MAY LOVE PREVAIL ON EARTH
December 9, 2004
The Empire of Darkness Series #18: Monsters Inc.
Hello everyone
Now that I've finished compiling this mega 67 pages compilation (with a whopping 159 links included!), my head is spinning with all the grim facts and because of the despairing situation we are all in. The depleted uranium (DU) issue particularly affects me because unless the governments (US and British mainly) responsible for this radioactive mess take swift action to both ban DU military use forever and clean up the vast zones already contaminated, the millions of tons of radioactive dust in Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere will eventually contaminate the entire planet, and thus the human genome and the genetic make up of all life forms will be irremediably mangled, forever. Just consider how quickly this may already be happening as described in this article:
It's an ill wind (December 2, 2004)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/life/feature/story/0,13026,1363670,00.html
The dust clouds drifting from Africa to the Caribbean have a dangerous secret - bacteria and microbes that leave a trail of disease in their wake.
This natural phenomenon (the spread of vast dust clouds around the world) may also explain why many chemtrail residue samples tested have such a high content of disease-causing bacteria. The Earth's atmosphere is literally teeming with all kind of pathogens. Now add DU contaminated dust to this lethal mix and imagine the situation in a few years from now. We are ALL downwind! The half life of DU (the time it takes to lose half of its radioactivity) is 4.5 BILLION years. The DNA of children born from veterans of the first Iraq war (and of most children born in Iraq since then) already have numerous gene defects that will be passed on to future generations. These degenerative mutations are here to stay.
F O R E V E R !
Once the DNA, the basic molecule of all Life is scrambled by DU (which can be inhaled, swallowed and it can even penetrate through the skin pores because the radioactive dust created by the impact of DU tipped ammunitions, bombs and missiles is so small), those gene defects cannot be corrected. If you are still ignorant of this most terrible issue, give a good long look at what is available at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/4.html (more on this below).
So what can I tell you?... There is no word strong enough in any language to describe this ignominy. The lost souls and the dark forces responsible for such perpetual atrocities will certainly face the karmic consequences of their acts in due time. But I'd venture to say that anyone who is now aware of this monumental crime against humanity and who does not raise hell to purge the world from those responsible for this and all other war crimes, and help correct this problem in some way, will also reap the consequences, sooner or later... We probably already have this stuff in us anyway...
I'd even say as Meria stated that the universal law of non-interference may possibly be irrelevant when such unending consequences are created and not addressed. I hope someone is listening up there...
As Nicole Canter wrote at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?1600Penn&1 "Bring Earth into accordance with Galactic law immediately!"
More on this quite unique Petition "DECLARATION OF CEASE-FIRE" at
http://www.petitiononline.com/1600Penn/petition.html
which features this mysterious warning: "Do not test the resolve of the Galactic Federation." and is signed (#3) by Ashtar, Supreme Commander of the Ashtar Command, Galactic Federation ... Is this serious or a prank? I don't know...
As I wrote yesterday to someone applauding my last compilation (The Light Series #69: Just AMAZING!), "I would love to have ONLY positive matters to report, believe me. But in the meantime, we just cannot let THEM (our lost brothers and sisters creating mayhem on Earth) off the hook 'cause they need to change with our compassionate help."
Jean Hudon
Earth Rainbow Network Coordinator
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"Exopolitics, as a discipline for understanding Universe society through its politics and government, may turn our dominant view of the Universe upside down. Exopolitics posits that the truest conception of our earthly circumstance may be that we are on an isolated planet in the midst of a populated, evolving, highly organized inter-planetary, inter-galactic, multi-dimensional Universe society. From an exopolitical perspective, Earth only appears to be isolated because humanity has been intentionally quarantined pursuant to the technology and justice of a structured, rational Universe society. Ultimately, we may find that human society has been isolated from the rest of Universe society as the result of a formal, Universe governmental and political process. Are humanity and our planet on the verge of being re-integrated into Universe society? That’s very likely. The signs are all around us. In-depth public opinion polls suggest that contemporary human attitudes about our populated Universe may themselves constitute one of the main signs of our pending reintegration into Universe society. Exopolitics may be a key institutional bridge for navigating Earth’s reintegration into Universe society. Exopolitics is a political, governmental, and legal process by which the interests of human society -- its individuals, nations, and institutions -- can reach out to, interact with, and create a cooperative future with Off-Planet Cultures. Exopolitics does not end at Earth’s edge but is a process Universal in its reach. Earth’s reintegration into Universe society may be occurring as part of a definable Exopolitical process within Universe society itself."
- Alfred Lambremont Webre webre@shaw.ca>
Politics, Government and Law in the Universe
Taken from http://www.exopolitics.com/ an extremely vast and comprehensive website worth exploring!
Worthy of Your Attention
Sign this Petition to ban space based weapons
http://peaceinspace.blogs.com/peaceinspaceorg/2004/11/sign_our_united.html
Change is inevitable, growth is optional. Recommended by Doreen Agostino isisconsulting@rogers.com> who wrote: "I perceive the U.N. Petition as a step closer to Universe Society because it allows humanity to consciously ‘choose’ peace before expanding beyond Earth. There is a new link for the U.N. Petition with a document to capture off line signatures at gatherings. The off line feature honors individuals unable/uncomfortable accessing Internet."
SEND PRIME MINISTER PAUL MARTIN A "NO to USA Ballistic Missile Defense" CHRISTMAS CARD
http://www.nowar-paix.ca/documents/no%20bmd/santacard.pdf
This is our opportunity to let Paul Martin know that Canadians choose peace and oppose Bush's so-called missile defense! Postage free mailing address is: Prime Minister Paul Martin, House of Commons, Parliament Buildings, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1A 0A6
Interview with an Alien!! based on 12 questions submitted by Dr Michael Sallas (18-10-2004)
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/thread89205/pg1
I discovered that interview by pure "coincidence" and very strongly recommend it. Amazing answers that clarify LOTS of things. Just scroll past the 12 questions to find the answers.
Conference Announcement - CREATING THE CLIMATE
http://www.greenhousenet.org
Building the Movement to Stop Global Warming Weekend Workshop, March 11-13, 2005, Malibu, California. Recommended by long-time ERN subscriber Susan Cox who wrote: "I was so heartened to hear that climate change is the focus meditation and am wondering if you can get the word out to your folks about a Global Warming conference I am organizing in March. Thanks for all your work for the earth! Check her cool/funny website at http://www.greenpowergirl.com and the report on their conference last year at http://www.cleanair-coolplanet.org/newsletter/04_09_news02.php - Please email Susan Cox Gogreenpowergirl@aol.com> for more details.
Censored 2005: The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2003-2004
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/
I'VE INCLUDED IT BELOW AS WELL. BUT THIS IS SO IMPORTANT THAT I'M RECOMMENDING IT HERE TOO...
Vote online for Michael Moore's Farenheit 9/11 in the People's Choice Awards
http://www.pcavote.com/voting/film/f01.shtml
Recommended by EdElkin@aol.com
CONTENTS
1. Insight into Red State Mindset - or Celebration of Holy War as Christmas Theme in Midwest
2. Feedback from Meria
3. 20 Shocking Facts About Voting (Elections) in the USA
4. Bush Sets Out Plan to Dismantle 30 Years of Environmental Laws
5. Lockheed and the Future of Warfare
6. War Crime
7. Petition for the Release of Classified DOJ-IG Report on FBI Cover-Up
8. Ron Paul Denounces National ID Card
9. Censored 2005: The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2003-2004
10. Israel Finds BBC Too Truthful for Comfort
11. The Voice of the White House Dec 4, 2004
12. Missile shield will trigger arms race
13. The mirage of the miracle
See also:
Pentagon: 'Hearts and Minds' Lost in Iraq
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120704V.shtml
7 Retired Top US Military: Bush Screwed Up In Iraq
http://www.todaysalternativenews.com/index.php?event=link,150&values[0]=&values[1]=1999
"It's a huge strategic disaster, and it will only get worse." - The nineteen months since the war in Iraq began, some of the most outspoken critics of President Bush's plan of attack have come from a group that should have been the most supportive: retired senior military leaders. We spoke with a group of generals and admirals that included a former supreme Allied commander and a former chairman of the Joint Chiefs, and they all agreed on one thing: Bush screwed up.
CIA: Iraq faces descent into chaos (Dec 7)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/Iraq/Story/0,2763,1368899,00.html
Report from departing CIA chief in Baghdad leaked as 1,000th US soldier dies in action.
NEOCON OPERATIONS---SLAUGHTER OF THE INNOCENTS (Dec 5, 2004) http://lists.riseup.net/www/arc/globalnetnews-summary/2004-12/msg00001.html
(...) Fallujah has been laid waste. It has been bombed, re-bombed, its citizens gunned down, its structures devastated by powerful weapons. It isa hell on earth of crushed bodies, shattered buildings and the reek of death. In addition to the artillery and the warplanes dropping 500, 1000,and 2000-pound bombs, 70-ton Abrams Tanks and the murderous AC-130 Spectre gunship that can demolish a whole city block in less than a minute, the Marines had snipers crisscrossing the entire town firing at will at whatever moved outside the buildings. For those inside, the US troops were equipped with thermal sights capable of detecting body heat. Any such detection was eagerly assumed to indicate the presence of "insurgents"inviting a deadly salvo. (...) No body has an accurate idea of how many Iraqis-combatants and noncombatants-have been killed by the thousands of tons of explosives and bullets let loose upon the city. Mortuary teams collecting the dead rotting in the city streets are fighting the wandering dogs that are busy devouring their former masters. The hundreds buried beneath the rubble and debris will be dug out later. A US marine spokesman, Colonel Mike Regner, estimated 1,000 and 2,000 Iraqis dead. The world is awaiting the toll from more reliable sources with a wincing anticipation. (...) The assault on Fallujah is a pure and simple Nazi-style collective punishment, not liberation. The city has been razed to the ground because its political, spiritual and tribal leaders, motivated by Iraqi patriotism and opposition to the presence of foreign troops in their country,organized a guerilla resistance to the US invasion. The aim of the US assault is to make Fallujah a model to the rest of Iraq of what will happen to those thinking on similar lines. It is the leading thrust of an orgy of killing intended to crush and drive underground every voice of dissent and ensure that elections this coming January will throw up a weak-willed, pro-US toady regime. The American military is rumored to be planning similar attacks on scores of other Iraqi cities and towns. Not a single major voice has been raised in the American media against the ongoing destruction of Fallujah. (...) Fallujah will enter history as the place where US imperialism carried out an offense of heinous proportions this November, a monstrous crime far beyond any possible forgiveness. The crimson waters of the Euphrates are now emptying into the Persian Gulf the hopes and aspirations of innocent people whose lives were snuffed out on the orders of a man rewarded for his monumental crimes by his great nation.
Fallujah Refugees Tell of Life and Death in the Kill Zone (Dec 3)
http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/hard_news/archives/hard_news/000145.php#more
Journalists and residents who have fled Fallujah share accounts of US troops killing unarmed and wounded people; Dahr Jamail continues interviewing survivors as images of a city under US assault further emerge. - Baghdad , Dec 3 - Men now seeking refuge in the Baghdad area are telling horrific stories of indiscriminate killings by US forces during the peak of fighting last month in the largely annihilated city of Fallujah.In an interview with The NewStandard, Burhan Fasa’a, an Iraqi journalist who works for the popular Lebanese satellite TV station, LBC, said he witnessed US crimes up close. Burhan Fasa’a, who was in Fallujah for nine days during the most intense combat, said Americans grew easily frustrated with Iraqis who could not speak English." Americans did not have interpreters with them," Fasa’a said, "so they entered houses and killed people because they didn’t speak English. They entered the house where I was with 26 people, and [they] shot people because [the people] didn’t obey [the soldiers’] orders, even just because the people couldn’t understand a word of English."A man named Khalil, who asked The NewStandard not to use his last name for fear of reprisals, said he had witnessed the shooting of civilians who were waving white flags while they tried to escape the city.Fasa’a further speculated, "Soldiers thought the people were rejecting their orders, so they shot them. But the people just couldn’t understand them." Fasa’a says American troops detained him. They interrogated him specifically about working for the Arab media, he said, and held him for three days. Fasa’a and other prisoners slept on the ground with no blankets. He said prisoners were made to go to the bathroom in handcuffs, using one toilet in the middle of the camp. "During the nine days I was in Fallujah, all of the wounded women, kids and old people, none of them were evacuated," Fasa’a said. "They either suffered to death, or somehow survived." Many refugees tell stories of having witnessed US troops killing already injured people, including former fighters and noncombatants alike. "I watched them roll over wounded people in the street with tanks," said Kassem Mohammed Ahmed, a resident of Fallujah. "This happened so many times." CLIP
MUCH MORE REPORTING THROUGH http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com
Unembedded in Iraq - Interview with Dahr Jamail by Charles Shaw
http://www.gp.org/articles/shaw_2004_12_06.html
Recommended by "Wayne Umbertis" wayne@savesite.net> who wrote: "This unembedded reporter delivers some gnarly views of what is happening in Iraq. It is astounding to me that our media consistently presents so much vanilla on this war… and that the country actually buys into it.. While you wonder what is really happening, you suspect that Dahr Jamail is probably a lot closer to the truth than what we are spoon fed. How could our country possibly be sold on war ‘as a good idea?’ Everything about this grizzly fiasco is disturbing in every way."
FTW Economic Alert As The World Burns, By Michael C. Ruppert (Dec 1)
http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/120104_world_burns_summary.shtml
(...) But when the run on the dollar begins, OPEC will inevitably at some point switch its pricing to the Euro, which the entire world is wrangling - much to Europe's chagrin - into not only a safe-haven currency, but a profitable one. The next house is being built before the old one is abandoned. When the run on the dollar begins, it will be as if the rest of the world declared war on the United States of America by launching a missile, dropping a bomb, or landing an army at Bethany Beach, Delaware. That this will lead ultimately to widespread global warfare seems certain. This is exactly the way the administration is setting it up to appear to the American people. Think of 9/11 times fifty. The rest of the world is merely defending itself with non-violent means - for the moment. But it will be portrayed as an attack upon the US. "Why?" George Bush will ask, rhetorically. "They hate us because of our freedom." And, barring a miracle, the end results will be exactly the same as from a physical attack: devastation so complete and unthinkable - magnified by the brutal impacts of Peak Oil - that only a few will even try to prepare for it. That is sad because preparation will make all the difference (barring luck or divine intervention) in who survives and to what extent they remain intact and functioning afterwards.
