MAY LOVE PREVAIL ON EARTH
December 16, 2004
The Days of Infamy Series #5: The Bush Cartel Imminent Full-Blown Dictatorship
Hello everyone
Here is another information-packed compilation (the largest ever at 72 pages!) that few of you I suspect will have time to read in these few remaining days before Christmas and, possibly, the imminent onset of one of the most challenging periods in humanity's recent history. On the one hand there is a groundswell of spiritual awakening gradually gathering steam around the world and a bright future portrayed by many seers and visionaries as being just beyond the horizon - meaning a few years away, and, on the other hand, those who can monitor through these compilations and countless other Internet sources the often despairing situation created by some of the dimmest souls this planet has ever seen are left to wonder what can still be done to prevent the fast approaching slide into a very difficult period for all Life on Earth.
Just to fill you in on merely an aspect of what I mean, please read this excerpt from an article I just received which I feel is a good illustration:
Theft of the Election, Redux (December 15, 2004)
http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/04/12/ana04030.html
Why 2000 was Prelude to 2004 -- and the Democratic Party Got Mugged a Second Time -- In case you missed it, an exhaustive 23,422-word Vanity Fair article, published just prior to the election (October), spilled the beans that at least four of the five Supreme Court justices who stole the election from Al Gore did it with willing forethought. And the fifth, Justice Kennedy, who came up with the hypocritical, convoluted reason for awarding the election to Bush, was probably just pretending to be "open-minded."In short, the story, the first one to reveal the inside machinations of the infamous decision of 2000, confirmed that this wasn't a judicial decision that decided the election 4 years ago; it was a premeditated theft of democracy from the American voters. The partisan choice of five justices -- led by the judicial right-wing molotov-cocktail throwing Nino Scalia -- outweighed the selection of the American people. Why is this important now? Because it confirms that the Bush Cartel will do and did everything to win -- and it doesn't take a leap of imagination or common sense to speculate that with four years in office, they were able to heist the election this time without a nod and a wink to Nino and his right wing ship of judicially radical pirates. What we forget in our focus on Ohio is that the Republicans, through dirty tricks, voter suppression and intimidation, faulty felons' lists, and the deep-sixing of tens of thousands of Kerry votes -- among other anti-democracy tactics -- probably had the election heisted before the polls even opened. They privatized the counting of votes of Americans and turned it over to companies deeply ensconced in the Republican camp and Republican politics, with checkered histories and Republican ownership. They intentionally mis-registered college students, threw away the registration forms of perhaps tens of thousands of Democrats, and lost more than 55,000 absentee ballots in Jewish/Democratic leaning Broward County, FL, alone. And this list is just for starters. The Bush rogue regime was born a bastard child by a fixed Supreme Court vote and now controls the process by which any investigation of voting irregularities would be pursued. Indeed, Ken Blackwell, one of the two key Rove 2004 Katherine Harrises (along with Florida Secretary of State Hood), wrote Congressman John Conyers just this week that only the Department of Justice or the GAO had the authority to investigate voting in Ohio. So, two agencies under the Republicans, who Blackwell has just declared the winner of the Presidency, are the only ones Blackwell would allow to investigate their victory. It's a tactic worthy of Stalin -- and the Bush Cartel is one terrorist attack short of achieving full dictatorship powers, while the nation sleeps. CLIP
Of course, this is just the tip of a VERY large iceberg as you'll find much more Votergate material below.
And lots more on many other aspects of the unfolding planetary crisis we are going through...
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
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"Our lives begin to end the day we become silent about things that matter."
- Martin Luther King, Jr.
"Love for peace is not enough. Beyond it we need a vision of peace, a science of peace, a strategy for peace and innumerable actions for peace."
- Robert Muller -- Taken from Robert's Golden Sayings available at
http://www.goodmorningworld.org/goldensayings/
Just published! Ordering information through http://www.robertmuller.org/ - A treasure throve of inspirational wisdom from a pioneering peacemaker.
"In 1972, President Richard Nixon returned from the Soviet Union with a treaty worked out by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the beginning of a process Kissinger called "détente." On June 1, 1972, Nixon gave a speech in which he said, "Last Friday, in Moscow, we witnessed the beginning of the end of that era which began in 1945. With this step, we have enhanced the security of both nations. We have begun to reduce the level of fear, by reducing the causes of fear-for our two peoples, and for all peoples in the world." But Nixon left amid scandal and Ford came in, and Ford's Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) and Chief of Staff (Dick Cheney) believed it was intolerable that Americans might no longer be bound by fear. Without fear, how could Americans be manipulated? Rumsfeld and Cheney began a concerted effort - first secretly and then openly - to undermine Nixon's treaty for peace and to rebuild the state of fear and, thus, reinstate the Cold War."
- Taken from Hyping Terror For Fun, Profit - And Power below
RECENT UPDATES ON THE STOLEN US ELECTIONS
NFJ: Frankly it is utterly amazing that none of this below is reported in any big mainstream media! Just goes to prove they have sold their soul to the "devil" and/or are pitiful cowards... Some smaller ones do report it though. Check this GoogleNews search (over 1600 results: http://news.google.com/news?hl=en&ned=us&q=Ohio+election+fraud&btnG=Search+News
Here are just 2 results:
Election lawsuit gathering steam in mainstream media (December 16)
http://www.timberjay.com/current.php?article=1365
While the outcome of the 2004 presidential election is all but in the history books, an interesting new chapter is being written right now in Ohio, the state that cemented George W. Bushs electoral college victory.A lawsuit filed there Monday challenges Bushs victory in the state, alleging that a long list of irregularities, including intentional vote suppression in Democratic precincts and outright manipulation of vote totals in some locations, combined to steal the Ohio election and the presidency from Democratic candidate John Kerry. While Kerry isnt behind the lawsuit, his campaign has become more vocal in recent weeks in pushing for answers about what actually happened in Ohio on Nov. 2. and is now funding some legal work there.Questions about the vote in Ohio and elsewhere have been rampant on the Internet ever since Nov. 2, but the mainstream media has been slow to pick up on this developing story until this week. CLIP
Smoking Gun of Election Fraud is in Ken Blackwells Hand (Dec 14, 2004) http://bellaciao.org/en/article.php3?id_article=4775
Votergate 2004 is not going away. There are stories every day about the Ukraine and the obvious fraud in their elections but deafening silence about our own elections continues. Last week there were CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS about voter fraud. Not one GOP Representative bothered to attend, desperately afraid of lending any legitimacy to the allegations. What was presented even made Congressman John Conyers object to the elections results. Where was the coverage??? Not one word from the NY Times??? I can understand FOX not covering an event potentially damaging to their boss, Bush, but the NY Times? This is the same paper that apologized to its readers for its horrific coverage in the lead up to the Iraq War, and now they give their readers another reason to not trust them as being objective. Even if you think the allegations are baseless, COVER the story!Now, we have yet another blatant piece of evidence that the Ohio results are fraudulent, and it is greeted with more silence. On Friday, Ken "GOP Whore" Blackwell decided to stop the legal recount being conducted in Greene County Ohio, in mid-count. When the volunteers asked under what authority they were being stopped they were told that Ken Blackwell had determined that all voter records for the state of Ohio were locked-down, and now they are not considered public records. For those who may have been unaware due to the media lockdown, Ken Blackwell is not only the Ohio Secretary of State, but he was also the State Chair of the Bush reelection campaign. Conflict of interest anyone? Katherine Harris redux anyone? (...) We now have a smoking gun, in the hands of Kenneth Blackwell. If mainstream media do not cover both the Blackwell illegalities and the second Congressional hearings about VOTER FRAUD in THIS COUNTRY, then it is time to send them the message they will understand, BOYCOTT. If your local paper, in my case the NY Times, refuses to acknowledge that CONGRESS IS MEETING TO INVESTIGATE FRAUD, and that Kenneth Blackwell HAS NOW BROKEN THE LAW TO PROTECT BUSH, then it is time to cancel subscriptions, tell them why, and never read their product again if they refuse to represent YOUR interests and present the news, not determine what you will and will not read. Anything less is unacceptable and un-American.
AND NOW OTHER STUFF THAT WAS BROUGHT TO MY ATTENTION IN THE LAST SEVERAL DAYS
American Democracy Hangs by a Thread in Ohio (Dec 15) STUNNING! A MUST READ!
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/986
As the whole world watches, American democracy may be hanging by a thread in Ohio. Monday, December 13, saw a triple play that will live in electoral infamy. But every new day brings still more stunning revelations -- this time from Toledo -- of vote theft and fraud and a towering wall of resistance and sabotage against a fair recount of the votes that allegedly gave George W. Bush four more years in the White House. Three major events made December 13 a monument to electoral theft: a lawsuit filed in the morning at the Ohio State Supreme Court demanding a recount of all Ohio ballots; a Congressional hearing held in Columbus City Council chambers filled with angry, high-profile testimony of vote fraud and disenfranchisement and the illegal sabotaging of a recount; and then, at noon, a block away at the statehouse, the vote of Ohio's twenty illegitimate electors designating their choice of George W. Bush to be president. On Tuesday, demonstrators staged the latest in a long string of protests at the statehouse. And at an evening hearing in Toledo, stunning new sworn testimony revealed that Diebold technicians have tainted official voting machines before a recount could be done, irrevocably compromising the process. The December 13 lawsuit was filed in the presence of Rev. Jesse Jackson, who compared it to the attempts to win voting rights for African-American citizens in the era of Dr. Martin Luther King. The suit seeks to overturn Ohio's presidential vote. It asked an immediate court order to stop Republican presidential electors from meeting and voting for George W. Bush. Republican election officials prevented a vote count from starting until that very morning. Supervised by Secretary of State Kenneth Blackwell, co-chair of the Bush-Cheney re-election campaign, Ohio simply ignored all challenges to the vote count and all requests for a recount. Within hours the Bush electors cast their votes, even though the bitterly contested ballots that allegedly gave them standing as electors had not been recounted. In other words, while every legal remedy to determine who won Ohios presidential election was being pursued, the states Republican political machine blocked the rights of those seeking to verify the vote. Today, in the state capital of Ohio, we are witnessing a crime against democracy, a crime against the right to vote and a crime against the Constitution, said John Bonifaz, founder of the National Voting Rights Institute and attorney for the Green and Libertarian Parties in the recount. Ohio Republicans have " no right to convene a meeting of the presidential electors prior to the completion of the recount, he said. (...) Dr. Ron Baiman, a statistician from the University of Illinois, Chicago, confirmed that the odds on vote counts diverting from exit polls as they did the night of November 2 were on the order of magnitude of millions to one. Baiman told freepress.org that the odds of the exit polls being wrong in the key battleground states of Florida, Pennsylvania and Ohio alone were "155,000,000 to one." Dr. Norman Robbins of Cleveland testified that over 10,000 voters in Cuyahoga County alone were disenfranchised by various means, and that nearly all were "youth, poor and minorities." In one Cleveland ward, he said, 51% of the provisional votes cast were thrown in the trash, virtually all of them from African-Americans. Eve Roberson, a former election official from Santa Rosa, California, testified that while working as observer at precinct 354 in Wilberforce, home of Central State University, she witnessed conscious fraud aimed at a student body that went 95% for Kerry. Election officials used an inconsistent, discriminatory set of demands for Wilberforce students to register as opposed to those used in white precincts in Greene County. CLIP This article is also available at http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121704Z.shtml
Subject: Kerry awakes, now tell Congress whether to contest the Ohio electors.
The People's Email Network had 12,000 submissions to the Kerry campaign, the DNC, and the GAO on the question of election fraud and as to whether he should join the recount effort. Now Kerry is starting to take the initiative. Did our 12,000 voices speaking together have an impact? The fact is that he is acting. Now we ask if Congress should contest the Ohio electors. Representative Conyers made an appeal for a million emails to be sent. We've had 5,000 submissions on this new question already. If there was ever a time to speak out, this is the time. Here is a new one click page that looks up your senators and house representative and sends your personal message to them and the minority House Judiciary Committee, all at once. http://www.thepen.us/contest.html
Please post this link everywhere you can, and also contact us if you would like to do a link exchange. Sent by The Pen activist_xf@yahoo.com> on 16 Dec 2004
Kerry Lawyer Seeks Ohio Ballot Inspection
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121404W.shtml
Proof of Ohio Election Fraud Exposed (Dec 15)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121604Z.shtml
(...) As part of the Democratic staff's investigation into irregularities in the 2004 election and following up on a lead provided to me by Green Party Presidential Candidate, David Cobb, I have learned that Sherole Eaton, a Deputy Director of Board of Elections in Hocking County, Ohio, has first hand knowledge of inappropriate and likely illegal election tampering in the Ohio presidential election in violation of federal and state law.I have information that similar actions of this nature may be occurring in other counties in Ohio. I am therefore asking that you immediately investigate this alleged misconduct and that, among other things, you consider the immediate impoundment of election machinery to prevent any further tampering. CLIP
VOTERGATE: CLINT CURTIS 'STUNS' JUDICIARY COMM HEARINGS IN OHIO (13 Dec 2004) http://bradblogtoo.blogspot.com/2004/12/breaking-update-clint-curtis-stuns.html
BREAKING UPDATE!: CLINT CURTIS 'STUNS' JUDICIARY COMM HEARINGS IN OHIO WITH 'JAW DROPPING' SWORN TESTIMONY!PUBLICLY NAMES FEENEY IN FRONT OF COMMITTEE AS ASKING HIM TO DEVELOP 'VOTE-RIGGING' SOFTWARE! Testimony Described as 'Show Stopper'! 'Stunner', 'Jaws Dropped'! Audible 'Gasps' heard in chamber room! The BRAD BLOG has just received an exclusive first-hand account of Clint Curtis' sworn testimony (as reported earlier) to the Judiciary Committee Democrats holding hearings this morning in Columbus, Ohio on Election 2004 Voting Irregularities. The software programmer, whose sworn affidavit was first reported by The BRAD BLOG, named Republican U.S. Congressman Tom Feeney (a Republican member of the Judiciary Committee!) as having asked him to create "vote-rigging" software when he was a Florida Congressman prior to 2000 elections! Curtis was the only witness to be sworn in at today's hearings. Here is the exclusive account as we've just received it by a very reliable BRAD BLOG source inside the committee hearings! (...) Feeney was the running mate to Jeb Bush during his first failed bid for Governor in 1994. CLIP
The Greene County Lockdown (Dec 12)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121404Z.shtml
There are people out there who think we are crazy, who think we are bitter-enders, sore losermen, conspiracy theorists and tinfoil hatters. We just cannot accept the outcome of a truly legitimate American election, and we are flailing about like pathetic boated fish trying to change what cannot be changed. Hm. I wonder why. Maybe because of stories like this one, which started popping off late Friday night. This was the story as it first began to develop: On Friday December 10, two certified volunteers for the Ohio Recount team assigned to Greene County were in process recording voting information from minority precincts in Greene County, and were stopped mid-count by a surprise order from Secretary of State Blackwell's office. The Director Board of Elections stated that "all voter records for the state of Ohio were "locked-down," and now they are "not considered public records." CLIP
Startling new revelations highlight rare Congressional hearings on Ohio vote (December 13)
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/985
Startling new revelations about Ohio's presidential vote have been uncovered as Democratic members of the House Judiciary Committee join Rev. Jesse Jackson in Columbus, the state capital, on Monday, Dec. 13, to hold a rare field hearing into election malfeasance and manipulation in the 2004 vote. The Congressional delegation will include Rep. John Conyers (D-MI), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA), Rep. Stephanie Tubbs-Jones, and others. Taken together, the revelations show Republicans in state and county government, and in the Ohio Republican Party were determined to undermine and suppress Democratic turnout by a wide variety of methods. The revelations were included in affidavits gathered for an election challenge lawsuit filed Monday at the Ohio Supreme Court. Ohio's Republican Electoral College representatives are also to meet at noon, Monday, at the State House, even though the presidential recount, requested by the Green and Libertarian Parties, is only beginning the same day. On Sunday, John Kerry spoke with Rev. Jesse Jackson and urged him to take an more active role in investigating the irregularities and ensuring a fair and impartial recount. Kerry said there were three areas of inquiry that should be addressed: 92,000 ballots that recorded no vote for president; qualifying and counting provisional ballots; and supported an independent analysis of the software and set-up of the optical scan voting machines. What follows are excerpts from some of the affidavits for the election challenge. (...) Phillips points to other counties where has says "there is compelling evidence of fraud." In Miami County early on election night, when 31,620 votes had been counted, and later, when 50,235 votes were counted, "Kerry had exactly the same percentage, 33.92 percent, and the percentage for George Bush was almost exactly the same, dropping by 0.03 percent from 65.80 to 65.77 percent. The second set of returns gave Bush a margin of exactly 16,000 votes, giving cause to question the integrity of the central counting device for the optical scan machines. " He cites many other examples, but summarizes his findings: "It is my professional opinion that John Kerry's margins of victory were wrongly reduced by 22,000 votes in Cleveland, by 17,000 votes in Columbus, and by as many as 7,000 votes in Toledo. It is my further professional opinion that John Kerry's margins of defeat in Warren, Butler, and Clermont Counties were inflated by as many as 37,000 votes in the aggregate, and in Miami County by as many as 6,000 votes. There are still 92,672 uncounted regular ballots that, based upon the analysis set forth of the election results from Dayton and Cincinnati, may be expected to break for John Kerry by an overwhelming margin. And there are still 14,441 uncounted provisional ballots."
