News 28

There are whispers and murmurings abroad in the land, accompanied by strange signs and wonders. Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward appears on CSpan to discuss his 10-part puff piece on Bush at War, and apropos of nothing, says 'In the past, what were considered to be conspiracy theories turned out to be true.' John McCain gives an interview on the Enron scandal, and finishes with the mysterious, 'This could lead to places we wouldn't expect.'

Colin Powell chooses to appear on MTV, using that forum to advocate condom use; with the added instruction, 'don't listen to that conservative advice.' His message couldn't have been more explicit, both sexually and politically, and would have gotten him fired from the Clinton administration, much less from the Crisco-smeared foreheads of Bush's minions. George W. Bush inexplicably tries to send his Texas Governor's papers to his father's presidential library, where they would apparently be exempt from Texas' tough freedom of information laws. While the papers sit in legal limbo, not yet safely entombed, a Texas FOI request frees Bush's entire correspondence with Enron - and out pops a letter from Kenny Boy requesting Gov. Bush to please meet with the President of.....Uzbekistan.

"We are negotiating a $2 Billion venture with Neftegas of Uzbekistan and Gazprom of Russia to develop Uzbekistan's natural gas and transport it to markets in Europe and Kazakhstan and Turkey. This project can bring significant economic opportunities to Texas...."

What does it all mean? What are the 'conspiracy theories' currently in circulation? Where could the Enron scandal lead that we wouldn't have expected? Why would Colin Powell seem to be trying to get himself fired? Why would George W. Bush not want us to know he and Enron had interests in Uzbekistan?

The 'conspiracy theories' are only theories in this country, it seems, in the rest of the world they're reported as fact. What the rest of the world knows is that Uzbekistan and the rest of the 'Stans' in the Caspian Sea sit atop what may be the largest oil and gas reserves in the world, the oil and gas that will be used primarily in the coming economic growth of the world's two largest countries - China and India. The rest of the world knows that Enron, Halliburton, Unocal, and other American energy concerns wished to build pipelines through neighboring Afghanistan to get that oil and gas to market; knows that the Bush administration was negotiating with the Afghan Taliban to build those pipelines, knows Bush threatened war if the Taliban didn't play along.

Hence the whispers and murmurings - what all of Washington knows is that Cheney's Energy Task Force wasn't just about handing the California State surplus over to Enron, that was the least of it; what Cheney was doing was plotting with the largely Texas energy concerns to capture, one way or another, and control the Caspian Sea oil and gas reserves so that they could exercise economic dominance over China and India; displacing Russia from its own backyard in the process. They whisper because of the dark questions that remain unadressed concerning Sept. 11th: the refusal to grant a FISA warrant against Zacarias Moussaoui, even though he had been tagged by French Intelligence as a terrorist, was paying cash for turn-and-bank lessons in jumbo jets, and had been arrested on an expired visa; the hijacked jets wandering around the eastern half of the country for the better part of two hours without Air Force interception, even though it had taken mere minutes for them to reach the stricken jet of golfer Payne Stewart; the concerted efforts of Bush to be physically absent from Washington in the weeks preceding the attacks, the same weeks that followed his threat of war against the Taliban. As an oil industry expert observes, 'The strategic considerations of oil supercede all other values.'

They murmur because George W. Bush has gone too far, and rushes heedlessly farther. His Secretary of State has lost the stomach for the crimes envisioned, and is trying to find an honorable escape. The Bush family has stolen the presidency, and doesn't mean to give it back. They're seeking to rule the world by controlling its energy supply, enforced with lawless military supremacy. The whole of Washington apparently now knows this; and the knowledge sits uneasily, because it is the end of the America of the founding fathers. There's the ominous sense that if God has lifted his veil of protection, it is not because of the sins of its citizens, but rather the crimes of its leaders; which crimes compound daily.

Mark Weber Speaks on Jewish Power at IHR Meeting in Arlington At a special Institute for Historical Review meeting in Arlington, Virginia, on Saturday, March 2, 2002,

IHR director Mark Weber traced the rise of Jewish power in the United States over the past 60 years and emphasized the immense power and influence today of Jews in America's political, cultural, intellectual and economic life.

Among the 38 men and women who attended this special IHR meeting -- the first in the Washington, DC, area in years -- were two nationally prominent writers, several attorneys and other professionals, and a gratifying number of younger people.

Although Jews make up no more than three or four percent of the total U.S. population, said Weber, they now wield greater power than any other single ethnic, racial or religious group. In this regard he cited a private conversation in 1972 between President Richard Nixon and the prominent religious leader Billy Graham, which had just been made public, during which the two agreed that Jews have a "stranglehold" on the US media, and that as a result "the country's going down the drain."

In his lecture, entitled "Jewish Power: Its Meaning for America and the World," Weber said:

The most direct and obvious victims of Jewish-Zionist power are, of course, the Palestinians who live under Israel's harsh rule. But as the IHR has made clear for years, in truth we Americans are also victims -- through the Jewish-Zionist grip on the media, and the organized Jewish-Zionist corruption of our political system. We are pressured, cajoled, flattered, and deceived into propping up the Jewish state, providing it with billions of dollars yearly and state-of-the-art weaponry, and even sacrificing American lives -- as in Israel's 1967 attack on the "USS Liberty" -- thereby making us accomplices of its crimes.

The truth is that if we held Israel to the same standards that we apply to Serbia, Afghanistan and Iraq, US bombers and missiles would be blasting Tel Aviv, and we'd be putting Israeli prime minister Sharon behind bars for war crimes and crimes against humanity.

"Today the danger is greater than it's been in many years," said Weber. "Just the other week the French ambassador in London, Daniel Bernard, privately acknowledged that Israel -- which he called 'that shitty little country' -- is threatening world peace. 'Why should the world be in danger of World War III because of those people?,' Bernard bluntly said. Influential Jewish organizations and political figures, and much of the Jewish-dominated media, in collaboration with Israel's leaders, and backed by this country's pro-Zionist 'amen corner,' are now prodding our country into new wars against Israel's enemies."

Throughout history, said Weber, Jews have time and again wielded great power to further group interests that are separate from, and often contrary to, those of the non-Jewish populations among whom they live. This creates an inherently unjust and unstable situation that, as history shows, never endures. As Weber put it: "We are today witnessing, and enduring, merely the most recent enactment of a great and tragic historical drama that has, through the centuries, played itself out time and time again, in country after country, in different cultures and ages."

The IHR director also spoke about the Institute's work and impact in recent years, including the international attention generated by the IHR's role in last year's revisionist conference in Beirut, which was canceled by Lebanese authorities under pressure from the US government and Zionist organizations. He also reported on preparations for the forthcoming 14th IHR Conference in southern California, June 21-23.

This article appears in the Oct. 26, 2001 issue of Executive Intelligence Review.

`Wolfowitz Cabal' Is an Enemy Within U.S.

by Michele Steinberg

On Oct. 14, the London Observer published one of the now familiar—and totally false—propaganda scare stories, entitled "Iraq 'Behind U.S. Anthrax Outbreaks.' " The story gave credence to the ravings of "American hawks" who say there is "a growing mass of evidence that [Iraqi President] Saddam Hussein was involved, possibly indirectly, with the Sept. 11 suicide hijacks." If confirmed, said the Observer, "the pressure now building ... for an attack [on Iraq] may be irresistible." One of these "hawks," an unnamed U.S. "administration official," told the Observer that British Prime Minister Tony Blair is a "faithful ally" in the war against terrorism and that "if it means we are embarking on the next Hundred Years' War, then that's what we are doing" (emphasis added).

The "next Hundred Year's War"? Who are the U.S. maniacs who use such language, and are they not as dangerous as Osama bin Laden's jihad?

Here we will name the names of the fanatics in this anti-Iraq grouping who have become known as the "Wolfowitz cabal," named after Assistant Secretary of Defense Paul Wolfowitz. According to the New York Times, which published a leak about their activities on Oct. 12, this grouping wants an immediate war with Iraq, believing that the targetting of Afghanistan, already an impoverished wasteland, falls far short of the global war that they are hoping for. But Iraq is just another stepping stone to turning the anti-terrorist "war" into a full-blown "Clash of Civilizations," where the Islamic religion would become the "enemy image" in a "new Cold War."

The "Clash of Civilizations" theory, developed by Harvard professor-turned President Jimmy Carter's National Security Adviser Zbigniew Brzezinski and his protégés, including Harvard Prof. Samuel Huntington, defined the Arab and Islamic world as an "arc of crisis" from the Middle East to the Islamic countries of Central Asia in the then-Soviet Union. Brzezinski wanted to use the "Islamic card" against the Soviet Union, and in so doing, began the policy of promoting Islamic fundamentalists against moderate and pro-Western Arab and Islamic governments. After the end of the Cold War, the Brzezinski/Huntington crowd updated their "arc of crisis," declaring that the Islamic religion is the enemy, in a new war in which religions, rather than political systems, inevitably battle each other. However, trained by British and U.S. special intelligence services and the CIA, and armed by Israeli military networks, the very terrorist drug-runners in the Islamic world who were launched by Brzezinski and "adopted" by the Iran-Contra networks run by Lt. Col. Oliver North, under the elder George Bush's Executive Order 12333, have become the main suspects in terrorist attacks against the United States.

A Network Throughout the Government The adherents of the so-called "Wolfowitz cabal," pushing the "Clash of Civilizations" theory, are nothing less than "an enemy within" the United States, a network that cuts across the Defense Department, the State Department, the White House, and the National Security Council. This report is not a "good guys" versus "bad guys" description of the Bush Administration; rather it is a warning that this cabal is a close-knit rogue network that is trying to hijack U.S. policy, and turn the current Afghanistan mess into a global war. The cabal bears a dangerous resemblance to the "secret parallel government" of North and Gen. Richard Secord's "Project Democracy" operation that ran Iran-Contra. In fact, some of the cabal members now in the Bush Administration are convicted criminals as a result of their activity in North's "Enterprise"!

On Oct. 12, the New York Times revealed deep divisions in the Bush Administration, describing how the cabal plots policy behind the back of Cabinet officials, such as Secretary of State Colin Powell, in the name of the U.S. government. The group wants to obliterate Iraq, put Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat and the Palestinian Authority on the terrorism list (if not the obituary list), and declare war on nation-states.