Quo Vadis: Playing For Keeps - The Impending Collapse (DEC 2)
http://www.tompaine.com/articles/quo_vadis_playing_for_keeps.php
(...) Last week, America received two pieces of monstrously bad news. First, the chief economist of Morgan Stanley (along with Robert Reich, Larry Summers, Paul Krugman, China and the currency markets) warned us that the U.S. economy is about to collapse. Second, we learned that the Bush administration is willing to ignore the likelihood of collapse and will push ahead aggressively with tax and Social Security reform. Put these two pieces of information together and you get a nightmare scenario.Movement conservatives are willing to tank the economy while they control the federal government in order to remake it according to their liking.Impending Economic CollapseYou know things aren‚t looking good when the chief economist of Morgan Stanley uses the word Armageddon in a briefing to the world‚s largest equity investing house.In an article published last Tuesday, Stephen Roach reportedly told his colleagues at Fidelity that America has a one in 10 chance of avoiding economic Armageddon. His comments came toward the end of a string of bad economic omens. CLIP Recommended by "Larry Stell" lstell@glasgow-ky.com>
Navy Seals photos of Navy Seals Torturing an Iraqi prisoner
http://ancapistan.typepad.com/photos/navy_seals_torturing_iraq/index.html
Recommended by "Meria Heller" meriaheller@cox.net> who wrote: "SEE this Fast as it will be gone..."
Tenet calls for Internet security
http://washingtontimes.com/national/20041201-114750-6381r.htm
THEY WANNA TRY TO CONTROL FREEDOM OF SPEECH ON THE INTERNET!
A Patriot Act (DVD)
http://markcrispinmiller.blogspot.com
Brilliant. Funny. Scathing. You might think you already know how bad the Bush administration is. But it's not just the money.It's not just the oil. It's much, much worse. A Patriot Act is a chilling indictment of their stealth movement to subvert the US Constitution and replace American democracy with religious values.
Battlefield Earth By Bill Moyers (Dec 4)
http://www.alternet.org/envirohealth/20666/
(...) I'm not making this up. Like Monbiot, I've read the literature. I've reported on these people, following some of them from Texas to the West Bank. They are sincere, serious, and polite as they tell you they feel called to help bring the rapture on as fulfillment of biblical prophecy. That's why they have declared solidarity with Israel and the Jewish settlements and backed up their support with money and volunteers. It's why the invasion of Iraq for them was a warm-up act, predicted in the Book of Revelations where four angels "which are bound in the great river Euphrates will be released to slay the third part of man." A war with Islam in the Middle East is not something to be feared but welcomed — an essential conflagration on the road to redemption. The last time I Googled it, the rapture index stood at 144 — just one point below the critical threshold when the whole thing will blow, the son of god will return, the righteous will enter heaven, and sinners will be condemned to eternal hellfire. So what does this mean for public policy and the environment? Go to Grist to read a remarkable work of reporting by the journalist, Glenn Scherer — 'the road to environmental apocalypse. Read it and you will see how millions of Christian fundamentalists may believe that environmental destruction is not only to be disregarded but actually welcomed — even hastened — as a sign of the coming apocalypse. As Grist makes clear, we're not talking about a handful of fringe lawmakers who hold or are beholden to these beliefs. Nearly half theU.S. Congress before the recent election — 231 legislators in total — more since the election — are backed by the religious right. Forty-five senators and 186 members of the 108th congress earned 80 to 100 percent approval ratings from the three most influential Christian right advocacy groups. CLIP - Recommended by Ed Elkin EdElkin@aol.com> who wrote: "Disturbing and powerful."
Our dying sea (8 December 2004)
http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/environment/story.jsp?story=590879
Royal commission warns of a marine 'catastrophe' and calls for a ban on all fishing in one third of British waters.
Most Coral Reefs Under Threat, Some Resilient (December 5, 2004)
http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&ncid=753&e=1&u=/nm/20041206/sc_nm/environment_corals_dc
OSLO (Reuters) - About 70 percent of the world's coral reefs have been wrecked or are at risk from human activities but some are showing surprising resilience to global warming, a report said on Monday. The international survey, by 240 experts in 98 nations, said that pollution, over-fishing, rising temperatures, coastal development and diseases were among major threats to reefs, vast ecosystems often called the nurseries of the seas. "Twenty percent of the world's coral reefs have been effectively destroyed or show no immediate prospects of recovery," said the report, issued on the first day of a U.N. environmental conference in Buenos Aires lasting until Dec. 17. The Status of Coral Reefs of the World 2004 also said that another "24 percent of the world's reefs are under imminent risk of collapse through human pressures, and a further 26 percent are under a longer-term threat of collapse." "The major emerging threat to coral reefs in the last decade has been coral bleaching and mortality associated with global climate change," it said. Bleaching is a mass death of corals caused by a sudden rise in ocean temperatures. Even so, it said some reefs had recovered sharply from a 1998 bleaching which seriously damaged 16 percent of all reefs worldwide, especially in the western Pacific and the Indian Ocean. "About 40 percent of the...reefs that were seriously damaged in 1998 are either recovering well or have recovered," it said. Some of the report's highlights were issued in Bangkok last month. It said the 1998 warming had been the most serious in 1,000 years but was likely to happen about every 50 years in future, largely because of heat-trapping gases in the atmosphere from burning fossil fuels in cars, factories or power stations. CLIP
Omega-News Collection 9. December 2004
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/434789/
Guerrilla News Network Video Collection
http://www.gnn.tv/videos
---
The following was compiled by "Mark R. Elsis" mark@lovearth.net>
No FTAA Everything you need to know to stop NAFTA expansion
http://www.citizen.org/publications/release.cfm?ID=7297
Keep US Independent
http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/2004/09-06-2004/independent.htm
Most Americans would oppose the Free Trade Area of the Americas if they understood the threat, which is why the FTAA's promoters must rely on deception
Stop The FTAA
http://www.stopftaa.org
"No To The FTAA" Items For Sale
http://www.citizenstrade.org/ftaa_shop.php
Stop FTAA It's The Wrong Choice
http://www.aflcio.org/issuespolitics/globaleconomy/ftaamain.cfm
NO To The FTAA
http://www.seac.org/ftaa/index.shtml
1.
IF YOU WISH TO CONTACT SUSAN, PLEASE SEND ME YOUR LETTER AND I'LL FORWARD IT TO HER AS I PREFER NOT TO DISPLAY HER EMAIL ADDRESS FOR OBVIOUS REASONS AS YOU WILL SEE...
Date: 04 Dec 2004
From: Susan XXX>
Subject: Insight into Red State Mindset - or Celebration of Holy War as Christmas Theme in Midwest
Dear Jean,
I don't know if you remember me. We helped you several years ago, when my family convinced Governor Graves of Kansas to Proclaim "One Day in Peace." How dark the world has become in such a short time.
I have moved to Missouri, which partially accounts for the time I have been on hiatus.
I was born in Pennsylvania and raised there is the "60's. So although I live in a red state, I was raised by college educated people, in a tumultuous period. I went to school and received a Master's Degree in Social Work and excelled in social policy.
Today, I was involved in Christmas activities with my children. I took the two youngest children to Kansas for "Breakfast with Santa." Then we loaded everyone in the van to go to the Eldorado Missouri Christmas Parade.
The parade should have been called the Support War Crime/Holy War Parade with Santa as an afterthought.
After years of living in the Midwest with statues of Praying Hands as small town's most famous landmarks, Eternal Flames for Jesus landmarks in other small cities, Anti-Abortion Billboards, as well as bible verses being printed on fence rows - a line at a time and whisperings about Ku Klux Klan meeting held in caves around Joplin, Blacks afraid to live in Missouri due to the frequency of crosses burned in yards etc. etc. I expect religious floats built by Baptists with the baby Jesus to be an integral part of a Christmas parade. There was no baby Jesus today!!!
Santa appeared at the end of the misguided "Hail to Holy War because we must get back at the people who attacked us Parade." We saw ABSOLUTELY NO BABY JESUS.
What did we see? We saw the Marines in full dress. We saw the Army in their fatigues - not even dressed for their public appearance. More importantly, did we thrill the little ones with the true meaning of Christmas, the spirit of giving or even our nation's obsession with capitalism? NO, NEVER. After the colorguard, and the two bands, we saw children and adults alike donned in combat fatigues. A group mimicked the Marines at Iwo Jima. Unfortunately they were not erecting a flag in Iraq, they were erecting a CROSS! Bystanders clapped and saluted. We saw 4H and Girl Scouts in combat fatigues with Support our troops signs, pressing for communication in the way of cards and letters with our troops. We saw Saddam's Throne - an OUTHOUSE. (It appeared to me that everyone truly believed that Iraq was responsible for the World Trade Center.)
Every float had some connection with the War in Iraq, with veterans and pressed us to support our troops. The people riding the horses at the end of the parade had the photos of the local fighting girls and boys attached to their backs on their shirts as they rode. The older women professed to be members of the Red Hat Society - which I looked up. It symbolizes fun for women after 50. Somehow these women are having fun wearing red hats and supporting a Holy War - and, are proud of it according to their floats and the theme of the parade.
My children, as a result of us living here, are subjected to this mentality every day. My 8 year old explained why I shouldn't be upset about death after a little 13 year old neighbor of ours died just two weeks ago. (I have never taken this my boy to church as I am adamantly opposed to organized religion) He said," Don't worry Mom. You've been good so you'll go to heaven. Only people who do bad things before they die go down there." I asked him where he learned such a notion. He told me - at school.
Have you seen about all of the protests about the teen in Joplin wearing a "I'm gay and proud" shirt to school? The ACLU has been out here and religious fanatics are picketing the school - all because of this one boy. The gay basher students are allowed to wear shirts, but not the boy that just doesn't fit in with the whole red state mentality.
I don't know if there are more of "them" than us across the country. (There are here) But they are dangerous as they are louder and more vocal than those with a more open minded position. When I lived in Carthage back in roughly 1992, my neighbor was quite proud that her friends were in Witchita protesting abortion clinics. Shootings came out of this. Her only regret was that her children were too young for her to go and participate.
In short, I live in the center of the Bible Belt. The right wing religious fanatics feel stronger as a result of this stolen election. They seem to be moving further right since the parades of the summer. Their position has become stronger supporting their misguided beliefs. I could see Bush coming out and saying - "this is the Holy War," and these people would cheer.
I was feeling dark, but my attempt at a little holiday cheer has left me in a state of fear. I was hoping I might feel better sharing this with you - as you certainly can't speak of this around here. Anyone in America who is afraid to stand up and speak out, in my opinion, has good reason. They are afraid of retribution, if not from their government, from their out of control, dangerous, right wing neighbors. (People still remember my Kerry/Edwards yard sign)
I do hope this provides some insight to you as to what we are up against. The balance of power may have been to right to many when Clinton was in office - or with a Gore or Kerry. We must keep in mind that that degree of right is much safer.
Please consider this dark letter as my Christmas correspondence. I would like you to share any thoughts or insights if you have the time.
I hope something breaks with the election investigations and that next Christmas is much brighter. (BTW, the stores here look like a normal Saturday and Sunday and people are talking of having no presents this year. One girl said her mom said she was doing this to get back with Jesus, but said they really don't have any money either. Times appear bad here financially too.)
Susan
NOTE FROM JEAN: In my reply to her I wrote (in part):
I was greatly saddened to see what you are going through and horrified at the depth of religious and military indoctrination some people have been subjected to in the US. It reminded me of the similar display of fanaticism often seen in countries such as Iran.
2.
From: "Meria Heller" meriaheller@cox.net>
Subject: Re: The Light Series #69: Just AMAZING!
Date: 7 Dec 2004
Hi Jean,
Sorry you're feeling tired, but I can surely relate. We all volunteered (what were we thinking?) to be here at this momentous time in human history. It's not easy being us.
As for ET's, we are ALL E.T.'s. When people want to see an ET all they need do is look into each other's eyes for the being behind them. Like everything else, there are some who chose to use their gifts for good, others for dastardly deeds. Not all come from the same place, nor share the same goals.
The war has been "on" for this planet since 1988 when the Harmonic Convergence made everyone of the light aware of it. It is almost done. The light WILL NOT lose. It never does. Even when it may seem like it.
Our "rewards" will be a beautiful bountiful Earth with people who care for each other and the planet. Gone will be the systems that are meant to keep us in control - governments, religions, money, etc. No one will miss it.
Like Suzy Ward's books have shown, Nirvana is real. It will soon be heaven on Earth as thousands of prayers have asked for. Of course that doesn't mean it will come peacefully, but in whatever form is necessary to assure the human race will never repeat their mistakes. As I say all the time "we must go through hell to get to heaven". Well, this is the hell.
We are less than a handful of years away from that day, so hold on.
Love,
Meria
"THE MERIA HELLER SHOW "- 5th yr On The Net- #1 on Net!
http://www.Meria.net
NOTE FROM JEAN: This is a brief description of Meria's Tuesday show. Important comments here:
"12/7/04 "Meria With Greg Palast, Investigative Journalist #1"Show opens with "George Bush Stole the Election" by Dick Bush & The Rummy's; Greg Palast, author of "The Best Democracy Money Can Buy" (http://www.gregpalast.com) joins me once again to discuss yet another stolen election - 2004. Greg's film "Bush Family Fortunes" is excellent and has been viewed by Jesse Jackson and John Edwards. What did John Edwards think of Kerry's stand-down (familiar term) of the recount? Kerry won and they weren't HIS votes to concede, yet he did. When Dick Luger said the Ukraine elections were fraudulent because the votes didn't match the exit polls, what about the same situation here in the US? What are caging lists? We had another "apartheid election" with over 1 million black American votes thrown out; Why do the Repugs want to get rid of the exit polls? Was this election stolen before it happened? What about the voting machines ? What agenda is this administration hell bent on achieving? What about the New York Times? Is Greg a conspirator? (not) How had the war in Iraq made us safer? For every "insurgent" killed, ten take his place. Greg is in rare form today and not to be missed."