The complete transcript of the hearings mentioned above are available at
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/voteforumtrans12804.pdf
Transcript of programmer to Ohio Judiciary investigation
http://www.bluelemur.com/index.php?p=49112/14/2004
Programmer that alleged vote-rigging prototype testifies to Democratic House Judiciary hearing in Ohio - The following is a partial transcript of programmer Clinton Curtis' testimony to the Democratic House Judiciary hearing Monday in Columbus, Ohio, in which he details the development of an alleged vote-rigging software at the behest of a Florida legislator during employment at Yang Enterprises, a Florida contractor.
Other important related news at
http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/index.html and at http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/ohgovdelayelectorsltr121304.pdf
As recommended by Dan Stafford aqmstaffo@mailbag.com> who wrote: "We must support these efforts in thought and spirit."
More Ohio Voting Problems Reported
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121204U.shtml
For Some Election is Far from Over
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121304Y.shtml
Doubts Persist about Election Results
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121104V.shtml
Protesters Urge Delay for Ohio Electors
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121404Y.shtml
Ohio Electors Pick Bush, Despite Challenge (Dec 14)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121504D.shtml
Election Fraud 2004: Events in Ohio and other States (VERY COMPREHENSIVE!) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/10/8412/7131
LOTS of demos and actions that can be taken to push for the TRUE results of this election. Recent events reported and upcoming ones detailed.
Plea for help from an Ohio activist (Dec 14) http://www.dailykos.com/story/2004/12/14/175636/78
This was posted in the Blog for America comments. I was amazed at how well Gary expressed what so many of us in Ohio (or involved with the Ohio issues) are feeling, and what we need from all of you...
Rep. Conyers needs your help! Rep. John Conyers feels he needs a million e-mails to compel the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings about the 2004 election. I appeal to [you to] ... spread this message among your list of liberal friends and associates. Go at http://www.house.gov/judiciary_democrats/contact.html and tell the Judiciary Committee you want hearings on Ohio -- Sample letter: To the House Judiciary Committee: I am writing to urge the House Judiciary Committee to hold hearings as soon as possible on the irregularities of the 2004 election. I need not remind the Judiciary Committee members that the Unites States is a beacon of democracy for the rest of the world. If we truly wish to remain the embodiment of democratic values, then we must treat the right of every citizen to vote and for their vote to count as sacred. Ample evidence has arisen that this right was violated or undermined for many Americans in the 2004 election. I strongly believe that holding hearings to investigate and resolve these irregularities would be an act of tremendous patriotism on the part of Congress, and would serve as a declaration that we are the world's greatest democracy not only in word, but in deed.
Sen. Barbara Boxer to contest election - collecting signatures - need to get this out
http://www.contestthevote.org/
Sign the petition - they are calling for Barbara Boxer to contest the Electors vote. Electoral Count Act of 1887, One Senator and One House Representative required to contest an election prior to inauguration . . . They want to get 3,000 signatures by Wednesday night. Recommended on Dec 14 by Karl W. B. Schwarz kw.schwarz@worldnet.att.net> to Meria Heller
The Election Ran Smoothly, Didn't It?
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/the_election_ran_smoothly_didnt_it.php
It was a heated campaign and George W. Bush handily defeated John Kerry. America demonstrated that its democracy is still the best in the world. And it was a relief 2004 wasn't a repeat of 2000. The 2004 election ran smoothly--didn't it? Well not quite. A preliminary review issued by a coalition of groups--including People for the American Way, the NAACP and the Lawyers Committee for Civil Rights Under Law--concluded, "the myth that the 2004 elections ran smoothly has become conventional wisdom for pundits and politicians, but nothing could be further from the truth." CLIP
Perfecting the art of cheating
http://www.simedia.org/new/soc-econ-pol/fe_palast-iv-cheating.html
An interview with author and investigative reporter Greg Palast about the 2004 US election. Q.: Many people suspect that there was widespread cheating during the November 2004 Presidential elections in the US more than there was in 2000. It seems the Republicans have perfected the art of corrupt election practices. Is that your view? Greg Palast: I think that the Republican Party got away with stealing the elections in 2000 and we have no doubt about it, we have hard evidence, which is what you see in my book, The Best Democracy Money Can Buy. This time they again used a whole range of new tricks and old. (...) Q.: The Republicans seem emboldened. Do you think Kerry conceded too soon? GP: Well, he did the political arithmetic. And he knew it would end up in the Supreme Court which, as we all know, is a fixed institution, a political institution. It took no genius to figure out that although he might have had the votes there was no way they were going to count them. After all, this is a government which appoints puppet dictators in places like Iraq and calls it democracy! Q.: And which holds elections in some areas only. GP: Yes, thats right. It sounds ridiculous but this is all dangerous stuff not only is democracy damaged in America but it has repercussions in the rest of the world. CLIP
CONTENTS
1. Your Papers Please
2. Microchips in your Passport and Drivers License
3. Boogie with the Bushes - $1m
4. Living Under Fascism
5. The Voice of the White House (planned dieoff)
6. Uncle Sam Wants Your Kids Now!
7. U.S. Soldiers' Grilling Fields
8. Statement from the Iraqi Resistance
9. Hyping Terror For Fun, Profit - And Power
10.Stealth satellites (and secret space station) orbit overhead
11. Global Warming Fight Looks Beyond Kyoto
12. Gary Webb's apparent suicide from a gunshot to the head
13. Gary Webb & other "suicides"
14. Senator: Mystery Spy Project Dangerous (Arms race in space underway?)
15. ONIONS AND CHRISTMAS TREES
See also:
How Iran will fight back (December 15, 2004)
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/FL16Ak01.html
TEHRAN - The United States and Israel may be contemplating military operations against Iran, as per recent media reports, yet Iran is not wasting any time in preparing its own counter-operations in the event an attack materializes.A week-long combined air and ground maneuver has just concluded in five of the southern and western provinces of Iran, mesmerizing foreign observers, who have described as "spectacular" the massive display of high-tech, mobile operations, including rapid-deployment forces relying on squadrons of helicopters, air lifts, missiles, as well as hundreds of tanks and tens of thousands of well-coordinated personnel using live munition. Simultaneously, some 25,000 volunteers have so far signed up at newly established draft centers for "suicide attacks" against any potential intruders in what is commonly termed "asymmetrical warfare".Behind the strategy vis-a-vis a hypothetical US invasion, Iran is likely to recycle the Iraq war's scenario of overwhelming force, particularly by the US Air Force, aimed at quick victory over and against a much weaker power. Learning from both the 2003 Iraq war and Iran's own precious experiences of the 1980-88 war with Iraq and the 1987-88 confrontation with US forces in the Persian Gulf, Iranians have focused on the merits of a fluid and complex defensive strategy that seeks to take advantage of certain weaknesses in the US military superpower while maximizing the precious few areas where they may have the upper hand, eg, numerical superiority in ground forces, guerrilla tactics, terrain, etc. CLIP
Recent photos of Fallujah civilians murdered by US troops (December 10, 2004)
http://dahrjamailiraq.com/gallery/view_album.php?set_albumName=album28
Fallujah in pictures (both Iraqi and US. military casualties)
http://www.fallujahinpictures.com/
Images of Fighting in Fallujah Compel at Different Levels
http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1249.htm#001
Razing of Fallujah fails to break Iraqi resistance (13 December 2004)
http://www.wsws.org/articles/2004/dec2004/iraq-d13.shtml
Dogs Feast on Corpses in Fallujah; 7 Marines Killed
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121404B.shtml
One Year after Saddam Capture, Iraq Chaos Deepening (Dec 13)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121504Z.shtml
War Funding Request May Hit $100 Billion
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121604V.shtml
A Flood of Troubled Soldiers Returning from Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121704X.shtml
U.S. Officials Sound Alarm Over Iraq Fuel Crisis
http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml?type=topNews&storyID=7057137
U.S. officials in Baghdad fear that a fuel crisis, which has left Iraqi homes cold and dark and drivers waiting days for petrol, may inflame unrest before next month's election.
Embattled Kerik in sex scandal (Dec 14)
http://www.heraldsun.news.com.au/printpage/0,5481,11678160,00.html
FORMER police commissioner Bernard Kerik, who last week dramatically withdrew his nomination as the new Homeland Security chief, conducted two extramarital affairs simultaneously. He used a secret Manhattan apartment for the liaisons, the New York Daily News reported. Mr Kerik last week withdrew his nomination as the next US Homeland Secretary chief just days after his name had been put forward by US President George W. Bush. It was reported his decision was made due to his hiring of an illegal immigrant as a maid. The new revelations present a major embarassment for President Bush and especially for former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani, who pushed for Mr Kerik to be appointed. CLIP
Mutual Interests (Dec 19)
http://www.austinchronicle.com/issues/dispatch/2003-12-19/pols_feature.html
The Texas story of Veridian Inc. provides a snapshot of the military-industrial-government complex - If you live in Texas, no matter where you live or what sort of work you do, you're profiting from the various wars, armed interventions, covert actions, and miscellaneous military conflicts now being pursued worldwide by American armed forces and the U.S. intelligence community. Here's how: On an upper floor of an office tower in downtown Austin, about a mile from the Capitol, is the suite belonging to an investment company called the Texas Growth Fund. The growth fund represents a relatively recent effort by the state of Texas to become a more active force in profiting, directly and indirectly, from the state's investments. The money that TGF invests is yours and mine -- specifically, it comes from money allocated by the Teacher Retirement System of Texas and the Employees Retirement System of Texas, the University of Texas and Texas A&M, as well as the less-rich San Antonio Fire and Police Pension Fund. In the bear market of the last few years, TGF has generally not done well. But there has been at least one very notable exception: an investment in what was until recently an obscure company named Veridian Inc. Veridian, which a few months ago became a division of General Dynamics, is in the "information warfare" business -- a classified contractor to the U.S. Department of Defense and other arms of the federal government.
Raytheon 'heat beam' weapon ready for Iraq (December 5, 2004)
http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1249.htm#002
Government defense giant Raytheon Co. has developed the first nonlethal weapon that fires a heat beam to repel enemies and reduces the chance of innocent civilians being shot, a Pentagon official said. Raytheon, the world's largest missile maker, delivered a prototype to the U.S. military last month. The product is expected to be evaluated from February through June to determine whether to equip U.S. forces with it, Colonel David Karcher, director of the Joint Non-Lethal Weapons Directorate, told Bloomberg Business News. With U.S. casualties in Iraq rising, expectations are growing that Raytheon's weapon, called the Active Denial System, could be sent to Iraq in the next year, according to Charles "Sid'' Heal, commander of the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department. A former Marine, Heal headed nonlethal-weapons training for the U.S. military in Somalia in 1995 and advised Raytheon on the beam's development. "It's there, it's ready, said Heal, who has felt the weapon's beam and compares it to having a hot iron placed on the skin. "It will likely be in Iraq in the next 12 months. They are very, very close. The weapon, mounted on a Humvee vehicle, projects a "focused, speed-of-light millimeter wave energy beam to induce an intolerable heating sensation,'' according to a U.S. Air Force fact sheet. The energy penetrates less than 1/64 of an inch into the skin and the sensation ceases when the target moves out of the beam. CLIP
Pentagon to Jettison Environmental Responsibilities (14 December 2004)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121504X.shtml
New policy drops public health, cleanup and resource conservation duties. Washington, DC - The Pentagon is moving to sharply reduce its environmental duties, according to a draft directive released today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). The proposed policy excludes anti-pollution work that does not directly "sustain the national defense mission." This new "Department of Defense Directive" would replace a Clinton-era directive on "Environmental Security." The new directive trims a listing of Pentagon policy elements by eliminating provisions for: * "Reducing risk to human health and the environment by identifying, evaluating, and where necessary, remediating contamination resulting from past DoD activities"; * Protecting, preserving, and, when required, restoring, and enhancing the quality of the environment"; and * Conserving, and restoring where necessary, the natural and cultural heritage represented on DoD installations within the United States." "The Pentagon is transforming itself into an entity concerned only about its own logistics and facility management - and the public be damned," stated PEER Executive Director Jeff Ruch, pointing to the Pentagon's recent efforts to exempt itself from an array of environmental laws. "Under this new policy, who will protect America's waters, air and soil from the Pentagon?" The new policy would also significantly cut Pentagon compliance with anti-pollution rules by dropping requirements that it obey "regulations, Executive orders, binding international agreements" and other federal "environmental, safety, occupational health, explosives safety, fire and emergency services, and pest management policies." In its place, the Pentagon would pledge to only abide by "applicable law and DoD policy." CLIP
CIA sued over WMD 'falsification' :
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/4086361.stm
A former CIA officer is suing his employers for retaliating against him for his alleged refusal to falsify reports on weapons of mass destruction.
Lawsuit against Rumsfeld Threatens U.S.-German Relations (14 December 2004)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121504Y.shtml
The Pentagon made thinly veiled threats on Monday, suggesting US-German relations could be at risk if a criminal complaint filed in German courts over Abu Ghraib proceeds. The Pentagon expressed concern Monday over a criminal complaint filed in Germany against US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and other officials over the Abu Ghraib prison scandal, warning that "frivolous lawsuits" could affect the broader US-German relationship. The complaint was filed in Berlin on Nov. 30 by the New York-based Center for Constitutional Rights (CCR) and Berlin's Republican Lawyers' Association on behalf of four Iraqis who were alleged to have been mistreated by US soldiers. Besides Rumsfeld, former CIA director George Tenet, Undersecretary of Defense for Intelligence Steven Cambone, Lieutenant General Ricardo Sanchez, Brigadier General Janis Karpinski and five other military officers who served in Iraq were named in the complaint, which seeks an investigation into their role in the prisoner abuses at Abu Ghraib. (...) Indicating the US planned to play a similar game of hardball with Germany, Rumsfeld has informed the German government via the US embassy that he will not take part in the annual Munich security conference in February should the investigation proceed.
