the finishing and production of an initially struggling overunity technology – which is very effectively done by the control of any “R&D finishing and production engineering” funds and any wide availability of them. That barrier will also have fallen by the wayside. Steorn will also have triggered enormous interest in the overunity and self-powering area in our universities, in the scientific community, and in the funding community where many huge financial cartels and investors will realize that most of their money is in the wrong place and backing the wrong horse at the horse race. At that point, Steorn will also have triggered a stream of funding support to other independent and struggling inventors worldwide. What it means is that, once this genie is fully out of the bottle, he will never again be put back in that bottle where he has so firmly been imprisoned for more than a century. It appears that Steorn has all the funding it needs, and that the Steorn planners have also done their homework to deliberately overcome how this area is usually suppressed and prevented.
In my opinion, we could be facing a major eruption of the MidEast conflict soon, perhaps as early as the equinox of this March. There is a distinct possibility of nuclear confrontation(s) and sudden nuclear attacks. In that case, there is almost certain to be an abrupt cutoff of most of the MidEast oil to the U.S. and to Western Europe. Oil tankers do not fare well at all in the Gulf, when they are rocketed and exploded! If that eruption in the MidEast does happen, we haven’t seen anything yet as to how the potential price of gas at the pump will skyrocket in the U.S., if there is any gas even available there. And the availability of electric power in the U.S. and Western Europe will also suddenly be highly questionable. So the world needs the Steorn technology desperately. And it needs it as quickly as humanly possible. I don’t care who gets it done or who gets it done first; it just must get done! Otherwise, we could be looking at a coming catastrophic economic collapse of the West that makes the old U.S. depression days look tame by comparison. Indeed, if one considers other international factors as well, we could even be facing something as great as the collapse or near-collapse of Western civilization itself. (...) We need that technology and those power systems desperately!"

David Icke - Was he right? (46 min.)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=6860946590182985661&q=david+icke+was+he+right%3
Channel 5 documentary from 12/26/06 which chronicles David Icke's career to present day, and asks the big question - Was he right? Anyone who is paying attention knows the answer to that. A very impartial and fair documentary. Thank you Channel 5 for this great piece of journalism. Recommended by Antares (Antares@magickriver.com) who wrote: "I find Icke pretty impressive, very sincere, a fantastic communicator. Great that this was actually aired in Britain on Channel Five, 26 Dec 2006." Note from Jean: I watched it all and recommend it. Powerfully eye-opening especially for the newcomers. The first third is about David's unique "career", and in the rest he blasts the whole System to smithereens. It chronicles the increasing breakthrough in the public of David's unique brand of pushing the envelope and dismantling the manipulative shenanigans of the elite. But it gives very little in the way of solutions and do not touch the spiritual underpinnings of "reality". Obviously a 46 min TV program cannot cover what he wrote about in his 12 books.

The Peace Alliance is hosting a wonderful US Dept. of Peace conference from Feb. 3 - 5, 2007 in Washington, D.C.
http://www.thepeacealliance.org
Recommended by Kosta Makreas (gmakreas@sanbrunocable.com) who wrote: "Even if you cannot attend this important event, you can support the Peace Alliance in establishing Departments of Peace and Ministries for Peace in many countries around the world. "We the People" - who want universal peace - are organizing ourselves, connecting in new and exciting ways, and raising our voices - as One Voice - to usher in the positive changes we want to see in the world! The Peace Alliance is offering us the opportunity to contribute to this evolutionary process of world healing."



ALSO RECOMMENDED

The Architect of Mr. Bush's Plan
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011107J.shtml
Jason Leopold writes: "By relying on the recommendations of neoconservative scholar Frederick Kagan, a senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute, on what steps the White House should take to address the civil war between Sunnis and Shiites in Iraq, President Bush has once again ignored the advice of career military officials and even some Republican lawmakers - many of whom in recent weeks have urged Bush to resist implementing a policy that would result in escalating the war - and instead has chosen to rely on the proposals drafted by hawkish, think-tank intellectuals that could very well backfire and end up embroiling the United States in an even bloodier conflict."

The Real Disaster
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011107K.shtml
"President Bush told Americans last night that failure in Iraq would be a disaster. The disaster is Mr. Bush's war, and he has already failed. Last night was his chance to stop offering more fog and be honest with the nation, and he did not take it," writes the New York Times.

Opposition to Iraq Plan Leaves Bush Isolated
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011407Z.shtml
The bipartisan opposition to President Bush's troop-increase plan has proved more intense than his advisers hoped and has left them scrambling to find support, but the White House is banking on the assumption that it can execute its "new way forward" in Iraq before Congress can derail it.

Ron Kovic: Surging Past the Tipping Point (Jan 9, 2007)
http://www.truthdig.com/interview/item/20070109_ron_kovic_tipping_point/
In an interview with Truthdig research editor Joshua Scheer, Ron Kovic, author of “Born on the Fourth of July” argues that Americans this week have a patriotic and generation-defining duty to speak out against Bush’s proposal to escalate the war in Iraq with more U.S. troops. Truthdig: I understand you’re very incensed by Bush’s intention to escalate the Iraq war with a troop surge. Kovic: Absolutely. This week is a very crucial turning point in the war. We’re being led in a very reckless and dangerous direction. I don’t want to see more men and women come home like me—in wheelchairs for the rest of their lives. How many more have to die in a war that makes no sense? I feel like I’m seeing the mirror image of another Vietnam unfolding all over again, and I think we have never needed to break that silence and begin to speak more than we do now. Truthdig: Has this war surpassed the Vietnam War in any way? Kovic: I think President Bush plans to provoke an even wider war in the Middle East in the coming months. That’s my prediction. He is going to escalate the war by sending more troops to Iraq in a war that we cannot win—a war that is only going to cause more violence, make us even bigger targets of terrorist attacks. Like many veterans of the Vietnam War, I’ve been in this wheelchair for almost 40 years. I’ve lived with the wounds of American foreign policy for almost four decades now. I saw American foreign policy firsthand, as did many others of my generation. And we learned the lessons of that war. I have serious doubts whether President Bush or the architects of this particular policy in the Middle East right now learned those lessons. And how many of those who are making the decision this week—how many of those talking heads, those so-called experts, who made the decision to have a troop surge, to escalate this war, to put more young men and women’s lives in harm’s way, to put more Iraqi civilians at risk—how many of them really served in a war, how many really understand the human cost of a war? How many really understand what it means to be wounded—whether you’re American or Iraqi? How many understand what it means to come home wounded? What it means to lose a son or daughter in a war? How many of them have been directly affected by this war? CLIP

Baghdad: Morgue took 16,000 unidentified bodies in 2006
http://www.gulfnews.com/region/Iraq/10096986.html
About 1,350 bodies were received in December, the source said, speaking on condition of anonymity because the Iraqi government has banned officials from releasing data on casualty rates.

You owe us, Bush says
http://tinyurl.com/yboq4z
"(The) Iraqi people owe the American people a huge debt of gratitude." !!!!!!!

Iraqis get all-firing foretaste of Bush's final Baghdad gamble
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2089-2546344,00.html
The fighting has seen him trapped with two blind daughters in one room in the city centre since Wednesday morning, without water or electricity and with nothing to eat but beans. Hamed, a 55-year-old retired civil servant, is now growing desperate.

US military strike on Iran seen by April 07 (15th Jan 2007) MUST READ!
http://www.arabtimesonline.com/arabtimes/kuwait/Viewdet.asp?ID=9548&cat=a
KUWAIT CITY: Washington will launch a military strike on Iran before April 2007, say sources. The attack will be launched from the sea and Patriot missiles will guard all oil-producing countries in the region, they add. Recent statements emanating from the United States indicate the Bush administration’s new strategy for Iraq doesn’t include any proposal to make a compromise or negotiate with Syria or Iran. A reliable source said President Bush recently held a meeting with Vice President Dick Cheney, Defense Secretary Robert Gates, Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice and other assistants in the White House where they discussed the plan to attack Iran in minute detail.According to the source, Vice President Dick Cheney highlighted the threat posed by Iran to not only Saudi Arabia but the whole region. “Tehran is not playing politics. Iranian leaders are using their country’s religious influence to support the aggressive regime’s ambition to expand,” the source quoted Dick Cheney as saying. Indicating participants of the meeting agreed to impose restrictions on the ambitions of Iranian regime before April 2007 without exposing other countries in the region to any danger, the source said “they have chosen April as British Prime Minister Tony Blair has said it will be the last month in office for him. The United States has to take action against Iran and Syria before April 2007.”Claiming the attack will be launched from the sea and not from any country in the region, he said “the US and its allies will target the oil installations and nuclear facilities of Iran ensuring there is no environmental catastrophe or after effects.” “Already the US has started sending its warships to the Gulf and the build-up will continue until Washington has the required number by the end of this month,” the source said. “US forces in Iraq and other countries in the region will be protected against any Iranian missile attack by an advanced Patriot missile system.”He went on to say “although US Defense Secretary Robert Gates and Secretary of State Dr Condoleezza Rice suggested postponing the attack, President Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney insisted on attacking Tehran without any negotiations based on the lesson they learnt in Iraq recently.” The Bush administration believes attacking Iran will create a new power balance in the region, calm down the situation in Iraq and pave the way for their democratic project, which had to be suspended due to the interference of Tehran and Damascus in Iraq, he continued. The attack on Iran will weaken the Syrian regime, which will eventually fade away, the source said. --- "This is a flippin' nightmare. This cannot happen ! How is it that Bushco, Dick Vader, Cuntosleeza and this guy Gates-of-hell can decide this awesome and dangerous course on their own????? IMPEACH NOW !!!!!!!" one of the 157 comments on this at http://tinyurl.com/tu6ul Here are 2 more: "Patriot missiles to defend the Arab countries---you've got to be kidding. They are nothing but junk. The American ships at sea are very vulnerable to the Iranian antiship cruise missiles. The Americans will lose their aircraft carriers as well as many other surface ships. The American pilots had better start saying their prayers, because they will need God on their side. The Iranians have the Russian TOR and S300 air defense systems, as well as updated SA2, SA3 and SA6 systems. The S300 fires 2 missiles at each attacking aircraft. Good luck to any pilot who thinks he can evade 2 missiles." -- "Bush and Cheney should not be impeached. They would be out of office by the time the impeachment is followed up. They should be tried as criminals, even after leaving office. Their lies have cost many hundreds of thousands of lives and hundreds of billions of dollars. Those who don't care one way or another about the deaths, ought to care about their patrimony. The billions burnt in those wars of aggression are your taxes at work.Bush and Cheney commandeered your government, capital, and armed forces to benefit their own companies and to further enrich themselves and their cronies."