The Times revealed that a key section of the "Wolfowitz cabal," is the 18-member Defense Policy Board, which met for more than 19 hours on Sept. 19-20 to "make the case" against Saddam Hussein. The meeting pushed for a renewed war against Iraq as soon as the war against Afghanistan had concluded its initial phase. It discussed overthrowing Saddam Hussein, partitioning Iraq into mini-states led by U.S.-funded dissidents who would steal the proceeds from the Basra oil revenues for their quisling government. The meeting discussed how to manipulate information so as to pin the Sept. 11 attacks on the United States on Saddam Hussein.

According to the Times, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld attended the meetings for only "part" of both days, and on Sept. 22, President George Bush rejected the Policy Board's recommendation to declare war against Iraq. But to the "Wolfowitz cabal," Bush's decision didn't really matter—senior members of the Policy Board had been selected for their broad international connections, especially to the United Kingdom and Israel, allowing them to force changes in U.S. policy through an "outside-inside" operation. If unable to change policy through advising, the network could also run covert operations as a "government within a government," as they had maneuvered during Iran-Contra.

The chairman of the Defense Policy Board is Richard Perle, the former Reagan Assistant Secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, now based at the neo-conservative American Enterprise Institute.

Perle, nicknamed "The Prince of Darkness" because of his nuclear Armageddon views during the Cold War, is, more importantly, an asset of Conrad Black's Hollinger International, Inc., which grew out of British Empire Security Coordinator William Stephenson's efforts to secure arms for Britain during World War II. At present, Hollinger owns the British Tory Party-linked Telegraph PLC, whose International Advisory Board is headed by former British Prime Minister, now Lady Margaret Thatcher. Hollinger also owns the Jerusalem Post, another war-mongering press outlet.

The "heavy hitters" on the Defense Policy Board are the worst of the Anglo-American-Israeli geopolitical fanatics from the last several decades, including: former Secretary of State Henry A. Kissinger, who is also a member of Hollinger's International Advisory Board; former House Speaker Newt Gingrich; former Clinton Administration Director of Central Intelligence R. James Woolsey; former Deputy Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Adm. David E. Jeremiah; former Vice President Dan Quayle; former Defense and Energy Secretary James R. Schlesinger; and former President Carter's Defense Secretary Harold Brown.

Though Perle was only recently appointed to head the Defense Policy Board, he and Wolfowitz have been collaborators for more than two decades, as agents-of-influence of the right-wing Israeli war faction. In 1985, when it was clear that Jonathan Jay Pollard, an American convicted that year of spying for Israel, could not have been working alone in stealing such high-level U.S. secrets for Israel to sell to the Soviet Union, top-level intelligence officials told EIR that an entire "X Committee" of high-level U.S. officials, was being investigated. Wolfowitz and Perle were on the list of "X Committee" suspects, and Israeli spying against the United States was so thick that investigators told EIR they had found "not moles, but entire molehills." Pollard and his Israeli defenders later claimed that Pollard "had to" spy against the United States because the Americans were soft on Iraq and other Arab countries.

The "Wolfowitz cabal" is deterimined to push the United States in the direction of the most dangerous Israeli right-wing policy, including a possible Israeli nuclear attack on an Arab state. They are implementers of the very "breakaway ally" scenario about which 2004 Democratic Party Presidential pre-candidate Lyndon LaRouche warned in his statement of Oct. 12 (see International).

Plan B: Wagging the Dog The "Wolfowitz cabal" is out to destroy any potential for a Middle East peace, and simultaneously is determined to crush Eurasian economic development centered around cooperation among Europe, Russia, and China. After being rebuffed after the marathon Defense Policy Board meetings, the Wolfowitz cabal set various operations in motion to plant propaganda stories, falsify reports of U.S. policy, and carry out other maneuvers, whereby the tail would "wag the dog." Unapproved statements are made by cabal members, interviews misrepresenting U.S. policy are planted around the globe, and intelligence reports are altered or manufactured to further the policy goals.

The pattern is becoming crystal clear.

In the first such instance, shortly after the attacks of Sept. 11, Wolfowitz declared that the United States will "end states harboring terrorism," and insisted that under the principle of self-defense, the United States could act alone, without the United Nations, or cooperation from any other country. He wanted to establish the "doctrine" that the United States would hit a country "anywhere, anytime" based on secret evidence. But, Wolfowitz was forced to retract his statements, in a visible rift with the White House. Some days later, NATO allies at its Brussels headquarters snubbed Wolfowitz, and refused to formalize cooperation with the United States under NATO agreements at a meeting where Wolfowitz represented the Bush Administration.

In the same vein, on Oct. 7, the day the Afghanistan bombings began, the cabal again attempted to provoke a rift between the United States and members of the UN Security Council, especially Russia and China, by altering the text of a letter from U.S. Ambassador to the UN John D. Negroponte. (Not coincidentally, Negroponte was a notorious insider in the Iran-Contra operation, who was accused of collaborating with narcotics-linked military death squads in Honduras in the 1980s.) The changes in the letter were made without notifying Negroponte's boss, Secretary of State Powell.

In the letter, Negroponte echoed Wolfowitz's so-called gaffe, writing, "We may find that our self-defense requires further action with respect to other organizations and states" (emphasis added). The statement implicitly targetted Iraq, Syria, and Sudan, all countries which are on the State Department's list of countries that support terrorism. The statement violated promises the United States had made, that it would limit "coalition" action to redressing the attack of Sept. 11. Upon learning of the statement, from the press, Powell reportedly "hit the roof." The insertion was drafted by Stephen J. Hadley, who is the Deputy Adviser to the National Security Council. The stunt may have been planned at the Defense Policy Board meetings.

Then there's the case of former CIA director R. James Woolsey, whose defined role is as the Policy Board member who is most public in demanding the overthrow of Saddam Hussein. The Knight-Ridder newspaper chain reported on Oct. 11, that Woolsey had been authorized the prior month to fly to London on a U.S. government plane, accompanied by Justice and Defense Department officials, on a secret mission to gather evidence linking Saddam Hussein to the Sept. 11 attack. In a Sept. 18 press conference by Defense Week, Woolsey called for creating a "no-fly and no-drive zone" in the north and south of Iraq, so that the Kurds and the Shi'ites, respectively, could better fight Saddam. "The watchword of the day," Woolsey said, is, "It's the Regimes, Stupid!"

Since the Oct. 5 death from anthrax of Bob Stevens, the Sun tabloid photo editor, from anthrax, Woolsey has been the world's leading finger-pointer at Saddam as being behind the anthrax attack. His so-called evidence is dated, prejudiced, and completely unreliable.

It was no accident that Woolsey role-played a prominent character—CIA Director—in the New York Council on Foreign Relations 1999-2000 scenario the previous year, "The Next Financial Crisis: Warning Signs, Damage Control, and Impact," that acted out a virtual coup d'état coming on the heels of a combined financial crisis and terrorist attack. In the CFR war-game, the U.S. President would be taken out of the picture, leaving the country under the control of a crisis management dictatorship.

Also dispatched to London to propagandize for a "rolling war" that would attack Afghanistan, then Iraq, then country after country until revenge is exacted, was fellow Policy Board member Newt Gingrich. Talking to the London Times, owned by top British-Israeli propagandist Rupert Murdoch, Gingrich said that the United States is "at war" with "organized, systematic extensions of terror, supported by nation-states." He said that targetting the Afghan Taliban without defeating Iraq would be "like defeating Imperial Japan and leaving the Nazis alone." Gingrich threatened that countries judged not cooperative against terrorism would face the consequences: "The U.S. and the coalition forces will assist your own people in removing you."

Setting the pace for his team, Perle was the joint initiator with neo-con William Kristol of the Rupert Murdoch-funded Weekly Standard, of an open letter to President Bush, that, while ostensibly supporting the President in the war against terrorism, was, in fact, an ultimatum to support a "Clash of Civilizations" Thirty Years' War in the Middle East. Among the non-negotiable demands set forth in that letter was the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, "even if evidence does not link Iraq directly to the [Sept. 11] attack."

There is no doubt that the Wolfowitz/Perle duo is at the heart of the network that can use Israel in the "breakaway ally scenario." Indeed, Wolfowitz is one of great hopes of right-wing extremists in Israel, including among the radical settlers movement, who are demanding the assassination of Arafat and the expulsion of all Palestinians from the Occupied Territories (see coverage in International). But, Wolfowitz and Perle are not "Israeli agents." Rather, they are second-generation operatives both mentored by the RAND Corp.'s Albert Wohlstetter, a former Trotskyite communist turned nuclear strategist. Nor are the cabal war-mongers Seven Days in May militarists.

A key member of the cabal is Richard Armitage, the number-two man in the U.S. State Department, who was investigated in the Iran-Contra scandal, and who is a longtime collaborator of Wolfowitz in the targetting of Iraq. The cabal also has high-level operatives at the National Security Council (NSC):

Gen. Wayne Downing, former Commander in Chief of the Special Operations Command, was just appointed as Director of Combatting Terrorism for the Homeland Defense Board, headed by former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge. In 1997-98, Downing drew up a military plan to overthrow Saddam, by assassination, if necessary. The plan hinged on heavily arming dissident gangs of Iraqi Shi'ites in the south of Iraq, and Kurdish fighters in the north. Invasion by U.S. Special Forces ground troops was not ruled out. The promoter of the neo-Conservative yahoos in Congress and the think-tanks was Wolfowitz, then head of the Paul Nitze School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Unable to ram this plan through the Clinton Administration, Wolfowitz shopped the plan to Perle, an expert in "chain-letter" pressure politics, who garnered signatures. Now at the NSC, Downing has the ready-made plan to hit Iraq.

Richard Clarke, Adviser to the President for Cyberspace Warfare. Clarke, who was originally with the State Department during the elder Bush's Administration, was demoted for covering up Israeli violations of the Arms Exporting laws. In August 1998, Clarke was one of the key figures who planted false information about Sudan's involvement in the East Africa U.S. Embassy bombings, which led to U.S. cruise missile attacks on a Sudanese pharmaceutical company in Khartoum. Clarke shopped in disinformation from British-Israeli covert operations stringer Yosef Bodansky that targetted Sudan.

Elliott Abrams, NSC staff. Abrams, who was convicted in the Iran-Contra scandal, was quietly placed on the NSC as a specialist in "religion and human rights." He is a longtime member of the right-wing Zionist networks that infiltrated the U.S. security establishment. He worked closely with Secord and North in Central America, also providing a link to the Israeli gun-running networks that delivered arms to Khomeini's Iran.