Congress and the Bush Administration Deepen Assault on International Law
http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0412assault.html
Members of the U.S. Congress who oppose the International Criminal Court (ICC) continue to use every opportunity to weaken the institution. The Nethercutt Amendment (sponsored by Rep. George Nethercutt, R-WA) attached to a recent omnibus spending bill signed into law in early December prohibits aid from the Economic Support Fund (ESF) for countries that have refused to sign a "bilateral immunity agreement" to protect U.S. citizens and certain foreign nationals from transfer to the ICC for investigation or prosecution. This attack on the ICC is merely the latest in a series of efforts to weaken the norms and institutions of international human rights and humanitarian law, an assault likely to deepen in a second Bush administration.
Blowback from Iraq War Is Global, and Growing http://www.fpif.org/commentary/2004/0412blowback.html
Blowback is a term invented by the Central Intelligence Agency to describe the unintended consequences of policies kept secret from the American people. Chalmers Johnson's excellent book, Blowback: The Costs and Consequences of American Empire, helped popularize the term. Originally intended for internal use only, blowback increasingly characterizes global reaction to Bush administration policies in and out of the Middle East.
In the aftermath of 9/11, the president told the world "you are either with us or against us." He then offered a far-reaching moral vision for the Middle East with democracy as the core ingredient. He saw a free Iraq serving as a catalyst for peace in the region, setting in motion progress toward a truly democratic Palestinian state. In pursuit of these objectives, the United States turned to force, rushing to war in Iraq and condoning, if not supporting, draconian Israeli policies in Gaza and the West Bank. In ruling out the peaceful settlement of disputes in Iraq, Palestine, and elsewhere, American policies legitimized and provoked terror. Three years later, the number of people against us around the world has grown exponentially. The popular view of the United States throughout the Middle East and the broader Islamic world is dark and hateful. In short, the administration's faith-based, fact-free foreign policy has spawned the antithesis of the Bush vision.
Ballistic Missile Defenses (July 2004)
http://www.cbo.gov/showdoc.cfm?index=5679
The whole Congress file on this VERY costly (up to $78 billions!) and dangerous project
Lots of material in French on this at http://www.cs3r.org/show.php?id=23 - There is considerable opposition to the militarization of space in Canada and even more in Quebec. But few voices have been raised against this in the US - curiously...
Yushchenko Certain Ukraine Government Poisoned Him
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121704Y.shtml
Firefox Surpasses 10 Million Download Mark
http://news.com.com/Firefox+surpasses+10+million+download+mark/2100-1025_3-5488279.html?part=rss&tag=5488279&subj=news.1025.5
The faster, safer open-source challenger to market heavyweight Internet Explorer, has surpassed 10 million downloads in a little more than a month since the browser was released in November. (...) On Wednesday, the information technology services department at Pennsylvania State University recommended that students drop IE in favor of Firefox and Apple Computer's Safari to reduce attacks through vulnerabilities in the Microsoft software. The university said "media reports" and a string of warnings by Carnegie Mellon University's computer emergency response team led to its recommendation. Malicious code writers have targeted security holes in the browser to launch attacks or install spyware. These attacks are often launched when a victim clicks on a specific Web link, opening the door for intruders to take over the person's computer. Once the PC is compromised, the attacker could access account information, load other software and delete files. More on Firefox at http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Firefox&btnG=Google+Search&meta= and http://www.mozilla.org/products/firefox/ (Available only for System X on Mac)
Omega-News Collection 9. December 2004
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/434789/
The Meier Contacts
http://www.theyfly.com/
The Most Important Story In All Of Human History
Recommended by Meria who discussed this on her show this Wednesday.
1.
From: http://www.whatdoesitmean.com/index575.htm
December 9, 2004
Your Papers Please
US adopts National ID: Homeland Security Now In charge of Regulations for all US States Drivers Licenses and Birth Certificates
By: Jonathan Wheeler
In a chilling act more reminiscent of the now defunct Soviet Union or the Nazi regime of Adolph Hitler, the United States Congress passed legislation yesterday that requires the States to surrender their regulatory rights over drivers licenses and birth certificates to The Department of Homeland Security.
The massive US Intelligence Reform Bill weighed in at over 3,000 pages and though unread by individual Members of either the House or Senate nevertheless passed all of the legislative hurdles needed in order to become law.
President Bush lobbied hard for these provisions, only objecting when Senator Sensenbrenner attempted to require these same provisions for illegal aliens but which the President opposed. This provision was dropped from the final bill.
Beginning in 2005, the Department of Homeland Security will issue new uniformity regulations to the States requiring that all Drivers Licenses and Birth Certificates meet minimal Federal Standards with regard to US citizen information, including biometric security provisions.
Added to currently existing Federal Laws and Supreme Court rulings American citizens when born will be issued a Social Security Number that will be included on their Birth Certificates, along with DNA biometric markers. All birth certificates will also be registered in a Federal Government database maintained by the Department of Homeland Security. No child will be allowed enrollment to schools or be entitled to either State of Federal Government benefits programs without first presenting a certified Homeland Security registered Birth Certificate.
Drivers Licenses will also contain DNA biometric markers and include the holders Social Security Number and be required for receiving and applying for all State and Federal benefits programs. Previous Supreme Court rulings have also upheld State and Federal Law Enforcement authorities right to request Identification from any American citizen, for any reason and at any time as not being violations of their, the citizens, constitutionally protected rights.
Major Banks and credit card companies have applauded the adoption of a National ID system as being important to counter fraud and increasing instances of identity theft. National ID cards with biometric markers will eliminate them from having to issue Credit and Debit cards, which for the first time in US history have surpassed the usage of checks and cash. Utilizing The Department of Homeland Securities centralized federal database, Banks and credit card companies will only require the presentation of a citizens Drivers License to make purchases as all of the persons financial information, including credit and cash balances, will already be known in real time. (The combining of Homeland Security and Banking databases on citizens balances and purchases, along with their past and present purchasing information, has been allowed under previous Federal Laws including the Patriot Act.)
Also included in this bill is a law to require The Department of Homeland Security to establish a separate ID system for citizens to use prior to boarding airplanes, and which is eerily reminiscent of the Soviet and Nazi regimes dreaded Internal Passport.
Never before in our history have the words of Benjamin Franklin been so correct when he stated: "people willing to trade their freedom for temporary security deserve neither and will lose both".
Today, December 9, 2004 will be one of those moments in time that future historians will look back on and pin point as being the day that the United States of American, and as it was founded by its forefathers, ceased to exist.
---
See also:
Passports go electronic with new microchip (Dec 9)
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1209/p12s01-stct.html
Next year, new US passports will have a chip slipped under the cover, containing biometric and personal data. But privacy advocates worry about surveillance.
British 'PATRIOT Act' Reined In by High Court
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121704W.shtml
2.
Date: 13 Dec 2004
Subject: Microchips in your Passport and Drivers License
From: phyllism5@juno.com
Friends, If you don't have a passport, I recommend getting one now.
Excellent newsletter
-- To subscribe to or unsubscribe from this list of deep inside information (avg. one email every two days), send an email to wecare@wanttoknow.info with "subscribe deep" or "unsubscribe deep" in the subject line. For the highly informative archive of previous deep insider emails, see http://www.WantToKnow.info/coveruparchive
This message is available on the Internet at http://www.WantToKnow.info/microchippassport
Dear friends,
Here's more progress on the plan to microchip all citizens. The key word to watch for is "Smart Cards." These cards are being sold as the wave of the future, devices that will make our life easier and smarter. Yet they also will allow anyone with the technology to monitor where we are at any moment, and to obtain personal information stored in these cards. Used for the right purposes, these could be great assets, but they could also be very effectively used to quash any dissent towards the government. I very much support ever greater transparency in our personal lives, but I'm not sure I trust government in its current state to use this new technology without infringing on our freedoms and liberties. The quotes immediately following are from the ACLU and Washington Times, with a full story by the Christian Science Monitor. Please help to spread the word by forwarding this message. Take care and have a good day.
With best wishes,
Fred Burks for the WantToKnow.info team
---
From: http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=16661&c=39
ACLU Urges Virginia Legislators Not To Put Radio Computer Chip in Driver's Licenses
The American Civil Liberties Union today urged Virginia not to become the first state in the nation to place radio frequency identification (RFID) chips in its driver's licenses.
At the direction of President Bush the National Institute for Standards and Technology is working on a standard for a federal employee identification card that would also include the radio chips.
Note: Consider signing the ACLU's petition to protect our liberties at http://www.aclu.org/refusetosurrender
From: http://washingtontimes.com/metro/20041006-113607-9806r.htm
Plan for smart chips in licenses opposed
Virginia lawmakers, hoping to stem identity fraud, are considering whether computer chips that can store personal information should be embedded in the state's driver's licenses a measure civil libertarians say threatens rights to privacy.
"In general, we have endorsed the concept," Sheriff Brown said. "No question smart cards are the future."
Pocket ID readers could be used by government agents to sweep up the identities of everyone at a political meeting, protest march, or Islamic prayer service,"
From: http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1209/p12s01-stct.html
Passports go electronic with new microchip
Next year, new US passports will have a chip slipped under the cover, containing biometric and personal data. But privacy advocates worry about surveillance.
By Susan Llewelyn Leach | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
The US passport is about to go electronic, with a tiny microchip embedded in its cover. Along with digitized pictures, holograms, security ink, and "ghost" photos - all security features added since 2002 - the chip is the latest outpost in the battle to outwit tamperers. But it's also one that worries privacy advocates.
The RFID (radio frequency identification) chip in each passport will contain the same personal data as now appear on the inside pages - name, date of birth, place of birth, issuing office - and a digitized version of the photo. But the 64K chip will be read remotely. And there's the rub.
The scenario, privacy advocates say, could be as simple as you standing in line with your passport as someone walks by innocuously carrying a briefcase. Inside that case, a microchip reader could be skimming data from your passport to be used for identity theft. Or maybe authorities or terrorists want to see who's gathered in a crowd and surreptitiously survey your ID and track you. Suddenly, "The Matrix" looks less futuristic.
The State Department maintains that such scenarios are outright fiction.
"A person can't be tracked," says Kelly Shannon, spokeswoman for the Bureau of Consular Affairs at the State Department. "It's not as if the information is going to broadcast and anyone with a receiver can be picking up that signal. There isn't a signal."
The passport, issued to officials and diplomats in early 2005 and to the public by the end of the year, is accessed using a reader that "pings" the microchip in order to release the data, much like proximity cards used for workplace ID badges. What prevents surveillance is that "the passport can only be read at a distance of 10 centimeters or less," explains Randy Vanderhoof, executive director of the Smart Card Alliance, an industry association that represents the four companies that produced prototype chips for the State Department.
Concerns of privacy advocates have "no validity," he says. "The purpose of the passport is to create a more secure travel document. The introduction of contactless chip technology has accomplished that."
The response of technology experts and privacy advocates is simply: "Rubbish."
"It's perfectly reasonable that the government wants a machine-readable photograph," says Bruce Schneier, a security guru and author of "Beyond Fear." "I just worry that they are building a technology that the bad guys can surreptitiously access."
The idea that the chips cannot be read beyond 10 centimeters (four inches) doesn't fly with him. "There is no impossible," Mr. Schneier says. "So they [the manufacturers] guarantee that there will be no technological advances in the next 10 years that will change that? It's absurd."
In fact, data skimming is already common in other arenas, says Richard Doherty, research director for the Envisioneering Group, a technology-assessment company out of Seaford, N.Y. "Bluejacking," where someone with the right equipment can hijack your phone, grab your directory, history of calls, and electronic serial number just by walking past you while you're on the phone, and "war-driving," where an individual drives down the street with a computer that maps all the networks that are free along with their IDs - these are already significant security issues, he says.
"This whole world of wireless is one that, yes, it has tremendous convenience, but it's increasingly threatened by a cloud of easy-to-exploit criminal means," Mr. Doherty says.
But why not choose a contact chip, where there would be no possibility of skimming, asks Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project. "You don't have to have a 'contactless' integrated circuit," he says. "There was another way to go, which was to put an electronic strip in the passport that would require contact. It would make theft far less likely."
The State Department says it's just following international standards set by the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), under the umbrella of the United Nations. In May 2003, the ICAO specified the RFID and facial biometric or digitized head shot now being adopted by other countries at the behest of the United States. All countries that are part of the US visa-waiver program must use the new passports by Oct. 26, 2005.
Mr. Steinhardt calls the State Department's approach "policy laundering," and says the US pushed through the standards against the reservations of the Europeans. "Bush says at the G8 meeting, 'We have to adhere to the global standard,' as though we had nothing to do with it. It was masterful from a political perspective," he says in exasperation.
But even the ICAO, in the small print of a document published last May titled, "Use of Contactless ICs in Machine Readable Travel Documents," acknowledges the new RFID chips won't be foolproof: "... it is unlikely that unauthorized reading will occur. However, this cannot be completely ruled out."
Although the data on the chip will not be encrypted, for the sake of easing "interoperability" across international borders, Ms. Shannon says, the government does plan to incorporate a security feature that will largely prevent skimming. Embedded fibers in the front and back covers will shield the passport from electronic probing, at least while it is closed. Other security features in the new passports include a digital or electronic seal that will ensure the document is authentic and smart-card technology that renders the chip inoperable if it is tampered with using energy waves or radio waves.
See our archive of deep insider emails at http://www.WantToKnow.info/coveruparchive
3.
From: http://www.guardian.co.uk/usa/story/0,12271,1371537,00.html
Boogie with the Bushes - $1m
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
December 11, 2004
It is the ultimate mini-break. But for $1m, it should be.
Being in Washington for George Bush's inauguration on January 20 will not come cheap. Even the bargain deals cost $10,000. Whether the $1m (£522,000) offer will give value for money is a moot point.
Those prepared to pay will get a four nights in the Jefferson hotel, four blocks from the White House, return travel from any city in the US, chauffeur and butler on 24-hour call for the duration, tickets for two to an unspecified inaugural event attended by Mr Bush, his-and-her diamond watches and designer outfits, spa treatment and monogrammed bath robes. But the real selling point, the hotel believes, is the day-after outing to Chicago by executive jet for a private tour of an exhibition devoted to Jacqueline Kennedy's White House years.
A number of other luxury hotels are touting inaugural week packages running from $75,000 to $200,000.
The modest $10,000 package at the Fairmont hotel includes a "faux" security detail of two agents in dark glasses and dark suits muttering into cufflink walkie talkies.
But the four days of galas and banquets are not a time for scrimping. The inaugural committee chaired by Senator Trent Lott says the celebrations will be on an epic scale and is seeking to raise more than $40m.
Those hankering for maximum face time - an exclusive lunch with Mr Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney, and two tables for 19 friends at an eve-of inauguration banquet - will have to find $250,000.
Those of more modest means can opt for dinner alone and a more fleeting appearance by Mr Bush for $100,000 dollars.
But even the stratospherically wealthy may not be able to buy their way to some events.