Russian Admiral Says U.S. Navy Prepares Missile Strike on Iran
http://www.mosnews.com/news/2007/01/15/admiral.shtml
U.S. Navy nuclear submarines maintaining vigil off the coast of Iran indicate that the Pentagon's military plans include not only control over navigation in the Persian Gulf but also strikes against Iranian targets, a former commander of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, Admiral Eduard Baltin has told the Interfax news agency. “The presence of U.S. nuclear submarines in the Persian Gulf region means that the Pentagon has not abandoned plans for surprise strikes against nuclear targets in Iran. With this aim a group of multi-purpose submarines ready to accomplish the task is located in the area,” Admiral Baltin said.He made the comments after reports that a U.S. submarine collided with a Japanese tanker in the Strait of Hormuz.“American patience is not unlimited,” he said. “The submarine commanders go up to the periscope depth and forget about navigation rules and safety measures,” the admiral said. Currently there is a group of up to four submarines in the Persian Gulf area, he said. So far they only control navigation in the Persian Gulf, the Gulf of Oman, and in the Arabian Sea, he said. They might receive different orders in future: to block off the Gulf of Oman, that is the Iranian coast, and, if need be, launch missile strikes against ground targets in Iran, he said. AN INTERESTING COMMENT ON THIS TAKEN FROM HERE:
The Russian General may be familiar with the sinking of the Russian submarine "Kursk."That was done by the Extraterrestrials who have intervened into our world, because of nuclear weapons and the plans to use them.It is only speculation what the "ET" may do if a nuclear submarine attempts to launch a nuclear missile.Though for those who are in nuclear submarines, it would be smart to say good bye to your loved ones, because if a nuclear missile lid is lifted with the intent to begin WWIII, the "ET" may send you all to join the members of the crew of the "Kursk."The "ET" appear very restrained in their use of force, yet when they do use force, it is absoluely conclusive who is in charge on this planet.Our nuclear war fighting genocidal cannibal enemy Fiend class has pulled the nuclear trigger on us repeatedly over the last half of a Century.We exist only due to the intervention into our world by the still unknown high level power that we call "ET."We are the "Living Dead." Our nuclear war criminals have already killed us. This is why they don't want to talk about "ET," and why "ET" is still classified "Above Top Secret."We are the "Living Dead."This may also help to explain what Senator John Stennis was talking about when he said: "When the people find out what is really going on; 'it is going to blow the Pentagon right out of the water."

Rice: UN sanctions on Iran 'not enough'
http://tinyurl.com/yhh4lo
Talk of a military strike against Iran shows how serious it would be for the Iranians to continue down the path of nuclear development, US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in an interview with Channel 10 Sunday evening.

U.S. says it will 'go after' Iran, Syria networks in Iraq
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/813691.html
U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Monday that increased U.S. military activity in the Persian Gulf is meant to counter "very negative" behavior by Iran and undercut its belief that American forces are overcommitted in Iraq.

Iran seeks Saudi help to ease tensions with U.S.
http://tinyurl.com/yn8qce
Iran asked Saudi Arabia to help ease tensions between the Islamic Republic and the United States as Washington held out the possibility of "engagement" with Tehran if it changed tack in Iraq.

Rafsanjani calls for vigilance vis-a-vis United States
http://www.irna.ir/en/news/view/line-203/0701158741153520.htm
Expediency Council Chairman Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani said that given the US failure to achieve its goals in the region, it is seeking to embark on a new adventure to cover up its defeat and urged the need for vigilance.

Major investment bank issues warning on strike against Iran
http://tinyurl.com/ybnrd9
Warning that investors might be "in for a shock," a major investment bank has told the financial community that a preemptive strike by Israel with American backing could hit Iran's nuclear program

USS Stennis to deploy Tuesday to the Gulf region (January 13, 2007)
http://seattlepi.nwsource.com/local/6420AP_WA_Stennis_Departs.html
BREMERTON, Wash. -- The Navy's USS John C. Stennis will leave its homeport here at Naval Base Kitsap for a mission in the Gulf region as part of President Bush's order for additional U.S. forces in Iraq. The Nimitz-class carrier and approximately 3,200 sailors are scheduled to leave Tuesday, sailing first to San Diego where it will pick up its air wing. Bush earlier this week ordered 21,500 more soldiers to Iraq in order to boost troop levels in the Middle East. The Stennis and the 4th Brigade, 2nd Infantry Division, a Stryker brigade at Fort Lewis near Tacoma, were part of the call up. The 4th Brigade is scheduled to leave in April, a month earlier than planned. While in the Gulf region the Stennis will work with the USS Eisenhower Strike Group and conduct maritime security operations. It was previously in line to deploy to the Pacific, where a key concern is North Korea.The nuclear-powered carrier arrived in Bremerton in January 2005, replacing the USS Carl Vinson for an estimated 10-year stay. It is the centerpiece of the John C. Stennis Carrier Strike Group, which is commanded by Rear Adm. Kevin Quinn. Note from Jean: To have an idea of the sheer size of the nuclear armed strike force Bush is deploying at Iran's doorstep check http://www.cvn74.navy.mil/ships_and_squadrons.html - And this is in addition to the armada Bush/Cheney have already sent at indicated in my Nov 13 compilation at http://www.earthrainbownetwork.com/Archives2006/BigScoop15.htm in "War on Iran: Unleashing Armageddon in the Middle East" (...) The US and NATO countries had amassed the largest military armada in the Middle East. The US armada consists of Carrier Strike Group 12 led by nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise, Eisenhower Strike Group – another nuclear powered aircraft carrier with accompanied military vessels and submarines, Expeditionary Strike Group 5 with multiple attack vessels led by aircraft carrier USS Boxer, the Iowa Jima Expeditionary Strike Group, and the US Coast Guard. Canada has sent its anti-submarine HMCS Ottawa frigate to join the American Armada in the Persian Gulf. On October 1st the USS Enterprise Striking Group had crossed the Suez Canal to Join NATO armada at the eastern shores of the Mediterranean Sea.The NATO force is composed of troops and naval vessels from several countries and is lead by Germany. It includes Garman command naval forces, Italian navy, 2 Spanish warships, 3 Danish warships, 10 Greek Warships, 2 Netherlands warships, and French, Belgium, Turkish and Bulgarian troops in South Lebanon. This is the largest amass ever of military power in the region, and it is gathering for a reason. CLIP

US sends warplanes to Turkey's Incirlik military base
http://www.kuna.net.kw/home/Story.aspx?Language=en&DSNO=941583
According to Local Cihan News Agency, at least 16 F-16 jets joined by early warning system AWACS airplane, as well as tanker airplanes landed here at Incirlik coming from an American base in Germany. (...) Incirlik base was used as a northern recon base for American forces during the Iraqi war in 2003 and since then the base served as a logistic backup for the U.S. army. CLIP

US forces turn on Iranians
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2007/01/14/wirq114.xml
Mr Bush signed the clandestine directive after he was given new intelligence on the scale of Iranian operations to foment violence in Iraq. (...) Condoleezza Rice, the US secretary of state, revealed in an interview published yesterday that President Bush had signed the order authorising force to break Iranian networks in Iraq. She said: "I don't think there is a government in the world that would sit by and let the Iranians, in particular, run networks inside Iraq that are building explosive devices of a very high quality, that are being used to kill their soldiers." Some Democrats have accused Mr Bush of using events in Iraq as an excuse to plan military action against Iran. His spokesman, Tony Snow, denied that any "war preparations were underway", but said the president was determined to defend US forces. CLIP

Pentagon Intensifies Pressure on Iran
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011307A.shtml
Even as President Bush seeks larger numbers of troops to stabilize Iraq, the Pentagon is intensifying operations there on another front: challenging Iran over its alleged role in destabilizing its Arab neighbor. Yesterday, multinational forces including US troops detained six Iranian officials in Iraqi Kurdistan who were suspected of aiding Shiite Muslim militants in Iraq. It was the second detainment by US-led forces of Iranian officials in Iraq in less than a month.

After the surge ... what next?
http://observer.guardian.co.uk/world/story/0,,1989912,00.html
President Bush, under fire for sending 20,000 extra troops into Iraq, is now ready to target Iran for the chaos in Baghdad and beyond

Top Dem Wesley Clark Says ŒN.Y. Money People‚ Pushing War With Iran : -
http://www.forward.com/articles/top-dem-wesley-clark-says-ny-money-people-pu/
Retired general Wesley Clark drew harsh criticism this week after reportedly saying that "New York money people" are pushing America into a war against Iran.