"Collateral Damage:" The real casualty is the truth

By Uri Dowbenko

Online Journal Contributing Writer

February 25, 2002—Colombia should have been the next designated battlefield—before Afghanistan. After all, this is the place which produces the drugs that power the New York Stock Exchange, which launders the money through the major New York banks and "investment" firms, which feeds the so-called "Global Economy."

Colombia is so important, in fact, that NASDAQ Chairman Richard Grasso himself traveled there a few years ago to convince the drug producers and traffickers to continue to "invest" in the US Stock Exchange, rather than funnel their drug profits directly into the Colombian infrastructure without giving New York its cut.

And then September 11 happened—and (cue up the sad track) the terrorist action-movie "Collateral Damage" was postponed.

Today the real "collateral damage" is the government-media's complete loss of credibility with its bogus "explanation" of the destruction of the World Trade Center. Also, dummied-up poll results, showing overwhelming support for the Bush Dictatorship, are as ludicrous as the statistics quoted by Communist state organs for the overwhelming support of former Soviet "presidents."

All other issues fade in the face of these lies broadcast by the Media Cartel, hour after hour, day after day, in a relentless barrage of propaganda.

The looming American Police State, foisted on a self-deceived, flag-waving population, has resulted in the daily loss of civil liberties and freedom. The phony "War on Terrorism" and the disingenuously named USA PATRIOT Act have likewise brought the nation to the abyss of fascist empire in America.

The role of movies cannot be underestimated in promoting the current Big Lies, and "Collateral Damage" is just as noteworthy for its omissions of fact, as it is for the ridiculousness of its premise.

The plot of the movie (such as it is) centers on reliving the trauma of terrorism by watching the self-caricatured persona of Arnold Schwartzenegger, who plays Gordon Brewer, a Los Angeles fireman who loses his wife and son to a terrorist bomb.

There's the angry terrorist-guerilla El Lobo (Cliff Curtis), his significant other Selena (Francesca Neri), and a hard-boiled CIA man, who proclaims, "I'm fighting terrorism with terror" (Elias Koteas). Other cameos include a Canadian mechanic who gets no respect (John Turturro) and an aspiring campesino rap artist who manages a cocaine factory in Colombia (John Leguizamo).

In the end, "Collateral Damage" is another Hollywood Revenge Fantasy, which feels simply dated and totally out of sync.

Directed by Andrew Davis ("The Fugitive," "Above the Law"), "Collateral Damage" is just plain insipid and even tame, considering the real life traumatic events of September 11.

Of course, there are plenty of cinematic precedents for the "WTC Incident" and they include such terrorist classics as "Die Hard 1 & 2," "Fight Club," "The Siege," "Turbulence" and even "Independence Day." (Remember the vaporization of buildings by electromagnetic weapons.)

Interestingly enough, viewers around the world were so programmed by Hollywood's special effects movies that they didn't even believe that the Twin Towers going down was a "real" event. They thought it was broadcast footage from the latest Hollywood blockbuster.

The deliberately engineered collision of "realities" was meant to do just that—obscure the difference between "real" events and "reel" memories.

Like the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, the WTC Incident was a global event of trauma-based programming, which affected the world like a worldwide Black magic ritual, inducing fear, loathing and hatred harvested en masse by the Plutonian powers of Death—the Plutocracy, or the Secret Rulers of the World.

And what if the destruction of the World Trade Center really was an Illuminati-staged theatrical spectacle—a staged "reality?"

Wag the Dog II, anyone?

The "collateral damage" of the September 11 Incident was to further polarize the globe, to divide, conquer and rule the world by re-energizing religious hatreds—the Crazy Arabs vs. the Crazy Christians in a born-again re-enactment of the murderous Crusades, 21st Century style.

Likewise the real casualty of this latest contrived "war" is simply the Truth.

You can do your part by telling everyone you know that the Government-Media Lies have no power. Their Reality Scripts lack credibility, and even the ordinary suspension of belief doesn't help. A poorly crafted and executed scam, this "WTC Incident" should have been sent back for rewrites. I mean, think about this implausible plot for Reality—"Raghead" pilots driving hijacked planes into a building? With no NORAD or Pentagon interference? With no warning from the CIA or FBI?

Puh-leez, as they say in New York . . .

When you add the fact that there was burnt human sacrifice (the victims) and a stash of gold in the basement, you have all the elements of an occult crime, a black magic psycho-drama on a global stage. And don't forget the ritualistic scapegoat, Osama bin Oswald, I mean, Laden.

Like the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor (a well-choreographed trick to involve the US in the Second World War), the "WTC Incident" was a contrived event. The subsequent phony War on Terrorism is just the latest pretense to rob Americans of their freedom.

So when you hear George Bush say, "In GOD We Trust," remember he's talking about "Gold, Oil and Drugs." And when your sons and grandson die in the war for his GOD, he considers them—yep, you guessed it—"collateral damage."

Uri Dowbenko is the CEO of New Improved Entertainment Corp. He is a frequent contributor to: Conspiracy Digest www.conspiracydigest.com

Steamshovel Press www.steamshovelpress.com

and Conspiracy Planet www.conspiracyplanet.com

The "fog of war"

< http://www.wsws.org/articles/2002/feb2002/afgh-f26.shtml >

How the US media covers up civilian deaths in Afghanistan

By Jerry Isaacs 26 February 2002

A key aspect of the American media's role as a propaganda arm of the Pentagon is its treatment of the death and destruction wrought by the US in Afghanistan. Unable to simply deny the mounting evidence of civilian deaths caused by some 18,000 bombs dropped on the country, the media has resorted to other means to defend the slaughter of civilians, as well as combatants, by Washington's war machine. The US government and military refuse to make any public accounting of the civilian death toll in the Afghan war. The Pentagon also refuses to release estimates of the number of dead Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters. This is in keeping with the practice established in the Gulf War, when then-chairman of the Chiefs of Staff, Colin Powell, stated he was "not terribly interested" in establishing how many Iraqi soldiers were killed. Earlier this month the Washington Post published an article contending that ordinary Afghans, inured to years of civil war and violence, were not overly upset about the death of civilians, and blamed the Taliban for the loss of their loved ones. The article, titled "From Victims of US Bombs, Forgiveness," quoted various Afghan officials declaring that their countrymen were not dwelling on the loss of family and friends, and were delighted to be "liberated" by the Americans. Then there was the February 1 piece by Nicholas Kristo, a "Merciful War" in which the New York Times columnist claimed the killing of thousands of Afghan civilians and Taliban fighters served "the most humanitarian of goals," since Western aid would now pour in and save a million starving and sick Afghans over the next decade. Kristof acknowledged that the US military had killed many more people in Afghanistan than died in the attack on the World Trade Center, and provided a rather low estimate of 8,000 to 12,000 dead Taliban fighters and another 1,000 Afghan civilians. So what was the lesson of the US intervention, he asked rhetorically. "Is it that while pretending to take the high road, we have actually slaughtered more people than Osama bin Laden has? Or that military responses are unjustifiable because huge numbers of innocents inevitably are killed?" "No, it's just the opposite," Kristof declared. The Afghan experience, the Times columnist claimed, showed that "troops can advance humanitarian goals just as much as doctors and aid workers can." Kristof denounced those who were "deeply squeamish about the use of force" and "who are often so horrified by bloodshed involving innocents that they believe nothing can justify it." His piece was an open-ended justification for almost any level of killing by the American military, virtually anywhere in the world. Finally there is the argument that the circumstances of the war make it impossible to estimate the number of Afghans killed by US bombs. The New York Times published an article in this vein on February 10 under the headline: "Uncertain Toll in the Fog of War: Civilian Deaths in Afghanistan." The Times article admits that "hundreds and perhaps thousands of innocent Afghans have lost their lives during American attacks," citing several incidents in which 100 or more civilians were killed by US air strikes since bombing began October 7. In each case Pentagon officials initially dismissed charges of civilian deaths as enemy propaganda and insisted their bombs and missiles had hit "legitimate targets," but the reports were later confirmed by journalists or human rights organizations. It is, however, "extraordinarily difficult to tabulate" the number of dead, the Times writes, because villages are in remote areas and, under Muslim tradition, the dead are quickly buried. "Some answers disappear in the turned earth," the newspaper concludes. The Times then quotes without comment various Pentagon and military officials. The task of tracking the number of civilian casualties is "next to impossible," Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld says, citing the supposed inaccessibility of bombed targets. Rear Admiral Craig R. Quigley, the senior spokesman for the Central Command, adds that civilian deaths could not be verified because "we did not have people on the ground to check" at the early stages of the war. Even now, when there are 4,000 American troops in Afghanistan, Quigley says, investigations would be unreliable because of the time that has passed, and because some of the damage has been repaired and many of the witnesses have moved away. "You just don't find much," he declares. But while the US government and media find it "impossible" to estimate the number of civilians killed by American bombs, they have no problem giving out civilian death figures when the alleged perpetrators have themselves been targeted for US military attack. During the 1998 war against Yugoslavia, US officials repeatedly claimed that tens of thousands of Kosovar Albanians had been killed by Serb forces. They showed no reticence in making such estimates, even though the US had no forces on the ground in Kosovo. The media repeated all such reports uncritically, generally giving the greatest exposure to the most exaggerated accounts. As has since been established, the figures were wildly inflated. But reports of killings on a colossal scale were essential for mounting the type of propaganda campaign, replete with charges of genocide, required to build public support for the US-NATO military intervention. In the current war, the US has thousands of troops on the ground. Even before large numbers of US soldiers entered, the US used special forces, CIA agents and local "spotters" to direct bombing attacks against Taliban and Al Qaeda forces. In addition, as the Pentagon likes to boast, the US is deploying the world's most advanced intelligence-gathering techniques, including cameras mounted on satellites and spy planes that can photograph the earth's surface with tremendous accuracy and in astonishing detail. There can be no doubt that aerial photographs of the bloody aftermath of US air strikes and on-site "damage assessments" are being studied at the command center in Tampa, Florida, giving the military brass and the White House a daily update on the body count. One of the ways the government and the military keep this information from the public is by imposing draconian censorship on the news media. The US military has banned reporters from combat scenes in Afghanistan (something the Times omits to mention in its disquisition on the "fog of war"). Earlier this month, the military intervened to prevent American and foreign journalists from investigating the deaths in eastern Afghanistan of three peasants killed by a missile fired from an unmanned CIA drone. The reporters were held at gunpoint by US soldiers and barred from traveling to the scene or interviewing witnesses. Washington Post journalist Doug Struck said a US commander told him, after conferring with military superiors, "If you go further, you would be shot." In a rare criticism of the Pentagon, the Post reporter said the incident showed "the extremes the military is going to, to keep this war secret, to keep reporters from finding out what's going on." This was not the first incidence of coercion against journalists. In early December US Marines rounded up a group of reporters and photographers from the Pentagon's press pool and held them in a warehouse near Kandahar to prevent them from reporting on the killing and injuring of American troops by a stray bomb. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld has also threatened reporters with prosecution if they leak classified information. The fact that the US media has aided the military in keeping the truth from the public is acknowledged even by some American reporters. Comparing the role of the media in the war to that of accounting firm Arthur Andersen in the Enron scandal, Mark Thompson, Time magazine's defense correspondent, wrote, "We are the auditors of this operation. Sometimes you get the feeling there's a little too much Arthur Andersen going on."