Tickets to the Black Tie and Boots Ball, where the first couple are expected to mingle with 10,000 guests in stetsons and tuxedos, were snapped up well before they were due to go on sale.
4.
From: http://207.44.245.159/article7478.htm
Living Under Fascism
Davidson Loehr
First UU Church of Austin
11/07/04 "UUA News" -- You may wonder why anyone would try to use the word fascism in a serious discussion of where America is today. It sounds like cheap name-calling, or melodramatic allusion to a slew of old war movies. But I am serious. I dont mean it as name-calling at all. I mean to persuade you that the style of governing into which America has slid is most accurately described as fascism, and that the necessary implications of this fact are rightly regarded as terrifying. Thats what I am about here. And even if I dont persuade you, I hope to raise the level of your thinking about who and where we are now, to add some nuance and perhaps some useful insights.
CLIP
Our current descent into fascism came about through a kind of Perfect Storm, a confluence of three unrelated but mutually supportive schools of thought.
1. The first stream of thought was the imperialistic dream of the Project for the New American Century. I dont believe anyone can understand the past four years without reading the Project for the New American Century, published in September 2000 and authored by many who have been prominent players in the Bush administrations, including Cheney, Rumsfleid, Wolfowitz, Richard Perle and Donald Kagan to name only a few. This report saw the fall of Communism as a call for America to become the military rulers of the world, to establish a new worldwide empire. They spelled out the military enhancements we would need, then noted, sadly, that these wonderful plans would take a long time, unless there could be a catastrophic and catalyzing event like a new Pearl Harbor that would let the leaders turn America into a military and militarist country. There was no clear interest in religion in this report, and no clear concern with local economic policies.
2. A second powerful stream must be credited to Pat Robertson and his Christian Reconstructionists, or Dominionists. Long dismissed by most of us as a screwball, the Dominionist style of Christianity which he has been preaching since the early 1980s is now the most powerful religious voice in the Bush administration.
Katherine Yurica, who transcribed over 1300 pages of interviews from Pat Robertsons 700 Club shows in the 1980s, has shown how Robertson and his chosen guests consistently, openly and passionately argued that America must become a theocracy under the control of Christian Dominionists. Robertson is on record saying democracy is a terrible form of government unless it is run by his kind of Christians. He also rails constantly against taxing the rich, against public education, social programs and welfare and prefers Deuteronomy 28 over the teachings of Jesus. He is clear that women must remain homebound as obedient servants of men, and that abortions, like homosexuals, should not be allowed. Robertson has also been clear that other kinds of Christians, including Episcopalians and Presbyterians, are enemies of Christ. (The Yurica Report. Search under this name, or for Despoiling America by Katherine Yurica on the internet.)
3. The third major component of this Perfect Storm has been the desire of very wealthy Americans and corporate CEOs for a plutocracy that will favor profits by the very rich and disempowerment of the vast majority of American workers, the destruction of workers unions, and the alliance of government to help achieve these greedy goals. It is a condition some have called socialism for the rich, capitalism for the poor, and which others recognize as a reincarnation of Social Darwinism. This strain of thought has been present throughout American history. Seventy years ago, they tried to finance a military coup to replace Franlkin Delano Roosevelt and establish General Smedley Butler as a fascist dictator in 1934. Fortunately, the picked a general who really was a patriot; he refused, reported the scheme, and spoke and wrote about it. As Canadian law professor Joel Bakan wrote in the book and movie The Corporation, they have now achieved their coup without firing a shot.
Our plutocrats have had no particular interest in religion. Their global interests are with an imperialist empire, and their domestic goals are in undoing all the New Deal reforms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that enabled the rise of Americas middle class after WWII.
Another ill wind in this Perfect Storm is more important than its crudity might suggest: it was President Clintons sleazy sex with a young but eager intern in the White House. This incident, and Clintons equally sleazy lying about it, focused the certainties of conservatives on the fact that liberals had neither moral compass nor moral concern, and therefore represented a dangerous threat to the moral fiber of America. While the effects of this may be hard to quantify, I think they were profound.
These storm components have no necessary connection, and come from different groups of thinkers, many of whom wouldnt even like one another. But together, they form a nearly complete web of command and control, which has finally gained control of America and, they hope, of the world.
Whats coming
When all fascisms exhibit the same social and political agendas (the 14 points listed by Britt), then it is not hard to predict where a new fascist uprising will lead. And it is not hard. The actions of fascists and the social and political effects of fascism and fundamentalism are clear and sobering. Here is some of whats coming, what will be happening in our country in the next few years:
* The theft of all social security funds, to be transferred to those who control money, and the increasing destitution of all those dependent on social security and social welfare programs.
* Rising numbers of uninsured people in this country that already has the highest percentage of citizens without health insurance in the developed world.
* Increased loss of funding for public education combined with increased support for vouchers, urging Americans to entrust their childrens education to Christian schools.
* More restrictions on civil liberties as America is turned into the police state necessary for fascism to work
* Withdrawal of virtually all funding for National Public Radio and the Public Broadcasting System. At their best, these media sometimes encourage critical questioning, so they are correctly seen as enemies of the states official stories.
* The reinstatement of a draft, from which the children of privileged parents will again be mostly exempt, leaving our poorest children to fight and die in wars of imperialism and greed that could never benefit them anyway. (That was my one-sentence Veterans Day sermon for this year.)
* More imperialistic invasions: of Iran and others, and the construction of a huge permanent embassy in Iraq.
* More restrictions on speech, under the flag of national security.
* Control of the Internet to remove or cripple it as an instrument of free communication that is exempt from government control. This will be presented as a necessary anti-terrorist measure.
* Efforts to remove the tax-exempt status of churches like this one, and to characterize them as anti-American.
* Tighter control of the editorial bias of almost all media, and demonization of the few media they are unable to control the New York Times, for instance.
* Continued outsourcing of jobs, including more white-collar jobs, to produce greater profits for those who control the money and direct the society, while simultaneously reducing Americas workers to a more desperate and powerless status.
* Moves in the banking industry to make it impossible for an increasing number of Americans to own their homes. As they did in the 1930s, those who control the money know that it is to their advantage and profit to keep others renting rather than owning.
* Criminalization of those who protest, as un-American, with arrests, detentions and harassment increasing. We already have a higher percentage of our citizens in prison than any other country in the world. That percentage will increase.
* In the near future, it will be illegal or at least dangerous to say the things I have said here this morning. In the fascist story, these things are un-American. In the real history of a democratic America, they were seen as profoundly patriotic, as the kind of critical questions that kept the American spirit alive the kind of questions, incidentally, that our media were supposed to be pressing.
CLIP
5.
NOTE FROM JEAN: (HERE IS WHAT I WROTE BEFORE READING THE "Urgent Smallpox Warning!" OF WHICH KEY EXCERPTS ARE INCLUDED FOR YOUR REVIEW BELOW)
"I asked Meria what she thinks about this source (The Voice of the White House). Not reliable according to her. I believe it could be yet another disinformation ploy mixing real stuff with subtly disguised manipulative info either to scare people (fear is always their preferred weapon of mass coercion) or to divert people's attention away from what they really do not want us to know. Use your own best judgement to assert the "reality" value of the following and all material from this mysterious "Voice of the White House" source. See it as an exercise in discernment learning or simply skip it if you are not interested to delve upon such disturbing matters."
Now AFTER reading it, I must confess it looks like a serious possibility (obviously not a certainty!) - whoever is behind it! - and so this info should be considered at its face value...
Forwarded by "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@vitelcom.net>
From: http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1247.htm
The Voice of the White House
December 8, 2004: "Because a physical joint US/Israeli attack on Iran is not feasible at the present time due to military troop level problems and too much advanced publicity (the USS Kennedy force has been withdrawn from the Gulf. Both her skipper and executive officer were suddenly removed from command for Special Reasons) the White House is now turning up the press pressure cooker. The media is now to run a series of ongoing articles about Irans human rights record and the potential danger she poses to the free world (for this read Israel) We are going to get the recently-emasculated CIA to increase spending to the Iranian dissidents, many of whose leaders are now in safe houses in Washington.
The planned limited US/Israeli air strike on Iran's well-dispersed nuclear facilities would certainly cause international outrage (which Bush really doesnt care about, having nothing but contempt for every other country but England) and the Pentagon studies conclude that such a strike could bring about retaliation against the massive concentrations of US troops now in Iran to protect the election.
We know here that Bush and his people are growing more and more eager to start withdrawing troops from Iraq by the middle of next year. The real reason for this is that Bush wants badly to invade Iran, and later Syria, and simply does not have the troops for it. GIs thinking they will be going home are in for a rude awakening as will be their families. Bush doesnt give a damn about this because he got reelected and could care less what families think. A man who has never gone to any military funeral for the men his actions have killed would care less about what he terms just limited and temporary unhappiness domestically. The undertakers, at least, are making money.
The Administrations main beefs with Iran are that they have a viable nuclear program that could (and probably has) produced atomic weapons. Also, Iran is trying to influence the Shiites in Iraq and are also giving cubic money to Hezbollah. This latter has infuriated the Sharon people who have put the destruction of what they see as their biggest treat on the front burner. There will also be the public BS that some of Osam bin Ladens top aides are now hiding out in Tehran.
Condi Rice is the biggest pusher for increased PR pressure on Iran but her pet love is some kind of Biblical destruction visited upon her obsessively hated Russia. The CIAs Voice of America and other propaganda outlets are gearing up for massive programs to undermine the Tehran régime and in short, use the same tricks they did in Georgia, Chechnya and now, the Ukraine. The CIA already operates a Persian-language radio service, Radio Farda, which broadcasts to Iran 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Last week, Condi and other rabid hawks held a private meeting in the Monkey Palace with the top leadership of American Jewish groups. The main purpose of the meeting was a consideration of the Palestine problem with Condi pushing for bigger and longer walls and perhaps the deportation of all of the Palestinians to the Gaza strip
by force of course
and the subsequent seizure of the now-abandoned Arab homes and businesses for new Jewish settlers. This would make for better containment and the harsh conditions in Gaza might hasten the disintegration of the Palestinians as a viable community. Sharons people are delighted with Condis plans and Bush is in full agreement with this but is only a silent partner at this point.
The Franklin matter came up and it was agreed that both the White House and the top media people would keep the lid on this. A major columnist, yet to be chosen and bribed, will do an op-ed piece on the fact (leaked to him by the usual fake highly reliable inside sources ) that the FBI could actually find nothing wrong with Franklin and that the material Franklin gave to the Jews, both in the US and Tel Aviv, were actually unclassified policy studies of no strategic value. Then the matter will be considered over and forgotten. Actually, Franklin worked with top neocons and gave the Jews crates of high-level White House and Pentagon situation papers with Cosmic-type security classifications. In short, Franklin, who was well-paid for his treachery and will get to keep his ill-gotten gains, gave away the farm insofar as alerting his friends in Israel to our very top policy secrets. And, it is felt, a great deal more. Still murky but there is something very big and nasty down there in the dark pond. But if the Bush/Israeli people have their way, it will be a very dead issue.
Also, I am forwarding to you tonight, a précis of a very high level report on bioterrorism (an attack on the US using smallpox..) The original document, which has the highest classifications, would be a real bitch to scan and forward (it runs to six hundred pages) came from three reports: The CIA, the CDC (which is entirely in the Administrations pocket) and a British intelligence source. (Also highly classified and designed for their leadership alone.)
It will scare the hell out of you and, hopefully, your readers. And the terrifying fact is that it is a certainty and that nothing can be done about it. There is a projected dieoff in this country alone of nearly 70,000,000 people when this gets going! There are absolutely no defenses against it, the government having deliberately destroyed huge stocks of effective vaccine. We know with absolute certainty that terrorists have the smallpox virus, obtained from crooked Russian officials, and although we do not know at present which group is planning to use it as a bioterrorist weapon, we do know for certain that it will be used against us and probably within the next six months. (The winter months are considered the peak months for a widespread dissemination of the virus.)
Note: This very clear and detailed report is now being processed and will appear on the December 13, 2004, edition of the TBR News posting. Be sure to look for it. It is indeed a terrifying document and ought to be read by everyone. The following official White House press release is a real curtain-raiser to this coming disaster. Ed.
CLIP
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From: http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1251.htm
December 9, 2004: "Bush is doing himself no service with this Kerik business. This was Rudy Giuluanis quid pro quo for helping Bush in his campaign. Bernie is a street thug and when you put creeps like him around money you have a formula for disaster. As head of Homeland Security, Bernie will be able to really feather his nest. Every one of his agents will have to have a Taser and he and Rudy are financially involved with that company
and others with whom DHS expects to do extensive business. Of course, Bush himself is far from honest (if he ever visited my house and I let him in, I would keep a close watch on the silver spoons)
Well, by now you have read over the smallpox material. Frightening, isnt it? If you post it (you will have to cut it down somewhat) there will be those who scream that it is all lies. Most of the facts are up on Google except for the salient fact that our vaccine is worthless. When that comes out and when the public realizes that Bush has been having all of his staff, rich supporters and key people vaccinated and to hell with the rest of us, there will be real dung flying into the fan
The forthcoming Imperial Inaugural in January is a terrible, tasteless farce. The Bush people are extorting millions out of the rich boobery for Special Moments with Gods Anointed. A quarter of a million buys you the esteemed honor of having Bush himself and his Stepford wife actually stop by your table, shake your hand and hope he remembers your name. God, cant you see the pictures in your local paper? Of course a White House photographer will snap the Imperial couple as it stops by your table and copies will go to the Bad Seepage Daily Movement so all your friends at the country club can eat their hearts out. This will be the most lavish ceremony in the history of the United States and at a time when Bush and his wife ought to be visiting hospitals and giving signed pictures and a piece of old candy to mangled young GIs. This is exactly the sort of thing that went on in France just before the Revolution. Bush hasnt a clue, believe me. Some of the professionals here in the White House are getting nervous and wondering about job changes. There are indeed a few political pros here, mixed in with the fascistic neocons and the Jesus Freaks but we are badly outnumbered."
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From: http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1252.htm
Urgent Smallpox Warning!
A REVIEW OF THE USE OF SMALLPOX AS BIO-TERRORISM - August 19, 2004
Given recent disclosures from both domestic and foreign intelligence sources this paper is presented to give a cogent overview of the probable domestic (inside the continental United States) use of smallpox as an instrument of terror. The President of the United States, George W. Bush, has ordered all American military personnel to be vaccinated against smallpox and has implemented a voluntary program for vaccinating emergency medical personnel who would likely be the first people to respond in case of a bioterrorist attack. The primary purpose for military vaccination is not because of battlefield concerns of a bioterror outbreak but because a large number of military and medical personnel will be required to establish a total quarantine throughout the United States in areas that have ongoing infections or, in the opinion of the Government, are liable to such infections.
CLIP
Historically, variola major has an overall fatality rate of about 30%; however, flat and hemorrhagic smallpox usually are fatal. Variola minor is a less common presentation of smallpox, and a much less severe disease, with death rates historically of 1% or less.
Many survivors are left blind in one or both eyes from corneal ulceration, and persistent skin scarring - pockmarks - is nearly universal. Smallpox was responsible for an estimated 300-500 million deaths in the 20th century. In 1967, the World Health Organization (WHO) estimated that 15 million people contracted the disease and that two million died in that year There is no specific treatment for smallpox disease, and the only prevention is vaccination. Except for laboratory stockpiles, the variola virus has been eliminated. The last case of smallpox in the United States was in 1949. The last naturally occurring case in the world was in Somalia in 1977. The seasonal occurrence of smallpox was similar to that of chickenpox and measlesits incidence was highest during winter and early spring.