Bush Must Go: Only Impeachment Can Stop Him
http://tinyurl.com/yzsvlh
When are the American people and their representatives in Congress and the military going to wake up and realize that the US has an insane war criminal in the White House who is destroying all chances for peace in the world and establishing a police state in the US?

Kucinich: Bush setting stage for wide war (January 10, 2007)
http://kucinich.us/node/1839
WASHINGTON, D.C – Congressman and Democratic Presidential candidate Dennis Kucinich (D-OH) issued the following statement tonight in response to President Bush's nationally televised address to the American people. "President Bush appears to be setting the stage for a wider war in the region. He has blamed Iran for attacks on America. The President is vowing to disrupt Iran. He is going to add an aircraft carrier to the shores off the coast of Iran. He has promised to give Patriot missiles to 'our friends and allies.' Isn't one war enough for this President? It is time the media and the Congress began to pay attention to this President when he talks aggressively about Iran and Syria. "It is imperative that Congress step up to its constitutional responsibility to restrain this abuse of executive authority by notifying the President that we will no longer agree to fund the war in Iraq. The supplemental budget request of up to $100 billion would enable the president not only to continue the war against Iraq through the end of his term. It would give him the resources to attack Iran, in the name of defending Iraq and the region." "In Iraq, his new plan is a plan for more door-to-door fighting, more civil war, more civilian casualties, more troop deaths, more wasted money, more destabilization in the region and more separation from the world community. The President wants to send more troops to Baghdad, where they will work to quell a civil war. Only a small portion - less than 20 percent - of the new effort will be spent in al Anbar, to fight al-Qaeda. Does anyone in this Administration have any sense left at all? They are sending more US troops into the middle of a civil war! "Congress needs to take a stand against the President and take the necessary steps to bring our troops home. We need to begin talks with Iran and Syria -- and not blame them for our misguided war in Iraq. Diplomacy is the only way to avoid a widening war. If we follow the President's path of war, we will get . . . more war." On Monday, Kucinich announced a 12-point plan to withdraw troops from Iraq, establish an international security and peacekeeping force under the auspices of the United Nations, and take steps to begin the political reconciliation process, shore up Iraq’s economy, re-start reconstruction efforts, and institute reparations for Iraqis.

The Washington War Game
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011307Z.shtml
Newsweek's Eleanor Clift writes: "Early rumblings of an anti-war movement sounded in Washington this week as several progressive groups joined forces to press the Democratic Congress to use its power of the purse to stop the latest escalation of the conflict in Iraq. Unlike their predecessors in the Vietnam era, who were often scruffy and unshaven, these activists are well within the mainstream in their appearance as well as their politics."

VIDEO | Keith Olbermann: Bush's Legacy: The President Who Cried Wolf
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011207A.shtml
Keith Olbermann writes: "Only this president - only in this time, only with this dangerous, even messianic certitude - could answer a country demanding an exit strategy from Iraq, by offering an entrance strategy for Iran. Only this president could look out over a vista of 3,008 dead and 22,834 wounded in Iraq, and finally say, 'Where mistakes have been made, the responsibility rests with me' - only to follow that by proposing to repeat the identical mistake ... in Iran."

America's Germ Warfare Capabilities developed in secret in US Corporate Labs (January 7, 2007)
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=ROS20070107&articleId=4360
The costliest, most grandiose research scheme ever attempted having germ warfare capability is going forward under President Bush and in apparent defiance of international treaties such as the Geneva Convention of 1925 that bans biological agents. And this program, involving some of the world's deadliest and most loathsome pathogens, many of which could trigger plagues and epidemics, is being conducted largely in secret without adequate oversight and in flagrant contempt of NIH's own rules. (...) In such labs, scientists can create new strains of disease for which those attacked would have no ready defense. Such weapons, once loosed, are notoriously difficult to control, and could ignite epidemics to sicken and terrify civilian populations.Hammond believes there are about 400 bioweapons agents labs across the U.S., some of which encounter unexpected difficulty when they try to comply with the law. (...) Lack of transparency is cause for concern if only because of the history of secret CIA and Pentagon experiments in germ warfare that used the American people as guinea pigs. In “ Rogue State,” (Common Courage Press) reporter William Blum noted those agencies over two decades “conducted tests in the open air in the United States, exposing millions of Americans to large clouds of possibly dangerous bacteria and chemical particles.”Between 1949 and 1969, the Army tested the spread of dangerous chemical and bacterial organisms over 239 U.S. populated areas including San Francisco , New York and Chicago with no warnings to the public or regard for the health consequences, Blum wrote. The Pentagon even sprayed navy warships to test the impact of germ warfare on U.S. sailors. Even deadlier cocktails were secretly provided to dictator Saddam Hussein for his war of aggression against Iran. (...) Because of their comparative cheapness to manufacture, biological weapons have been dubbed "the poor man's nuclear bomb." Yet their potential may be even deadlier. Jeremy Rifkin, author of "The Biotech Century"(Penguin), noted a government study in 1993 found "the release of just 200 pounds of anthrax spores from a plane over Washington DC could kill as many as three-million people."The secret operations of the labs' would be less ominous if the Bush administration hadn't led the fight to demolish the international inspection system. CLIP

Chavez and Iran unveil "anti-US" fund - By Al Jazeera
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/FBBF5028-87F2-4FD5-A411-BF01B23FCBF9.htm
The presidents of Iran and Venezuela have agreed to spend billions of dollars to help other countries free themselves from what they describe as US domination.

VIDEO | Peace Activists Disrupt Democrats in Washington
By Geoffrey Millard, Arin Williams, and Scott Galindez
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/010907A.shtml
On January 3rd, the day before the opening of the new Congress, a group of peace activists led by Cindy Sheehan walked the halls of Congress. In their journeys they happened upon a press conference being led by Congressman Rahm Emanuel (D-Ill.) and began chanting "investigate, de-escalate, troops home now!" Emanuel made repeated attempts to continue the press conference but finally retreated to the caucus room, vowing to return later in the day.

Uranium 'killing Italian troops' (Jan 10, 2007)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/6247401.stm
Italian soldiers are still dying following exposure to depleted uranium in the wars in Bosnia and Kosovo, their relatives say. Troops who served during the wars in the 1990s believe they have contracted cancer and other serious illnesses from extended exposure to the munitions. The US says it fired around 40,000 depleted uranium rounds during the Bosnian and Kosovo conflicts.A pressure group says 50 veterans have died and another 200 are seriously ill.Depleted uranium is used on the tips of bullets and shells. Because of its density it can pierce the armour plating on tanks. But when it explodes it often leaves a footprint of chemically poisonous and radioactive dust.The Italians who served in Bosnia and Kosovo were involved in the clear-up of battlefields and came into close contact with exploded ammunition. CLIP

Pentagon Sees Move in Somalia as Blueprint
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011307Y.shtml
Military operations in Somalia by American commandos to root out operatives for al Qaeda in the country are a blueprint that Pentagon strategists say they hope to use more frequently in counterterrorism missions around the globe. Some critics of the Pentagon's aggressive use of Special Operations troops have argued that using American forces outside of declared combat zones gives the Pentagon too much authority in sovereign nations and blurs the lines between soldiers and spies.

Instead of "al-Qaeda," U.S. Kills Nomads in Somalia
http://kurtnimmo.com/?p=719
As usual, it takes a few days for the truth to emerge, not that the corporate media here in America notices.

Somalia and Ethiopia to be Unified?
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=20070112&articleId=4438
What the mainstream media fails to report about is the U.S.-backed Somali government's attempts at merging Somalia and Ethiopia with unified borders, a single currency, joint management, a single passport, and a joint military force.

UN Child Sex Slave Scandals Continue (January 3, 2007)
http://www.infowars.net/articles/january2007/030107UN_Sex.htm
Wave after wave of child abuse reports pour forward from all over the globe - The UN is to investigate itself again after it was revealed by the London Telegraph today that more than twenty different cases of child sex slavery involving UN staff have been reported in southern Sudan. The Telegraph reports that it has learned of dozens of victims’ accounts claiming that some peacekeeping and civilian staff based in the town are regularly picking up young children in their UN vehicles and forcing them to have sex. The Telegraph states that it is thought that hundreds of children may have been abused. The UN has up to 10,000 military personnel in the region, of all nationalities and the allegations involve peacekeepers, military police and civilian staff. The Telegraph also states that the Sudanese government, which is deeply opposed to the deployment of UN troops to Darfur, has evidence of child sex slavery, including video footage of Bangladeshi UN workers allegedly having sex with three young girls. Stating that such events are ultimately the work of "a few bad apples", a UN spokesperson promised that they will be thoroughly investigated.Over the past few years, however, there seems to have been a hell of a lot of rotting fruit in the UN barrel. CLIP

Study: 744,000 Are Homeless in US
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011107P.shtml
There were 744,000 homeless people in the United States in 2005, according to the first national estimate in a decade. A little more than half were living in shelters, and nearly a quarter were chronically homeless, according to the report Wednesday by the National Alliance to End Homelessness.

Bush Administration "Aggressively" Expanding Domestic Spying
http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/011407A.shtml
The Pentagon has been using a little-known power to obtain banking and credit records of hundreds of Americans and others suspected of terrorism or espionage inside the United States, part of an aggressive expansion by the military into domestic intelligence gathering. The CIA has also been issuing what are known as national security letters to gain access to financial records from American companies, though it has done so only rarely, intelligence officials say.