3.
Forwarded by Judy Kenny judyayishakenny@yahoo.com> on Dec 7
From: http://miamedia.com/votergate/20facts.html
20 Shocking Facts About Voting (Elections) in the USA
Did you know....
1. 80% of all votes in America are counted by only two companies: Diebold and ES&S.
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diebold
2. There is no federal agency with regulatory authority or oversight of the U.S. voting machine industry.
http://www.commondreams.org/views02/0916-04.htm
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
3. The vice-president of Diebold and the president of ES&S are brothers.
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/private_company.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
4. The chairman and CEO of Diebold is a major Bush campaign organizer and donor who wrote in 2003 that he was "committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes to the president next year."
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
http://www.wishtv.com/Global/story.asp?S=1647886
5. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel used to be chairman of ES&S. He became Senator based o-n votes counted by ES&S machines.
http://www.motherjones.com/commentary/columns/2004/03/03_200.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/031004Fitrakis/031004fitrakis.html
6. Republican Senator Chuck Hagel, long-connected with the Bush family, was recently caught lying about his ownership of ES&S by the Senate Ethics Committee.
http://www.blackboxvoting.com/modules.php?name=News&file=article&sid=26
http://www.hillnews.com/news/012903/hagel.aspx
http://www.onlisareinsradar.com/archives/000896.php
7. Senator Chuck Hagel was o-n a short list of George W. Bush's vice-presidential candidates.
http://www.businessweek.com/2000/00_28/b3689130.htm
http://theindependent.com/stories/052700/new_hagel27.html
8. ES&S is the largest voting machine manufacturer in the U.S. and counts almost 60% of all U.S. votes.
http://www.essvote.com/HTML/about/about.html
http://www.onlinejournal.com/evoting/042804Landes/042804landes.html
9. Diebold's new touch screen voting machines have no paper trail of any votes. In other words, there is no way to verify that the data coming out of the machine is the same as what was legitimately put in by voters.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.itworld.com/Tech/2987/041020evotestates/pfindex.html
10. Diebold also makes ATMs, checkout scanners, and ticket machines, all of which log each transaction and can generate a paper trail.
http://www.commondreams.org/views04/0225-05.htm
http://www.diebold.com/solutions/default.htm
11. Diebold is based in Ohio.
http://www.diebold.com/aboutus/ataglance/default.htm
12. Diebold employed 5 convicted felons as senior managers and developers to help write the central compiler computer code that counted 50% of the votes in 30 states.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,61640,00.html
http://portland.indymedia.org/en/2004/10/301469.shtml
13. Jeff Dean, Diebold's Senior Vice-President and senior programmer o-n Diebold's central compiler code, was convicted of 23 counts of felony theft in the first degree.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
14. Diebold Senior Vice-President Jeff Dean was convicted of planting back doors in his software and using a "high degree of sophistication" to evade detection over a period of 2 years.
http://www.chuckherrin.com/HackthevoteFAQ.htm#how
http://www.blackboxvoting.org/bbv_chapter-8.pdf
15. None of the international election observers were allowed in the polls in Ohio.
http://www.globalexchange.org/update/press/2638.html
http://www.enquirer.com/editions/2004/10/26/loc_elexoh.html
16. California banned the use of Diebold machines because the security was so bad. Despite Diebold's claims that the audit logs could not be hacked, a chimpanzee was able to do it! (See the movie at http://blackboxvoting.org/baxter/baxterVPR.mov)
http://wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,63298,00.html
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/4874190
17. 30% of all U.S. votes are carried out o-n unverifiable touch screen voting machines with no paper trail.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2004/07/28/sunday/main632436.shtml
18. All -- not some -- but all the voting machine errors detected and reported in Florida went in favor of Bush or Republican candidates.
http://www.wired.com/news/evote/0,2645,65757,00.html
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.rise4news.net/extravotes.html
http://www.ilcaonline.org/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=950
http://www.scoop.co.nz/mason/stories/HL0411/S00227.htm
19. The governor of the state of Florida, Jeb Bush, is the President's brother.
http://www.tallahassee.com/mld/tallahassee/news/local/7628725.htm
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A10544-2004Oct29.html
20. Serious voting anomalies in Florida -- again always favoring Bush -- have been mathematically demonstrated and experts are recommending further investigation.
http://www.yuricareport.com/ElectionAftermath04/ThreeResearchStudiesBushIsOut.htm
http://www.computerworld.com/governmenttopics/government/policy/story/0,10801,97614,00.html
http://www.americanfreepress.net/html/tens_of_thousands.html
http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1106-30.htm
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2004/110904.html
http://uscountvotes.org/
---
See also:
Ohio Election Fraud Uproar Blasting To New Level
http://www.freepress.org/departments/display/19/2004/975
"You Stole My Vote"
http://www.51capitalmarch.com
51 Capital March On December 12th 2004 At 12 Noon, Before The Steps Of Your State Capital And The Federal Capital,Join With Us To Protest The Theft Of Our Votes And Our Voting Rights In The 2004 Election.
Democrats Launch Investigation of Voting Problems in Ohio
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/120704W.shtml
Jackson Vows to Continue Ohio Vote Probe
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121004Z.shtml
Vote Fraud Programmer's Whistleblower Affidavi (6 Dec 2004) http://www.rawstory.com/images/pdfs/CC_Affidavit_120604.pdf
A Report From The Conyers Hearing by William Rivers Pitt http://globalresearch.ca/articles/MEN412A.html
Brad Menfil is not my real name. I work for the RNC. I fear reprisals if I'm found out.The truth about this election is this: Florida and Ohio had to go for Bush in order for him to "win" the election. In reality he lost both states. In fact, he did not even win the popular vote. He lost the national popular vote by at least 1,750,000. This shows you the scale of the fraud.
The exit polls were not wrong. Kerry was the clear winner, but victory was snatched from him. CLIP
Another Election Held and Another Election Stolen (6 Dec 2004)
http://www.justaflyonthewall.com/
In 2000 Bush stole the election by restricting the ability to vote by those people most likely to vote against him. The abuses were wide spread and the Democrats and other groups that believe in each individuals right to vote put together an impressive attempt to make sure that every individual that wanted to vote would not be turned away. Everywhere you went there was booths where new voters could register. Celebrities in commercials were urging voters to get out and vote. Poll watchers were placed in polling stations across the country to guarantee that every voter would not be turned away on any technicality. What these well meaning groups failed to account for was that they were defending the 2000 election fixing plan and not taking into account that this election would be decided not by voters but by the rise of technology. Every one might be allowed to vote but their vote, and your vote made no difference at all. The programmers had already decided who would win and by how much. Prior to this election I personally sent out information to the media which should have been provided to the electorate. It was not. The biggest turnout in history had no chance to win this election or any other unless the programmers of the voting machine allowed it. I believe they will allow it less and less as the machines control the elections and the Republicans control the machines. This is not speculation. It is not a rant designed to make the losers feel better. I speak from first hand information and unless people stand up and act, democracy in this country is ended.
GOP Wants News Organizations To Abandon Exit Polls
http://www.buzzflash.com/analysis/04/11/ana04027.html
RNC Chairman Ed Gillespie wants to eliminate exit polls because he says they're not accurate, implying that the final vote was unquestionably correct.
The Sale of Electoral Politics
http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/6.html
A Corporate Election... by Barbra Streisand (December 6, 2004)
http://www.barbrastreisand.com/newsupdates.html
Regardless of partisanship, the essence of our voting process must have integrity. Why are we allowing private for-profit corporations, loyal to politicians that give them lucrative contracts worth millions of dollars, manage our votes? How can we trust the outcome of our elections when we have outsourced the managing of our electoral process and the counting of the ballots to private corporations who keep secret from election administrators the program codes for their software and refuse to offer a verifiable auditable paper trail for each vote? We cannot have a system where we entrust the fate of our country to corporations who only need to answer to their board members and shareholders and not to the American people. If we allow such a system to prevail, we will find ourselves steeped in voter fraud election after election. CLIP
Vote USA 2004
http://omega.twoday.net/topics/Vote+USA+2004/
---
RELATED EMAILS I ALSO RECEIVED
Fowarded by "Meria Heller" meriaheller@cox.net>
Date: 08 Dec 200
Subject: RALLIES DEC. 12TH & 13TH
From: Nancy Patterson nanoosky@usol.com
INFO ON THE TWO UPCOMING RALLIES...
EMERGENCY RALLIES
Join the nationwide action to defend the recounts and our basic democratic rights, and demand electoral reform!
MONDAY, DECEMBER 13TH
11 AM Meet at the Federal Building Corner of 5th and I Streets, Sacramento March to the North Steps of the Capital for a 12 Noon Rally/Press Conference
SUNDAY, DECEMBER 12TH
There is a growing movement for nationwide demonstrations to occur at every state capitol in this country, and the nation's capitol, at noon on December 12. Remember December 12, 2000 when the Supreme Court was afraid of what a recount would reveal and instead chose Bush to occupy the White House. This time let's demand accurate and thorough recounts on December 12. December 13 is when the electors in various states are to meet and vote for their candidate. The time to publicly question the results of the 2004 election is now. Please go to the following links and make the contacts necessary. While there check out the excellent illustration of how easy and fast it is to manipulate the results of any election using the major vote tabulating software currently in use. This software is used for counting the votes recorded on optical scan, paper, absentee, provisional, and DRE. If you follow the step by step explanation you can make a more persuasive argument regarding the problems inherent with the November 2 elections. Please pass this on widely, especially "groups". This Sunday is coming up fast and it is imperative that the American public be awakened to what has happened. It would be really great if MoveOn, the Voting Integrity Project, and similar organizations and groups became involved. My email address has changed so I can't post to Votermarch or VotermarchWest. Would someone please do that. Also there are people in LA who want to come up but want to carpool. Contact information for coordinating in each state is available at the referenced website.
For information on the marches go to: http://www.51capitalmarch.com/
For information on how easily a vote tabulating system can be manipulated to change the outcome of a race go to: http://www.51capitalmarch.com/51CapitalMarchBlackboxVoting.shtml
---
From: "David Mathison" david@bethemedia.org>
Subject: FW: Election Reform Step 1: Every Vote Counts - Complete the Vote!
Date: 8 Dec 2004
Hi Jean,
Thanks for putting my blog up in your email to alert people to all the irregularities in the election... http://bethemedia.typepad.com/bethemedia
I was wondering if you could help distribute the message below as widely and quickly as possible. Our post is right now on the TOP of the MoveOn message board. You can feel free to use the text below as an intro to the note, or create a personalized note.
Thanks so much for your help.
Dave Mathison
David Mathison is Director of the US Voting Integrity Project (http://www.usvip.org). As you may know, the 2004 election results in Ohio have now been certified, so this means that the Greens and Libertarians can begin their recount of the votes in Ohio before the electoral college meets on December 13. The House Judiciary Committee meets TODAY (Weds) in a forum on the 57,000 irregularities that they reported to the US General Accountability Office.
USVIP posted a message to the MoveOn message board to encourage people to join a COMPLETE THE VOTE! campaign, the next logical step in MoveOn's "Get Out The Vote" campaign earlier this year. We are hoping that people can go to the MoveOn message board here http://www.actionforum.com/forum/index.html?forum_id=266, rate their post with 5 stars "Election Reform Step 1: Every Vote Counts - Complete the Vote!", and then scroll down and SUBMIT your rating. More detailed instructions are in the email below.
I was wondering if you could help US out by posting this message to your friends and as many Lists as possible? As you know, there is not a lot of time, and we are trying to get as many people as possible to realize that THIS ELECTION IS NOT OVER TILL ALL THE VOTES ARE COUNTED!
I hope you can help!
Thanks,
David Mathison
Executive Director
david@usvip.org
-----Original Message-----
From: USVIP.org usvip@usvip.org>
Sent: December 07, 2004
Subject: Election Reform Step 1: Every Vote Counts - Complete the Vote!
Thanks to all of you for your assistance last weekend with our MoveOn action. The bad news is - due to some confusion on Saturday - many of you were unable to locate USVIP's "Count Every Vote" message on the MoveOn Forum. (An archive process occurred just after we mailed our alert, and it caused our message to land in the archive instead of the main thread.)
The good news is - we now have the attention of MoveOn. After contacting Joan Blades and MoveOn technical support, we agreed it would be best for USVIP to re-post our message under a new title: "Election Reform Step 1: Every Vote Counts - Complete the Vote!" This message has been posted to the default home page on the MoveOn Forum, so that it will be easy for our members to locate.
For those of you who voted before, we ask you to vote for "Election Reform Step 1: Every Vote Counts - Complete the Vote!" this time around. If you were unable to find it last time, please follow the instructions in the text below. This time, it's there.
If you are not already registered with the MoveOn Action Forum, here is the registration link. Then use the 4 easy steps below to support a complete count of the 2004 election. http://tinyurl.com/6jrh9
Step 1: Go online to: http://www.actionforum.com/forum/index.html?forum_id=266
(shorter link http://tinyurl.com/4n4vg)
Step 2: Locate the post: "Election Reform Step 1: Every Vote Counts - Complete the Vote!" (Depending on your timing, you may need to click on the link for the "next 5" comments in order to find us.)
Step 3: Vote to agree with the action item and give it a 5 star rating.
Step 4: After voting, be sure to scroll down to the bottom of the page and click on the "Submit My Ratings" button.