CLIP
Although smallpox has been officially eradicated, there is heightened concern that the variola virus might be used as an agent of bioterrorism. After successful vaccination campaigns, the WHO in 1980 declared the eradication of smallpox, though cultures of the virus are kept by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the United States and in Russia. Smallpox vaccination was discontinued in most countries in the 1970s as the risks of vaccination include death (~1 per million), among other serious side effects. After the 2001 anthrax attacks took place in the United States, concerns about smallpox have resurfaced as a possible agent for bioterrorism. As a result, there has been increased concern about the availability of vaccine stocks.
CLIP
A clandestine aerosol release of smallpox, even if it infected only 50 to 100 persons to produce the first generation of cases, would rapidly spread in a now highly susceptible population, expanding by a factor of 10 to 20 times or more with each generation of cases. Between the time of an aerosol release of smallpox virus and diagnosis of the first cases, an interval as long as 2 weeks or more is apt to occur because of the average incubation period of 12 to 14 days and the lapse of several additional days before a rash was sufficiently distinct to suggest the diagnosis of smallpox. By that time, there would be no risk of further environmental exposure from the original aerosol release because the virus is fully inactivated within 2 days.
CLIP
Generally, direct and fairly prolonged face-to-face contact, primarily by droplet nuclei or aerosols expelled from the oropharynx of infected persons and by direct contact is required to spread smallpox from one person to another. Smallpox also can be spread through direct contact with infected bodily fluids or contaminated objects such as bedding or clothing. Rarely, smallpox has been spread by virus carried in the air in enclosed settings such as buildings, buses, and trains. Humans are the only natural hosts of variola. Smallpox is not known to be transmitted by insects or animals. Contaminated clothing or bed linens can also spread the virus. There are no known animal or insect reservoirs or vectors. Natural infection occurs following implantation of the virus on the oropharyngeal or respiratory mucosa. The infectious dose is unknown but is believed to be only a few virions.
CLIP
At the present time, the United States' national stockpile of smallpox vaccine is inside a walk-in freezer in a warehouse in Lancaster County, Pennsylvania, near the Susquehanna River, at a facility owned by Wyeth-Ayerst Laboratories. The vaccine is owned by the federal government and is managed by Wyeth-Ayerst, which is the company that made it, twenty-five to thirty years ago. It is stored in glass vials. The vials contain freeze-dried nuggets of live vaccinia virus. Vaccinia is a mild virus. The vaccine is slowly deteriorating. The Food and Drug Administration has put a hold on the smallpox vaccine, and right now no one can use it. The reason for this is that it has been discovered that this ageing vaccine is disintegrating and much of it is no longer effective. High ranking members of the government and many military units ordered vaccinated by order of President Bush in fact do not have any immunity unless they had previous vaccinations. There are no manufacturers now equipped to produce smallpox vaccine in large quantities. The development and licensure of a tissue cell culture vaccine and the establishment of a new vaccine production facility is estimated to require at least 36 months.
CLIP
The deliberate reintroduction of smallpox as an epidemic disease would be an international crime of unprecedented proportions, but it is now regarded as highly probable. Intelligence estimates indicate a 95% chance of a deliberately instigated outbreak of smallpox in the United States within the next calendar year. An aerosol release of variola virus would disseminate widely, given the considerable stability of the orthopox viruses in aerosol form and the likelihood that the infectious dose is very small.
There is a growing suspicion among experts that the smallpox virus may also live unofficially in clandestine biowarfare laboratories in a number of countries around the world, including labs on military bases in Russia that are closed to outside observers. The Central Intelligence Agency has become deeply alarmed about smallpox. Since 1995, a number of leading American biologists and public-health doctors have been given classified national-security briefings on smallpox. They have been shown classified evidence that in 1992 Russia had the apparent capability of launching strategic-weapons-grade smallpox in special biological warheads on giant SS-18 intercontinental missiles that were targeted on the major cities of the United States.
CLIP
The United States government keeps a list of nations and groups that it suspects either have clandestine stocks of smallpox or seem to be trying to buy or steal the virus. The list is classified, and includes Russia, China, India, Pakistan, Israel, North Korea, Iraq, Iran, Cuba, and Serbia. The list also includes the terrorist organization of Osama bin Laden and, possibly, the Aum Shinrikyo sect of Japan -- a quasi-religious group that had Ph.D. biologists as members and a belief that an apocalyptic war will bring them worldwide power. Aum members released nerve gas in the Tokyo subway in 1995, and the group is still active in Japan and in Russia. In any case, the idea that smallpox lives in only two freezers was never anything more than a comfortable fiction. No one knows exactly who has smallpox today, or where they keep the virus, or what they intend to do with it.
CLIP
Most people today have no immunity to smallpox. The vaccine begins to wear off in many people after ten years. Mass vaccination for smallpox came to a worldwide halt around twenty-five years ago. There is now very little smallpox vaccine on hand in the United States or anywhere else in the world. The World Health Organization once had ten million doses of the vaccine in storage in Geneva, Switzerland, but in 1990 an advisory committee recommended that most of it be destroyed, feeling that smallpox was longer a threat. Nine and a half million doses are assumed to have been cooked in an oven, leaving the W.H.O. with a total supply of half a million doses -- one dose of smallpox vaccine for every twelve thousand people on earth. A recent survey by the W.H.O. revealed that there is only one factory in the world that has recently made even a small quantity of the vaccine, and there may be no factory capable of making sizable amounts. The vaccine was discovered in the age of Thomas Jefferson, and making a lot of it would seem simple, but so far the United States government has been unable to get any made at all. Variola virus is now classified as a Biosafety Level 4 hot agent -- the most dangerous kind of virus -- because it is lethal, airborne, and highly contagious, and is now exotic to the human species, and there is not enough vaccine to stop an outbreak. Experts feel that the appearance of a single case of smallpox anywhere on earth would be a global medical emergency.
If there's a bioterror event, and someone releases enough smallpox to create a hundred cases let us say in the Washington D.C. area -- it would be a national emergency. The immediate national, and international, demand for vaccine would be beyond all belief. In Yugoslavia in 1972, the outbreak was started by one man, and eighteen million doses of vaccine were needed -- one for almost every person in the country.
That first wave after the bioterror event will certainly result in a hundred people infected with smallpox. It takes two weeks after exposure before doctors can diagnose smallpox. Meanwhile, those hundred people will give smallpox to two thousand people. That's the second wave. Some of those first hundred people will go to other cities -- to Washington, to New York, to Chicago and in fact, across the globe. So the second wave will include cases in other American cities, and given the travel patterns, with a certainty in foreign countries. By then, it'll be too late to treat them, and we'll lose the second wave. We'll be well into the third wave -- ten to twenty thousand people with smallpox -- before we can really start vaccinating people. By then, we'll begin to pick up so many cases in the Washington area that we won't be able to track cases, and we'll just have to vaccinate everybody around Baltimore. At least a hundred million doses of vaccine would be needed in the United States alone to stop a surging outbreak triggered by a hundred initial cases of smallpox from a bioterror event. That much vaccine could be stored in a 25x7 foot building..
Given global air travel patterns it would take about six weeks to create fatal eruptions cases around the world. Dropping an atomic bomb could cause large casualties in a specific area, but the infection of one carrier could cause a global plague of incredible proportions. In the United States alone, it is cautiously estimated that the death toll would easily reach 77,000,000 people with many millions more infected and physically damaged, requiring extensive medical support for a significant period of time. CLIP
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See also:
Book Review: Vaccine Is Hell (11-03-2004)
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Unlisted.db&command=viewone&id=19
In these times of panicked waiting lines for flu vaccine, here comes a new and even more frightening look at the U.S. militarys ill-fated anthrax vaccine program. In Vaccine A: The Covert Government Experiment Thats Killing Our Soldiers And Why GIs Are Only The First Victims (Basic Books, New York, Oct. 19, 2004), author Gary Matsumoto tells an amazing, six-year scientific mystery story, unraveled literally strand by strand and lab sample by lab sample. It is a real-life and death CSI show, and perhaps a tragic mistake of gargantuan proportions, affecting thousands if not hundreds of thousands of U.S. fighting men and women. In a crash effort to boost the effectiveness and lessen the required doses of existing anthrax vaccines, U.S. military researchers apparently turned to squalene, a naturally-occurring oil distantly related to cholesterol. The squalene was added to various experimental batches of the vaccine administered to troops destined for the first Gulf War in 1991. But when injected, even in the minutest of amounts, squalene oil can cause the bodys immune system to create its own specialized anti-bodies which then indiscriminately attack all such other oils in the body. These auto-immune reactions have the exact same symptoms as those of the victims of the so-called Gulf War Syndrome. Proving that this additive, called an adjuvant (a word not often heard outside of microbiology), was causing these adverse reactions has been an uphill battle for a handful of dedicated civilian researchers. And it is their stories, along with those of some fearless victims, that become the focus of Matsumoto's book. (...) And it even has a shocking surprise ending: Matsumoto reports that scientists have only discovered this past summer that the latest possible victims of adjuvant-induced squalene antibodies are the recently returned Iraq War II veterans-a few even suffering some of the same auto-immune symptoms as their earlier comrades. While the plot twists and turns throughout this excellent book, by far the most ominous twist is that these vaccines are currently stockpiled for use by U.S. civilians in case of further terrorist anthrax attacks on the general population.
6.
IF ANYONE EVER DOUBTED THAT THE DRAFT IS COMING FAST IN THE US, JUST READ THIS ARTICLE FROM DEFENSE WATCH
From: http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=Hacks%20Target%20Homepage.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=95&rnd=247.950702506532
12-06-2004
Hack's Target
Uncle Sam Wants Your Kids Now!
By David H. Hackworth
Well soon have 150,000 U.S. troops stuck in the ever-expanding Iraqi quagmire, a number that will probably grow even larger before Iraq holds elections presently scheduled for the end of January 05.
Maintaining such a force is a logistical and personnel nightmare for every grunt in Iraq. And according to several Pentagon number crunchers, its also driving the top brass bonkers.
Meanwhile the insurgents continue cutting our supply lines and whacking our fighting platoons and supporters, who attrit daily as soldiers and Marines fall to enemy shots, sickness or accidents. Empty platoons lose fights, so these casualties have to be replaced ASAP.
Since this tragic war kicked off in March 2003, the United States has evacuated an estimated 50,000 KIA, WIA and non-battle casualties from Iraq back to the States leaving 50,000 slots that have had to be filled.
The job of finding fresh bodies to keep our units topped off falls mainly to the Army Recruiting Command. But the making-quota jazz put out by the Recruiting Command and the Pentagon to hype their billion-dollar recruiting effort, with its huge TV expenditure and big expansion of recruiters during the past year, is pure unadulterated spin. Not that this is anything new. The Command has a sorry reputation for using smoke and mirrors to cover up poor performance.
Hack, heres a snapshot of how little of our 1st Quarter mission has been achieved, says an Army recruiter. Look at it from a perspective of a business releasing quarterly earnings information. To keep unit manning levels up out in the field, especially in Iraq, theres no question our recruiting mission is in serious trouble.
These are totals for the 41 USAREC (Recruiting Command) Battalions, so these stats represent the USAREC mission accomplishment:
Regular Army Volume (all RA contracts):
Mission: 25,322
Achieved: 12,703 (50.17 percent)
Army Reserve Volume:
Mission: 7,373
Achieved: 3,206 (43.48 percent).
The Army National Guard is faring no better. A Guard retention NCO says: The word is out on the streets of Washington, D.C. Do not join the Guard. I see these words echoing right across the U.S.A.
By the end of this recruiting year, the Regular Army, Reserves and Guard could fall short more than 50 percent of its projected requirement, or about 60,000 new soldiers. And according to many recruiters, quality recruits are giving way to mental midgets who have a hard time telling their left foot from their right.
Shades of our last years in Vietnam.
The bottom line is that Recruiting Command is in trouble, says another recruiter with almost 30 years of service. The Army has re-instituted stop loss, which is basically a backdoor draft. Theyre stopping people from retiring or completing their enlistment and leaving the Army. They do this fairly often, mostly in August and September, depending upon how far behind they believe theyll be at the end of September.
I believe the Army will have to drastically change what they offer to enlistees to overcome whats happening in Iraq. The war is ugly, and not many kids want to enlist to be blown up.
Moms and dads are outraged about desperate Army recruiters on a relentless campaign to sign up their teenagers. High-school kids are actually running away from recruiters like they were George Romeros living dead.
Recruiters have called my son a minimum of 20 times in the two years since he finished high school, a dad reports. The phone calls usually come in clusters. I answered five calls in a two- or three-week span. Each time a recruiter calls, he receives the same polite, respectful response from me or my son ... no interest, and please take the name off the list. When asked why the name hasnt been removed, excuses are made. While recruiters are brief with me, when my son is on the phone, the sales tactics are clever, prolonged and very high-pressure.
I took the latest recruiting call. This time I also called the supervisor at the local Army recruiting office, whos promised to take his name off the list. She made excuses for the repeated calls despite the fact that five calls were on her watch.
Unless a miracle happens and the new Iraqi security force decides to stop running and start fighting, well be in Iraq for a long time. Most likely with a draftee force.
-- Eilhys England contributed to this column.
Col. David H. Hackworth (USA Ret.) is SFTT.org co-founder and Senior Military Columnist for DefenseWatch magazine.
MANY MORE DEFENSE WATCH ARTICLES AT http://www.sftt.org/
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See also:
U.S. Army Plagued by Desertion and Plunging Morale (10 December 2004) http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121104Y.shtml
While insurgents draw on deep wells of fury to expand their ranks in Iraq, the US military is fighting desertion, recruitment shortfalls and legal challenges from its own troops. The irritation among the rank and file became all too clear this week when a soldier stood up in a televised session with Donald Rumsfeld, the US Defence Secretary, to ask why the world's richest army was having to hunt for scrap metal to protect its vehicles. The same night, interviews with three soldiers who are seeking refugee status in Canada, where they have become minor celebrities, dominated prime time television. They are among more the than 5,000 troops that CBS's 60 Minutes reported on Wednesday had deserted since the war began. Many experts say that America's 1.4 million active-duty troops and 865,000 part-timers are stretched to the point where President Bush may see other foreign policy goals blunted.