ARMY ESTABLISHES PSYOPS BRANCH
Effective 16 October 2006, Psychological Operations was established as a basic branch of the Army, pursuant to the authority of Section 3063(a)(13), Title 10, United States Code."That is the substance of General Order 30 issued by Secretary of the Army Francis J. Harvey on January 12, 2007. See at http://www.fas.org/irp/doddir/army/go30.pdf - According to the Department of Defense Dictionary (JP 1-02), psychological operations are defined as "planned operations to convey selected information and indicators to foreign audiences to influence their emotions, motives, objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of foreign governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of psychological operations is to induce or reinforce foreign attitudes and behavior favorable to the originator's objectives. Also called PSYOP."* Welcome to 21st Century "PSI-WAR"! Forwarded by "Irene Haughey" (reenie@sti.net)

Bush The Empire Slayer (01/15/07)
http://tinyurl.com/28jml8
(...) In January of 2001, George W. Bush took˜er, grabbed˜the reins of an American Empire at its zenith. He will soon hand back a smoldering wreckage of broken lives, enduring hatred, and vanished influence. Michael Ignatieff has called Pax Americana Empire Lite. (2) A better phrase would be Empire Short-Lived, or, if you're William F. Buckley Jr and the vernacular ruffles your literary feathers, Imperium Brevissimum. At a recent ceremony for his son Jeb, George H. W. Bush was caught on national television sobbing uncontrollably. Pity the man who stands one short letter away from the worst president in US history. The letter is H, as in H for hubris. (...) The words Abu Ghraib, Guantánamo, detainee bill, and extraordinary rendition are seared in the world's consciousness as the badges of shame of a democracy gone mad. According to Pew's most recent „Global Opinion‰ survey, „anti-Americanism is deeper and broader now than at any time in modern history.‰ (7) The war effort's claim on the US treasury will soon exceed $600 billion: more than Vietnam; (4) more than all the money ever spent on cancer research; (8) more than enough to "race for the cure" all the way to Alpha Centauri. We're wosing big, Mr President. Historians will ponder how one gangly caveman and nineteen scrawny associates turned America into the land of the kind-of-free (53rd freest press in the world, tied with Botswana (9)) and the home of the petrified. The sons and daughters of the nation that stood up to Hitler and Tojo now file through airport security barefoot, much as they would walk, shoeless, into a mosque˜a mosque, they pray, empty of Muslims. CLIP

Nazis rode to war on GM wheels (January 7, 2007)
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/01/07/INGPHNCLHH1.DTL
In the late spring of 1933, concentration camps such as Dachau were generating headlines reporting great brutality. Nonetheless, GM and Germany began a strategic business relationship. General Motors World, the company house organ, covered [a 1934] May Day event glowingly in a several-page cover story, stressing Hitler's boundless affinity for children. The next day, May 2, 1934, after practicing his sieg heil in front of a mirror, [President of GM Overseas Corp. James] Mooney ... went to meet Hitler. As Mooney traversed the long approach to Hitler's desk, he began to pump his arm in a stern-faced sieg heil. This was ... one of many contacts between the Nazis and GM officials that are spotlighted in thousands of pages of little-known and restricted Nazi-era and New Deal-era documents. The biggest automotive manufacturer in Germany -- indeed in all of Europe -- was General Motors, which since 1929 had owned! and operated the longtime German company Opel. A few weeks after the [Hitler meeting], General Motors World effusively recounted ... "Hitler is a strong man, well fitted to lead the German people. He is leading them, not by force or fear, but by intelligent planning." In 1937, almost 17 percent of Opel's Blitz trucks were sold directly to the Nazi military. That military sales figure was increased to 29 percent in 1938. In 1938, just months after the Nazi annexation of Austria, Mooney, head of GM's overseas operations, received the German Eagle with Cross, the highest medal Hitler awarded to foreign commercial collaborators and supporters.

White House pact cloaked visits amid scandal (January 5, 2007)
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16491370
The White House and the Secret Service quietly signed an agreement last spring in the midst of the Jack Abramoff lobbying scandal declaring that records identifying visitors to the White House are not open to the public. The Bush administration didn't reveal the existence of the memorandum of understanding until last fall. The White House is using it to deal with ... a ruling by a federal judge ordering the production of Secret Service logs identifying visitors to the office of Vice President Dick Cheney. The five-page document dated May 17 declares that all entry and exit data on White House visitors belongs to the White House as presidential records rather than to the Secret Service as agency records. Therefore, the agreement states, the material is not subject to public disclosure under the Freedom of Information Act. In the past, Secret Service logs have revealed the comings and goings of various White House visitors, including Monica Lewinsky and Clinton campaign donor Denise Rich, the wife of fugitive financier Marc Rich. The memo last spring was signed by the White House and Secret Service the day after a Washington-based group asked a federal judge to impose sanctions on the Secret Service in a dispute over White House visitor logs for Abramoff. "It appears the White House is actually manufacturing evidence to further its own agenda," Anne Weismann, a Justice Department lawyer for 19 years. Secret Service records played a significant role in the Whitewater scandal in the 1990s, supplying congressional Republicans with leads to follow in their investigations of the Clintons.

New WTC Complex Photos Highlight Bizarre Building 7 Collapse
http://www.infowars.com/articles/sept11/new_wtc_photos_highlight_bizzare_7_collapse.htm

Montessori, Now 100, Goes Mainstream (January 2, 2007)
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/01/01/AR2007010100742.html
More than 5,000 Montessori schools are spread across the United States. Once considered a maverick experiment that appealed only to middle-class white families in the States, Montessori schools have become popular with some black professionals and are getting results in low-income public schools. The stubborn Italian physician and her contemporary, U.S. philosopher and psychologist John Dewey -- who believed that learning should be active -- are considered perhaps the most influential progressive thinkers in the modern history of education. Maria Montessori ... was a pioneering doctor in Italy. She gained international notice when the severely learning-disabled students she worked with passed educational tests designed for non-disabled children. The private Henson Valley Montessori School in Temple Hills has grown 50 percent over the past decade. On a recent day at Henson Valley, children were putting together map puzzles, blowing seeds in the air to demonstrate plant dispersion and planning the construction of a space station. "They are learning how to learn," said Stephanie Carr, a federal government manager who has three children at the school. Despite the free-form nature of lessons, "they get very good test scores," Carr said. "My children are testing above grade level." The psychologist Lillard was at first skeptical of Montessori's ideas when she started her research 20 years ago. But she found that a strong body of evidence in developmental psychology supports Montessori's major conclusions -- among them ... that the best learning is active. "If schooling were evidence-based," Lillard wrote, "I think all schools would look a lot more like Montessori schools." Taken from Fred Burks News summaries at http://www.WantToKnow.info/070112newsarticles

Record Temperatures Across Himalayans Spark Climate Change Fears
http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Record_Temperatures_Across_Himalayans_Spark_Climate_Change_Fears_999.html
Beijing (AFP) Jan 07, 2007 - Temperatures in rugged Tibet have hit record highs in recent days, China's state press said Sunday, as a scientific survey warned of the impact of global warming in the Himalayan region. Friday's temperature in the Qamdo area of eastern Tibet was 21.8 degrees Celsius (71 degrees Fahrenheit), 1.7 degrees higher than the previous record set for the same day in 1996, Xinhua news agency reported.In Dengqen county, also in eastern Tibet, the mercury reached 16.6 degrees Celsius on Thursday, 2.5 degrees higher than the previous record for the same day set in 2001, it said. Eight other places across the region also recorded record-breaking daily temperatures over the past few days, it added. Meteorological data in the Himalayan region began to be collected in 1970. China's Tibet plateau, seen as a barometer of world climate conditions, is experiencing accelerating glacial melt and other ecological change, the leading People's Daily reported Friday. The mountainous region's glaciers have been melting at an average rate of 131.4 square kilometers (50 square miles) per year over the past 30 years, the paper said, citing a recent geological study. CLIP

How Richest Fuel Global Warming - but Poorest Suffer Most from It (Jan 9, 2007)
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines07/0109-05.htm
By the end of tomorrow the average Briton will have caused as much global warning as the typical Kenyan will over the whole of this year, according to a report. The findings highlight the glaring imbalance between the rich countries that produce most of the pollution and the poor countries that suffer the consequences in the forms of drought, floods, starvation and disease.The World Development Movement (WDM), a poverty campaign group, has drawn up a "climate calendar" showing the dates when the UK will have emitted as much CO2 gas as other countries will in a year.Unsurprisingly, the poorest counties such as Chad, Afghanistan and the Democratic Republic of Congo produce virtually no carbon emissions. Even populous countries such as India will be overtaken in its emissions by the UK in a month's time. In fact, 164 countries in the world have a smaller carbon footprint than the UK, while just 20, mainly including the major oil producers as well as the US, have a larger one. By the end of tomorrow the average Briton will have produced 0.26 tonnes of CO2 emissions. "The poorest countries in the world, with 738 million people, make no contribution to climate change, but it is those same people who face the worst consequences," Benedict Southworth, WDM's director, said. " One hundred and sixty thousand people are already dying every year due to climate change- related diseases and billions will face drought, floods, starvation and disease." CLIP

Beneath the waves, a crisis is building (Jan 7, 2007)
http://www.news-journalonline.com/NewsJournalOnline/News/Enviro/envHEAD01010707.htm
When marine scientist John Reed began exploring the ocean floor off Cape Canaveral in 1975, he found towers of coral thousands of years old, teeming with grouper and black sea bass. Returning to the spot 25 years later, the treasures that once amazed Reed were gone. In their place? Fields of rubble. Today, though parts of the Oculina coral reefs between Daytona Beach and Fort Pierce have been protected for 20 years, much has been obliterated. And the destructive bottom trawling for shrimp and fish that's blamed for the damage still may happen on some areas of the reef. "There's basically no federal restriction, even in this day and age, prohibiting a bottom trawler from rolling over a healthy reef and it's just ludicrous," said Reed, a senior scientist at Harbor Branch Oceanographic Institution in Fort Pierce. "It's like saying, 'Oh, you can go clearcut a redwood forest.' " In one pass, a heavy trawl may destroy delicate corals hundreds of years old, leaving thousands of tiny animals like shrimp and worms homeless and ruining the chance of successful fishing there anytime soon. Such trawling may be trashing coral reefs worldwide, just one example of a host of ailments plaguing the world's oceans. Gleaming beauty and salty breezes still lure those who would swim, sail and fish, but the ocean's ancient image as an everlasting resource is an illusion. "The oceans are not the pristine place people think they are," said Peter Anderson, director of Whitney Lab at Marineland. "It's staggering what we've done. For generations now we thought the oceans were a bottomless pit and they're not." CLIP

Omega-News Collection 13. January 2007
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/3179328/

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1.