Please forward this message to your friends and colleagues and urge them to vote. Ask them to register for our mailing list at http://www.usvip.org/ (US Voting Integrity Project.) The link is in the upper right-hand corner and reads: "Join Us." While you're there, we hope you will bookmark USVIP.org
Thank you for taking this action to protect democracy! Your involvement will make a difference. Your vote counts and now we need to make certain our votes are counted!
Sincerely,
US Voting Integrity Project
4.
NOT CONTENT WITH BEING THE WORST WAR CRIMINALS OF OUR TIMES, BUSH AND HIS CORPORATE CONTROLLERS ARE SET TO SPEED UP THE DEATH OF MOTHER EARTH...
Forwarded by "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@vitelcom.net>
From: http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/1205-02.htm
Bush Sets Out Plan to Dismantle 30 Years of Environmental Laws
Published on December 5, 2004 by the lndependent/UK
by Geoffrey Lean in Washington
George Bush's new administration, and its supporters controlling Congress, are setting out to dismantle three decades of US environmental protection. Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust In little over a month since his re-election, they have announced that they will comprehensively rewrite three of the country's most important environmental laws, open up vast new areas for oil and gas drilling, and reshape the official Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
They say that the election gave them a mandate for the measures - which, ironically, will overturn a legislative system originally established by the Republican Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford - even though Mr Bush went out of his way to avoid emphasizing his environmental plans during his campaign.
"The election was a validation of the philosophy and the agenda," said Mike Leavitt, the Bush-appointed head of the EPA. He points out that over a third of the agency's staff will become eligible for retirement over the President's four-year term, enabling him to fill it with people lenient to polluters.
The administration's first priority is the controversial plan to open up the Arctic Wildlife Refuge for oil drilling. Two years ago the Senate defeated plans to exploit the refuge - home to caribou, polar bears , musk oxen and millions of migratory birds - by 52 votes to 48.
But with the election of four Republican senators in favor of the drilling, and the disappearance of one who opposed it, the administration now has the votes for victory.
It plans to follow with an energy bill - also defeated in the last Congress - which would investigate vast new tracts for exploitation for oil and gas. It will also encourage the building of nuclear power stations, halted since the 1979 Three Mile Island accident.
Far more radical measures are also under way. Joe Barton, the Texas Republican chairman of the House Energy and Commerce Committee, who is to help push through the energy bill, has also announced a comprehensive review of the Clean Air Act, one of the world's most successful environmental laws. Environmentalists predict the emasculation of the Act, which has cut air pollution across the country by more than half over the last 30 years. Not to be outdone, the Republican chairman of the House Resources Committee, Richard Pombo, has announced a review of the Endangered Species Act, for the protection of wildlife. The law has been the main obstacle to the felling of much of the US's remaining endangered rain forest. And in a third assault, Congressional leaders have also announced an attack on the National Environmental Policy Act, which requires details of the environmental effects of major developments before they proceed.
Philip Clapp, president of the National Environmental Trust, said last week that the previous Bush administration had largely contented itself with weakening environmental legislation, but the new one intended to go much further. He added: "We will now see an assault on the law which will set the US in the direction of becoming a Third World country in terms of environmental protection."
The environmentalists point out that almost every local referendum on environmental issues carried out on election day achieved a green majority. They recall the fate of the assault on environmental law - headed by the former Congressional Speaker, Newt Gingrich, in the mid 1990s - which caused such opposition that Congress enacted tough new green legislation.
---
See also:
Bush proposal 80% critical habitat cut will help developers, military
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/427184/
5.
LOCKHEED EPITOMIZES BIG BAD BROTHER - “We want to know what's going on anytime, anyplace on the planet” - AND CONSTITUTES WITH OTHER US MILITARY CONTRACTORS THE "BEAST" THAT WILL DESTROY THE WORLD IF THE REST OF US LET THEM HAVE THEIR WAY...
Also forwarded by "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@vitelcom.net>
From: http://www.nytimes.com/2004/11/28/business/yourmoney/28lock.html
November 28, 2004
Lockheed and the Future of Warfare
By TIM WEINER
LOCKHEED MARTIN doesn't run the United States. But it does help run a breathtakingly big part of it.
Over the last decade, Lockheed, the nation's largest military contractor, has built a formidable information-technology empire that now stretches from the Pentagon to the post office. It sorts your mail and totals your taxes. It cuts Social Security checks and counts the United States census. It runs space flights and monitors air traffic. To make all that happen, Lockheed writes more computer code than Microsoft.
Of course, Lockheed, based in Bethesda, Md., is best known for its weapons, which are the heart of America's arsenal. It builds most of the nation's warplanes. It creates rockets for nuclear missiles, sensors for spy satellites and scores of other military and intelligence systems. The Pentagon and the Central Intelligence Agency might have difficulty functioning without the contractor's expertise.
But in the post-9/11 world, Lockheed has become more than just the biggest corporate cog in what Dwight D. Eisenhower called the military-industrial complex. It is increasingly putting its stamp on the nation's military policies, too.
Lockheed stands at "the intersection of policy and technology," and that "is really a very interesting place to me," said its new chief executive, Robert J. Stevens, a tightly wound former Marine. "We are deployed entirely in developing daunting technology," he said, and that requires "thinking through the policy dimensions of national security as well as technological dimensions."
To critics, however, Lockheed's deep ties with the Pentagon raise some questions. "It's impossible to tell where the government ends and Lockheed begins," said Danielle Brian of the Project on Government Oversight, a nonprofit group in Washington that monitors government contracts. "The fox isn't guarding the henhouse. He lives there."
No contractor is in a better position than Lockheed to do business in Washington. Nearly 80 percent of its revenue comes from the United States government. Most of the rest comes from foreign military sales, many financed with tax dollars. And former Lockheed executives, lobbyists and lawyers hold crucial posts at the White House and the Pentagon, picking weapons and setting policies.
Obviously, war and crisis have been good for business. The Pentagon's budget for buying new weapons rose by about a third over the last three years, to $81 billion in fiscal 2004, up from $60 billion in 2001. Lockheed's sales also rose by about a third, to nearly $32 billion in the 2003 calendar year, from $24 billion in 2001. It was the No. 1 recipient of Pentagon primary contracts, with $21.9 billion in fiscal 2003. Boeing had $17.3 billion, Northrop Grumman had $11.1 billion and General Dynamics had $8.2 billion. LOCKHEED also has many tens of billions of dollars in future orders on its books. The company's stock has tripled in the last four years, to just under $60.
"It used to be just an airplane company," said John Pike, a longtime military analyst and director of GlobalSecurity.org, a research organization in Alexandria, Va. "Now it's a warfare company. It's an integrated solution provider. It's a one-stop shop. Anything you need to kill the enemy, they will sell you."
As its influence grows, Lockheed is not just seeking to solve the problems of national security. It is framing the questions as well:
Are there too few soldiers to secure the farthest reaches of Iraq? Lockheed is creating robot soldiers and neural software - "intelligent agents" - to do their work. "We've now created policy options where you can elect to put a human in or you can elect to put an intelligent agent in place," Mr. Stevens said.
Are thousands of C.I.A. and Pentagon analysts drowning under a flood of data, incapable of seeing patterns? Lockheed's "intelligence information factory" will do their thinking for them. Mining and sifting categories of facts - for example, linking an adversary's movements and telephone calls - would "offload the mental work by making connections," said Stanton D. Sloane, executive vice president for integrated systems and solutions at Lockheed.
Are American soldiers hard-pressed to tell friend from foe in the crags of Afghanistan? Lockheed is transferring spy satellite technology, created for mapping mountain ridges, to build a mobile lab for reading fingerprints. Lockheed executives say the mobile lab, the size of a laptop, is just the tool for special-operations commandos. It can be loaded with the prints of suspected terrorists, they say, and linked to the F.B.I.'s 470 million print files. They say they think that American police departments will want it, too.
Does the Department of Homeland Security have the best tools to protect the nation? Lockheed has a host of military and intelligence technologies to offer. "What they do for the military in downtown Falluja, they can do for the police in downtown Reno," said Jondavid Black of the company's Horizontal Integration Vision division. Lockheed is also building a huge high-altitude airship, 25 times bigger than the Goodyear blimp, intended to help the Pentagon with the unsolved problem of protecting the nation from ballistic missiles. The airship, with two tons of surveillance sensors, could be used by the Department of Homeland Security to stare down at the United States, Lockheed officials said.
In a pilot program for the department, Lockheed has set up spy cameras and sensors on the U.S.S. New Jersey, anchored in the Delaware River, providing 24-hour surveillance of the ports of Philadelphia and Camden, N.J. The program grew out of the Aegis weapons and surveillance systems for Navy ships, and it soon may spread throughout the United States. The melding of military and intelligence programs, information-technology and domestic security spending began in earnest after the Sept. 11 attacks. Lockheed was perfectly positioned to take advantage of the shift. When the United States government decided a decade ago to let corporate America handle federal information technology, Lockheed leapt at the opportunity. Its information-technology sales have quadrupled since 1995, and, for all those years, Lockheed has been the No. 1 supplier to the federal government, which now outsources 83 percent of its I.T. work.
Lockheed has taken over the job of making data flow throughout the government, from the F.B.I.'s long-dysfunctional computer networks to the Department of Health and Human Services system for tracking child support. The company just won a $525 million contract to fix the Social Security Administration's information systems. It has an $87 million contract to make computers communicate and secrets stream throughout the Department of Homeland Security. On top of all that, the company is helping to rebuild the United States Coast Guard - a $17 billion program - and to supply, under the Patriot Act, biometric identity cards for six million Americans who work in transportation.
Lockheed is also the strongest corporate force driving the Pentagon's plans for "net-centric warfare": the big idea of fusing military, intelligence and weapons programs through a new military Internet, called the Global Information Grid, to give American soldiers throughout the world an instant picture of the battlefield around them. "We want to know what's going on anytime, anyplace on the planet," said Lorraine M. Martin, vice president and deputy of the company's Joint Command, Control and Communications Systems division.
Lockheed's global reach is also growing. Its "critical mass" of salesmanship lets it "produce global products for a global marketplace," said Robert H. Trice Jr., the senior vice president for corporate business development. With its dominant position in fighter jets, missiles, rockets and other weapons, Lockheed's technology will drive the security spending for many American allies in coming decades. Lockheed now sells aircraft and weapons to more than 40 countries. The American taxpayer is financing many of those sales. For example, Israel spends much of the $1.8 billion in annual military aid from the United States to buy F-16 warplanes from Lockheed. Twenty-four nations are flying the F-16, or will be soon. Lockheed's factory in Fort Worth is building 10 for Chile. Oman will receive a dozen next year. Poland will get 48 in 2006; the United States Treasury will cover the cost through a $3.8 billion loan.
In the future, Lockheed hopes to build and sell hundreds of billions of dollars' worth of the next generation of warplanes, the F-35, to the United States Army, Navy and Air Force, and to dozens of United States allies. Three years ago, Lockheed won the competition to be the prime contractor for this aircraft, known as the Joint Strike Fighter.
The program was valued at $200 billion, the biggest Pentagon project in history, but it may be worth more. The F-35 is in its first stages of development in Fort Worth; its onboard computers will require 3.5 million lines of code. Each of the American military services wants a different version of the jet.
There have been glitches involving the weight of the craft. "We did not get it right the first time," said Tom Burbage, a Lockheed executive vice president working on the program. But a day will come, he said, "when everybody's flying the F-35." Lockheed hopes to sell 4,000 or 5,000 of the planes, with roughly half the sales to foreign nations, including those that bought the F-16.
"It's a terrific opportunity for us," said Bob Elrod, a senior Lockheed manager for the F-35 program. "It could be a tremendous success, at the level of the F-16 - 4,000-plus and growing." That would represent "world domination" for Lockheed, he said.
In the United States, where national security spending now surpasses $500 billion a year, Lockheed's dominance is growing. Its own executives say the concentration of power among military contractors is more intense than in any other sector of business outside banking. Three or four major companies - Lockheed, General Dynamics, Northrop Grumman and arguably Boeing - rule the industry. They often work like general contractors building customized houses, farming out the painting, the floors and the cabinets to smaller subcontractors and taking their own share of the money. AND, after 9/11, cost is hardly the most important variable for Pentagon planners. Lockheed has now won approval to build as many F-22's as possible. The current price, $258 million apiece, easily makes the F-22 the most expensive fighter jet in history.
Mr. Stevens, whose compensation last year as Lockheed's chief operating officer was more than $9.5 million, says cost is essentially irrelevant when national security is at stake. "Some folks might think, well, here's a fighter that costs a lot," he said. "This is not a business where in the purest economical sense there's a broad market of supply and demand and price and value can be determined in that exchange. It's more challenging to define its value."
Lockheed says it has transformed its corporate culture. In the 1970's, it was discovered that the company had paid millions of dollars to foreign officials around the world in order to sell its planes. In one case, Kakuei Tanaka, who had been the prime minister of Japan, was convicted of accepting bribes.
"Without Lockheed, there never would have been a Foreign Corrupt Practices Act," said Jerome Levinson, who was the staff director of the Senate subcommittee that uncovered the bribery.
The antibribery provisions of that law, passed in 1977, owed their existence to the Lockheed investigation, he said. The last bribery case involving Lockheed came a decade ago, when a Lockheed executive and the corporation admitted paying $1.2 million in bribes to an Egyptian official to seal the sales of three Lockheed C-130 cargo planes.
Mr. Trice, Lockheed's senior vice president for business development, says the company cleaned up its act at home and overseas since the last of the series of major mergers and acquisitions that gave the corporation its present shape in March 1995. "You simply have to look people in the eye and say 'we don't do business that way,' " he said.