Deserters: We Won't Go to Iraq (8 December 2004)
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121204X.shtml
The Pentagon says more than 5,500 servicemen have deserted since the war started in Iraq. 60 Minutes Wednesday found several of these deserters who left the Army or Marine Corps rather than go to Iraq. Like a generation of deserters before them, they fled to Canada. What do these men, who have violated orders and oaths, have to say for themselves? They told Correspondent Scott Pelley that conscience, not cowardice, made them American deserters. CLIP
Breaking Silence over a Possible Terror Threat (07-23-2004)
http://www.sftt.org/cgi-bin/csNews/csNews.cgi?database=DefenseWatch%20Special%20Interest.db&command=viewone&op=t&id=458&rnd=794.6142273527429
A sobering and scary development is allegedly taking place along the southwest border of the United States. In Arizona, in the area the many refer to as the Naco Strip, our international border with Mexico in recent weeks has become a primary route of illegal entry by significant numbers of Arab-speaking males. The porous frontier, harried U.S. government officials say, is beginning to look a lot like the left lane on a European Autobahn. It doesnt take a master spy to conclude that we may be seeing a large-scale influx of al Qaeda terrorists into the country. This stunning disclosure has been made by a small-town weekly newspaper in Arizona, the Tombstone Tumbleweed, whose editor, Chris Simcox, posted an article on the papers website last week revealing the presence of Arab-speaking males amid the waves of recently-captured illegals. The article is based on separate, first-hand interviews with three U.S. government agents who confirmed that males of possible Syrian and Iranian descent have been detained in the past few weeks. (...) According to the Tombstone editors sources, on June 13, 2004, Border Patrol agents from the Wilcox, Ariz., patrol station encountered a large group of illegal border crossers in the Chiricaucha Mountain foothills, just east of what is known as The Sanders Ranch. Agents estimated that the group comprised about 100 people. Border Patrol sources who were present at this mass apprehension state that they seized 71 illegal aliens, of whom 53 were males of Middle Eastern decent. The suspects did not speak Spanish and spoke only poor English, sources told the newspaper. In fact, after a group of the detainees had been placed in a transport van, one Border Patrol agents on the scene who speaks Arabic and Farsi, the native language of Iran, clearly overheard the detainees speaking Arabic through an air vent in the transport vehicle. Higher-ups in the Border Patrol allegedly ordered these agents involved not to say a thing to the news media. But I have to, one of the agents told the Tombstone editor, obviously acting out of concern of the potential terrorism threat as every American should be. The agents involved in the June 13th incident noted that these suspects wore garb and clothing that is normally worn by migrants: baseball caps, tennis shoes, jeans, T-shirts even with patriotic American slogans. But the agents said what was particularly odd was that all the clothing worn by the Middle Eastern males was brand new. Each one in the group looked to have had just been to a barber shop with fresh new haircuts, all clean cut, with the exact style and cut of mustaches. Border Patrol sources, at the risk of being in violation of orders and losing their jobs, offered a subsequent chilling revelation. On June 21, 2004, they and their colleagues from the Wilcox Border Patrol station apprehended another 24 Arabic-speaking males in the area of Pierce/Sunsites. These small towns are approximately 25 miles northeast of Tombstone and not far from the Chiricaucha foothills. Even more worrisome, the agents say, is that the 24 men who were seized were only part of a larger group. At least half of the group apparently escaped capture and remain on the loose in the United States. CLIP
7.
From: http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121304X.shtml
U.S. Soldiers' Grilling Fields
By Tim Harper
The Toronto Star
12 December 2004
More talk heard of desertion, disgruntlement.
'Backdoor draft' adding to worries for some troops.
WASHINGTON - David Qualls reluctantly returned to Iraq yesterday, but not before he made a louder statement about the state of U.S. troop morale than any of the pointed questions from soldiers to Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld this week.
Qualls, an army specialist from Morrilton, Ark., and seven other soldiers who have remained nameless, have sued the Pentagon, claiming they are improperly being kept in Iraq beyond their agreed tour of duty.
It is a burgeoning problem for Rumsfeld and the Bush administration because more and more soldiers in Iraq are questioning the rationale for their mission, the way in which they have been equipped and how long they've been deployed.
In so doing, they are shining new light on the price being paid for what is widely seen as inadequate war planning and piecemeal responses as U.S. troops battle an insurgency better armed and more determined than any scenario drawn up.
As the U.S. death toll in Iraq tops 1,270 and the looming Christmas season only magnifies the frustration of families at home, stories of desertions and disgruntled troops began dominating the airwaves.
There was the now-famous grilling of Rumsfeld by troops stationed in Kuwait, who challenged him on a lack of armoured vehicles, lengthened deployments, antiquated equipment and unpaid benefits.
The Toronto case of Jeremy Hinzman, a 26-year-old South Dakotan who said he fled to Canada instead of deploying to Iraq after realizing he could not kill another human being, was given prominence in many U.S. media outlets.
A navy petty officer is at large and been declared a deserter after refusing to board a troop transport ship in San Diego, bound for Iraq.
"I just couldn't sleep at night knowing that I took 3,000 people to a place where 100 of them might die," 23-year-old Pablo Paredes told National Public Radio.
The U.S. Army wants to prosecute First Lt. Julian P. Goodrum of Knoxville, Tenn., for being away without leave (AWOL) after the 34-year-old, 16-year military veteran checked himself into a civilian psychiatric hospital, claiming he was suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder.
The mysterious case of Cpl. Wassef Ali Hassoun, a 24-year-old Lebanese-born U.S. Marine who disappeared from his camp near Falluja last summer, led to a charge of desertion this week.
Dan Felushko, a 24-year-old marine, told the CBS program 60 Minutes this week that he left Camp Pendleton, Calif., and came to Canada rather than Kuwait, because he felt it would have been wrong to fight.
"I didn't want, you know, `died deluded in Iraq' over my gravestone," he said.
According to the CBS program, some 5,000 American men and women have deserted the military since the war began. They are largely accused of cowardice back home, but they say they are acting out of conscience.
Some say they saw no link between the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and the Iraq war, others lost faith when it became clear there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq.
Many who remain are clearly becoming disillusioned.
CLIP
8.
Date: 14 Dec 2004
From: Treethan livetrii@yahoo.com>
Subject: Statement from the Iraqi Resistance
{words of hope, resistance & humanity}
From: http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article7468.htm
Iraqi Resistance speech on videotape December 13 2004
Rush transcript - Title: Communiqué Number 6
The media platoon of the Islamic Jihad Army. On the 27th of Shawal 1425h. 10 December 2004
People of the world! These words come to you from those who up to the day of the invasion were struggling to survive under the sanctions imposed by the criminal regimes of the U.S. and Britain.
We are simple people who chose principles over fear.
We have suffered crimes and sanctions, which we consider the true weapons of mass destruction.
Years and years of agony and despair, while the condemned UN traded with our oil revenues in the name of world stability and peace.
Over two million innocents died waiting for a light at the end of a tunnel that only ended with the occupation of our country and the theft of our resources.
After the crimes of the administrations of the U.S and Britain in Iraq, we have chosen our future. The future of every resistance struggle ever in the history of man.
It is our duty, as well as our right, to fight back the occupying forces, which their nations will be held morally and economically responsible; for what their elected governments have destroyed and stolen from our land.
We have not crossed the oceans and seas to occupy Britain or the U.S. nor are we responsible for 9/11. These are only a few of the lies that these criminals present to cover their true plans for the control of the energy resources of the world, in face of a growing China and a strong unified Europe. It is Ironic that the Iraqi's are to bear the full face of this large and growing conflict on behalf of the rest of this sleeping world.
We thank all those, including those of Britain and the U.S., who took to the streets in protest against this war and against Globalism. We also thank France, Germany and other states for their position, which least to say are considered wise and balanced, til now.
Today, we call on you again.
We do not require arms or fighters, for we have plenty.
We ask you to form a world wide front against war and sanctions. A front that is governed by the wise and knowing. A front that will bring reform and order. New institutions that would replace the now corrupt.
Stop using the U.S. dollar, use the Euro or a basket of currencies. Reduce or halt your consumption of British and U.S. products. Put an end to Zionism before it ends the world. Educate those in doubt of the true nature of this conflict and do not believe their media for their casualties are far higher than they admit.
We only wish we had more cameras to show the world their true defeat.
The enemy is on the run. They are in fear of a resistance movement they can not see nor predict.
We, now choose when, where, and how to strike. And as our ancestors drew the first sparks of civilization, we will redefine the word "conquest."
Today we write a new chapter in the arts of urban warfare.
Know that by helping the Iraqi people you are helping yourselves, for tomorrow may bring the same destruction to you.
In helping the Iraqi people does not mean dealing for the Americans for a few contracts here and there. You must continue to isolate their strategy.
This conflict is no longer considered a localized war. Nor can the world remain hostage to the never-ending and regenerated fear that the American people suffer from in general.
We will pin them here in Iraq to drain their resources, manpower, and their will to fight. We will make them spend as much as they steal, if not more.
We will disrupt, then halt the flow of our stolen oil, thus, rendering their plans useless.
And the earlier a movement is born, the earlier their fall will be.
And to the American soldiers we say, you can also choose to fight tyranny with us. Lay down your weapons, and seek refuge in our mosques, churches and homes. We will protect you. And we will get you out of Iraq , as we have done with a few others before you.
Go back to your homes, families, and loved ones. This is not your war. Nor are you fighting for a true cause in Iraq.
And to George W. Bush, we say, "You have asked us to 'Bring it on', and so have we. Like never expected. Have you another challenge?"
9.
Forwarded by Theresa Miyashiro teelavoie@sbcglobal.net> on 16 Dec 2004
From: http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1207-26.htm
Hyping Terror For Fun, Profit - And Power
by Thom Hartmann
December 7, 2004
What if there really was no need for much - or even most - of the Cold War? What if, in fact, the Cold War had been kept alive for two decades based on phony WMD threats?
What if, similarly, the War On Terror was largely a scam, and the administration was hyping it to seem larger-than-life? What if our "enemy" represented a real but relatively small threat posed by rogue and criminal groups well outside the mainstream of Islam? What if that hype was done largely to enhance the power, electability, and stature of George W. Bush and Tony Blair?
And what if the world was to discover the most shocking dimensions of these twin deceits - that the same men promulgated them in the 1970s and today?
It happened.
The myth-shattering event took place in England the first three weeks of October, when the BBC aired a three-hour documentary written and produced by Adam Curtis, titled "The Power of Nightmares."
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/3755686.stm
If the emails and phone calls many of us in the US received from friends in the UK - and debate in the pages of publications like The Guardian
http://www.guardian.co.uk/terrorism/story/0,12780,1327904,00.html are any indicator, this was a seismic event, one that may have even provoked a hasty meeting between Blair and Bush a few weeks later.
According to this carefully researched and well-vetted BBC documentary, Richard Nixon, following in the steps of his mentor and former boss Dwight D. Eisenhower, believed it was possible to end the Cold War and eliminate fear from the national psyche. The nation need no longer be afraid of communism or the Soviet Union. Nixon worked out a truce with the Soviets, meeting their demands for safety as well as the US needs for security, and then announced to Americans that they need no longer be afraid.
In 1972, President Richard Nixon returned from the Soviet Union with a treaty worked out by Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, the beginning of a process Kissinger called "détente." On June 1, 1972, Nixon gave a speech in which he said, "Last Friday, in Moscow, we witnessed the beginning of the end of that era which began in 1945. With this step, we have enhanced the security of both nations. We have begun to reduce the level of fear, by reducing the causes of fear-for our two peoples, and for all peoples in the world."
But Nixon left amid scandal and Ford came in, and Ford's Secretary of Defense (Donald Rumsfeld) and Chief of Staff (Dick Cheney) believed it was intolerable that Americans might no longer be bound by fear. Without fear, how could Americans be manipulated?
Rumsfeld and Cheney began a concerted effort - first secretly and then openly - to undermine Nixon's treaty for peace and to rebuild the state of fear and, thus, reinstate the Cold War.
And these two men - 1974 Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and Ford Chief of Staff Dick Cheney - did this by claiming that the Soviets had secret weapons of mass destruction that the president didn't know about, that the CIA didn't know about, that nobody but them knew about. And, they said, because of those weapons, the US must redirect billions of dollars away from domestic programs and instead give the money to defense contractors for whom these two men would one day work.
"The Soviet Union has been busy," Defense Secretary Rumsfeld explained to America in 1976. "They've been busy in terms of their level of effort; they've been busy in terms of the actual weapons they've been producing; they've been busy in terms of expanding production rates; they've been busy in terms of expanding their institutional capability to produce additional weapons at additional rates; they've been busy in terms of expanding their capability to increasingly improve the sophistication of those weapons. Year after year after year, they've been demonstrating that they have steadiness of purpose. They're purposeful about what they're doing."
The CIA strongly disagreed, calling Rumsfeld's position a "complete fiction" and pointing out that the Soviet Union was disintegrating from within, could barely afford to feed their own people, and would collapse within a decade or two if simply left alone.
But Rumsfeld and Cheney wanted Americans to believe there was something nefarious going on, something we should be very afraid of. To this end, they convinced President Ford to appoint a commission including their old friend Paul Wolfowitz to prove that the Soviets were up to no good.
According to Curtis' BBC documentary, Wolfowitz's group, known as "Team B," came to the conclusion that the Soviets had developed several terrifying new weapons of mass destruction, featuring a nuclear-armed submarine fleet that used a sonar system that didn't depend on sound and was, thus, undetectable with our current technology.
The BBC's documentarians asked Dr. Anne Cahn of the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency during that time, her thoughts on Rumsfeld's, Cheney's, and Wolfowitz's 1976 story of the secret Soviet WMDs. Here's a clip from a transcript of that BBC documentary:
"Dr ANNE CAHN, Arms Control and Disarmament Agency, 1977-80: They couldn't say that the Soviets had acoustic means of picking up American submarines, because they couldn't find it. So they said, well maybe they have a non-acoustic means of making our submarine fleet vulnerable. But there was no evidence that they had a non-acoustic system. They're saying, 'we can't find evidence that they're doing it the way that everyone thinks they're doing it, so they must be doing it a different way. We don't know what that different way is, but they must be doing it.'
"INTERVIEWER (off-camera): Even though there was no evidence.
"CAHN: Even though there was no evidence.
"INTERVIEWER: So they're saying there, that the fact that the weapon doesn't exist.
"CAHN: Doesn't mean that it doesn't exist. It just means that we haven't found it."
The moderator of the BBC documentary then notes:
"What Team B accused the CIA of missing was a hidden and sinister reality in the Soviet Union. Not only were there many secret weapons the CIA hadn't found, but they were wrong about many of those they could observe, such as the Soviet air defenses. The CIA were convinced that these were in a state of collapse, reflecting the growing economic chaos in the Soviet Union. Team B said that this was actually a cunning deception by the Soviet régime. The air-defense system worked perfectly. But the only evidence they produced to prove this was the official Soviet training manual, which proudly asserted that their air-defense system was fully integrated and functioned flawlessly. The CIA accused Team B of moving into a fantasy world." Nonetheless, as Melvin Goodman, head of the CIA's Office of Soviet Affairs, 1976-87, noted in the BBC documentary,
"Rumsfeld won that very intense, intense political battle that was waged in Washington in 1975 and 1976. Now, as part of that battle, Rumsfeld and others, people such as Paul Wolfowitz, wanted to get into the CIA. And their mission was to create a much more severe view of the Soviet Union, Soviet intentions, Soviet views about fighting and winning a nuclear war." Although Wolfowitz and Rumsfeld's assertions of powerful new Soviet WMDs were unproven - they said the lack of proof proved that undetectable weapons existed - they nonetheless used their charges to push for dramatic escalations in military spending to selected defense contractors, a process that continued through the Reagan administration.
But, trillions of dollars and years later, it was proven that they had been wrong all along, and the CIA had been right. Rumsfeld, Cheney, and Wolfowitz lied to America in the 1970s about Soviet WMDs.
Not only do we now know that the Soviets didn't have any new and impressive WMDs, but we also now know that they were, in fact, decaying from within, ripe for collapse any time, regardless of what the US did - just as the CIA (and anybody who visited Soviet states - as I had - during that time could easily predict). The Soviet economic and political system wasn't working, and their military was disintegrating.