Resisting Bush's War

http://www.alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12477

February 25, 2002

by Rep. Dennis Kucinich

[Editor's Note: The following is a speech that Dennis Kucinich, U.S. Congressman from Cleveland, Ohio, gave this past weekend at the University of Southern California. Rep. Kucinich is the leader of the Progressive Caucus and a longtime defender of free speech, civil liberties and international peace. This speech makes him the first member of the United States Congress to openly repudiate President Bush's war rationale.]

I offer these brief remarks today as a prayer for our country, with love of democracy, as a celebration of our country. With love for our country. With hope for our country. With a belief that the light of freedom cannot be extinguished as long as it is inside of us.

With a belief that freedom rings resoundingly in a democracy each time we speak freely. With the understanding that freedom stirs the human heart and fear stills it. With the belief that a free people cannot walk in fear and faith at the same time.

With the understanding that there is a deeper truth expressed in the unity of the United States. That implicate in the union of our country is the union of all people. That all people are essentially one. That the world is interconnected not only on the material level of economics, trade, communication, and transportation, but innerconnected through human consciousness, through the human heart, through the heart of the world, through the simply expressed impulse and yearning to be and to breathe free. I offer this prayer for America.

Let us pray that our nation will remember that the unfolding of the promise of democracy in our nation paralleled the striving for civil rights. That is why we must challenge the rationale of the Patriot Act. We must ask, why should America put aside guarantees of constitutional justice?

How can we justify in effect canceling the First Amendment and the right of free speech, the right to peaceably assemble?

How can we justify in effect canceling the Fourth Amendment, probable cause, the prohibitions against unreasonable search and seizure?

How can we justify in effect canceling the Fifth Amendment, nullifying due process, and allowing for indefinite incarceration without a trial?

How can we justify in effect canceling the Sixth Amendment, the right to prompt and public trial?

How can we justify in effect canceling the Eighth Amendment which protects against cruel and unusual punishment?

We cannot justify widespread wiretaps and internet surveillance without judicial supervision, let alone with it. We cannot justify secret searches without a warrant. We cannot justify giving the Attorney General the ability to designate domestic terror groups. We cannot justify giving the FBI total access to any type of data which may exist in any system anywhere such as medical records and financial records.

We cannot justify giving the CIA the ability to target people in this country for intelligence surveillance. We cannot justify a government which takes from the people our right to privacy and then assumes for its own operations a right to total secrecy. The Attorney General recently covered up a statue of Lady Justice showing her bosom as if to underscore there is no danger of justice exposing herself at this time, before this administration.

Let us pray that our nation's leaders will not be overcome with fear. Because today there is great fear in our great Capitol. And this must be understood before we can ask about the shortcomings of Congress in the current environment. The great fear began when we had to evacuate the Capitol on September 11. It continued when we had to leave the Capitol again when a bomb scare occurred as members were pressing the CIA during a secret briefing. It continued when we abandoned Washington when anthrax, possibly from a government lab, arrived in the mail. It continued when the Attorney General declared a nationwide terror alert and then the Administration brought the destructive Patriot Bill to the floor of the House. It continued in the release of the Bin Laden tapes at the same time the President was announcing the withdrawal from the ABM treaty. It remains present in the cordoning off of the Capitol. It is present in the camouflaged armed national guardsmen who greet members of Congress each day we enter the Capitol campus. It is present in the labyrinth of concrete barriers through which we must pass each time we go to vote. The trappings of a state of siege trap us in a state of fear, ill equipped to deal with the Patriot Games, the Mind Games, the War Games of an unelected President and his unelected Vice President.

Let us pray that our country will stop this war. "To promote the common defense" is one of the formational principles of America. Our Congress gave the President the ability to respond to the tragedy of September the Eleventh. We licensed a response to those who helped bring the terror of September the Eleventh. But we the people and our elected representatives must reserve the right to measure the response, to proportion the response, to challenge the response, and to correct the response.

Because we did not authorize the invasion of Iraq. We did not authorize the invasion of Iran. We did not authorize the invasion of North Korea. We did not authorize the bombing of civilians in Afghanistan. We did not authorize permanent detainees in Guantanamo Bay. We did not authorize the withdrawal from the Geneva Convention. We did not authorize military tribunals suspending due process and habeas corpus. We did not authorize assassination squads. We did not authorize the resurrection of COINTELPRO. We did not authorize the repeal of the Bill of Rights. We did not authorize the revocation of the Constitution. We did not authorize national identity cards. We did not authorize the eye of Big Brother to peer from cameras throughout our cities. We did not authorize an eye for an eye. Nor did we ask that the blood of innocent people, who perished on September 11, be avenged with the blood of innocent villagers in Afghanistan. We did not authorize the administration to wage war anytime, anywhere, anyhow it pleases. We did not authorize war without end. We did not authorize a permanent war economy.

Yet we are upon the threshold of a permanent war economy. The President has requested a $45.6 billion increase in military spending. All defense- related programs will cost close to $400 billion. Consider that the Department of Defense has never passed an independent audit. Consider that the Inspector General has notified Congress that the Pentagon cannot properly account for $1.2 trillion in transactions. Consider that in recent years the Dept. of Defense could not match $22 billion worth of expenditures to the items it purchased, wrote off, as lost, billions of dollars worth of in-transit inventory and stored nearly $30 billion worth of spare parts it did not need.

Yet the defense budget grows with more money for weapons systems to fight a cold war which ended, weapon systems in search of new enemies to create new wars. This has nothing to do with fighting terror. This has everything to do with fueling a military industrial machine with the treasure of our nation, risking the future of our nation, risking democracy itself with the militarization of thought which follows the militarization of the budget.

Let us pray for our children. Our children deserve a world without end. Not a war without end. Our children deserve a world free of the terror of hunger, free of the terror of poor health care, free of the terror of homelessness, free of the terror of ignorance, free of the terror of hopelessness, free of the terror of policies which are committed to a world view which is not appropriate for the survival of a free people, not appropriate for the survival of democratic values, not appropriate for the survival of our nation, and not appropriate for the survival of the world.

Let us pray that we have the courage and the will as a people and as a nation to shore ourselves up, to reclaim from the ruins of September the Eleventh our democratic traditions. Let us declare our love for democracy. Let us declare our intent for peace. Let us work to make nonviolence an organizing principle in our own society. Let us recommit ourselves to the slow and painstaking work of statecraft, which sees peace, not war as being inevitable. Let us work for a world where someday war becomes archaic. That is the vision which the proposal to create a Department of Peace envisions. Forty-three members of congress are now cosponsoring the legislation. Let us work for a world where nuclear disarmament is an imperative. That is why we must begin by insisting on the commitments of the ABM treaty. That is why we must be steadfast for nonproliferation.

Let us work for a world where America can lead the way in banning weapons of mass destruction not only from our land and sea and sky but from outer space itself. That is the vision of HR 3616: A universe free of fear. Where we can look up at God's creation in the stars and imagine infinite wisdom, infinite peace, infinite possibilities, not infinite war, because we are taught that the kingdom will come on earth as it is in heaven.

Let us pray that we have the courage to replace the images of death which haunt us, the layers of images of September the Eleventh, faded into images of patriotism, spliced into images of military mobilization, jump cut into images of our secular celebrations of the World Series, New Year's Eve, the Superbowl, the Olympics, the strobic flashes which touch our deepest fears, let us replace those images with the work of human relations, reaching out to people, helping our own citizens here at home, lifting the plight of the poor everywhere. That is the America which has the ability to rally the support of the world. That is the America which stands not in pursuit of an axis of evil, but which is itself at the axis of hope and faith and peace and freedom.

America, America. God shed grace on thee. Crown thy good, America. Not with weapons of mass destruction. Not with invocations of an axis of evil. Not through breaking international treaties. Not through establishing America as king of a unipolar world. Crown thy good America.

America, America. Let us pray for our country. Let us love our country. Let us defend our country not only from the threats without but from the threats within. Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good with brotherhood, and sisterhood. And crown thy good with compassion and restraint and forbearance and a commitment to peace, to democracy, to economic justice here at home and throughout the world. Crown thy good, America. Crown thy good.