There really is no need to do business that way any more - not in a world where so much of Lockheed's wealth flows directly from the Treasury, where competition for foreign markets is both controlled and subsidized by the White House and Congress, and where Lockheed's influence runs so deep. Men who have worked, lobbied and lawyered for Lockheed hold the posts of secretary of the Navy, secretary of transportation, director of the national nuclear weapons complex and director of the national spy satellite agency. The list also includes Stephen J. Hadley, who has been named the next national security adviser to the president, succeeding Condoleezza Rice. Former Lockheed executives serve on the Defense Policy Board, the Defense Science Board and the Homeland Security Advisory Council, which help make military and intelligence policy and pick weapons for future battles. Lockheed's board includes E. C. Aldridge Jr., who, as the Pentagon's chief weapons buyer, gave the go-ahead to build the F-22.
None of those posts and positions violate the Pentagon's rules about the "revolving door" between industry and government. Lockheed has stayed clear of the kind of conflict-of-interest cases that have afflicted its competitor, Boeing, and the Air Force in recent months.
"We need to be politically aware and astute," Mr. Stevens said. "We work with the Congress. We work with the executive branch." In these dialogues, he said, Lockheed's end of the conversation is "saying we think this is feasible, we think this is possible, we think we might have invented a new approach."
Lockheed makes about $1 million a year in campaign contributions through political action committees, singling out members of the Congressional committees controlling the Pentagon's budget, and spends many millions more on lobbying. Political stalwarts who have lobbied for Lockheed at one point or another include Haley Barbour, the governor of Mississippi and a former Republican national chairman; Otto Reich, who persuaded Congress to sell F-16's to Chile before becoming President Bush's main Latin America policy aide in 2002; and Norman Y. Mineta, the transportation secretary and former member of Congress.
Its connections give Lockheed a "tremendous opportunity to influence contracts flowing to the company," said Ms. Brian of the Project on Government Oversight. "More subtly valuable is the ability of the company to benefit from their eyes and ears inside the government, to know what's on the horizon, what are the best bets for the government's future technology needs."
SO who serves as the overseer for the biggest military contractors and their costly weapons? Usually, the customer itself: the Pentagon. "These programs are huge," said Dov S. Zakheim, the Pentagon's comptroller and chief financial officer for the last three years, who recently joined Booz Allen Hamilton, the consulting firm. "There is a historical tendency to underestimate their test schedules, their technological hurdles, the likely weight of an airplane and, as a result, to underestimate costs.
"Because you have so few contractors, you don't get the level of attention that the average citizen would think would be devoted to a program costing billions of dollars," he said. "With this massive agglomeration into a very small number of companies, you get far less visibility as to whether the subcontractors are effectively managed. Problems accumulate."
"Twenty years ago, the complaint was, it takes so long to build things," he said. Weapons designed in the depths of the cold war were built long after the Berlin Wall crumbled. That led some people, including George W. Bush while running for president in 1999, to suggest that the Pentagon skip a generation of weapons set to roll off the assembly line in this decade and concentrate instead on lighter, faster, smarter systems for the future. That didn't happen. It still takes two decades to build a major weapons system, and the costs are still staggering.
"The complaints haven't changed 20 years later," Mr. Zakheim said. The difference between then and now is the concentration of expertise, experience and power in a few hands, he said, "and I don't think the effect has necessarily been a good one."
Mr. Stevens rejected that criticism. "I can't tell you the number of times I've heard 'not progressive, not sophisticated, ponderous, slow' " as terms used to describe Lockheed, he said. "I see none of that."
What he sees is a far grander vision. Lockheed, he said, is promising to transform the very nature of war. During the cold war, when Lockheed and its component parts built an empire of nuclear weapons, Mr. Stevens said, the watchword was: "Be more fearful. 'Deterrence,' isn't that Latin? 'Deterrere.' Induce fear. Terrorize."
Today, Lockheed is building weapons so smart that they can change the world by virtue of their precision, he said; they aim to wage war without the death of innocents, without weapons misfiring, without fatal miscalculation. "I know the fog of war exists," Mr. Stevens said, adding that it could be lifted. "We envision a world where you don't have any more fratricide," no more friendly fire, he said. "With technology we've been able to make ourselves more secure and more humane.
"And we aren't there yet - but we sure have pioneered the kind of work that is taking us well along that trajectory. And there's a lot of evidence that says we're doing well. And we're setting the bar high and we expect to be able to do that. Now that's pretty exciting stuff.
"I don't say this lightly," he said. "Our industry has contributed to a change in humankind."
6.
Forwarded by Ken NCEpanacea@aol.com>
From: http://www.lewrockwell.com/roberts/roberts83.html
War Crime
by Paul Craig Roberts
December 8, 2004
On December 6 Pentagon boss Donald Rumsfeld promised four more years of death and destruction in Iraq. Assuming the war continues to cost the US taxpayers $6 billion per month – not including reconstruction costs, fat no-bid contracts for the Bush administration’s major contributors, and replacement costs of the military equipment that is being blown apart and worn out – that comes to $288 billion. Add that sum to the $149 billion the war has already cost US taxpayers for a total of $437 billion.
Turning to the human toll, from March 20, 2003 to December 7, 2004 (approximately 21 months) the Pentagon says 1,280 US troops have been killed and 9,765 wounded in Iraq. The Pentagon’s wounded figure conflicts with the report from the US military hospital in Landstuhl, Germany, that as of Thanksgiving week the hospital has treated almost 21,000 Americans injured in Iraq. According to the hospital, more than half were too badly injured to return to their units.
Assuming no escalation in the insurgency, a continuation of four more years of war would result in another 2,925 US troops being killed for a total of 4,205. Using the Pentagon’s wounded figure, 22,320 more US troops would be injured for a total of 32,085. Using the US military hospital’s figure, another 48,000 US troops would be wounded for a total of 69,000.
Assuming the US is able to keep 138,000 US troops in Iraq during Bush’s second term, US dead and wounded (Pentagon figure) would comprise 26% of the US force in Iraq. Using the military hospital’s figure, US dead and wounded would comprise 53% of our entire army in Iraq.
The present military manpower system cannot provide replacements for these losses. Current troop strengths are being maintained by calling up reserve and national guard units and by extending soldiers’ tours of duty beyond the contractual period, a practice that US troops are contesting in court. Tens of thousands of careers, marriages, and family finances are being disrupted and destroyed by the commitment of reserve and national guard units to war in Iraq.
What is Bush achieving in return for such horrendous costs?
Bush has destroyed our alliances and the good will of a half century of US foreign policy.
Bush has created an insurgency where there was none.
Bush has destroyed US prestige in the Middle East and reduced America’s support among Middle Eastern populations to the single digits.
Bush has made Osama bin Laden a hero and recruited tens of thousands of terrorists to his ranks, while simultaneously alienating Middle Easterners from the secular puppet rulers we have imposed on them.
At a minimum Bush is responsible for between 14,619 and 16,804 Iraqi civilian deaths during the 21 months since the invasion. Compiled from hospital, morgue, and media reports, these figures understate civilian deaths. In keeping with Islam’s quick burial requirement, many Iraqis were buried in sports fields and in back gardens during protracted US assaults on urban areas. A recent report in the British medical journal, The Lancet, estimates that 100,000 Iraqis have been killed since March 20, 2003. This figure does not include the large number of Iraqi deaths from the embargo and US bombing for more than a decade prior to the US invasion.
Projecting the reported Iraqi civilian deaths for four more years of US occupation produces a figure of 51,621 civilians killed as "collateral damage." Projecting the Lancet’s figure produces a figure of 328,571 civilian deaths by the end of Bush’s second term.
Then there are the civilian injured, for which there appear to be no figures. If we assume the same ratio of killed to wounded for civilian deaths as holds for the US military, the reported death figure gives a civilian wounded figure of 392,320. The Lancet estimate gives a wounded figure of 2,497,139.
The ratio of 7.6 wounded US troops for each soldier killed is probably low for calculating civilian Iraqi wounded. US forces travel in armored vehicles, are protected with helmets and body armor and are not on the receiving end of artillery and massive bombs that kill everything in a quarter mile radius. The ratio could easily be 10 or 15 wounded Iraqi civilians for every one killed.
Did the Americans who reelected Bush know that the president who will admit to no mistake is locked on a course that will squander a half trillion dollars for no purpose other than to kill and wound between 36,290 and 73,205 US troops, with "collateral damage" to Iraqi civilians ranging from 443,941 to 2,825,710 dead and wounded?
If Saddam Hussein is a "mass murderer," what does that make President Bush and those who reelected him?
Dr. Roberts is John M. Olin Fellow at the Institute for Political Economy and Research Fellow at the Independent Institute. He is a former associate editor of the Wall Street Journal, former contributing editor for National Review, and a former assistant secretary of the U.S. Treasury. He is the co-author of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.
---
See also:
Wounds That Don't Bleed (Nov 29, 2004)
http://www.time.com/time/archive/preview/0,10987,1101041129-785387,00.html
How severe stress is taking a toll on U.S. troops in Iraq — and what Washington is doing about it - Full-scale offensives like Fallujah inevitably exact a psychic toll. Yet the punishing strain of fighting a hydra-headed insurgency afflicts U.S. troops even on what passes for a normal day in Iraq. (...) Following deployment to Iraq, 17% of Army respondents and 19% of Marines reported a "perceived moderate or severe problem," according to a psychiatric study released last July by the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research. The study termed those estimates "conservative," and most cases, says Nash, will not be apparent until the troops are back home. The Marine who served in al-Anbar for seven months says that when he drives past potholes in his hometown, he wonders if they will explode. If the refrigerator door closes, he says, "I ask myself if that was incoming fire. A bomb?" And he's older than most grunts. "The younger guys--18, 19 years old — they're definitely going to have some challenges ahead," he adds. "God help somebody who pushes the wrong button on a kid who's been through these things." Even the most battle-hardened troops report feeling symptoms like Harding's. They express anger, confusion and guilt about killing, guilt about surviving when a buddy doesn't. They confess to mood swings, depression, indifference to life, hypervigilance, isolation, suicidal tendencies. And all are plagued by images they can't forget, some so disturbing that combat-stress workers in the field have to monitor one another for a state known as "vicarious traumatization." A soldier deployed near Baghdad for nine months witnessed several members of his unit torn apart by mortar fire. "I can't erase that picture," he says. "It's something I cannot take anymore." Some stressed-out troops can't control their rage. "They don't know who the bad guy is," says Anthony Pantlitz, a chaplain with the Army's 785th Combat Stress Company, "so they hate everybody." CLIP
Homeless Iraq Vets Showing Up at Shelters
http://www.truthout.org/docs_04/121004Y.shtml
7.
Forwarded by "Carolyn Fumia" shekinah@peoplepc.com>
From: http://www.PetitionOnline.com/deniz18/petition.html
Petition for the Release of Classified DOJ-IG Report on FBI Cover-Up
To: United States Congress
To: All members of the Congress of the United States of America; all Senators and Members of the House of Representatives.
A Petition to require the immediate release of the entire report completed in July 2004 by the Department of Justice's Office of the Inspector General (DOJ-IG) of its investigation into confirmed reports by FBI Whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, but which has remained classified; and further Petition that it be followed by a joint investigation by Congress, including open public hearings, into those reports of wrongdoing, criminal activities, and cover-ups against the security and interests of the United States and its citizenry.
The DOJ-IG began its investigation in March 2002, and at the request of Senators Grassley(R) and Leahy (D) promised expedited release in the Fall of 2002. In June 2002 the FBI, in unclassified Senate briefings, confirmed the validity of Ms. Edmonds reports (Attorney General Ashcroft in May 2004 retroactively classified information from these briefings and gagged the Congress, preventing further Congressional investigation and disclosure). Despite its promise of expedited release, the DOJ-IG repeatedly delayed completion of its report, and when after over two years completed it in July 2004, declared it entirely classified and has not released a single page to the public. Issues covered by the DOJ-IG investigation include; the cover-up of information and leads pre and post 9/11, under the excuse of protecting certain diplomatic relations; espionage activities within (but not limited to) the FBI & Department of Defense; cases of intentional blocking and mistranslation of crucial intelligence by FBI translators and management.
The FBI and the Department of Justice have engaged in a relentless effort to withhold this information in order to prevent public awareness and thus avoid accountability, and in so doing are placing the security of the nation at risk. In this regard ranking Senate Judiciary Committee members Grassley(R) and Leahy (D) have stated: "We fear that the designation of information as classified in these cases serves to protect the executive branch against embarrassing revelations and full accountability. Releasing declassified versions of these reports, or at least portions or summaries, would serve the public's interest, increase transparency, promote effectiveness and efficiency at the FBI, and facilitate Congressional oversight." Given the seriousness of Ms. Edmonds‚ reports and in the best interests of the security of the country, it is imperative that information contained in the DOJ-IG report be made available to the public. It is incumbent upon the Congress to exercise its oversight responsibilities and authority as the representatives of the people of the United States, therefore:
We, the undersigned, now call upon the Congress to require the immediate release of the entire DOJ-IG report of its investigation, and to open a joint investigation into all related issues, with open hearings before the people of the United States.
Sincerely,
The Undersigned
View Current Signatures (over 2700) at
http://www.PetitionOnline.com/mod_perl/signed.cgi?deniz18
Sign this petition at http://www.PetitionOnline.com/deniz18/petition-sign.html?
(This is ONLY for USA residents)
The Release of Classified DOJ-IG Report on FBI Cover-Up Petition to United States Congress was created by and written by Sibel Edmonds (Sibeldeniz2@aol.com).
8.
From: http://www.lewrockwell.com/paul/paul222.html
Ron Paul Denounces National ID Card
December 8, 2004
Congressman Ron Paul today denounced the national ID card provisions contained in the intelligence bill being voted on in the U.S. House of Representatives, while urging his colleagues to reject the bill and its new layers of needless bureaucracy.
“National ID cards are not proper in a free society,” Paul stated. “This is America, not Soviet Russia. The federal government should never be allowed to demand papers from American citizens, and it certainly has no constitutional authority to do so.”