From: "Kathleen Beatty" (akavibe@hotmail.com)
Subject: Feedback--Positive!
Date: 14 Jan 2007

Dear Jean,

This is my delayed response to your request for feedback on your 2006 compilations. I agree with other readers that you, yourself, are the most inspiring and influential aspect of the compilations. Your vision and connection to the Light and Love infuse each compilation, and especially each Meditation Focus. You are a gift to all of us.

As you have probably gathered from my emails to you, my personal struggle between despair, and my knowledge and many experiences of the Light and Love has been a difficult one, and centered on my connection to our Earth and our animal brothers and sisters. Around Halloween of last year (2006), I very nearly succumbed to the despair. I intuit, in retrospect, that the dark side pulled out all stops at that time--time is running out for them, and they are getting desperate, and that time of year I believe is a key one for their cruel and nefarious rituals.

In your Meditation Focus 161 you included an article, "The Global Awakening to Our Kinship with Animals," which was like food for a starving person to me. This Meditation Focus was in November. In early December there was such a powerful wave/outpouring of the energies of Light and Love to/through our Earth that I finally broke through to the Truth that underpins so much of your compilations: that what we focus on, we create; and I understood that by being a sort of tuning fork, quivering with the pain of the animals, who are treated so cruelly by so many humans, and the pain of our Earth herself, who is being raped and mutilated--that by attuning to these energies, I was strengthening them, and spiritually destroying myself.

Somehow I had felt that if I stopped sharing the suffering of the animals, I would be turning my back on them. But I see now that the most loving way of life to help all the other beings who are forced to share our Earth with our ignorant and often cruel species is to choose to live in the Light and Love, to strengthen those energies, and thus to help the Ascension, Transition, Shift to occur for all those so attuned--all the animals will make it, for sure! And forgiveness of my own species is a part of this also.

There is a saying that the truth of a spiritual awakening is determined by whether it endures, and this one is enduring. My experience has been that, as many of the channeled messages you include say, there is much spiritual help ready for us when we ask for it. I especially respond to the messages from The Tree of Golden Light, and Matthew's.

I am intending this to be a thank-you email to you, Jean. I have been praying for the healing of your (large and giving) heart.

Peace, Kathleen

God is a circle whose center is everywhere and whose circumference is nowhere.

"There is no anti-depressant that will cure a depression that's spiritually based, for the malaise doesn't originate from brain dysfunction, but from an accurate response to the desecration of life."

— David R. Hawkins, Power Vs. Force

There is ALWAYS hope.

— Aragorn

All shall be well
And all shall be well
And all manner of things shall be well.

— Julian of Norwich

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AND MY REPLY WAS:

Dear Kathleen

Thank you VERY much for writing up this wonderful, profound and inspiring letter now included in my next compilation.

I was especially happy to read that you've succeeded in breaking through despair into personal empowerment as to what is the BEST way to help heal planet Earth and rise to BE all that You Are as a Divine soul. This will be an inspiration to MANY!

By accessing to your inner spiritual Strength and infinite Power for Good, you already are influencing thousands to surge ahead in their own Self-discovery as are all those following a similar Path of Awakening to the Radiant Being of Love and Light they truly are.

With Love and gratitude

Jean

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2.

Recommended by "Stephanie Sutton" (ssutton@flantech.com)

From: http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/node/17230

Land of Enchantment and Impeachment

2007-01-12

By David Swanson

There is a decent chance that within the next month or two the New Mexico State Legislature will ask the U.S. House of Representatives to begin impeachment proceedings against President Bush and Vice President Cheney. And there is the definite possibility that a Congress Member from New Mexico will take up the matter when it gets to Washington. The Jefferson Manual, rules used by the U.S. House, allows for impeachment to be begun in this manner. It only takes one state legislature. No governor is needed. One Congress Member, from the same state or any other, is needed to essentially acknowledge receipt of the state's petition. Then impeachment begins.

Last year the state legislatures of California, Minnesota, Illinois, and Vermont introduced but did not pass resolutions to send impeachment to the U.S. House. The State Senator who introduced the bill in Minnesota is now a member of Congress, Keith Ellison. He is one of many Congress Members waiting for the right moment to impeach Bush and Cheney. The state of New Jersey has a strong activist movement working to introduce and pass impeachment this year. There's a race now to see which state can do it first, which state can redeem these United States in the eyes of the world. New Mexico is jumping into the contest in a big way, with a terrific leading sponsor of the bill, strong Democatic majorities in both houses, and a citizens' movement ready to hold its government to account.

Of course, it is cities, not states, that have really taken the lead on impeachment, as on ending the war. Dozens of cities have already passed resolutions for impeachment. Dozens more have introduced them, and they are pending. [http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/resourcecenter] A handful have introduced them and voted them down. On March 6th about 100 towns in Vermont will vote at public meetings for impeachment. But by March 6th, impeachment may already be underway.

There is a conflict brewing between Congress and the White House over the war and over the division of powers created by the U.S. Constitution and eliminated by this administration. If Bush attacks Iran and/or Syria without approval from Congress, or escalates the war in Iraq without approval from Congress, we may finally see Congress fight back. This President has rendered Congress almost meaningless. He reverses laws with "signing statements." He disregards laws at his whim, openly bragging about doing so. And he makes many operations secret, hidden even from Congress, refusing requests for information, including those filed under the Freedom of Information Act. When this President does communicate with Congress, he often provides false or misleading information, most notably in making the case for the current war.

Vice President Cheney has already said that he will likely refuse to appear before Congress if subpoenaed. The White House will likely refuse subpoenas of any sort, and openly professes to believe the President is a "unitary executive." White House spokesperson Tony Snow said on January 8th:

"The President has the ability to exercise his own authority if he thinks Congress has voted the wrong way."

Americans voted in November for Congress to stand up to this assault on our democracy. We voted against the war, but we even voted out Republicans who were opposing the war. We threw out candidates who allowed Bush to campaign for them, and left in office those who refused.

While it is public knowledge that Bush launched the opening stages of the Iraq War in secret, without Congress's approval or awareness, illegally using funds appropriated for Afghanistan and elsewhere, it has not always been as clear as it is at this moment that Bush will not end the war even if required by Congress to do so. Growing awareness of this fact is leading the peace movement to join the impeachment movement.

Daniel Ellsberg, who released the Pentagon Papers so many years ago, recently argued that it was only the pressure of the peace movement that allowed the impeachment of President Nixon to proceed, and that it was only the exposures and threat of impeachment that persuaded Nixon not to veto the bill that finally cut off the funding for the Vietnam War. As Congress exposes the crimes of Bush and Cheney to public view, it will move us closer to impeachment. As Congress Members begin to object to their powerless role of court jesters, they will move us closer to impeachment and also to bringing our troops home.

We should be encouraging our Congress Members to proceed immediately with key investigations [http://www.afterdowningstreet.org/investigations] and to not be afraid to use subpoenas. We should also be encouraging state legislators in our own and other states who take up the cause of democracy. We need them to do so from their positions as elected officials closer to the people and further from the big dollars.

In New Mexico, a leading light of that state's politics, State Senator Gerald Ortiz y Pino of Albuquerque, will be leading the way on impeachment. He deserves the support of all the world, and you can thank him at jortizyp@aol.com or 505-986-4380. Let's help him make New Mexico the land of enchantment and impeachment.

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3.

From: http://www.alternet.org/bloggers/lando/46429/

100,000 mercenaries, the forgotten "Surge"

January 8, 2007

Barry Lando: Nobody's got it right on the number already there...

What is striking about the current debate in Washington - whether to "surge" troops to Iraq and increase the size of the U.S. Army - is that roughly 100,000 bodies are missing from the equation: The number of American forces in Iraq is not 140,000, but more like 240,000.

What makes up the difference is the huge army of mercenaries - known these days as "private contractors." After the U.S. Army itself, they are easily the second-largest military force in the country. Yet no one seems sure of how many there are since they answer to no single authority. Indeed, the U.S. Central Command has only recently started taking a census of these battlefield civilians in an attempt to get a handle on the issue...

The private contractors are Americans, South Africans, Brits, Iraqis and a hodgepodge of other nationalities. Many of them are veterans of the U.S. or other armed forces and intelligence services, who are now deployed in Iraq (and Afghanistan and other countries) to perform duties normally carried out by the U.S. Army, but at salaries two or three times greater than those of American soldiers.