Dennis Kucinich is a Democratic U.S. Congressman from Cleveland, Ohio.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/russia/article/0,2763,662476,00.html

Former ally links Putin to Moscow blasts

Jonathan Steele and Ian Traynor in Moscow

Wednesday March 6, 2002 The Guardian

The Russian former media mogul Boris Berezovsky launched his strongest attack yesterday on his one-time friend and now president, Vladimir Putin, accusing him of being linked to the terrorist bombings of apartment buildings that killed about 300 Russians in September 1999. Mr Berezovsky, now living in London, called a press conference to produce a British explosives expert, a French documentary-maker, a former Russian agent of the FSB (successor to the KGB), and a woman who lost her mother in the blasts, to accuse the security service and demand an official inquiry. "I am sure the bombings were organised by the FSB. It's not just speculation. It's a clear conclusion", Mr Berezovsky said yesterday. "I'm not saying Mr Putin gave an order to blow up those buildings. I'm saying that at the least he knew the FSB was involved." Mr Putin, who was named prime minister shortly before the bombings after heading the FSB, blamed the attacks on Chechens and used public outrage to justify sending Russian forces into the rebel republic. Presenting himself as a tough war leader, he won the presidential election in 2000. Mr Berezovsky, who has lost his share in several Russian TV companies since 2000, based his case on the professional nature of the bombings and the large amount of explosives used. He also cited official discrepancies after a foiled blast at a block of flats in Ryazan. A resident alerted the police after seeing three suspicious people unloading bags into a basement a few days after the first explosion in Moscow. The next day the interior minister said the police had defused a timing device after finding explosives in the bags. But when the new FSB chief said the bags contained sugar and had been planted as a drill to test police vigilance, the hunt for suspects was called off. Mr Berezovsky was close to Boris Yeltsin, who was president at the time, and used his TV stations to run a campaign in favour of Mr Putin. Opponents claim his attack on Mr Putin is a personal vendetta after he lost influence. "I didn't raise the matter until recently," he admitted yesterday. "I didn't expect the security services could take part in such a crime." In a bid to pre-empt the allegations, a Moscow official said yesterday that Mr Berezovsky was being investigated for links to Chechen rebels and could be implicated in the murder of a senior Russian police officer in Chechnya. Moscow may demand he be extradited from Britain or request an international arrest warrant for him, Pavel Barkovsky of the prosecutor-general's office told the Interfax news agency. "Berezovsky is trying to present himself as a political fighter and to seek attention by staging acts of political provocation," he added. New evidence indicated that Mr Berezovsky had supplied around $1m (£700,000) to Chechen rebel warlords to buy weaponry, he claimed. Officials say they know who carried out the bombings and maintain they were "Chechen terrorists", but the only two suspects to come to court are non-Chechens. They were acquitted last year. The Russians have already issued a national arrest warrant for Mr Berezovsky in connection with allegations of embezzlement from Aeroflot.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/world/europe/newsid_1857000/1857060.stm

Wednesday, 6 March, 2002, 00:23 GMT

Russian tycoon blames Moscow for blasts

Exiled Russian media tycoon Boris Berezovsky says he believes Moscow orchestrated the 1999 bombings of apartment blocks in Russian cities which triggered Russia's onslaught in Chechnya. At a news conference in London, Mr Berezovsky presented what he said was evidence that the bombings were the work of the Russian security service, the FSB. He also said he was sure that President Vladimir Putin, who was prime minister at the time, knew about the campaign.

A spokesman for the FSB in Russia told the Interfax news agency that the allegations were "groundless and lacking in common sense".

The blasts, which killed about 300 people, were blamed on Chechen rebels and shortly afterwards Mr Putin launched a second war against Chechnya. The military operation had massive support from a public outraged by the bombings. Documentary evidence But Mr Berezovsky said intelligence agents, investigative journalists and explosives experts had convinced him that the FSB was to blame. The Russian tycoon showed part of a French documentary at the news conference which linked two bombings in Moscow and one in Volgadonsk with an attempted attack in Ryazan, 200 km (125 miles) south-east of Moscow.

Security authorities said the Ryazan incident was an "exercise" but Mr Berezovsky and his team showed date- and time-stamped pictures which they said proved that the detonator found at Ryazan was real and said local police experts said traces of explosives were found. He also has the backing of a Russian explosives expert, ex-FSB member and former director of the Russian Conversion Explosives Centre, Nikita Chekulin, who says that before the bombings, security services purchased large amounts of the explosive Hexogen, said to have been found at Ryazan. Mr Berezovsky says the fact that no-one has ever been brought to justice for the bombings is further proof that they were not the result of Chechens. Putin `compliant' The tycoon said that the subsequent campaign in Chechnya aided Mr Putin's rise to power. "The FSB thought that Putin would not be able to come to power through lawful democratic means," he said. "I am not saying that Putin ordered the attacks.. but what I am saying is that he knew such things were taking place." Mr Berezovsky was actually a key aide in helping Mr Putin to victory in the 2000 elections but he has since fallen out of favour with the Kremlin and now lives in self-imposed exile in Europe.

He called on President Putin to order an inquiry into the bombings.

"Ever since Putin came to power, people have been asking: Is he really a democratic president of Russia or simply an old-style dictator putting on a show for the West?... Why does he continue to block investigations into the deadliest terrorist attacks in our history?", he said. "I am calling for an open and independent investigation."

Operation Enduring Freedom

WAR, PROPAGANDA, AND TOPPS TRADING CARDS

http://www.gadfly.org/02-11-02/ftr-enduring_freedom.html

02-11-02 By Neal Shaffer

A good gin is a specialized thing, and each good gin has a taste and aroma to which no other gin can lay claim, even another of comparable quality. When paired with tonic, however, the experience becomes directed. The mix becomes the beverage, and in the hands of a charlatan that mix can be rendered in such a way that only the most discerning palate will be able to distinguish Barton and Bombay Sapphire. So, too, the relationship between war and propaganda.

The two things go perfectly together. So much so that it's impossible to imagine war without propaganda, and difficult to imagine propaganda without considering war. There is a kind of perverse reasoning to it: if you operate under the assumption that the bulk of a given nation is too ignorant to know where its own interests lie (as government often does), then it stands to reason that the common good must be manufactured and marketed so that it remains focused and homogeneous. The practice is, of course, not limited to war, but it is during war that it is most obvious. People must be convinced that there is a reason for sending men and women off to put their lives on the line, and that we will all be better off for it—whether we actually will or not.

This process has been official since the Wilson administration. Wilson—pro war yet elected on a peace platform—needed a way to convince a pacifist population to lend its support to WWI. To do it, he set up the Creel Commission, which was America's first large-scale propaganda organization. The techniques that commission developed became a working model that was later used to break strikes and whip up anti-Communist hysteria. During World War II that model gave us Rosie the Riveter, and has since given us the "Great War" and the "Greatest Generation." Public relations is a billion-dollar industry by itself, to say nothing of the businesses it serves.

The basic idea is this: by setting up concepts that are devoid of real meaning the government (or the company, the school, whomever) defines its own purpose and eliminates the room for debate. If a war is for "democracy" or "freedom" and against "evil," who can possibly be opposed? The language is such that dissent automatically appears to be off-topic.

To make it work requires a very serious, substantial commitment. There must be unity on the part of government officials of all stripes, and their message must be coming from several different angles. Major media outlets must appear unbiased but must all be saying essentially the same thing. This alone, however, is no longer enough. Vietnam proved that what is normally very effective doesn't automatically work. In order to make it work now—with the American public being predisposed to cynicism regarding public officials and the media—the popular culture must also be manipulated, and manipulated in such a way that it appears organic.

As a case in point, the Topps company has released a series of "Operation Enduring Freedom Trading Cards." Each pack contains seven cards and one sticker. On the back of the package the mission statement reads:

"An encyclopedic record of America's war against terrorism. Cards contain biographical information on civilian and military leaders entrusted to guide us through this fight, statistical data, and photos of military hardware."

Photos of military hardware?

The Topps web site goes even deeper into the filth by stating, in part, that "Kids need to understand that the President (and his team) will keep them safe and that evil-doers will be punished. Our cards deliver the details in a medium with which they are familiar and comfortable." Further down the set is described as "All it should be... and nothing that it shouldn't." This part is explained with the note that "Not included are the disturbing images shown repeatedly on national newscasts. Instead, Topps has chosen to focus on America's strengths—its elected leaders, the security of its military, its worldwide support… and the courage and unity of its people."

There's almost too much there to take, but it's that last part that is so illustrative. On the face of it the cards appear to be one more part of the "wave of patriotism" that has come over the country, and a nifty collectible at that! What they really are is a popular rewriting of history through the filter of the propaganda machine. One card, number 22, is captioned "Police Search Suspect's Home in Florida" and has a photo of federal officials scaling a ladder to enter said home through a second-floor window. Is this the sort of thing we should be celebrating? All throughout the set the tone is gleeful, even giddy, and there is nothing to suggest that there is anything complex or disturbing about what happened to America and what is being done about it.

Topps, to be fair, has done this sort of thing before. They released cards to commemorate both Korea and Desert Storm, so this set was inevitable. Why though, one wonders, did they choose to be so selective with the history and fill the gaps with apple pie? Surely a card of the flaming World Trade Center or the destroyed Pentagon would have been appropriate, considering that those things are, ostensibly, the impetus for this entire conflict. It is almost as if the folks who are marketing this war have a vested interest in a collective memory lapse when it comes to the real reason all of this is happening, as that will make it easier to convince us that the Madison Avenue reasons are legitimate.

Those "disturbing images that were shown repeatedly on national newscasts" are missing in action, and not just from the Topps set.

Everyone is impressionable, especially so when they have no direct stake in their opinions. This leads to a kind of passive assent. That counts as support, and is in fact the exact end to which effective propaganda is directed. Non-participation is better than active support in a situation where any kind of real involvement could expose one to knowledge that might change the desired opinion. Trust that what we're doing is right, and don't worry your pretty little head about it.

With this war, however, things are different.

In the past, most notably during the Gulf War, the machine kicked in because it had to. Without substantial manipulation of public opinion there is no way that the country could have been sold on the merits of liberating Kuwait with American military force. Then suddenly yellow ribbons and "I'd Fly Ten Thousand Miles To Smoke a Camel" T-shirts started appearing, and America became entranced by Norman Schwarzkopf's regular-Joe dissections of smart- bomb chimney strikes. It wasn't an unqualified success, but it certainly wasn't a failure.

The difference this time is that America didn't need to be sold on this war, not exactly. For the first time since WWII there was a concrete and apparent reason for military action, and roughly 90 percent of the population considered that action justified. This war could have been conducted in an open, forthright manner and nobody would have complained. But the decision-makers couldn't help themselves—they had to turn it into something it isn't, and they had to sell that something to us. Why?

There isn't, of course, an easy answer. Indeed, any answer —including the attempt at one that follows—is going to be heavy on speculation. Still, it is just that sort of speculation, regardless of the particular political viewpoint from which it stems, that is so necessary right now. There is a danger that, culturally, we are being taken for granted. That our collective will is so weak that they can turn anything into a power grab.

The process began right away, with Bush's first words to the nation the afternoon of the attacks: "Freedom itself was attacked today." That rhetoric—the rhetoric of "evil ones" who "hate freedom"—has become the theme of this war, to the point where Bush is even being praised for his homey, tough-talk approach. What does it really mean? Absolutely nothing. Both evil and freedom are concepts that manifest themselves in different ways depending on the situation at hand. They are, in fact, both entirely subjective.