“A national identification card, in whatever form it may take, will allow the federal government to inappropriately monitor the movements and transactions of every American,” Paul continued. “History shows that governments inevitably use such power in harmful ways. The 9-11 commission, whose recommendations underlie this bill, has called for internal screening points where identification will be demanded. Domestic travel restrictions are the hallmark of authoritarian states, not free nations. It is just a matter of time until those who refuse to carry the new licenses will be denied the ability to drive or board an airplane.”
“Nationalizing standards for drivers licenses and birth certificates, and linking them together via a national database, creates a national ID system pure and simple. Proponents of the national ID understand that the public remains wary of the scheme, so they attempt to claim they’re merely creating new standards for existing state IDs. Nonsense! This legislation imposes federal standards in a federal bill, and it creates a federalized ID regardless of whether the ID itself is still stamped with the name of your state.”
“Those who are willing to allow the government to establish a Soviet-style internal passport system because they think it will make us safer are terribly mistaken,” Paul concluded. “Subjecting every citizen to surveillance and screening points actually will make us less safe, not in the least because it will divert resources away from tracking and apprehending terrorists and deploy them against innocent Americans! Every conservative who believes in constitutional restraints on government should reject the authoritarian national ID card and the nonsensical intelligence bill itself.”
Dr. Ron Paul is a Republican member of Congress from Texas.
---
See also:
Time to Make one Last Push Against the National ID Card
http://omega.twoday.net/stories/430350/
9.
JUST THIS BELOW COULD STAND ALONE IN A COMPILATION. A MUST READ!
Forwarded by Ken NCEpanacea@aol.com> on Dec 9
From: http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/
Censored 2005: The Top 25 Censored Media Stories of 2003-2004
1: Wealth Inequality in 21st Century Threatens Economy and Democracy
Wealth inequality increased dramatically in the United States in the late 1990s. The top 5% is now capturing an increasingly greater portion of the pie while the bottom 95% is clearly losing ground, resulting in the rapidly vanishing middle class. This trend is the product of legislative policies carefully crafted and lobbied for by corporations and the ultra-wealthy over the past 25 years. America's economic trends have a global footprint. Today, the top 400 income earners in the U.S. make as much in a year as the entire population of the 20 poorest countries in Africa. A series of reports released in 2003 by the UN warn that further increases in the imbalance in wealth throughout the world will have catastrophic effects if left unchecked, such as the collapse of the entire global economy.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/1.html
2: Ashcroft vs. the Human Rights Law that Holds Corporations Accountable
Attorney General John Ashcroft is seeking to strike down one of the world's oldest human rights laws, the Alien Torts Claim Act (ATCA) which holds government leaders, corporations, and senior military officials liable for human rights abuses taking place in foreign countries. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch (HRW) vehemently oppose the removal of this law, as it is one of the few legal defenses victims of human rights violations can claim against powerful organizations such as governments or multinational corporations. By attempting to throw out this law, the Bush Administration is effectively opening the door for human rights abuses to continue under the veil of foreign relations diplomacy.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/2.html
3: Bush Administration Censors Science
In Washington D.C. more than 60 of the nation's top scientists, including 20 Nobel laureates, medical experts, and former federal agency directors, issued a statement February 18, 2004 accusing the Bush Administration of deliberately distorting scientific results for political ends. They are calling for regulatory and legislative action to restore scientific integrity to federal policymaking. Under the current administration, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has blacklisted scientists who pose a threat to pro-business ideology, and many unqualified scientists with close industry ties have been appointed to advisory boards.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/3.html
4: High Levels of Uranium Found in Troops and Civilians
Civilian populations in Afghanistan and Iraq and occupying troops have been contaminated with astounding levels of radioactive uranium as a result of post-9/11 use of tons of uranium munitions by the U.S. Four million pounds of radioactive uranium were dropped on Iraq in 2003 alone. Most American weapons (missiles, smart bombs, bullets, tank shells, cruise missiles, etc.) contain high amounts of uranium that on detonation, release a radioactive dust. Once ingested, these subatomic particles slice through DNA. With a half-life of 4.5 billion years, it is a permanent contaminant distributed throughout the environment. Scientists from around the world testify to the huge increase in birth deformities and cancers wherever uranium munitions have been used. The effects of the U.S. deployment will be felt in all the neighboring countries in the Middle East and Asia, as well as in our returning troops.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/4.html
(...) At the Uranium Weapons Conference held October 2003 in Hamburg, Germany, independent scientists from around the world testified to a huge increase in birth deformities and cancers wherever NDU and DU had been used. Professor Katsuma Yagasaki, a scientist at the Ryukyus University, Okinawa calculated that the 800 tons of DU used in Afghanistan is the radioactive equivalent of 83,000 Nagasaki bombs. The amount of DU used in Iraq is equivalent to 250,000 Nagasaki bombs. CLIP - A MUST READ!
Check also http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/ and especially http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/powerpoint.htm
But above all be courageous and face the absolutely horrific reality of what DU does to humans. These are the most telling and nightmarish pictures I've every seen in my whole life!
D.U. EFFECTS ON PEOPLE IN THE SOUTH OF IRAQ
http://www.uraniumweaponsconference.de/powerpoint/alali.ppt
5: The Wholesale Giveaway of Our Natural Resources
The Bush Administration's environmental policies are destroying much of the environmental progress made over the past 30 years. Between the "Clean Skies Initiative," a recent policy that allows power plants to emit more than five times more mercury and twice as much sulfur dioxide, and the "Healthy Forests Initiative," which allows the wholesale liquidation of ancient forests by corporate timber interests under the guise of fire prevention, resource extraction and pollution is occurring at unprecedented rates.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/5.html
6: The Sale of Electoral Politics
Conflicts of interest exist between the largest suppliers of electronic voting machines in the United States and key leaders in the Republican Party. While the voting machines themselves present some technical issues, the political affiliations within the voting machine industry pose even more serious questions. The three major companies involved in implementing the new, often faulty, technology at voting stations throughout the country have strong ties to the Bush Administration, Republican leaders, and major defense contractors.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/6.html
7: Conservative Organization Drives Judicial Appointments
In 2001 George W. Bush eliminated the longstanding influence of the American Bar Association (ABA) in the evaluation of the prospective federal judges. ABA's judicial ratings had long kept extremists from the right and left off the bench. In its place, Bush has been using the Federal Society for Law and Public Policy Studies--a national organization whose mission is to advance a conservative agenda by moving the country's legal system to the right. One of the most important issues in the country is the control of one of the three branches of government, the judiciary. While Presidents and Congress-members get elected every few years, judicial appointments are for life, Our courts deal with nearly every aspect of life; work conditions and wages, schools, civil rights, affirmative action, crime and punishment, abortion and the environment, amongst others.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/7.html
8: Cheney's Energy Task Force and The Energy Policy
Cheney Energy Task Force documents turned over in the summer of 2003 by the Commerce Department as a result of the Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by Sierra Club and Judicial Watch contain maps of Iraqi oilfields, pipelines, refineries and terminals. The documents, dated March 2001, also contain plans of occupation and exploitation that predate September 11, confirming suspicions that the Bush Administration energy policy is driving U.S. military strategy.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/8.html
9: Widow Brings RICO Case Against U.S. government for 9/11
Ellen Mariani became widowed when her husband Louis Neil Mariani perished in the collision between United Airlines flight 175 and the South Tower of the World Trade Center. In addition to her refusal of the government's million-dollar settlement offer, Mrs. Mariani has filed a 62 page complaint in federal district court charging that President Bush and officials: (1) had adequate foreknowledge of 911, yet failed to warn the country or attempt to prevent it; (2) have since been covering up the truth of that day; (3) have therefore abetted the murder of plaintiff's husband and violated the Constitution and multiple laws of the United States; and (4) are thus being sued under the Civil Racketeering, Influences, and Corrupt Organization (RICO) Act for Malfeasant conspiracy, obstruction of justice and wrongful death.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/9.html
10: New Nuke Plants: Taxpayers Support, Industry Profits
Senator Peter Domenici (R-NM), along with the Bush Administration, is looking to give the nuclear power industry a huge boost through the new Energy Policy Act. The Domenici-sponsored bill will give nuclear power plants credits costing taxpayers an estimated 7.5 billion dollars, to build six new privately owned, for-profit reactors across the country. Safety standards will be lowered and liability will be passed on to taxpayers. This is in addition to the $4 billion already provided for other nuclear energy programs.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/10.html
11: The Media Can Legally Lie
In 2003, a Florida Court of Appeals ruled that there are no written rules against distorting news in the media. It agreed with an argument by Fox Television that, under the First Amendment, broadcasters have the right to lie or deliberately distort news reports on public airwaves. Under the current ruling, it is up to the public to discover whether or not they are being lied to.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/11.html
12: The Destabilization of Haiti
On February 29, 2004, President Jean-Bertrand Aristide was forced into exile by American military. While U.S. officials were eventually forced to acknowledge the kidnapping allegations, they were quick to discredit them and deny responsibility. Meanwhile, the circumstances that led to the current situation in Haiti, as well as the history of U.S. involvement, are being ignored by U.S. officials and the mainstream media.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/12.html
13: Schwarzenegger Met with Enron's Ken Lay Years Before the California Recall
In 2002, while the California Governor and his deputy were attempting to re-regulate the energy industry (and get back the $9 billion that was defrauded from California taxpayers by Enron and other energy companies) Arnold Schwarzenegger was being groomed to overthrow Governor Davis in a recall - and cancel plans to re-regulate or to recoup the $9 billion. Back in May of 2001, in the midst of California's energy crisis, Schwarzenegger met with Enron's Ken Lay to discuss "fixing" California's energy crisis.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/13.html
14: New Bill Threatens Intellectual Freedom in Area Studies
The International Studies in Higher Education Act of 2003 threatens academic freedom and classroom curriculum. Under this act, professors whose ideological principles do not support U.S. practices abroad can have their appointments terminated, any course curriculum containing criticism of U.S. foreign policy can be censored, and any course deemed anti-American can be barred from the classroom.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/14.html
15: U.S. Develops Lethal New Viruses
Scientists funded by the US government have developed a way to make pox viruses incredibly deadly. The stated goal of this research is to fight possible bio-terror attacks. The new virus kills all mice even if they have been given antiviral drugs along with a vaccine that would normally protect the victim from death.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/15.html
Related stories:
US develops lethal new viruses (29 October 03)
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99994318
Ebola virus could be synthesised (17 July 2002)
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992555
Scientists build polio virus from scratch (11 July 2002)
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns99992539
Engineered mouse virus one step from ultimate bioweapon (10 January 2001)
http://www.newscientist.com/news/news.jsp?id=ns9999311
16: Law Enforcement Agencies Spy on Innocent Citizens
With little media comment, federal, state and local agencies have begun working as partners in the collection, analysis, and dissemination of intelligence information. Under the "Global Intelligence Working Group" (that oversees the new network) police departments receive increased funding for surveillance activity. This has resulted in the recent COINTELPRO-style instances of police infiltration of groups critical of government policies.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/16.html
17: U.S. Government Represses Labor Unions in Iraq in Quest for Business Privatization
According to the Wall Street Journal, the Bush Administration has "sweeping plans to remake Iraq's economy in the US image." The US is calling for the privatization of state-owned industries such as oil and water. But it has chosen not to overturn Sadaam-era edicts that outlaw unions. Every day the economic policies of occupying authorities create more hunger among Iraq's working people, transforming them into a pool of low-wage, semi-employed labor, desperate for jobs at any price.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/17.html
18: Media and Government Ignore Dwindling Oil Supplies
Even industry executives affirm that oil is close to reaching, or may have already reached, its highest levels of production potential. Once the peak is reached, oil prices will start to rise (as they have every year since 2000). As oil decline accelerates, prices will rise even faster, with devastating effects to the US economy. Over the years, U.S. leaders, bowing to oil industry pressure, have not worked to develop viable alternatives (as they have done in Europe).
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/18.html
19: Global Food Cartel Fast Becoming the World's Supermarket
Agribusiness and supermarket alliances are transforming the agri-food system into a powerful network of transnational corporations. They now have the power to control the world's food supply at every stage of food production. As fewer corporations control food production, traditional farming is becoming a high-tech form of serfdom. Lack of competition is leading to higher prices, lower choice and quality, and employee abuse.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/19.html
20: Extreme Weather Prompts New Warning from UN
In 2003, The UN's World Meteorological Organization reported unprecedented levels of extreme weather and climate occurrences all over the world. The report emphasized an alarming increase in global warming and pointed to the impact of human activity. The significance of this particular report is that the highly respected UN organization is known for its normally conservative predictions and statements.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/20.html
21: Forcing a World Market for GMOs
The Bush Administration is trying to force Europe to drop trade barriers against genetically modified organisms (GMOs). Meanwhile, the agricultural biotechnology industry is focusing even more intently on developing countries, where regulations governing their use are generally more lax. At the same time, biotech promoters continue to suppress studies that show GMOs may have adverse effects on health and the environment.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/21.html
22: Censoring Iraq
After the fall of Saddam, Paul Bremer told journalists they were now "free to criticize whoever, or whatever, you want." But when negative critiques of U.S. policies appeared in the Iraqi media, Bremer quickly placed controls on its content. And rather than hiring a media outlet to run the Iraqi media (or simply allowing the news groups already there to continue reporting), the Pentagon chose a defense contractor to define the news.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/22.html
23: Brazil Holds Back in FTAA Talks, But Provides Little Comfort for the Poor of South America
The Free Trade Area of the America's (FTAA) could become the biggest trading block in history, expanding NAFTA to 34 countries from Canada to the bottom of South America. This deal is unlikely to meet its January 2005 deadline, now that the second largest player in the negotiations, Brazil, is holding back. However, Brazilian President Lula has begun, of his own volition, to institute his own brand of FTAA austerity policies that are sure to drive the poor of the region deeper into poverty.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/23.html
24: Reinstating the Draft
The Selective Service System (SSS), the Bush Administration, and the Pentagon have been quietly moving to fill draft board vacancies nationwide in order to prepare for a military draft that could start as early as June 15, 2005. Several million dollars have been added to the 2004 SSS budget. Meanwhile, through an on-going militarization of public school systems, the Pentagon has begun efforts to double the number of Latinos in the U.S. military by 2006.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/24.html
25: Wal-Mart Brings Inequality and Low Prices to the World
The vision of the international division of Wal-Mart is one where Wal-Mart becomes a global brand, just like McDonald's or Coca- Cola, monopolizing the global retail market. The next five or six years could see about 5,000 to 6,000 Wal-Mart stores outside of the United States. Wal-Mart is Americanizing retailing around the world and exercising an inordinate amount of economic power.