They work as interrogators and interpreters in American prisons; body guards for top U.S. and Iraqi officials; trainers for the Iraqi army and police; and engineers constructing huge new U.S. bases. They are often on the front lines. In fact, 650 of them have been killed in Iraq since the 2003 invasion

Their salaries, are, in the end, paid directly by the U.S. government - or tacked on as huge additional "security charges" to the bills of private American or other contractors. Yet the Central Command still doesn't have a complete list of who they are or what they are up to. The final figure could be much higher than 100,000. The U.S. Congress, under Republican control until now, knows even less.

Yet these private contractors man their own helicopters and Humvees and look and act just like American troops.

"It takes a great deal of vigilance on the part of the military commander to en-sure contractor compliance," William L. Nash, a retired general, told the Washington Post. "If you're trying to win hearts and minds and the contractor is driving 90 miles per hour through the streets and running over kids, that's not helping the image of the American army. The Iraqis aren't going to distinguish between a contractor and a soldier."

But who, in the end, do these contractors answer to? The U.S. Central Command? Their company boss? Or the official they've been assigned to protect?

A recent case in point: The former Iraqi minister of electricity, who had been imprisoned on corruption charges, managed to escape in broad daylight in the heavily fortified Green Zone. Iraqi officials claim he was spirited away by con-tractors from a private security detail that had been hired when he was minister.

Which raises another question. Who has jurisdiction over these private contractors if they run afoul of the law in Iraq? Also, are they supposed to follow the Geneva Conventions? Or George W. Bush's conventions?
For instance, according to The New York Times, although 20 civilian contractors working in U.S. prisons in Afghanistan and Iraq - including Abu Ghraib - have been charged with mistreating prisoners, none has ever been successfully prosecuted.

Another point, which brings us back to the discussion about increasing American troop levels in Iraq: It would seem that the Pentagon could outsource a "surge" by a simple accounting sleight of hand, quietly contracting for another 10,000 or 20,000 mercenaries to do the job, and the Congress and press would be none the wiser.

Barry Lando, a former 60 Minutes producer, is the author of "Web of Deceit: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush." He also blogs at Barrylando.com

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4.

Forwarded by "Nadia McLaren" (nadia@uia.be)

From: http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=viewArticle&code=JAM20070109&articleId=4395

Terrified Soldiers Terrifying People

Dahr Jamail and Ali al-Fadhily

FALLUJAH, Jan. 8 (IPS) - Ten-year-old Yassir aimed a plastic gun at a passing U.S. armoured patrol in Fallujah, and shouted "Bang! Bang!"

Yassir did not know what was coming. "I yelled for everyone to run, because the Americans were turning back," 12-year-old Ahmed who was with Yassir told IPS.

The soldiers followed Yassir to his house and smashed almost everything in it. "They did this after beating Yassir and his uncle hard, and they spoke the nastiest words," Ahmed said.

It is not just the children, or the people of Fallujah who are frightened.

"Those soldiers are terrified here," Dr. Salim al-Dyni, a psychotherapist visiting Fallujah told IPS. Dr Dyni said he had seen professional reports of psychologically disturbed soldiers "while serving in hot areas, and Fallujah is the hottest and most terrifying for them."

Dr. Dyni said disturbed soldiers were behind the worst atrocities. "Most murders committed by U.S. soldiers resulted from the soldiers' fears."

Local Iraqi police estimate that at least five attacks are being carried out against U.S. troops in Fallujah each day, and about as many against Iraqi government security forces. The city in the restive al-Anabar province to the west of Baghdad has been under some form of siege since April 2004.

That has meant punishment for the people. "American officers asked me a hundred times how the fighters obtain weapons," a 35-year-old resident who was detained together with dozens of others during a U.S. military raid at their houses in the Muallimin Quarter last month told IPS.

"They (American soldiers) called me the worst of names that I could understand, and many that I could not. I heard younger detainees screaming under torture repeating 'I do not know, I do not know', apparently replying to the same question I was asked."

U.S. soldiers have been reacting wildly to attacks on them.

Several areas of Fallujah recently went without electricity for two weeks after U.S. soldiers attacked the power station following a sniper attack.

Thubbat, Muhandiseen, Muallimeen, Jughaifi and most western parts of the city were affected. "They are punishing civilians for their failure to protect themselves," a resident of Thubbat quarter told IPS. "I defy them to capture a single sniper who kills their soldiers."

Many of those killed in the ongoing violence are civilians. The biggest local complaint is that U.S. forces attack civilians at random in revenge for colleagues killed in attacks by the resistance.

More than 5,000 civilians killed by U.S. soldiers have been buried in Fallujah cemeteries and mass graves dug on the outskirts of the city, according to the Study Centre for Human Rights and Democracy, a non-governmental organisation based in Fallujah.

"At least half the deceased are women, children and elderly people," group co-director Mohamad Tareq al-Deraji told IPS.

Overstretched U.S. soldiers appear to be punishing civilians while suffering from some form of post-traumatic stress disorder. IPS reported Jan. 3 that new guidelines released by the Pentagon last month allow commanders now to re-deploy soldiers suffering from such disorders.

According to the U.S. military newspaper Stars and Stripes, service members with "a psychiatric disorder in remission, or whose residual symptoms do not impair duty performance" may be considered for duty downrange. It lists post-traumatic stress disorder as a "treatable" problem.

Steve Robinson, director of Veterans Affairs for Veterans for America told IPS correspondent Aaron Glantz that "as a layman and a former soldier I think that's ridiculous."

"If I've got a soldier who's on Ambien to go to sleep and Seroquel and Qanapin and all kinds of other psychotropic meds, I don't want them to have a weapon in their hand and to be part of my team because they're a risk to themselves and to others," he said. "But apparently, the military has its own view of how well a soldier can function under those conditions, and is gambling that they can be successful."

(Ali al-Fadhily is our Baghdad correspondent. Dahr Jamail is our specialist writer who has spent eight months reporting from inside Iraq and has been covering the Middle East for several years.)

This and all "other news" issues can be found at http://other-news.info/index.php

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5.

From: http://kucinich.us/node/1839

The long view

Submitted by Peace Activist on January 11, 2007 (One of the numerous comments posted there)

The stated goals of this Administration are never-ending war; their desire is world domination, eventually via the militarization of space. Iran, Syria -- the Administration has for six years declared them our enemies. And now we are bombing Somalia, a geographically strategic spot to set up another U.S. military base and to control the oil reserves there (guerrilla warfare is promised by Somali's when the U.S. invades on the ground).

This administration is beholden only to (a)corporations who profit from U.S. military adventures and (b)"Project for a New American Century"-type ideologues. How many U.S. troops and non-Christian "collateral" are killed is irrelevant to them.

Bush and Cheney have committed numerous treasonous acts--committing tax dollars and our military for corporate gain and secret imperialistic goals, while leaving the homeland vulnerable to terrorist attacks and hurricanes and inducing through various measures a widening economic disparity, environmental degradation, incredible fiscal deficit, and hatred by the international community. Bush and Cheney (and Rice and Rumsfeld, etc.) have committed high crimes--preemptive war, targeted assassinations, and torture, resulting in the deaths of surely over a million innocent civilians.

The only correction for these black years in our history (and the world's!) is investigation of impeachable offenses to (a.)reveal to the American public truths that have been covered over with a web of lies, (b.)to remove Bush and Cheney from power--even if for only six months, having Senator Byrd (or Representative Pelosi?) presiding over this country would make welcome history for America AND the rest of the world, (c.)to finally set precedent for any future administration that dictatorial acts will be prosecuted, and (d.)to begin demonstrating to the world that our democracy is intact and that the people of the USA vehemently disapprove of what has been done in their name by Bush/Cheney/et al.

THIS (impeachment) is the ethical action! Ever more important than the current strategy of the Democratic Party--to retain power through symbolic favors to sections of the voting public. Dennis, if you were to lead the way for impeachment, I believe that investigations in the Senate could reveal so much that Americans would consider you their rightful hero, come November 2008.

Do not believe a word of President Bush's speech. Our military bases in Iraq and Afghanistan and the world's largest "embassy" are in Iraq to stay, along with thousands of Americans manning them. Thirty-year contracts for oil drilling are in the process of being awarded to U.S. and British companies. And all the talk about Iran's nuclear whatever are a smoke-screen for the U.S.' lust for Iranian oil; there is currently an economic game being played on Iran, with the U.S. coercing international banks and oil companies to pull out of Iran.

And on and on it will go--the Bush administration's imperialistic wars / meddling and favoring of U.S. corporations over human rights and true U.S. interests are widespread (Haiti, Cuba, Latin America, Israel/Lebanon/Palestine). Dennis, we cannot withstand TWO MORE YEARS of this evil and destruction. Bush and Cheney are traitors to America; please initiate articles of impeachment regardless of how the media initially portrays it. I think you will be pleasantly surprised at the reception of the majority of Americans!!!

FOR Peace, more than anti-war, trying to BE the change that I want to see in the world.

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6.

Forwarded by Curtis Lang (curtis.lang@verizon.net)

From: http://www.worldpress.org/Mideast/2636.cfm

Fatah Moves Toward Coup Against Hamas

Emma Clancy - Green Left Weekly - New South Wales, Australia

January 15, 2007

Loyal supporters of the secular Fatah movement hold up the yellow party flag and their national flag as they rally to mark the 42nd anniversary of the founding of the movement on Jan. 10. (Photo: Jaafar Ashtiyeh / AFP-Getty Images)

More than 30 Palestinians have been killed in the past month in violence between Fatah and Hamas that flared up after Fatah-aligned President Mahmoud Abbas called on Dec. 17 for new presidential and legislative elections. Hundreds more have been wounded in the violence, which intensified in the Gaza Strip late last year and has now spread to the West Bank.