Suppose, though, that we take Bush at his word on both counts. If this war really is for freedom and against evil, then he and his advisors are at war against themselves. Freedom, by definition, is not something that is given. It is inherent in all humanity at birth, and it can only be taken. Understanding that, it is obvious that the biggest threat to our freedom comes not from afar but from John Ashcroft. Here is a man who, by raping the Fourth Amendment and virtually repealing the Freedom of Information Act, has done more to strip Americans of their benchmark freedoms than bin Laden ever could, or likely ever wanted to.

This fact goes ignored because of the still overwhelming support the war effort enjoys. The majority of Americans still believe that we are in Afghanistan fighting terrorism. Therein lies another example of the Bush administration's propaganda achievement. This war should be against the people who attacked us—bin Laden, his military forces, and the government(s) that fund and support them. That war, were it the one we are fighting, would be justifiable. Instead, the war is "against terrorism." It is as impossible to "fight terrorism" as it is to "hate freedom." Terrorism, like freedom and evil, is an abstraction. It is a methodology, a style of fighting, that is employed across the world by various groups to various ends. If we are fighting terrorism, do we intend to invade Northern Ireland? The Basque region? Or perhaps to bomb the CIA headquarters?

What we are really fighting here is every government that is not sympathetic to U.S. interests. Bush has accidentally admitted as much himself—"You're either with us or you're against us." It would be hard to engender broad-based support for this war if it were being conducted on those (honest) terms. Lives, money, and years are at stake and there is very little to gain that will benefit, even indirectly, the average American.

The people that do benefit are the usual suspects—the armaments industry, the Pentagon, etc. Their paranoid, frantic insistence on keeping their dirty hands in conflicts that span the globe is perplexing and troubling. The fact that they have chosen to extend that urge by exploiting a legitimate national tragedy is, well, evil.

Cross of Iron

San Francisco Examiner February 22, 2002

By Conn Hallinan

In case anyone missed it, there was a military coup on Feb. 4. As these things go, it was a quiet affair: no tanks deployed at key intersections, no hard-faced soldiers holding strategic crossroads. In fact the people who seized power don't even have any troops, unless you count lobbyists. But if President Bush's budget is approved, a significant part of our national life will be determined by the financial interests of the"Mighty 10." The "10" are not the Marines, Army, Navy, Air Force or various Special Forces, but the huge arms corporations that stand to make hundreds of billions of dollars---indeed, trillions---from the massive military buildup over the next five years. Of the "10," the first six---Lockheed Martin, Boeing, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, General Dynamics, Litton, General Electric, United Technologies, TRW and Textron---are among the top 10 arms-producing companies world wide. While the "war on terrorism" is the rationale for the proposed $48 billion jump in military spending, much of that money looks suspiciously like an old-fashioned political payoff. Stands to reason. The energy companies got Alaska and Utah; mining and timber interests got the West, why shouldn't the arms manufacturers get an endless war? If "terrorists" are the target, it is hard to see why the US should spend $475 million to build the Crusader, a 70-ton self-propelled artillery system so massive you couldn't get it to Afghanistan on a dare. On the other hand it guarantees who will get a hefty campaign contribution from its makers, United Defense, General Dynamics and Caterpillar, in the upcoming election. Do we really need the new FF-22 Raptor stealth interceptor to fight terrorists? I am not aware that high performance fighters are their strong suit, particularly given that our old F-15 is a perfectly fine aircraft. On the other hand, do Boeing, Lockheed Martin and Pratt & Whitney need to be brought on board the Republican re-election campaign? How about $400 billion for the Joint Strike Fighter (Yes, on top of $100 billion for the F-22) that none of the services are very enthusiastic about? But Lockheed Martin, the maker, thinks it's just peachy. Plus, the company gets to sell the fighter overseas, just like it is selling thousands of F-16s (another perfectly fine machine) to 22 countries. Do we require new Aegis destroyers at $1.3 billion a pop to confront terrorism, or is this a little subsidy to Litton Industries (owned by Northrop Grumman) and General Dynamics? And don't believe the budget figures getting tossed around in Washington these days. While the White House proposes jumping the military budget from $328 billion to $376 billion, there are a few "add ons." Besides the $17 billion already allotted for the Afghan War, Bush is asking for $38 billion for the Homeland Security Budget. Toss in the extra $13.4 billion the Energy Department is getting for ramping up nuclear weapons research and production. At this rate we will be pouring in close to $500 billion a year in military spending by 2007, 54 times the combined military budgets of the "Evil Axis." Tucked away in all this is a $10 billion request for a "contingency" fund. Translation: The Administration will be able to wage an Afghan size war for a little more than five months (the present war is costing $1.8 billion a month) without clearing it with Congress.

Next up, a Praetorian Guard?

But even all this won't be enough. According to Gen. Richard Myers, chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, the Pentagon will need an additional $30 billion to get some of these weapons program off the ground. There are some very real consequences to all this. As rich as we are, something will have to give for us to all this. And what gives in this budget is education, job training, public housing, and a host of social programs that are desperately needed in this recession-wracked economy. The US Conference of Mayors reports that emergency shelter requests in 27 cities have increased 13% over last year. The Bush budget cuts public housing by $382 million or 6%, and public housing repairs by $417 million, or 14.7%. Job training in 336 cities will be cut from $225 million to $45 million. The United Way describes Los Angeles County as being in "the most precarious [condition] since the Great Depression." Three million in the County are considered "poor," and 1.4 million people are classified "food insecure," including 45% of children in poor families. Terrorism is a political, not a military problem. Targeting its roots in poverty and despair will isolate it a good deal more effectively than smart bombs. Dwight Eisenhower had it right when he noted that "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies "a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed ... this is not a way of life at all ... it is humanity hanging from a cross of Iron."

http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/RTGAMArticleHTMLTemplate/C/20020305/wstu d0503?hub=homeBN&tf=tgam%252Frealtime%252Ffullstory.html&cf=tgam/realtime/co nfig-neutral&vg=BigAdVariableGenerator&slug=wstud0503&date=20020305&archive= RTGAM&site=Front&ad_page_name=breakingnews

U.S. deports dozens of young Israelis 3/5/02

Washington — U.S. authorities have arrested and deported dozens of young Israelis since early last year who represented themselves as art students in efforts to gain access to sensitive federal government office buildings and the homes of government employees, U.S. officials said.

A draft report from the Drug Enforcement Administration — which first characterized the activities as suspicious — said the youths' actions "may well be an organized intelligence-gathering activity."

Immigration officials deported them for visa violations; no criminal espionage charges were filed.

The arrests, made in an unspecified number of major U.S. cities from California to Florida, came amid public warnings from intelligence agencies about suspicious behaviour by people posing as Israeli art students and "attempting to bypass facility security and enter federal buildings."

The Israelis were arrested and deported on charges of working in the United States without authorization or overstaying visits on tourist visas, said Russ Bergeron, a spokesman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service in Washington. He described dozens of arrests since early 2001 but gave no exact figures.

The DEA report said a majority of the young people questioned by U.S. investigators acknowledged having served in military intelligence, electronic-signals interception or explosive ordnance units in the Israeli military. The DEA said one person questioned was the son of an Israeli general, one had served as the bodyguard to the head of the Israeli army and another served in a Patriot missile unit.

Israeli Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Yaffa Ben-Ari said it was "nonsense" the students were spying on the United States.

Another Foreign Ministry spokeswoman, Irit Stopper, confirmed a few Israelis posing as art students were expelled from the United States for working without permits. However they were not accused of espionage, she said. She did not say how many Israelis were expelled and did not give any additional details.

An FBI official, speaking on condition of anonymity, noted there were no espionage charges filed against any of the individuals and they had been deported. Asked whether any spying activity occurred, the official repeated no charges had been filed.

A Justice Department official, also asking not to be publicly identified, said investigators have been aware of some "alleged linkage" between the students and alleged espionage activities in the United States since early 2001 and authorities have made arrests in Dallas, Chicago, San Diego and in South Florida.

Americans Must Stand Firm Against 'War'

By Charley Reese
3-7-2

I don't see how we can fight a war on terrorism without either a declaration of war or a definition of "terrorism."

Look at the recent news. American planes have bombed Afghans who are not members of al-Qaida or the Taliban. They are just Afghans who oppose the central government set up in Kabul. So does participation in a civil war constitute fighting terrorism? Or does it constitute support for a government that probably agreed to allow oil and gas pipelines to run through Afghanistan?

At first, the president said that we were going to hunt down al-Qaida wherever it existed.

Now he is emphasizing changing regimes in Iraq and Iran and possibly in North Korea.

What has that got to do with terrorism? The CIA says Iraq has not been involved in terrorism for the past 10 years. More important, what right does the United States have to decide what governments will or will not exist in other countries? None. We have no moral right, no philosophical justification and no right under international law to decide who will govern people in other sovereign countries.

Oh, the government says that Saddam Hussein is a threat to his neighbors. Well, under Saddam, how many countries has Iraq attacked in the past 22 years? Three. Kuwait, Iran and Israel.

How many countries have we invaded or attacked? Well, let's see. There's Panama and Grenada and Haiti and Lebanon and Libya and Sudan and Somalia and Yugoslavia and Iraq and Afghanistan.

That's 10 to Saddam's three.

And how many of those countries had declared war on us, or attacked us, or had even threatened to attack us? None. In how many countries does Iraq have troops permanently stationed? None. How about us? More than 100. Could it be that we are a greater threat than Iraq?

The president likes to use self-defense as a rationalization. Well, I believe in self-defense, but self-defense does not extend to killing people who some think might be a threat in the future. How do you think you would fare if you killed somebody and told the police: "Well, he wasn't attacking me, but I know he doesn't like me, and so probably some day, he would have attacked me. I just decided to take him out as a precaution"? You'd be charged with murder one.

This so-called war on terrorism is entirely too ambiguous. It amounts to a license for the Bush administration to attack anybody it decides to attack, and it gives a green light to every repressive government on Earth to kill off its opposition under the guise of fighting terrorism.

Am I annoying you? Well, I hope so, because Americans need to understand that a lot of nasty things are being done in their name. Americans need to realize that they've been excluded from the debate on foreign policy. If you question the president, you're unpatriotic. But don't you think presidents who deliberately ignore the Constitution are unpatriotic?