- Much more at http://www.projectcensored.org/publications/2005/25.html
---
See also:
Two-page summary on Media Cover-up - http://www.WantToKnow.info/mediacover-up
Ten-page summary Media Cover-up - http://www.WantToKnow.info/massmediacover-ups
10.
From: http://www.nationalvanguard.org/story.php?id=4298
Israel Finds BBC Too Truthful for Comfort
2004-12-05
by Greg Felton
To sustain a fundamental lie over the long term, a propagandist must do more than disseminate false or misleading information; he must also wage a perpetual war against truth.
No lie can long survive without frequent censorship and intimidation of critics, because lies are like radioactive atoms -- highly unstable.
When no amount of censorship can prevent the release of uncomfortable truths, the fundamental lie implodes, and the credibility of everyone associated with it gets sucked into the resulting black hole.
Such is the danger hanging over the head of Israel like the proverbial Sword of Damocles, only in this case, intimidation and censorship have to sustain multiple lies, such as: Israel was created by the UN; Arabs are responsible for the continuing violence; Israel is a peace-loving democracy; Jews have a biblical right to a homeland in Palestine; and Israel's critics are anti-Semites.
This last lie, fatuous and inane though it may be, is particularly important because it forms the basis for virtually all censorship and intimidation. Because propaganda is based on deception, rational criticism must be stigmatized as a moral insult deserving of unfettered ad hominem attacks.
We saw such an example on June 29 when a spokesman for the Israeli government condemned the BBC for demonizing Israel "in a way reminiscent of anti-Semitic tracts published in Nazi Germany."
The cause of the uproar was a June 28 trailer on BBC World promoting a 'Correspondent' series documentary called Israel's Secret Weapon. It showed pictures of Israel's nuclear facility at Dimona (pictured below), and its chemical and biological weapons headquarters at Nes Ziona. The accompanying narrative asked: "Which country in the Middle East has not declared the nuclear and biological weapons in its possession?"
Danny Seaman (pictured), the Israeli spokesman, admitted that the content of the trailer wasn't the problem. "The BBC didn't raise anything that has not already been on Israeli television," he told the Guardian. "It's the tone not the facts we're worried about. "We're used to journalistic garbage as a cover for anti-Israeli propaganda. But it was not only this program. We feel this was the culmination of a decision by the BBC to show Israel as some kind of criminal country, a rogue police state. There's an insensitivity to the state of Israel and the Jewish people, and their history."
Well, Israel is a criminal country, and it is a rogue police state -- see July's column Hamas a principled defender of Palestine -- but that's just the sort of truth Zionist propaganda is designed to obscure. Because the trailer showed pictorial evidence of illegal weapons development, the propaganda had to be defended, so the BBC was slagged, and the show denigrated.
But the danger to Israel goes deeper than the trailer. Since 1969, the U.S and Israel have had a duplicitous "understanding" designed to hide these illegal weapons programs from worldview. The U.S. permits Israel to maintain a nuclear program so long as Israel does not hold nuclear tests or publicly declare that it possesses nuclear weapons. In return for this calculated policy of "nuclear ambiguity," the U.S. does not pressure Israel to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, and uses its Security Council veto to ensure that UN weapons inspectors are kept out.
This same U.S. interference also insulates Israel's chemical and biological weapons facilities from international scrutiny. For example, from Feb. 12 to March 30, 2001, Israel attacked Palestinians with an unknown poison gas that sent 180 people to hospital with severe convulsions. The gas was manufactured at Nes Ziona and the suffering it caused has been documented. At the time of the attack, Israel denied using gas. Israel's Secret Weapon debunked that claim.
In response, Israel has severed all co-operative relations with the BBC, and Sharon had the effrontery to ban Britain's national broadcaster from attending a meeting this month in London. Seaman also pressured the Australian Broadcasting Corporation not to show Israel's Secret Weapon, but to no avail.
Israel's reaction was desperate and ham-fisted. The location of Israel's illegal arsenal of weapons of mass destruction has been available to anyone with a computer since at least March 17, when Israel's Secret Weapon aired in Britain on BBC2.
Also, the page "Strategic Israel" from Islamonline.net has an interactive map showing the location of WMD plants, air bases and missile facilities, including the main command and control centre beneath the ministry of defence in Tel Aviv. MSNBC's website also had such a map, but it has disappeared.
This incident is not the first time Israel has attacked the BBC for doing its job. On June 17, 2001, BBC1 aired the "Panorama" documentary The Accused, which investigated the 1982 massacre of up to 2,000 Palestinian and Lebanese civilians in the Sabra and Shatila refugee camps, and whether then-Defence Minister Ariel Sharon could be indicted for it.
In fact, the best witness for the affirmative comes from Israel. On Feb. 8, 1983, the Kahane Commission found that Sharon bore indirect "personal responsibility" for the massacre by Israel's Lebanese Phalangist allies:
"It is our view that responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defence for having disregarded the danger of acts of vengeance and bloodshed by the Phalangists against the population of the refugee camps, and having failed to take this danger into account when he decided to have the Phalangists enter the camps. In addition, responsibility is to be imputed to the Minister of Defence for not ordering appropriate measures for preventing or reducing the danger of massacre as a condition for the Phalangists' entry into the camps. These blunders constitute the non-fulfillment of a duty with which the Defense Minister was charged."
To defend the lie that Israel does not commit war crimes, The Accused had to be denounced as one-sided; an attack on the state of Israel; and "anti-Semitic," even though it was accurate and thoroughly researched. Israel even threatened legal action, but of course it had no case.
In the war against propaganda, an unflinching willingness to tell the truth and to resist mounting intimidation is the only defence. If only all media were as courageous as the BBC.
INDEED!! CNN TAKE NOTICE!
11.
Forwarded by "Mark Graffis" mgraffis@vitelcom.net> on Dec 6
From: http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1241.htm
We are now in the process of having the Voice of the White House published as a book. It will also contain considerable additional material we had deemed as too sensitive or too outrageous to put on the website.
"A little patience, and we shall see the reign of witches pass over, their spells dissolve, and the people, recovering their true sight, restore their government to it's true principles. It is true that in the mean time we are suffering deeply in spirit, and incurring the horrors of a war & long oppressions of enormous public debt. ... If the game runs sometimes against us at home we must have patience till luck turns, & then we shall have an opportunity of winning back the principles we have lost, for this is a game where principles are the stake. Better luck, therefore, to us all; and health, happiness, & friendly salutations to yourself."
- T. Jefferson
The Voice of the White House
December 4, 2004:
“If you want to do a book, that's fine by me but don't expect me to show up for a book-signing tour with Borders Books. Men in black suits with little crosses in their coat lapels would show up and shoot me dead while chanting verses from Psalms.
I will send you some really lovely documents you can put into the text but since you don't know my name, put down anything you like. How about Russell Bush, the Cousin No One Talks About?
Now, down to more serious matters. First of all, I have written before about the incredible security precautions to be taken here for the Imperial Inauguration in January. I am sending you part of a DHS bulletin that will back this up. I can’t send you the Secret Service directives because to publish them would result in immediate and furious reactions and probably visits from the flat of feet and pointy of head.
There will be more security in and around DC than Hitler ever had at one of his rallies. Everything but the Nazi flags and goose-stepping SS men. There will be Coast Guard watches over all waterways around Washington, Air Force units on instant readiness (unlike the very odd and highly suspicious total lack of concern on September 11—in spite of many important warnings of an attack) with antiaircraft missile units in place all around the Beltway, on the ground and especially on the roofs of buildings around the Capitol and the White House.
On the ground, heavily armed Special Forces units everywhere, waiting inside Federal buildings to emerge and "deal severely" with any organized crowd activity directed against the Head Chimpanzee. And I mean the orders are, and I have seen them, to drag protesters outside the view of the public and especially the cameras and beat the shit out of them.
Bush and his Gestapo have not forgotten the last inauguration wherein people actually had the nerve to hoot and jeer at him and, far worse, to hurl vegetables and other objects at the Imperial limousine. My God, you should have seen our Beloved President's face when blunt objects thundered down on his car!
He was as white as a KKK sheet and his mouth was hanging open in shock. Top speed to the White House and he had to have a soothing shot before he wet himself.
And this is really funny and entirely predictable. The Christian Right is somehow of the opinion that since they, and they alone (with the help of Jesus and Almighty God—the Virgin Mary is not in their pantheon) elected Caligula for another term, he owes them big and he is now expected to deliver on his vague promises, made to various Christian Right leaders, in private of course, before the election. This long list is howlingly funny, or would be if it weren't serious. Here is a copy of at least some of the more obnoxious items on their wish list that I have culled from all the papers around here:
1. Abolish and criminalize abortion
2. Establish Creationism in all public schools
3. Declare Christmas a "True Christian Holiday"
4. Base American law on the Ten Commandments, not the Secular Constitution
5. Make any kind of homosexual activity a criminal offense
6. Censor any and all media material they deem to be pornographic or offensive
7. Send missionaries to Iraq and other occupied countries to Christianize them—by force
8. Declare a Christian Crusade as quickly as possible with the aim of converting the world.
9. Work with Israel to demolish the Arab mosques and rebuild the Temple of Solomon
10. Declare Sunday as Christ's Day and shut all retail businesses down for that day
11. Institute the Tithe in the United States where 10% of the worker's checks go to Jesus (them)
12. Ban forever any kind of Satanic Rock and Roll and make it punishable to air or play it
13. Set up a Cabinet post as Religious Coordinator
14. Stop the publication of any and all Harry Potter type Satanic books. Abolish Satanic board games
15. Immediately quarantine any and all AIDS victims as drug abusers and rampant queers
16. Abolish all secular media programs on Sunday and Christmas and replace with religious ones
17. Require heavy prison sentences for any and all drug abuse
18. Reestablish old sedition laws to prevent displays of anti-Government sentiment anywhere
Now it should be obvious that Bush cannot even discuss any of this in public or he would be impeached or much worse. He knows it, Karl "Chubs" Rove knows it and so does every one else here in the Monkey Palace not on Prozac. The catch of this is that if Bush does not conform to the Celestial Party Line, these chinless geeks will turn on him with a vengeance. They are very good haters, (they hate everyone but themselves) and very soon George will have to either cater to them (which he cannot do and is absolutely impossible) or he will be Evangelical toast.. Poor Curious George.
He will have the increasingly vicious war in Iraq (which is now descending into Nazi-like outright war crimes) on one side and the rabid, screeching Jesus Freaks on the other. I don't think the next four years will be healing ones for anyone and George will be well-done on the rotisserie of the Fires of Hell.
Unfortunately, the rest of us will have to cook too because George is going to take us all down with him. If God were indeed All Seeing and All Merciful, He would take George to His bosom with diligence and dispatch."
Note: Here are two articles in support of the views of the Voice of the White House
CLIP read the rest at http://www.tbrnews.org/Archives/a1241.htm
12.
Forwarded by Steven Staples NewsLetter@ceasefire.ca> Polaris Institute and founder of ceasefire.ca
National Post, Montreal Gazette, Vancouver Sun, Regina Leader-Post, Edmonton Journal, Ottawa Citizen
Missile shield will trigger arms race
Canada entering grey area on space weapons, ex-ambassador warns
December 6, 2004
By David Pugliese
The Pentagon's ground-based missile defence system that Canada is considering joining can be used to destroy satellites in orbit, giving it the potential to spark an arms race in space, says a former U.S. ambassador and arms negotiator.
Canada is currently in talks with the U.S. over possible participation in the missile shield, but Prime Minister Paul Martin says he has received assurances from President George W. Bush that the system will not involve the weaponization of space.
But retired U.S. ambassador Jonathan Dean says Canada is entering a grey area on the issue of space weapons. He notes that the shield's interceptor rockets, launched from the ground, can easily destroy space-based systems such as satellites, fuelling the argument they will contribute to the weaponization of space.
"Canada is taking the reservation it will not participate in space-based weapons," said Mr. Dean, who visits Ottawa today to talk with disarmament groups about missile defence. "You could say that (Canada's) participation in even the ground-based system will lead in that direction, unavoidably it seems to me."
Mr. Dean said one of his concerns about the missile shield is that it will spark an arms race as other nations develop similar weapons to protect their space systems. "By deploying the interceptors, you're getting into the anti-satellite game," he explained. "Once that is done, then you're triggering a probable competition with many other countries, any of about 20 countries."
Mr. Dean said any nation capable of launching a satellite or developing intermediate-range missiles could design anti-satellite weapons, also known as ASATs. "My fear is once you have a competition in ASATs then you have an extra motivation for trying to get even stronger weapons up there."
Mr. Dean, a graduate of the U.S. National War College, was an arms control negotiator with the State Department in the 1970s. He is now an adviser on global security issues for the Union of Concerned Scientists.
The issue of whether Canada will join the missile shield has become a political hot potato for Mr. Martin and has divided his own party. On the weekend, Quebec Liberals rejected Canadian involvement in the system. Some opinion polls indicate the public is also against participation in the shield.
But the missile defence system has powerful supporters in the Liberal caucus. Mr. Martin and Defence Minister Bill Graham advocate Canadian participation in the shield, which has become one of Mr. Bush's top security platforms. Public Works Minister Scott Brison also supports Canada playing a role in the multibillion-dollar system.
Officials with the Department of National Defence, as well as Foreign Affairs, argue Canada must take part in the shield to show it is contributing to the security of the continent.