The bitter factional struggle is a result of the ongoing international aid embargo on the Hamas-led Palestinian Authority, which has been cynically exploited by Fatah in an attempt to reassert its traditional dominance. Hamas won 75 seats in the 132-seat Palestinian Legislative Council in elections in January last year, with Fatah winning only 47. Hamas described Abbas's decision to call new elections as illegal, and as a coup attempt against the elected representatives of the Palestinian people.

At a Jan. 8 press conference, Hamas spokesperson Fouzi Barhoum reported that in the past month there had been 70 cases of attacks against Hamas leaders, buildings and establishments, including the parliament building and Prime Minister Ismail Haniya's office.

Hamas militants assassinated senior Palestinian Preventive Security Service officer Muhammed Gharib at his home in Gaza on Jan. 4, killing two other gunmen in the same raid. Israeli news service Ynet News reported on Jan. 4 that Hamas said it raided Gharib's house "after he and the other gunmen who had taken refuge in the house and opened fire at Hamas security forces earlier in the day, killing one."

In the West Bank, Fatah released the Hamas-aligned deputy mayor of Nablus, Mahdi Hamdali, on Jan. 8, having kidnapped him and held him for two days. Fatah militants targeted the shops of Hamas supporters with firebombs overnight on Jan. 7, deliberately attacking civilian targets for the first time.
Abbas Bans the Executive Force

On Jan. 7, tens of thousands of Palestinians attended a rally in Gaza City marking the 42nd anniversary of the formation of Fatah, in the largest pro-Fatah demonstration seen in Gaza since 1994. Speaking at the rally, Abbas said he intended to proceed with early elections and declared Hamas's Executive Force, established by Palestinian Authority Interior Minister Said Siam, to be an illegal organization.

Senior Fatah leader Mohammed Dahlan — reviled by Hamas and other Palestinian groups for his role of collaborating with Israel security forces and the C.I.A. in attempting to crush the armed resistance to the occupation throughout the 1990's as head of the Preventive Security Service — labeled Hamas "murderers and thieves" at the rally, and warned that Hamas leaders would not be safe from attack.

On Jan. 8, Abbas passed a decree that the Executive Force be disbanded. As president, Abbas is in command of most of the 45,000-strong security apparatus in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and he views the Executive Force, which comprises 5,000-6,000 well-trained fighters, as a serious threat as it is outside of his control.

For months, the United States has been negotiating with Abbas to strengthen his own elite paramilitary force of 3,700, the Presidential Guard, and the Bush administration is asking Congress for $86 million in aid that would be specifically earmarked for the force. The New York Times reported on Jan. 5: "The aid, mostly training and supplies, according to an American document obtained by Reuters, is intended to 'dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism and establish law and order in the West Bank and Gaza.' "

In response, Hamas issued a statement from Gaza saying this is part of "a campaign of incitement that began in the U.S. State Department," and the Interior Ministry announced it would be doubling the Executive Force to 12,000 fighters, and that any attempt to physically disband the group would be met with force.
U.S.-Backed Coup

In a Dec. 19 Electronic Intifada article, Jonathan Cook wrote, "Palestine is in ferment because ordinary Palestinians are torn between their democratic wish to see Israeli occupation resisted — in free elections they showed they believed Hamas the best party to realize that goal — and the basic need to put food on the table for their families. The combined Israeli and international economic siege of the Hamas government, and the Palestinian population, has made a bitter internal struggle for control of resources inevitable."

By imposing a brutal siege on the  Palestinian Authority, which has brought Gaza's 1.4 million residents to the brink of starvation, Israel and the Western imperialist countries have created a humanitarian catastrophe — and strengthened Fatah financially and politically by only dealing with the presidential office in place of the  Palestinian Authority. In a period of dire food crisis, money can buy political loyalty, and Hamas's inability to pay the salaries of the Palestinian Authority's 175,000 civil servants was a major point for Fatah to exploit in order to gain support.

The latest escalation in the conflict by Fatah, in calling for new elections and banning the Executive Force, comes as the Palestinian population are becoming increasingly desperate — and, significantly, as Haniya was making some important gains in overcoming the Western embargo and procuring funds for the  Palestinian Authority. Haniya's tour of Middle Eastern countries in December resulted in promises of hundreds of millions of dollars from Qatar and Iran. Qatar pledged to pay the salaries of 40,000 Palestinian teachers for the next six months, while Iran pledged to pay tens of thousands of public servants.

However, Haniya was held up by Israeli forces — with the support of Egyptian officials and European Union border monitors — as he tried to re-enter the Gaza Strip through the Rafah border crossing with Egypt on Dec. 14, carrying $30 million in cash. Abbas's Presidential Guard then opened fire on Hamas members who attempted to cross the border. Later that evening, Fatah gunmen fired on Haniya in an assassination attempt that Hamas claims was orchestrated by Dahlan.

Any success for the Hamas government in overcoming the blockade, or in securing the release of Palestinian prisoners in Israeli jails, would be met with overwhelming support in the  Occupied Palestinian Territories, something that Fatah would apparently do anything to prevent — even if it means allying itself with the Israeli occupation and the international siege. However, Israel National News reported on Jan. 4 that Fatah was not united behind this approach: "President Mahmoud Abbas has rejected calls by members of the Fatah central committee to dismiss Muhammad Dahlan, whom they accused of incitement against Hamas."
'What Binds Us Together Is Greater'

Israel has used the opportunity presented by the factional fighting to launch a series of deadly raids in the West Bank, largely targeting Hamas activists. On Jan. 4, Israeli forces killed four Palestinians in a raid in Ramallah targeted at Rabiah Hamad, a senior member of the Fatah-aligned Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades. Hamad escaped the operation, which included Israeli armored vehicles, bulldozers, and helicopter support.

The Palestinian Information Center reported on Jan. 10 that Israeli forces "rounded up 60 Palestinians within the past couple of days in various West Bank cities, villages, and refugee camps."

Writing from the West Bank on Jan. 10 for the Palestinian Information Center, Khaled Amayreh reported an Israeli incursion into Dura, near Hebron: "Eyewitnesses said as many as 20 army vehicles carrying dozens of crack soldiers raided the town in the quiet hours before dawn Wednesday amid sounds of shooting and blasts."

However, in nearby Hebron, Hamas and Fatah lawmakers held a joint demonstration on Jan. 8, declaring unity in the face of the occupation. Speakers from both factions declared their "determination to prevent factional strife from spreading to the Hebron district."

The Palestinian Information Center reports that Hatem Qafisha of Hamas said, "We must stand united against the ominous specter of violence and civil war with all our strength. … We must be vigilant and not allow our enemies to make us kill ourselves with our own hands." Fatah activist Akram Haymoni told the townspeople, "What binds us together is far greater than that which would keep us apart."

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7.

Forwarded by "Nadia McLaren" (nadia@uia.be)

From: http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article2140265.ece

EU: Climate Change Will Transform the Face of the Continent

By Michael McCarthy and Stephen Castle The Independent UK

10 January 2007

Europe, the richest and most fertile continent and the model for the modern world, will be devastated by climate change, the European Union predicts today.

The ecosystems that have underpinned all European societies from Ancient Greece and Rome to present-day Britain and France, and which helped European civilisation gain global pre-eminence, will be disabled by remorselessly rising temperatures, EU scientists forecast in a remarkable report which is as ominous as it is detailed.

Much of the continent's age-old fertility, which gave the world the vine and the olive and now produces mountains of grain and dairy products, will not survive the climate change forecast for the coming century, the scientists say, and its wildlife will be devastated.

Europe's modern lifestyles, from summer package tours to winter skiing trips, will go the same way, they say, as the Mediterranean becomes too hot for holidays and snow and ice disappear from mountain ranges such as the Alps - with enormous economic consequences. The social consequences will also be felt as heat-related deaths rise and extreme weather events, such as storms and floods, become more violent.

The report, stark and uncompromising, marks a step change in Europe's own role in pushing for international action to combat climate change, as it will be used in a bid to commit the EU to ambitious new targets for cutting emissions of greenhouse gases.

The European Commission wants to hold back the rise in global temperatures to 2C above the pre-industrial level (at present, the level is 0.6C). To do that, it wants member states to commit to cutting back emissions of carbon dioxide, the principal greenhouse gas, to 30 per cent below 1990 levels by 2020, as long as other developed countries agree to do the same.

Failing that, the EU would observe a unilateral target of a 20 per cent cut.

The Commission president, José Manuel Barroso, gave US President George Bush a preview of the new policy during a visit to the White House this week.

The force of today's report lies in its setting out of the scale of the continent-wide threat to Europe's "ecosystem services".

That is a relatively new but powerful concept, which recognises essential elements of civilised life - such as food, water, wood and fuel - which may generally be taken for granted, are all ultimately dependent on the proper functioning of ecosystems in the natural world. Historians have recognised that Europe was particularly lucky in this respect from the start, compared to Africa or pre-Columbian America - and this was a major reason for Europe's rise to global pre-eminence.

"Climate change will alter the supply of European ecosystem services over the next century," the report says. "While it will result in enhancement of some ecosystem services, a large portion will be adversely impacted because of drought, reduced soil fertility, fire, and other climate change-driven factors.