It seems that when our leaders get drunk on power, a lot of Americans get drunk, too. "We're the most powerful nation on Earth," some guy says. Well, how many B-52s or F-16s do you have parked in your back yard? What is this "we" nonsense? You and I aren't powerful. People who control power are using us as pawns. The only things in my back yard are a hammock, a birdbath and a miniature windmill.

We need to rebel. We need to send a message to Washington that without a formal declaration of war by Congress, we aren't serving in the armed forces. We need to teach our children that one takes a precious human life only in defense of other human life or our liberty but never just to achieve a political or corporate objective that has nothing to do with the defense of our country or our liberty.

Are we living in a democratic republic, or are we living under a system of corporate fascism?

Is our government honest, or does it deceive us and withhold information? I hope you realize that it wasn't just the Taliban the government denied a look at the evidence of al-Qaida's involvement in Sept. 11. The government denied us an opportunity to see the evidence, too. It showed us the bin Laden tape well after the war had started.

Former Orlando Sentinel columnist Charley Reese writes for King Features Syndicate.

Sunday Herald (Scotland), 3 March 2002

CIA evidence 'clears Libya' of Lockerbie

Megrahi's appeal team ignored 'evidence' from key CIA investigator that claims Iran was behind PanAm 103 bombing

By Neil Mackay, Home Affairs Editor, John Ashton in Washington and Ian Ferguson in Camp Zeist

ONE of the CIA's leading Lockerbie bomb investigators has come forward with compelling evidence that Libya was not behind the downing of PanAm 103 which killed 270 people. Robert Baer, a retired senior CIA agent, offered to meet the defence team leading the appeal of Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who was convicted last year of the bombing. However, his offer was not accepted and the new evidence never raised in court. The new evidence, according to Baer, shows Iran masterminded and funded the bombing; implicates the Palestinian terrorist unit, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLP-GC), as the group behind the plot; and reveals that just two days after the December 21 1988 bombing the PFLP-GC received $11 million (£7.6m), paid into a Swiss bank account by Iran. Legal experts say the new evidence should have been brought before the court, and are asking why Megrahi's defence didn't take up the offer. Megrahi's appeal, which took place at a special Scottish court sitting at Camp Zeist in Holland, adjourned on Thursday for judges to consider whether to overturn the original verdict. Baer claims he is breaking his silence now because of growing disillusionment with the CIA's counter-terrorist operations and the war on terror. Baer, an anti-terrorist specialist, was one of the key CIA officers investigating Lockerbie. He says the CIA received definitive evidence that the PFLP-GC struck a deal with Iranian intelligence agents in July 1988 to take down an American airliner. Baer also has details of an $11m payment made to the PFLP-GC. On December 23 1988 the money was paid into a bank account used by the terror group in Lausanne, Switzerland. It was transferred to another PFLP-GC account at the Banque Nationale de Paris and moved to the Hungarian Trade Development Bank. A terrorist linked to the PFLP-GC, Abu Talb, who was later jailed for terrorist offences in Sweden, was also paid $500,000 (£350,000). The money went into an account in Talb's name in Frankfurt four months after the bombing, on April 25 1989. Germany was a key base for the PFLP-GC in the late 1980s. Baer has the number of at least one of these bank accounts. Talb and the PFLP-GC were to have been implicated by lawyers working for Megrahi and his co-accused, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah, at the original trial, but little evidence was ever raised to show they were part of the Lockerbie plot. On legal advice Baer is not disclosing his Lockerbie records, but the Sunday Herald has seen CIA paperwork that supports his claims. British and US intelligence have always publicly denied that the PFLP-GC played a part in the Lockerbie plot, saying raids by German police two months before the Lockerbie bombing took the terror group out of action. Baer says, however, that these arrests were a mere hiccup in PFLP-GC plans as other members of the German unit rem ained at large. This theory also fits with claims that the bomb began its journey in Frankfurt, rather than Malta, where Megrahi was based. PFLP-GC leader Hafez Dalkamoni and the group's chief bomb-maker, Marwan Khreesat, were arrested in Germany in October 1988 in possession of a Toshiba radio-cassette player containing a bomb. PanAm 103 flew from Frankfurt and was destroyed by a bomb built inside a Toshiba radio-cassette. Timers matching the one used in the Lockerbie device were sold to both Libya and the East German secret service, the Stasi, which had close links to the PFLP-GC. 'I don't know what components the bomb contained,' Baer said, 'but there was very reliable information from multiple sources that (the PFLP-GC) were running around between East and West Germany and Sweden, trying to get the operation back on track. It's conceivable that the Stasi supplied components during a trip to East Germany.' Baer said the components for the bomb were supplied by a terrorist known as Abu Elias, who was for a time the CIA's prime suspect but was never caught. 'He was the big centre of the investigation, but he was very elusive,' Baer said. Khreesat and Dalkamoni were on their way to meet Abu Elias when they were arrested in Germany. Abu Elias was a close associate of Abu Talb. Both lived in Sweden. Talb had made a trip to Malta just weeks before the Lockerbie bombing. Clothes from a shop in Malta were packed in the suitcase which contained the PanAm 103 bomb. Baer also claims the CIA has irrefutable intelligence that Talb and Dalkamoni were Iranian agents and were on a government roll of honour for their services to the 'Islamic revolutionary struggle against the west'. Baer add ed: 'Although it was not specific, Dalkamoni's citation praised him for achieving Iran's greatest- ever strike against the west'. Iran had vowed 'the skies would rain with American blood' after a US battle cruiser, the USS Vincennes, accidentally shot down an Iranian Airbus over the Persian Gulf, killing 290 people, six months before the Lockerbie bombing. 'It doesn't take a genius to figure out where the $11m came from,' says Baer. He added that 'the information [would] be useful to the defence as much of it was of a type that would be admissible in court. Once the investigators had the timer evidence, which seemed to point to Libya, they stopped pursuing other leads -- that's the way most criminal investigations work. People sleep better at night if they think they have justice. Who wants an unsolved airplane bombing?' Edinburgh University law professor Robert Black, the architect of the Lockerbie trial, said of Megrahi's defence not seeking to interview Baer: 'I don't know why they would act like this. Real hard evidence of a money transfer from Iran to the PFLP-GC is so supportive of the alternative theory behind the bombing that I'm at a loss to explain their actions. 'At the very least, you would interview the source of the information and make a decision once you have spoken to him. A lawyer's job is to provide a belt-and-braces defence for his client, so to refuse to even meet with Baer requires a lot of explaining.'

http://www.sundayherald.com/22366

Robert Sterling Editor, The Konformist http://www.konformist.com http://www.konformist.com/botm/volume05/botm0302.htm

Beast of the Month - March 2002 Jacques Rogge, International Olympic Committee President

"I yam an anti-Christ..." John Lydon (aka Johnny Rotten) of The Sex Pistols, "Anarchy in the UK"

Okay, maybe it wasn't a clubbing of a knee with a metal baton, but the 2002 Winter Olympics saw a pretty unseemly turn of events nonetheless in the battle for the pairs figure skating gold medal.

Originally, in a dubious 5-4 decision, the gold was awarded on February 11 to the Russians team of Elena Berezhnaya and Anton Sikharulidze, and the silver to Canada's Jamie Sale and David Pelletier. This was met by howls of outrage by the two NBC commentators, Sandra Bezic (who, for what it's worth, is Canadian herself) and Scott Hamilton, who both declared Sale and Pelletier to be the obvious winners. It soon was revealed that French judge Marie Reine Le Gougne would admit her vote for the Russian pair was made under heavy pressure by French skating officials (a French pair was up in ice dancing competition, and her vote was seen as a customary "scratch our back and we'll scratch yours" deal.) By the end of the week, in an unusual decision, the vote of Le Gougne was scratched, she was suspended, and a second pair of golds was awarded to the Canadian team. All while the events were under a campaign of outrage found in the korporate media.

All this makes us at The Konformist first off say, "Hold on!" After all, it isn't like this was, say, the swindling of the presidency. Where was such courage in November 2000? Which is perhaps the point: it is a lot easier for the press to speak out against a Russian scheme to rig a gold medal than to speak out against the theft of democracy. Especially when creating a media frenzy only helps out NBC, whose coverage of the Winter Olympics was getting weak ratings until the drummed-up controversy.

In fact, the rushed decision in defense of Team Canada may have been unjust itself. Despite the later spin by Ms. Le Gougne, her own testimony was pretty damning, if what the IOC released was indeed true. (And, for the record, The Konformist editorial staff's own independent viewing of the finals led us to give the nod to the Canadians as well, though we may be biased since Sale looked so foxy in her uniform.) But no real investigation of the serious charges of fraud had been done by Valentine's Day (when the second gold medal was issued) and the results appear to be a rush to judgment fueled by an atmosphere of hysteria.

The strong internal push for the quick resolution came from the top: Jacques Rogge, the new president of the IOC (and The Konformist Beast of the Month) personally pushed for a quick and easy fix. Far from doing it in the name of justice, it appears that Rogge was inspired by mammon. US Olympic officials (which allied quickly with Canada in the controversy) wanted a quick fix, and Rogge likely didn't want to offend the nation that remains the major underwriter for the IOC (courtesy of heavy korporate funding.)

To be fair, the politicization of IOC decisions doesn't begin or end in the United States. (One has to look at the 1972 men's basketball Olympic final - where the USSR beat team USA thanks to outrageous official rulings involving the timeclock - or the 1988 Seoul boxing loss of Roy Jones to a South Korean he had clearly outpunched to cite examples where Uncle Sam was screwed by the system.) But as a pattern for the changes in Olympics over the past 20 years, it is most certainly a case of money talks.

Take the 2000 female gymnastics final: in a gutsy performance, a 16- year-old Romanian named Andrea Raducan won the gold medal despite being ill. That is, she won it, until the IOC stripped it from her. The reason? She had tested positive for taking pseudoephedrine in two over-the-counter cold tablets given to her by her team doctor (she was unaware of any apparent conflict with IOC rules when given the tablets.) The doctor had informed the IOC medical commission of his actions before doing so, with no objections raised. Despite all this, she was stripped of her gold nonetheless, with the head of the World Anti-Doping Agency (the appropriately named Dick Pound) pushing for supposed "zero tolerance" of drug infractions. (Pseudoephedrine is chemically related to ephedrine and other amphetamines, which is the reason for its contraband status.) A cynic would have to wonder if the same cruel lack of sympathy for a sixteen-year-old would occur if she had come from the United States.