The issue of using the shield's interceptors to specifically strike at satellites has not been advocated by U.S. missile defence officials. But attacking satellites of other nations has been promoted in U.S. military circles.
Several months ago, the U.S. air force released its plan to fight a war in space, putting together a list of targets, which range from weather and communications satellites to spacecraft launch facilities of other nations. The document, Counterspace Operations, listed various means the U.S. can use to attack another nation's space systems, including firing missiles to blast apart satellites or sending in commando teams to blow up ground stations.
Mr. Dean also noted the Pentagon is already spending millions of dollars on research for space weapons and has publicly stated its plan is to put a test weapon into orbit around 2010.
Earlier this year, a panel of space experts warned the Department of Foreign Affairs that the missile defence shield carries the potential to spark a new arms race similar to that seen during the Cold War.
---
See also:
Missile defense going on line. Is it ready? (Dec 7)
http://www.denverpost.com/Stories/0,1413,36~417~2580353,00.html
The U.S. is about to deploy an interceptor missile in California as part of a revolutionary but unproven system that’s been dubbed the “son of star wars.” A far-reaching revolution is unfolding in U.S. territorial defense, the realization of an effort begun during the Reagan administration. Buried under the vast Alaskan terrain, and on the coast of California, high tech interceptors will be readied to rocket into space and destroy long-range missiles fired at the United States. This is the program proposed in the waning days of the Cold War and dubbed Star Wars by friends and foes alike. Today, the first of four interceptors will be lowered into the ground at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California - marking the initial phase of what President Bush hopes will become America's first line of defense from any overseas nuclear foe. In its debut, the defense will apparently be focused on any incoming threats from the environs of North Korea. Trouble is, the anti-missile system has never been successfully tested, and no one, including the Pentagon, is really sure that it works. It has cost upward of $70 billion so far, and next year the president wants to spent another $10 billion. Critics worry that would be wasting money on a system that will never be effective and that its pending deployment will trigger a new global arms race. Indeed, Russian Defense Minister Segei Ivanov said last month that Russia is testing new systems of its own. CLIP
China Daily Commentary: US missile shield a dangerous plan (2003/10/24)
http://www.chinaembassycanada.org/eng/xwdt/t37245.htm
US President George W. Bush's decision on Tuesday to push ahead with deployment of a missile defence plan will trigger a new arms race in the international arena and destroy what has been achieved so far with international disarmament efforts.No matter what excuses the US uses to justify its ambitious programme, this irresponsible move is nothing more than a new threat to world peace and security.In a major policy speech at the National Defence University, Bush called the Anti-Ballistic Missile Treaty (ABM) a relic of the past and said that the United States had to move beyond the framework of the ABM.The 1972 ABM treaty, signed between the US and the former Soviet Union, was created during the Cold War to prevent the sort of defence system which the US wants today because of fears that such a system would disrupt the arms balance between the two powers.Although it is only a bilateral document, the pact has been widely recognized as a cornerstone of efforts to maintain global strategic stability and international security. It is also the basis for other international agreements on reducing and limiting offensive strategic arms and preventing the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.Like many other countries which strongly oppose the US missile shield, China believes a formal abrogation of the treaty will spark an international arms race and encourage proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.To make way for the US missile plan, the US president did not hesitate to trample on an international treaty. Uncle Sam has more than once ignored international laws and principles in the pursuit of its own interests.In fact, the Bush administration's behaviour in the past 100 days has illustrated that an ultra-self-centred "America first" attitude is gaining more ground in US foreign policy. The US decisions to renounce the 1997 Kyoto Protocol and withdraw support for Seoul's Sunshine Policy have shocked the people all over the world, including US allies.As the self-proclaimed leader of the world, the United States seems to be pushing the world back into the Cold War era by seeking military confrontation rather than solving disputes through negotiations and dialogue. The United States is taking a dangerous course. CLIP
More related news at http://www.google.ca/search?hl=en&ie=ISO-8859-1&q=Missile+shield+will+trigger+arms+race&btnG=Google+Search&meta=
13.
From: John Kaminski skylax@comcast.net>
Date: 8 Dec 2004
Subject: The mirage of the miracle
The mirage of the miracle
No amount of hope and prayer will stop the criminal elite who are ravaging the world
By John Kaminski
skylax@comcast.net
Lately I am so paralyzed by the truly frightening array of horrific subjects to write about that I often cannot choose. No sooner do I start to research one subject — say, the blatant theft of yet another American election — when another horror — say, the napalming of women and children in Fallujah — seizes control of my frazzled focus.
A frightening array, and seemingly endless. Vaccines created to make people sick, radioactive ammunition designed to sicken and kill our own troops, chemtrails that have left half the country stricken with a debilitating bronchitis that never goes away, the destruction of our Constitution by cynical Congressional fiat, a plan to put all our schoolchildren on prescription drugs the ingredients and consequences of which are never fully revealed until it's too late, our brains shredded by microwaves from cellphones, the neverending robbery of our treasury by Israelis to support their genocide of the people whose land they stole, and the sinister plot by corporate giant Monsanto to kill half the world by starvation with bioengineered seeds that produce sterile crops .... the list of horrors inflicted upon us by corporate criminals does not end.
And of course the 9/11 scam, the malicious maneuver that brought America out of the closet as a lethal menace to the whole world. The latest news on this front is that the courageous 9/11 skeptics who have gathered all manner of irrefutable evidence that the tragic day was undeniably an inside job have pinned their hopes on a variety of legal actions designed to get more people's attention, but all of these court moves have disappeared into black holes and are most unlikely to ever see the light of day again.
Another triumph for the elite and their bought-off judges. The latest disappointment returns to the scene of the crime in New York City, where state Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, whom the media have built up as a corporate giant killer, has been given substantial 9/11 hoax evidence by renegade Republican crusader for truth for Karl Schwarz.
But today Spitzer announced his candidacy for governor of the Empire State, further reducing the already slim chance he would actually do anything about the revealing 9/11 evidence he has been furnished. After all, what mainstream politician has EVER talked about 9/11 in a constructively critical way? They are all bonded to the malignant myths so fascistically reinforced by mainstream media that Arab fanatics are to blame, and that our striking out against the world with murderous rage is perfectly justified. No way Spitzer is going to ally himself with the 9/11 critics now, if he ever was to begin with.
Same deal with the other 9/11 lawsuits, Hilton's, Mariani's, Rodrigues's. All disappeared into the corrupt courthouse swamp of payoffs and coercions known as the American justice system. All these principled actions will be quietly dismissed down the road on some arcane technicality. If you're extremely alert, you'll read about them on page 29 of your local newspaper, in a two- or three-paragraph blurb that will never explain what they were about in the first place.
So ... with this odious spectrum of ominous topics all clamoring for attention in my shellshocked brain, it often requires some note, letter, or e-mail from one of those noble souls on my substantial list of correspondents to sufficiently jolt me into writing something. Such an e-mail arrived today, from my good friend and benefactor Duane, whose desperation about the demonic turn in current affairs has become as bleak as my own. It was couched as a letter to God, and concluded in this way.
"No offense, God," he wrote, "but maybe you should abduct some people, enlighten them, and leave a mark or even a memory or two. About some real deep truth. I mean DEEP. C'mon, give us a clue. We need you. We really do need you.
"We have people espousing what they think are 'your' views and trying to force them on us all. And there are a lot of us who are frightened by their self-righteousness and their pious approach. Something doesn't seem right. Are you there? We need a miracle."
Duane has a good heart, and I understand where he’s coming from. Things are so bad, the American corporate monster has become so evil and so oblivious to arguments of conscience and compassion, that it seems logical, in our ashamed frustration, to hope for some miracle that would somehow right the ship of state into concentrating on peace rather than constantly devising new instruments and techniques for war.
But on the other hand, I began to realize after reading this, waiting for a miracle is exactly what got us into trouble in the first place.
Because it's very likely that if we're hoping for miracles, we may not be paying sufficient attention to the here and now — and thinking about what certain actions actually mean. This is how our once free country has degenerated into a corporate zombie plundered by its own leaders.
Much in the same way the Indians sold Manhattan to the Dutch for a bucketful of trivial trinkets, we abdicate our responsibility for controlling the events that shape our lives in exchange either for cash, which we then spend on our own kind of trinkets, or for some nebulous blessings in the spiritual sphere, which have never been known to have any effects at all on events in the real world.
Oh sure, in our frustration with this nasty assembly line of current events in which murder and lies have become the norm rather than the exception, it’s easy to throw up our hands and beg for a miracle. This is just a simple expression of frustrated hope.
But on a deeper level, if we wait for miracles, we guarantee the miracle we seek will not happen. Because the problem that needs fixing with a miracle, whatever it is, will never be fixed until we fix it ourselves. That is the real message in wishing for a miracle. The realization that our fate, whether we know it or not, is in our own hands.
Put it this way. You know how people say, “The truth will all come out in the wash?”
This statement is untrue, demonstrably so. On most occasions, particularly having to do with political assassinations or the real causes of wars, the truth absolutely never comes out. This is the lesson that keeps the power brokers devising and conducting new and more heinous schemes to fleece the stupid populace. They never get caught. Ever.
Think about it. We never solved the assassination of Lincoln, for God’s sake. John Wilkes Booth, according to some, lived out his life on a plush estate in Europe after doing Abe because he printed his own money. Or how about Zachary Taylor? Damn few people even know he was a president, never mind that he WAS assassinated, felled by poisoned strawberries, a gift from bankers who opposed his principled stand against private banks.
Every president who was ever assassinated spoke of the government wresting control of the currency from the international bankers shortly before his demise. Check it out. Taylor, Lincoln, Garfield, McKinley, Kennedy.
Then take a look at more recent debacles: Waco, Ruby Ridge, Oklahoma City, Flight 800, Wellstone, 9/11. How about the 2004 election? No, the truth does not always come out in the wash. In fact, it never does. Probably the best, most astonishing story in this category is about World War Two. Who wanted war and who didn’t? Do you think you know?
It’s a great opportunity to gauge the level of your own brainwashing that I’m offering you.
And now, with the world in disarray, with the possibility of solving some problems totally distorted by corporate media which refuse to provide honest, objective accountings of the problems that beset us, with politicians claiming they are representatives of God killing MILLIONS of people — including the very soldiers who are fighting FOR them .... hoping for a miracle is the surest way to make sure these problems are never solved.
The miracle you seek assures your inaction. The real miracle would be if people were to suddenly awaken and really do something about the lies that are being told. But as history shows so clearly and so tragically, this is another miracle that will never happen. And waiting for it is the surest way to make sure it won’t.
Of course, the biggest miracle of all is also the biggest lie, that Jesus rose again from the dead. This so-called miracle provides the template and the conditioning for all these other lies to be accepted. The lie that America is trying to spread democracy throughout the world by stifling the truth about what it’s really doing and snuffing out the lives of all those who simply want their own freedom is directly tied into the myth that Jesus rose again from the dead.
Just listen to the evangelicals if you don’t believe me. Listen to your alleged president. Or worse, listen to the “civilized” Protestants who say, oh, those fools like Bush and Falwell not really Christians, and, in the same ways Jews attempt to distance themselves from Zionists to avoid responsibility for the carnage in Gaza, deny the unsavory fact that Bush and Falwell ARE in fact the real Christians, following their bloody Old Testament orders with that characteristic retributive hatred flaming from their eyes.
If you believe the legend of Christ’s sacrifice then you believe that he told you to accept authority. It follows then that you also believe the legend that Bush talks to Jesus, and the history of hundreds of millions of pagan corpses sacrificed to this same lie should clearly show you what it really means. The miracle of Christianity is not eternal life, it’s mass murder.
Thus is America a Christian nation following the dictates of its messiah. Let the innocent keep dying as the world is bathed in blood. And wishing for an intervention by Jesus becomes extremely problematic.
The miracle, you see, is a lie, and if you’re waiting for it, the only thing you guarantee is that the carnage will continue.
On the other hand, if you have courage — real courage, not the kind they bribe you with in the holy books — you do have the ability to work the real miracle all by yourself.
The basic lie that everybody tells themselves is very, very simple. The most terrible truth of all that everyone struggles to ignore is that we die, and that fundamentally delusional behavior affects everything that we do. That thought, debilitating though it is, must preface every action you take in life, because, in fact, it does.
This is the real enlightenment, and most of the most enlightened people in the world refuse to comprehend it. We are only here for an instant, and we have but one chance to make things right. We invent all these fantasies to convince ourselves that we don't die, and in pursuit of those fantasies, continue to destroy everything on this earth, including ourselves.
Precious few people have the courage to see this, but if we don't — and soon — the human species is finished, an evolutionary dead end consumed by its own fear.
And now you have some idea of the miracle we really need. No one else can save us, and in fact, we cannot save ourselves. But what we can do — and must — is to use our little interlude of time in existence to be conscious of our predicament and demonstrate our compassion to try to alleviate the fear of others. No other course really makes sense, as the glint in the eyes of those you love will tell you, every time. In this life, a little kindness is all that is required.
Just this little bit will be enough to stop the random killing. From there, a real future is possible.
Look into your hands, palms up. Study the lines and the air that circulates above them. You are looking at the real miracle. It is in your hands, and mine. It is the only way to stop the madness.
The miracle you seek is only a mirage unless you make it happen yourself. I know this sounds all too smarmy and New Agey to be believed, especially in the face of the military monster that casts its lethal shadow over all our lives, but let me stress there is no mystery to solving the problems of the world, and there is no need to hope for a miracle.
It is only a matter of numbers, of people acting honestly with conscience. And if you choose to believe in a benevolent creator, don’t you think it’s time for you to help rescue his reputation from all these fools in black cassocks who continue to support all this needless killing in his name?
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John Kaminski is an old newspaper guy who lives on the Gulf Coast of Florida whose Internet essays have been collected into two anthologies, the latest of which is titled “The Perfect Enemy.” Sales of these books and contributions from appreciative readers are what enables him to continue to write. For information go to http://www.johnkaminski.com/
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