"Europe can expect a decline in arable land, a decline in Mediterranean forest areas, a decline in the terrestrial carbon sink and soil fertility, and an increase in the number of basins with water scarcity. It will increase the loss of biodiversity."

The report predicts there will be some European "winners" from climate change, at least initially. In the north of the continent, agricultural yields will increase with a lengthened growing season and a longer frost-free period. Tourism may become more popular on the beaches of the North Sea and the Baltic as the Mediterranean becomes too hot, and deaths and diseases related to winter cold will fall.

But the negative effects will far outweigh the advantages. Take tourism. The report says "the zone with excellent weather conditions, currently located around the Mediterranean (in particular for beach tourism) will shift towards the north". And it spells out the consequences.

"The annual migration of northern Europeans to the countries of the Mediterranean in search of the traditional summer 'sun, sand and sea' holiday is the single largest flow of tourists across the globe, accounting for one-sixth of all tourist trips in 2000. This large group of tourists, totalling about 100 million per annum, spends an estimated ¤100bn (£67bn) per year. Any climate-induced change in these flows of tourists and money would have very large implications for the destinations involved."

While they are losing their tourists, the countries of the Med may also be losing their agriculture. Crop yields may drop sharply as drought conditions, exacerbated by more frequent forest fires, make farming ever more difficult. And that is not the only threat to Europe's food supplies. Some stocks of coldwater fish in areas such as the North Sea will move northwards as the water warms.

There are many more direct threats, the report says. The cost of taking action to cope with sea-level rise will run into billions of euros. Furthermore, "for the coming decades, it is predicted the magnitude and frequency of extreme weather events will increase, and floods will likely be more frequent and severe in many areas across Europe."

The number of people affected by severe flooding in the Upper Danube area is projected to increase by 242,000 in a more extreme 3C temperature rise scenario, and by 135,000 in the case of a 2.2C rise. The total cost of damage would rise from ¤47.5bn to ¤66bn in the event of a 3C increase.

Although fewer people would die of cold in the north, that would be more than offset by increased mortality in the south. Under the more extreme scenario of a 3C increase in 2071-2100 relative to 1961-1990, there would be 86,000 additional deaths.

---

8.

ONE OF THE MOST FLIPPING NEWS I'VE READ IN A LONG TIME. COULD THIS REALLY HAPPEN!... DON'T FORGET IT IS STILL A FLEDGING HYPOTHESIS...

From: http://www.blog.agoracosmopolitan.com/?p=56

Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012

A recent scientific theory called the “hydrate hypothesis” says that historical global warming cycles have been caused by a feedback loop, where melting permafrost methane clathrates (also known as “hydrates”) spur local global warming, leading to further melting of clathrates and bacterial growth.

In other words, like western Siberia, the 400 billion tons of methane in permafrost hydrate will gradually melt, and the released methane will speed the melting. The effect of even a couple of billion tons of methane being emitted into the atmosphere each year would be catastrophic.

The “hydrate hypothesis” (if validated) spells the rapid onset of runaway catastrophic global warming. In fact, you should remember this moment when you learned about this feedback loop-it is an existencial turning point in your life. By the way, the “hydrate hypothesis” is a weeks old scientific theory, and is only now being discussed by global warming scientists. I suggest you Google the term.

Now that most scientists agree human activity is causing the Earth to warm, the central debate has shifted to when we will pass the tipping point and be helpless to stop the runaway Global Warming.

There are enormous quantities of methane trapped in permafrost and under the oceans in ice-like structures called clathrates. The methane in Arctic permafrost clathrates is estimated at 400 billion tons.

Methane is more than 20 times as strong a greenhouse gas as CO2, and the atmosphere currently contains about 3.5 billion tons of the gas.

The highest temperature increase from global warming is occurring in the arctic regions-an area rich in these unstable clathrates. Simulations from the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) show that over half the permafrost will thaw by 2050, and as much as 90 percent by 2100.

Peat deposits may be a comparable methane source to melting permafrost. When peat that has been frozen for thousands of years thaws, it still contains viable populations of bacteria that begin to convert the peat into methane and CO2.

Western Siberia is heating up faster than anywhere else in the world, having experienced a rise of some 3C in the past 40 years. The west Siberian peat bog could hold some 70 billion tons of methane. Local atmospheric levels of methane on the Siberian shelf are now 25 times higher than global concentrations.

By the way, warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons have caused microbial activity to increase dramatically in the soil around the world. This, in turn, means that much of the carbon long stored in the soil is now being released into the atmosphere.

Releases of methane from melting oceanic clathrates have caused severe environmental impacts in the past. The methane in oceanic clathrates has been estimated at 10,000 billion tons.

55 million years ago a global warming chain reaction (probably started by volcanic activity) melted oceanic clathrates. It was one of the most rapid and extreme global warming events in geologic history.

Humans appear to be capable of emitting CO2 in quantities comparable to the volcanic activity that started these chain reactions. According to the U.S. Geological Survey, burning fossil fuels releases more than 150 times the amount of CO2 emitted by volcanoes.

Methane in the atmosphere does not remain long, persisting for about 10 years before being oxidized to CO2 (a greenhouse gas that lasts for hundreds of thousands of years). Chronic methane releases oxidizing into CO2 contribute as much to warming as does the transient methane concentrations.

To summarize, human activity is causing the Earth to warm. Bacteria converts carbon in the soil into greenhouse gasses, and enormous quantities are trapped in unstable clathrates. As the earth continues to warm, permafrost clathrates will thaw; peat and soil microbial activity will dramatically increase; and, finally, vast oceanic clathrates will melt. This global warming chain reaction has happened in the past.

Atmospheric concentrations of CO2 rose by a record amount over the past year. It is the third successive year in which they have increased sharply. Scientists are at a loss to explain why the rapid rise has taken place, but fear the trend could be the first sign of runaway global warming.

Runaway Global Warming promises to literally burn-up agricultural areas into dust worldwide by 2012, causing global famine, anarchy, diseases, and war on a global scale as military powers including the U.S., Russia, and China, fight for control of the Earth’s remaining resources.

Over 4.5 billion people could die from Global Warming related causes by 2012, as planet Earth accelerates into a greed-driven horrific catastrophe.

Bibliographic reference courtesy of Brad Arnold who has an extensive research background on Global Warming.
Compiled by John Stokes
This entry was posted on Monday, January 8th, 2007 at 12:57 pm and is filed under Environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

33 Responses to “Over 4.5 Billion people could die from Global Warming-related causes by 2012”

Juan Santos Says: January 8th, 2007
This is by no means a new theory; it has long been posited that the Great Dying 250 million years ago when 90% of life on Earth was wiped out - was caused by the melting of frozen methane. Nonetheless, the figures from the National Center for Atmospheric Research on permafrost thaw are stunning. James Lovelock has said that by 2100 the Earth will only be able to support 500 million people; I have to wonder if that is not optimistic. I would very much like to know where you got the figures for 4.5 billion deaths by 2012. Please reply, giving your source for that figure, and some info on the causes of such a death rate occurring so quickly.

Duderman Says: January 8th, 2007
2012!!! 2012!!! That’s five years from now. Get Real. By the way, the Clathrate Gun hypothesis is relatively new, but not weeks old (try 2003), and is built on evidence from the Santa Barbara basin that linked probably marine methane release (probably hydrates, what else?) with the Paleocene-Eocene maxima. However, more recent evidence from ice cores in Antartica shows little support for Kennett’s hypothesis, and most in the community now doubt much of this link (as suggestive and enabling of hyperbole as it is)….

Bill Says: January 8th, 2007
Catastrophic Runaway global warming has happened before a number of times in Earth’s history.james Lovelock,who is not a misanthrope but has children and grandchildren of his own,believes the Positive feedback amplification has already begun and our climate is heading for serious overheating and resulting biosphere die off,including us ! Except that the time scale is out more to the end of the century,or at least decades. I saw a BBC program about climate change titled “The Siberian time bomb” about methane release there. Melting is happening such that building foundations are collapsing and being saved by concreting them! Permafrost is melting so fast mammoth bones, 10’s of thousands years old, are being found routinely. methane is escaping from expanding lakes as melting continues. (...) Only Lovelock has the courage to say the game may be up for us humans, though we will survive but on a very different planet. The other scientists who understand that this not unlikely worst case scenario(?) are afraid of being shot as messengers of bad news,or storm crows!Positive feedback is already happening ie amplification, As the north pole ice will, it's being predicted totally vanish in summer by 2040 but will return in the Winter. That is a tipping point in anyone’s book! CLIP

Jose Says: January 9th, 2007
This is not new, feedback mechanisms will make warming a lot faster than any prediction I’ve seen. What I DO NOT UNDERSTAND is why nobody mentions that there is always a period of warming before a long lasting ice age. Warming will be short, it’s the ice age coming after what we have to worry about. Warming will cause droughts in areas that depend on water that comes from glaciers (rain will run off as it falls, it will not accumulate as snow and later released little by little as the ice in mountains melts). Warming will make permafrost and cold regions available for agriculture, so famine might not be as bad as predicted (of course there will be a period of adaptation until we devise new ways of distribution/delivery of agricultural products). People leaving in cold areas will be affected, animals will go extinct (but nobody really cares about animals, we certainly don’t care now). But after that brief period of warming the Gulf Stream will stop and probably similar currents on the South hemisphere will stop too, then the Ice age will settle. Check http://www.iceagenow.com for list glaciers that are actually growing and cities that are actually getting cooler.

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