As arms-control expert Cahn noted in the documentary of those 1970s claims by Wolfowitz, Cheney, and Rumsfeld:
"I would say that all of it was fantasy. I mean, they looked at radars out in Krasnoyarsk and said, 'This is a laser beam weapon,' when in fact it was nothing of the sort. ... And if you go through most of Team B's specific allegations about weapons systems, and you just examine them one by one, they were all wrong."
"INTERVIEWER: All of them?
"CAHN: All of them.
"INTERVIEWER: Nothing true?
"CAHN: I don't believe anything in [Wolfowitz's 1977] Team B was really true."
But the neocons said it was true, and organized a group - The Committee on the Present Danger -
http://www.fightingterror.org/
to promote their worldview. The Committee produced documentaries, publications, and provided guests for national talk shows and news reports. They worked hard to whip up fear and encourage increases in defense spending, particularly for sophisticated weapons systems offered by the defense contractors for whom neocons would later become lobbyists.
And they succeeded in recreating an atmosphere of fear in the United States, and making themselves and their defense contractor friends richer than most of the kingdoms of the world.
The Cold War was good for business, and good for the political power of its advocates, from Rumsfeld to Reagan.
Similarly, according to this documentary, the War On Terror is the same sort of scam, run for many of the same reasons, by the same people. And by hyping it - and then invading Iraq - we may well be bringing into reality terrors and forces that previously existed only on the margins and with very little power to harm us.
Curtis' documentary suggests that the War On Terror is just as much a fiction as were the super-WMDs this same group of neocons said the Soviets had in the 70s. He suggests we've done more to create terror than to fight it. That the risk was really quite minimal (at least until we invaded Iraq), and the terrorists are - like most terrorist groups - simply people on the fringes, rather easily dispatched by their own people. He even points out that Al Qaeda itself was a brand we invented, later adopted by bin Laden because we'd put so many millions into creating worldwide name recognition for it.
Watching "The Terror of Nightmares" is like taking the Red Pill in the movie The Matrix.
It's the story of idealism gone wrong, of ideologies promoted in the US by Leo Strauss and his followers (principally Wolfowitz, Feith, and Pearle), and in the Muslim world by bin Laden's mentor, Ayman Zawahiri. Both sought to create a utopian world through world domination; both believe that the ends justify the means; both are convinced that "the people" must be frightened into embracing religion and nationalism for the greater good of morality and a stable state. Each needs the other in order to hold power.
Whatever your plans are for tonight or tomorrow, clip three hours out of them and take the Red Pill. Get a pair of headphones (the audio is faint), plug them into your computer, and visit an unofficial archive of the Curtis' BBC documentary at the Information Clearing House website.
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/video1037.htm
The first hour of the program, in a more viewable format, is also available here:
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/november2004/121104powerofnightmares.htm
For those who prefer to read things online, an unofficial but complete transcript is on this Belgian site:
http://www.silt3.com/index.php?id=573
But be forewarned: You'll never see political reality - and certainly never hear the words of the Bush or Blair administrations - the same again.
Thom Hartmann (thom at thomhartmann.com) is a Project Censored Award-winning best-selling author and host of a nationally syndicated daily progressive talk show. http://www.thomhartmann.com
His most recent books are "The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight," "Unequal Protection," "We The People," The Edison Gene, and "What Would Jefferson Do?."
10.
From: "Richard Boylan" drboylan@sbcglobal.net>
Date: 15 Dec 2004
Subject: [DrRichBoylanReports] Stealth satellites (and secret space station) orbit overhead
Friends,
When several years ago my ex-NSA source, "Z" revealed the existence of a manned secret military space station in orbit for 30 years, the debunkers jumped on the report claiming it would have been spotted by amateur astronomers.
Now comes information from the Washington Post confirming the existence of technology to render satellites "stealth".
When advanced technology finally is revealed to the public, it is safe to assume that it has been operational anywhere from 20-40 years ago. Or more.
- Richard Boylan, Ph.D.
CONTROVERSY OVER NEW STEALTH SATELLITE
The NRO [National Reconnaissance Office, cloaking within itself its UFO-surveillance and interdiction evil twin, the National Reconnaissance Organization - ed.] is building a new generation of spy satellite designed to orbit undetected, in a highly classified program that has provoked opposition in closed congressional sessions where lawmakers have questioned its necessity and rapidly escalating price, the Washington Post reported on 11 December, citing U.S. officials.
(http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A56171-2004Dec10.html)
The system could take photographs only in daylight hours and in clear weather, current and former government officials say, according to the New York Times.
(http://www.nytimes.com/2004/12/12/politics/12spy.html?oref=login&th)
Previously undisclosed, the project has risen in cost from an estimated $5 billion to nearly $9.5 billion. The NRO has already spent hundreds of millions of dollars on the program, officials said.
The new stealth satellite is to be launched in the next five years and is intended to replace an __existing__ stealth satellite. Non-stealth satellites can be tracked and their orbits predicted, thus enabling governments to attempt to hide weapons or troop movements.
Opponents of the new satellite program argue it is not a good match against today's adversaries, such as North Korea and Iran, which have placed their nuclear weapons programs underground and inside buildings to avoid detection from the air.
The satellite in question would be the third and final version in a series developed in a classified program formerly known as Misty, officials said.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence has twice tried to kill the project, according to knowledgeable officials, while strong support for it has come from the Senate and House appropriations committees, the House intelligence committee and the CIA. (DKR)
Source: AFIO
---
See also:
Missile Defense Test Fails Again
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121604X.shtml
White House says Bush committed to missile defense (Dec 16)
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2004-12/17/content_2344989.htm
The White House said Thursday that President George W. Bush remains "firmly committed" to a missile defense system, even though the first full flight test of the system in two years failed. (...) Sixteen minutes after a rocket carrying a mock warhead as a target was launched from Kodiak, Alaska, the ground-based interceptor experienced an anomaly shortly before it was to be launched from the Marshall Islands in the central Pacific Ocean. The Pentagon is investigating what "unknown anomaly" caused an automatic shutdown of the interceptor. The aborted test cast fresh doubt over the Pentagon's plan to activate a basic missile defense by the end of this month. The decision to declare the system operational had been expected earlier this year but was delayed after a series of canceled tests and developmental difficulties. (...) The failure would certainly renew a debate over the feasibility of a missile defense system, which costs 10 billion dollars a year. Some lawmakers and military experts have criticized the Bush administration for rushing deployment on the basis of too few tests. CLIP
11.
From: http://news.scotsman.com/latest.cfm?id=3870182
Global Warming Fight Looks Beyond Kyoto
11 December 2004
Plans for international cooperation to fight global warming beyond the end of the Kyoto Protocol yesterday dominated the UN conference on climate change in Argentina.
The top European Union negotiator said that support was building for a proposal to hold a pair of international seminars next year to discuss additional measures to reduce climate change after 2012, when the landmark agreement ends.
Were quite encouraged with the response weve received from a number of negotiating partners, including Australia, Mexico and Switzerland, chief EU negotiator Yvo de Boer said yesterday.
The gatherings would serve as informal forums to begin discussing possible future emissions cuts and other steps beyond the timeframe of the Kyoto Protocol.
A senior US negotiator at the conference said yesterday that the US is opposed to the seminar proposal.
Its very premature to enter into negotiations on a post-2012 regime, said Harlan Watson, a US State Department climate negotiator.
We really need to see the results of what were doing now, and find out what works and what doesnt work before participating in further climate talks, Watson said.
Some at the conference have expressed hope that the US and large developing nations such as China and India might be more willing to curb emissions or take other steps to slow global warming beyond 2012.
De Boer acknowledged that deliberations at the conference may appear to be moving slowly, but stressed that progress was being made.
The Kyoto Protocol is probably the most important international environmental agreement, said de Boer, a senior official in Hollands environmental ministry.
To really embark on the next stage of discussions, which will have far greater implications, is very significant.
Meanwhile, scientists and environmentalists at the conference continued to warn participants of the dangers of climate change, which many believe poses a serious threat to life on Earth.
Caspar Ammann, a scientist and climatologist with the National Centre for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colorado, said temperature changes are apparent all around the world.
You see the glaciers disappearing very rapidly, you see changes in vegetation and changes in seasonal cycles, Ammann said. Its not anecdotal that the climate system is warming.
Other speakers on the sidelines of the December 6-17 conference claimed that women in poor nations are particularly vulnerable to the effects of global warming, which has been blamed for causing more violent storms and rising sea levels, among other problems.
---
See also:
US accused of undermining Kyoto principles (December 16 2004)
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/d1a2cdd0-4fa4-11d9-86b3-00000e2511c8.html
The US tried yesterday to ensure that future additions to the Kyoto protocol on climate change should avoid committing nations to reducing their carbon dioxide emissions, a move that other countries see as an attempt to undermine the principles of the environmental treaty.
U.S. Rallies China, India Against EU Climate Talks (Dec. 16)
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000085&sid=aC4H1jMeecCc&refer=europe--
The U.S. rallied the support of China and India to block European Union efforts to start talks on how to reduce greenhouse gases after 2012, when the Kyoto Protocol on climate changes expires. China and India, the world's second and fifth biggest carbon dioxide producing nations, support U.S. efforts to limit proposed talks next year on implementing current plans to reduce greenhouse gases, Harlen Watson, who co-heads the U.S. delegation at a climate change conference in Buenos Aires, said. The U.S., which withdrew from Kyoto in 2001 and refuses to impose limits on emissions by power plants and factories, will lobby other countries to oppose the EU proposal, Watson said. (...) U.S. opposition to the treaty comes amid growing evidence that greenhouse gases are causing calamities around the world. Pollution by power plants, oil refineries, cars and factories helped make this year the fourth warmest worldwide since records began, the U.K.'s weather forecasting and monitoring agency, said today. Next year is forecast to be even hotter, the study said. A Dec. 6 study by the Global Coral Reef Monitoring Network showed more than two thirds of the world's coral reefs have either been destroyed or are in danger of being lost because of rising temperatures. And study by the British Antarctic Survey showed that the loss of sea ice in Antarctica from global warming may be killing crustacean krill, threatening a source of food for fish and whales. CLIP
Summit Addresses Greenhouses Gases' Impact (December 11, 2004)5969677.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines>
http://www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-climate-conference-greenhouse-gases,0,5969677.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines
BUENOS AIRES, Argentina -- A new report on ecological damage from greenhouse gases dominated the sidelines of a U.N. conference on global warming Saturday as delegates from nearly 200 nations assembled to prepare for the launch next year of the Kyoto Protocol. Kyoto, a landmark treaty designed to slow global warming, is to be implemented in February and commits major industrialized nations to curbing gases of factories, cars and coal-burning power plants blamed for trapping heat in the atmosphere. In an update Saturday, experts warned that Latin America was especially hard hit by the so-called "greenhouse effect," with emissions of carbon dioxide and other gases blamed for abrupt climate changes in a region that is home to more than 300 million people. Although Latin America accounts for only about 4.3 percent of all global greenhouse gas output, a preliminary report prepared by environment officials from several countries highlighted signs of recent altered weather patterns, including increased flooding and droughts in Central and South America. CLIP
Dying for Consumption (December 10, 2004)
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1210-26.htm
I'm standing in the parking lot of an enormous shopping mall, staring at a Ford Excursion. A 7,700-pound hunk of metal, the Excursion gets horrible gas mileage, while spewing massive amounts of hydrocarbons into the atmosphere.It's the official policy of our federal government to offer Americans bribes, in the form of huge tax deductions, to encourage the purchase of such vehicles. In 2003, Congress enacted a provision allowing people who bought SUVs weighing at least 6,000 pounds to deduct the entire purchase price from their taxable income, if they claimed to use the things for "business purposes."Manufacturers scrambled to add even more weight to vehicles, to make them eligible for the deduction. This further decreased the gas mileage and increased the pollution emitted by these environmental disasters on wheels. The most awe-inspiring feature of this particular Excursion is a plastic decal shaped like a yellow ribbon, which its owner has affixed to the back door. The ribbon is embossed with the message, "Support Our Troops." (...) To the owner of the Ford Excursion who implores us to "Support Our Troops" I say this:You, sir (or madam), are a monumental jackass. At this moment, American troops are risking their lives to protect your inalienable right to live your life in an impenetrable fog of selfishness and stupidity. If not for the need to service this grotesque monstrosity on which you squander your money and that of the taxpayers who subsidize your comfortably numb life, those troops you support would not be getting killed and maimed in a country I doubt you could find on a map. I sometimes wonder if anything short of dynamite can shatter your complacent fantasy that the Iraq war is about bringing democracy to the Middle East. The truth is that every Arab from Casablanca to Khartoum could be cutting his brother's throat, and yet this would remain a matter of indifference to our government if not for the need to ensure that you will be able to fill your Excursion with cheap gasoline. To expect others to sacrifice everything for you, while advertising by your own behavior that you will sacrifice exactly nothing for them, is the height of political and social immorality. And to do so while claiming your political views are an expression of "moral values" is an obscene joke. CLIP
BUENOS HOT AIRES
U.S. professes bafflement at international ire over climate change
Summary by Grist magazine: "I'm not sure why we're considered the 'bad boys'," said puzzled U.S. climate negotiator Harlan Watson last week at the U.N. climate-change convention in Buenos Aires. The conference -- the last such meeting to take place before the Kyoto Protocol goes into effect in February -- has featured sharp criticism of U.S. inaction on global warming, but Watson made no apologies. He said that Kyoto was politically motivated, not "based on science," that conference participants were focused too much on talk and too little on action, and that European countries, despite their perceived "green halo," have also failed to take substantial steps to control greenhouse gases. He touted money the Bush administration will be spending on climate-change research (can never have too much research!) and development of new hydrogen and nuclear technologies. "We match or exceed what any other country is doing to address the issue," he said. Really, he said that.
More details in
U.S. Defends Global Warming Strategy
http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=309230
Facing Criticism, U.S. Defends Global Warming Strategy at International Climate Summit
and in
US rejects climate policy attacks (Dec 8) http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/4077137.stm
PUTTING THE "PACT" IN "NO IMPACT"
Tony Blair trying to entice U.S. into "Kyoto-lite" climate treaty
Summary by Grist magazine: With much of the industrialized world heaping scorn on the U.S. for spurning the recently ratified Kyoto Protocol, the Bush administration may soon get a chance to regain a smidgeon of international cred on the climate-change issue. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in an effort to bolster his tarnished green image, is secretly developing plans for a new international climate treaty -- dubbed "Kyoto-lite" by one insider -- that he hopes President Bush can be convinced to embrace. Blair met with U.S. Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) last week to discuss ways to broker such an agreement. Of course, because the fledgling treaty is meant to be palatable to Bush, it won't actually call for reductions in greenhouse-gas emissions. Rather, it'll focus on developing new, clean technologies, as well as acknowledging scientific agreement on the nature and scale of the climate-change threat, something the Bush administration has resisted. But hey, admitting you have a problem is the first step, right?