What has happened to the Olympics over the last twenty years reflects the same evolutions that have occurred in the film, television, music, and professional sports industries, as well as locals such as Las Vegas. In essence, the Media Entertainment Komplex has gone from good business to megabusiness, from the scrappy fighters to the establishment that control billions in less than a generation. And with that rise in power comes a corruption. The corruption in the IOC, however, is fundamentally worse than that within Las Vegas and the NFL, as both of the latter never pretended to live up to some higher international ideal.

Ironically, it was Jimmy Carter who started the changing of the tide by boycotting the 1980 Summer Olympics in Moscow over the Soviet Union's Afghan War. The move was highly unpopular at the time and, in a predictable self-destructive move, Carter stripped himself of the ability to associate himself with American gold-medal heroes during an election year (an election he lost.) But the boycott essentially sabotaged all coverage of the Olympics in the US, thus depriving the IOC of millions of dollars in revenue. Meanwhile, in 1984, when the USSR boycotted the Summer Olympics in Los Angeles, the end result was the most financially successful Olympics in history to that point. The IOC quickly learned which side of the bread the butter was on.

Indeed, the whole choice of Salt Lake City as host to the 2002 games was a tip to Western butter. A fairly large international scandal followed when it was uncovered that the decision was aided by bribery and personal fringe benefits awarded to IOC members.

The 2002 Olympics are the first under Rogge's reign as IOC chief. If they are a sign of things to come, then it doesn't look promising. Rogge has presided over what most observers would concede to be the Olympics that most overtly wallowed in crass commercialism. And that's just the positive side: in keeping with "president" Bush's "War Against Evil", the Olympic ceremonies were the most overtly nationalistic and militaristic since 1936 Berlin under Hitler's Nazi Germany, with commentators crudely referring to Iranian athletes as part of the "Axis of Evil" during the opening ceremonies. Which just goes to show that 2002 Winter Olympics are a disturbing sign of the shape of things to come in even more sinister ways.

In any case, we salute Jacques Rogge as Beast of the Month. Congratulations, and keep up the great work, Jacques!!!

The Konformist http://www.konformist.com Robert Sterling Post Office Box 24825 Los Angeles, California 90024-0825 Robalini@aol.com

If you are interested in a free subscription to The Konformist Newswire, please visit:

http://www.eGroups.com/list/konformist

MEDIUM RARE

By Jim Rarey

March 18, 2002

HILLARY JOINS THE CONSPIRACY

For at least a year now stories have been circulating on the Internet about facilities being prepared across the country intended for incarceration of segments of the civilian population. The facilities are variously described as concentration camps, relocation centers, detention stations, etc. It can now be confirmed that laws are being put on the books of the various states that provide for the "evacuation" of civilians to predetermined locations in other states.

The laws are in conformance with an "Interstate Emergency Management Assistance Compact" promulgated under the rubric of "Homeland Defense." In Michigan, implementation of the compact comprises two Public Acts (P.A. 247 and P.A. 248). The former deals with the handling of "personnel" and the latter with equipment. Both went on the books in January of this year but do not go into effect until at least one other state joins the compact. (There is another requirement discussed later in this article.)

Among other things the compact provides for the following:

Mutual assistance between party (member) states in managing any emergency or disaster declared by the governor of the affected state. The declaration could involve (but is not limited to) natural disaster, technical disaster (whatever that means), man-made disaster, emergency aspects of resource shortages, civil disorders, insurgency, or enemy attack.

Emergency related exercises outside of actual emergency periods.

Affords the emergency forces of another state the same powers, duties, rights and privileges afforded in its own state, except that of arrest unless specifically authorized.

Note: Another compact from 1996, which has been adopted in most states, allows the use of a state’s National Guard troops in any other "party" state.

Specifies that no party state or its officers or employees is liable on account of any act or omission in good faith while providing aid or using equipment or supplies.

Requires each party to provide compensation to injured members of the emergency forces and death benefits to representatives of members killed while rendering aid, as if the injury or death were sustained within its own state.

Requires party states to work out plans for the orderly evacuation and interstate reception of civilians.

The states are required to establish procedures for compensating other states that render assistance.

And finally, the compact requires a provision for temporary suspension of any statutes or ordinances that restrict the implementation of these responsibilities.

The two bills implementing the compact were passed in the Michigan House and Senate on roll call votes without a dissenting vote. They were introduced in November of last year and final passage was on 12/31`/01. There was no mention of the compact or bills, at any stage, in the local media. Needless to say it was not on this writer’s radar screen either. It was only discovered while browsing the legislature’s web site on another topic.

One final step is required. The U.S. Constitution, in Article I, states, "No State shall; without the Consent of the Congress….enter into any Agreement or Compact with another State…" This is where Hillary Clinton enters the picture.

Senator Clinton, on 11//28/01, introduced a bill (S.1737) to provide for homeland security block grants. Section 12 states, "The consent of the Congress is hereby given to any two or more States to enter into agreements or compacts, not in conflict with any law of the United States, for cooperative effort and mutual assistance in support of homeland security planning and programs carried out under this Act as they pertain to interstate areas and to localities within such States, and to establish such agencies, joint or otherwise, as they may deem desirable for making such agreements and compacts effective."

The reader may note that Senator Clinton doesn’t seem to be concerned about any conflict with the U.S. Constitution, only "laws of the United States." Seven of the usual suspects cosponsored the bill; Senators Dayton, Feinstein, Mikulkski, Stabenow, Durbin, Kerry and Schumer.

As of this date (March 18th) Hillary’s bill (no, not that Bill) was still in committee. If it is not brought to the floor, the provision may be tacked onto some other legislation, possibly an appropriations bill.

All kinds of unconstitutional laws are being rushed through the Congress and state legislatures in the name of fighting terrorism. However, it should be obvious that the advance planning in putting all these pieces together took place long before September 11 of last year.

It’s getting late, folks. Stay tuned.

Permission is granted to reproduce this article in its entirety.

The author is a free lance writer based in Romulus, Michigan. He is a former newspaper editor and investigative reporter, a retired customs administrator and accountant, and a student of history and the U.S. Constitution.

If you would like to receive Medium Rare articles directly, please contact us at jimrarey@comcast.net.

Although not necessary, we would appreciate an indication of the city and/or state or country (If outside the USA) in which you are located to give us an idea as to where our articles are being received.

FBI ON TRIAL

From the Oread Daily

Jury selection began yesterday in a suit filed by Judi Bari and fellow Earth First activist Darryl Cherney against the FBI in connection with the 1990 bombing of their car which left Bari permanently disabled. The jury will eventually decide whether the FBI and Oakland police violated the civil rights of deceased environmental activist (Judy Bari died of breast cancer in 1997) and her companion. Lawyers for Earth First will argue that investigators violated the pair's rights by ignoring the evidence and treating them as terrorists. "Our lawsuit will hopefully increase public awareness so we can put pressure on our government so we can hold our FBI accountable," Cherney said. "We are charging the FBI knew for a fact that we were innocent, and yet blamed us for bombing ourselves because of our political position as environmentalists." In previous rulings that the case could go forward, several judges have criticized the investigation and denied officers and agents immunity. "The Department seemed to have no interest in investigating anybody except the people who were bombed," wrote Judge Stephen Reinhardt in a 1999 ruling that kept the suit alive.

Twelve years ago, in the spring of 1990, it was Judi and Darryl who faced impending charges, based on a series of outright lies told in the immediate aftermath of the bombing by Oakland Police officers and FBI agents. As Judi clung to life in the critical care unit, and Darryl was interrogated repeatedly without a lawyer, the police and FBI ignored or covered-up every piece of evidence that might lead them to the real perpetrators. Instead, they used the blast as an opportunity to vilify nonviolent activists who had become a thorn in the side of the big timber corporations.

There is concern now about how fair the trial involving persons labeled by the FBI and the Oakland police as "terrorists" can be in present day America. Indeed, a number of potential jurors during questioning Monday said they might have qualms about sitting in judgment of a case involving alleged terrorist tactics. Judge Claudia Wilken declared the case will be limited to questions of police misconduct. "The FBI is not on trial here. The United States government is not on trial. At issue is the conduct of the officers who investigated this case and whether in the course of that investigation they violated the rights of the plaintiffs," Wilken said. Many disagree with that narrow assessment. In 1999, Wilken tried to further limit the legal issues surrounding the case by ruling that the individual officers were entitled to "qualified immunity," a liability exemption generally granted to law enforcement authorities in their routine handling of criminal investigations. A three judge appeals panel overturned that ruling.

Outside the federal building in Oakland where the trial is being held more then 500 people rallied in support. Judi's 21 year old daughter told those gathered, "What happened in my mother's case was a long time ago, but the implications today in the face of civil liberties being eroded to combat terrorism ring true," she said. "I think it's as important as ever that this case go to trial."

Even the mainstream Sierra Club views this trial as critical. Sierra Club Executive Director Carl Pope urged national support for the lawsuit and solicited other national environmental leaders to join him in sending a letter to Senator Patrick Leahy, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, to continue hearings into FBI abuses. Citing "FBI handling of situations such as Ruby Ridge, Waco, Wen Ho Lee, and the Oklahoma City bombing," he urged the Senate Judiciary Committee to investigate the Judi Bari/Darryl Cherney case. Pope stated in his letter to Sen. Leahy: "No freedoms are more important to the people of the United States than the freedom of speech and freedom of assembly. This includes the right to carry out nonviolent protests against policies and practices, which citizens believe are wrong or destructive. The Redwood Summer Campaign which Judi and Darryl were organizing when the bombing occurred, was such a nonviolent protest."

"It was all a big lie," Cherney said last week. "The FBI never wanted to catch the bomber. They wanted to destroy Earth First." Sources: Sacramento Bee, SF Gate News, IMC/SF, Arm the Spirit, Press Democrat (Santa Rosa, CA)

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION VISIT: www.judibari.org/

The Oread Daily provides daily (Monday-Friday) progressive, left, anti-racist, anarchist, commie, activist, environmental, Marxist, revolutionary, etc. news and information from around the US and around the world. The Oread Daily was a mimeographed sheet that came out first in the summer of 1970 in Lawrence, Kansas. It was irreverent, radical, spicy, revolutionary et. al. Now, three decades later it returns. To view the entire Oread Daily, please visit: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/OreadDaily

Return to top of page