More details at http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,2-1395222,00.html
Human extinction within 100 years warns scientist (17 NOVEMBER 2004)
http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/print/0,1478,3099128a10,00.html
A top New Zealand researcher is using a prestigious award ceremony in Christchurch to warn that humans face extinction by the end of the century. Professor Peter Barrett will be presented with the Marsden Medal tonight for his 40-year contribution to Antarctic research, latterly focusing on climate change.The director of Victoria University's Antarctic Research Centre expects to use his acceptance speech to warn climate change was a major threat to the planet."After 40 years, I'm part of a huge community of scientists who have become alarmed with our discovery, that we know from our knowledge of the ancient past, that if we continue our present growth path, we are facing extinction," Barrett said. "Not in millions of years, or even millennia, but by the end of this century." CLIP
Marsden Medal 2004 - Background comments by Peter Barrett
http://www.geo.vuw.ac.nz/antarctic/ARCMarsdenNotes.html
The basis for the claim that "we are facing the end of civilisation as we know it ... by the end of the century" follows: The rise in global temperature over the last few decades (thus far just 0.6°C) is already being felt through increased storminess, loss of species, spread of deserts and tropical diseases, and disturbed ecological balance from excess CO2, an example being the Amazon rain forest. The effects will vary widely from place to place, with some areas little affected but others much more so. Why do most scientists see this as human-induced, and with huge consequences for the insurance, transport and agricultural sectors of every economy, not to mention massive loss of life and property, if this trend continues? CLIP
Abrupt Climate Change Report:
http://www.gbn.com/ArticleDisplayServlet.srv?aid=26231
12.
Forwarded by "Meria Heller" meriaheller@cox.net> on 13 Dec 2004
Gary Webb's apparent suicide from a gunshot to the head
I am writing this as the editor of INTO THE BUZZSAW, an anthology of essays in which investigative journalists and authors write in graphic detail about their personal encounters with censorship and other pressures to kill major sensitive stories.
Gary Webb was a contributor to the book. In his chapter, he wrote about the intense process he endured to report and release his "Dark Alliance" series on the connections among Nicaraguan drug dealers, CIA agents and California drug traffickers. He also wrote about the mind-boggling campaign to discredit his work once the series came out. After studiously ignoring his report, some of this nation's top newspapers rushed to the shameful task of discrediting Webb, often resorting to "unidentified" sources.
Shortly after his death, LA Times reporters Nita Lelyveld and Steve Hymon wrote an obituary that once again discredits Gary Webb's work using past hatchet-job reporting to buttress theirs. Making statements that are unsupported by credible first-hand sources and documents is just plain wrong in any case, but in the case of Gary Webb's obituary, it is profoundly unconscionable.
Perhaps those who are most familiar with the subject of Gary Webb's signature series, those who actually participated in the so-called Drug War, are in the best position to respond to Lelyveld and Hymon's obituary, which I urge you to read. Former covert DEA agent turned journalist, Mike Levine wrote a sadly prophetic piece back in July 1998. Here it is:
IS ANYONE APOLOGIZING TO GARY WEBB?
by Michael Levine
Gary Webb, just in case you've already forgotten him, was the journalist who, in a well researched, understated article entitled "The Dark Alliance," linked the CIA supported Contras to cocaine and weapons being sold to a California street gang and ended up literally being hounded out of journalism by every mainstream news peddling organization in the Yellow Pages. Even his own employer The San Jose Mercury piled on for the kill.
And guess what? The CIA finally admitted, yesterday, in the New York Times no less, that they, in fact, did "work with" the Nicaraguan Contras while they had information that they were involved in cocaine trafficking to the United States. An action known to us court qualified experts and federal agents as Conspiracy to Import and Distribute Cocainea federal felony punishable by up to life in prison.
To illustrate how us regular walking around, non CIA types are treated when we violate this law, while I was serving as a DEA supervisor in New York City, I put two New York City police officers in a federal prison for Conspiracy to distribute Cocaine when they looked the other way at their friend's drug dealing. We could not prove they earned a nickel nor that they helped their friend in any way, they merely did not do their duty by reporting him. They were sentenced to 10 and 12 years respectively, and one of them, I was recently told, had committed suicide.
I have spent three decades as a court qualified expert and federal agent and am not aware of any class of American Citizen having special permission to violate the law that we have been taxed over $1 trillion in the past two decades to enforce; the law that every politician, bureaucrat and media pundit keeps telling us protects us against the most serious danger to American security in our history.
The interesting thing to me, about the Webb article is that the CIA is provably (and now admittedly) responsible for much larger scale drug trafficking than Webb alleged or even imagined in his report.
In fact, according to a confidential DEA report entitled "Operation Hun, a Chronology" that I used as part of the proof to back up the undercover experiences detailed in my book The Big White Lie, (optioned for a movie by Robert Greenwald Productions) the CIA was actively blocking DEA from indicting many members of the ruling government of Bolivia, from, 1980-83during a time period that these same people were responsible for producing more than 90 percent of the cocaine consumed in the United States. As CIA Inspector General Hitz himself stated before congress, it was during this time period that Nicraguan Contra supporters were buying large amounts of cocaine from these same CIA protected Bolivians.
Do you think Congress wants to see this proof?
The gang that can't spy straight, as they are known to my listeners and about whom President Lyndon Johnson once said, "When Rich folks don't trust their sons with the family money they send them on down to the CIA," certainly did a lot more damage to this nation than, for example, computer company owner Will Foster who was sentenced to 93 years in prison for possession of 70 marijuana plants for medicinal use.
Of course, true to their shifty, sleazy form, while admitting that they did aid and abet Contra drug trafficking, they are now refusing to release their own final investigative report which details the damning proof. The same report that CIA Inspector General Fredrick Hitz, during February, 1998, had promised congress and the American people was forthcoming "shortly", because, as CIA Director George Tenet now claims, CIA does not have enough money in its budget to properly classify it.
You believe that then I know an old guy with a beard named Fidel, wandering the streets of South Miami with an Island about 90 miles off the coast for sale. He says the money is for his retirement.
How, you ask, do they get away with it?
Well for one thing, mainstream media, the so-called Fourth Estate, does all it can to help.
During the Iran-contra hearings, when Senators Kerry and D'amato were making pronouncements before the Senate indicating that the CIA was involved with drug trafficking, Katherine Graham the owner of The Washington Post addressed a class of CIA recruits at CIA's Langley headquarters in Novemeber, 1988, by saying:
"There are some things the general public does not need to know and shouldn't. I believe democracy flourishes when the government can take legitimate steps to keep its secrets, and when the press can decide whether to print what it knows.."
Apparently CIA protection of drug trafficking was among those secrets
Thus, it should have been no surprise to those CIA agent recruits when Washington Post reporter and drug expert Michael Itsikoff wrote that there was "no credible evidence" linking the CIA supported contras to cocaine trafficking at the same time very credible evidence was being heard by Senator Kerry's committee indicating that the Contras may have been the top purveyors of drugs to Americans in our history.
Neither should it have been a surprise to anyone who heard her statement when mainstream media refused to print the news that Oliver North, US Ambassador to Costa Rica, Lewis Tambs and various top level CIA officers were banned from ever entering Costa Rica by Nobel Prize winning President Oscar Arias, for drug running. The drugs, by the way, all going to us.
Nor should it have been a surprise when Gary Webb was destroyed by mainstream media, for doing nothing more or less than telling the truth as he found it.
And now, while CIA admits their felonies to the press but refuses to release the proof, and, Janet Reno, the head of the Obstruction of Justice Department has done the unprecedented by classifying her own department's investigation into CIA drug trafficking, the partnership for a Drug Free America is spending $2 billion of our tax money on already-proven-fruitless anti-drug ads.
And where do you think the money goes?
Answer: to every major media corporation on the big board.
Gary Webb, my friend, you are owed a huge apology. But I doubt that you'll get it. Not in this lifetime.
---
See also:
Webb died of "multiple wounds" (December 12, 2004)
http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/story/11744167p-12630255c.html
Gary Webb Obituary: Gary Webb, prize-winning investigative reporter - Gary Webb, a prize-winning investigative journalist whose star-crossed career was capped with a controversial newspaper series linking the CIA to the crack cocaine epidemic in Los Angeles, died Friday of self-inflicted gunshot wounds, officials said. Mr. Webb, 49, was found dead in his Carmichael home Friday morning of gunshot wounds to the head, the Sacramento County Coroner's Office said Saturday. He left a note, but officials would not disclose its contents. "I'm still in a state of shock," said Tom Dresslar, who works as a spokesman for California Attorney General Bill Lockyer and had known Mr. Webb for 15 years.
Discussion at DU on Webb's "wounds": http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=102&topic_id=1065543&mesg_id=1065543 -- For an account of the coroner's reference to "multiple wounds," see the postings by Pat C. at this site: http://www.astroworld.us/archives/000456.html#000456
Evidence Begins To Indicate Gary Webb Was Murdered (Dec 14)
http://www.prisonplanet.com/articles/december2004/141204webbmurdered.htm
13.
From: "Meria Heller" meriaheller@cox.net>
Subject: Fw: Gary Webb & other "suicides"
Date: 14 Dec 2004
Meria,
Not sure if you have seen this.
I sent it on to Karl.
Glad to be in your corner,
Floyd.
Subject: Gary Webb
Karl,
People with suicidal tendencies do not pack up and move. He committed suicide while waiting for the moving company?!?
In case you have not seen this... Other investigative journalists dead from suicide:
Here's a short list...
Seems journalists who oppose the BFEE end up in a bad way. Gary Webb "shot himself in the head" Friday morning, according to the police. His own "colleagues" didn't even see fit to put his suspicious death on page A-1. The cowards.
http://www.mercurynews.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/1
What Webb did to hurt the BFEE's feelings is he tied the CIA's Iran-Contra gang to the crack cocaine epidemic in America's major metropolitan areas. To the Bush gang, telling the truth made Webb an enemy.
http://www.parascope.com/mx/articles/garywebb/garyWebbS...
THIS PAGE IS NOW BLANK!!
Here are a few others who actually had the guts to investigate the Bush Family Evil Empire:
Daniel "Danny" Casolaro Researched BCCI and the Inslaw/PROMIS Affair, found that George HW Bush had ties going around the world and back through Iran-Contra, Iraq-gate, the October Surprise, Watergate, Vietnam, the Bay of Pigs and Dallas. A "suicide."
http://www.cjr.org/archives.asp?url=/91/6/octopus.asp
Abbie Hoffman Yippie of the 60s turned into an investigative reporter in the 80s, researched and wrote about "October Surprise" allegations involving George HW Bush, Bill Casey and Robert Gates doing a deal with the Ayatollah Khomeini to delay the release of the hostages in 1980. The pretty good overview appeared in Playboy in 1992. A "suicide."
http://www.democracyunbound.com/playboy1088.html
Steve Kangas Researcher and writer who started "Liberal Resurgent" web site dedicated to naming names like Richard Mellon Scaife and telling the truth about what was happening to America. Wrote the seminal "The Origins of the Overclass" which detailed the role of the CIA in preserving the privileged positions of the nation's wealthiest individuals and corporations. A "suicide."
http://www.huppi.com/kangaroo/L-overclass.html
Jim Hatifield Researcher and writer who penned "Fortunate Son," an unauthorized biography of George W Bush that included allegations of cocaine use, planted by Karl Rove, who knew that Hatfield, an ex-con would be discredited. The last thing Hatfield wrote "Why Would Osama Want to Kill His Ex-Business Partner?" that detailed bin Laden threatening to crash a plane loaded with explosives into the G-8 summit in Genoa Italy in July 2001. Bush slept offshore aboard a US warship and the meeting was guarded by SAMs. A "suicide."
Mark Lombardi Artist and researcher who developed "Global Networks" or "Social Network Diagrams" which illustrated and chronicled the relationships between many of our day's shadiest characters, institutions and treasons. One of his works graphically charted Osama bin Laden, Sheik Salim bin Laden, James R Bath, Texas Gov George W Bush and HARKEN Energy. A "suicide."
http://www.conspiracyplanet.com/channel.cfm?channelid=2
14.
From: http://www.space.com/news/spy_spending_041209.html
Senator: Mystery Spy Project Dangerous
By Katherine Pfleger Shrader
09 December 2004
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The latest mystery in Washington espionage circles came to light in an unlikely venue: the floor of the U.S. Senate.
Tucked inside Congress' new blueprint for U.S. intelligence spending is a highly classified and expensive spy program that drew exceptional criticism from leading Democrats.
In an unusually public rebuke of a secret government project, Sen. Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, the senior Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, complained Wednesday that the program was "totally unjustified and very, very wasteful and dangerous to the national security." He called the program "stunningly expensive."
Rockefeller and three other Democratic senators -- Richard Durbin of Illinois, Carl Levin of Michigan and Ron Wyden of Oregon -- refused to sign the congressional compromise negotiated by others in the House and Senate that provides for future U.S. intelligence activities.
The compromise noted that the four senators believed the mystery program was unnecessary and its cost unjustified and that "they believe that the funds for this item should be expended on other intelligence programs that will make a surer and greater contribution to national security."
Each senator -- and more than two dozen current and former U.S. officials contacted by The Associated Press -- declined to further describe or identify the disputed program, citing its classified nature. Thirteen other senators on the Intelligence Committee and all their counterparts in the House approved the compromise.
Despite objections from some in the Senate, Congress has approved the program for the past two years, Rockefeller said.
The Senate voted to send the legislation to President Bush on Wednesday night. The bill is separate from the intelligence overhaul legislation that also won final congressional approval Wednesday.
The rare criticisms of a highly secretive project in such a public forum intrigued outside intelligence experts, who said the program was almost certainly a spy satellite system, perhaps with technology to destroy potential attackers. They cited tantalizing hints in Rockefeller's remarks, such as the program's enormous expense and its alleged danger to national security.
A U.S. panel in 2001 described American defense and spy satellites as frighteningly vulnerable, saying technology to launch attacks in space was widely available. The study, by a commission whose members included Donald H. Rumsfeld prior to his appointment as defense secretary for Bush, concluded that the United States was "an attractive candidate for a Space Pearl Harbor."
Sending even defensive satellite weapons into orbit could start an arms race in space, warned John Pike, a defense analyst with GlobalSecurity.org, who has studied anti-satellite weapons for more than three decades. Pike said other countries would inevitably demand proof that any weapons were only defensive.
"It would present just absolutely insurmountable verification problems because we are not going to let anybody look at our spy satellites," Pike said.
Rockefeller's description of the spy project as a "major funding acquisition program" suggests a price tag in the range of billions of dollars, intelligence experts said. But even expensive imagery or eavesdropping satellites, as long as they're unarmed, are rarely criticized as a danger to U.S. security, they noted.
"From the price, it's almost certainly a satellite program," said James Bamford, author of two books about the National Security Agency.
Another expert agreed. "It's hard to think of most any satellite program, at least the standard ones, as dangerous to national security," said Jeffrey T. Richelson, who wrote a highly regarded book about CIA technology in 2001.
15.
AND LAST BUT NOT LEAST... A BIT OF FUNNY LEVITY!
Forwarded by "A'keara" akearawt@adelphia.net>
ONIONS AND CHRISTMAS TREES
A family is sitting around the supper table. The son asks his father, "Dad, how many kinds of breasts are there?" The father, surprised, answers, "Well, son, there are three kinds of breasts. In her twenties, a woman's breasts are like melons, round and firm. In her thirties to forties, they are like pears, still nice but hanging a bit. After fifty, they are like onions."
Onions?"
"Yes, see them and they make you cry."
This infuriated the wife and daughter, so the daughter said, "Mum, how many kind of penises are there?"
The mother, surprised, smiles, and looks at her husband and answers, "Well, dear, a man goes through three phases. In a man's twenties, his penis is like an oak, mighty and hard. In his thirties and forties, it is like a birch, flexible but reliable.
After his fifties, it is like a Christmas tree"
"A Christmas tree?"
"Yes, dead from the root up and the balls are there for decoration only!
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