Friday, December 29, 2006

Hostage to Crime

Here are just a few of the reasons many believe 9/11 was an inside job, primarily masterminded by Dick Cheney with the complicity of George W. Bush.

No steel frame buildings had (ever before in history) collapsed either from fires or planes hitting them. They are designed to withstand those hazards. On 9/11 three of them fell, perfectly straight down. Demolition experts spend weeks planting charges and timing the explosions with millisecond precision to make sure buildings implode and fall straight down, just as the three WTC towers did. That perfection does not happen by accident. Further, the timing of the falls are indicative of linear controlled demolitions, not accelerating natural gravitational collapse. An engineering failure of this magnitude would normally demand an exhaustive study as to the mechanism of failure to ensure it never happened again, but all the evidence was quickly whisked away and melted down thus ensuring the cause was never discovered.


The 1/3 sized wheels, turbofan and diffuser found at the Pentagon crash are not part of a 757, but of a much smaller military aircraft the A-3 drone. Two civilian defense contractor employees — told to remain silent — say other workers quietly retro-fitted missile and remote control systems onto A-3 jets at Colorado public airport prior to September 11. Bush claims a Boeing 757 hit the Pentagon then vaporised, and that is why there was no wreckage, but that is utterly impossible. The titanium used in the 12 tons of engines does not even melt at temperatures reached by mixing jet fuel and pure oxygen much less vaporise. Titanium was chosen for the engines because it would not even weaken when subjected to an optimum mixture of jet fuel and air for hours on end during ordinary flight. Further, there were no broken windows where the engines purportedly hit the Pentagon. And to top it off, photos show no sign of a fuel fire like the ones hitting the two towers.
Bush is peddling an utterly preposterous lie. It amazing he got away with it so long. See the video Loose Change, part 1 and Loose Change, part 2. So it was an A-3 drone that hit the Pentagon.

The hole in the side of the Pentagon is far too small for Boeing 757 flight 77 to pass through. The wingspan is 124 feet with a fuselage diameter of 13 feet. It is 44 feet from ground to the top of the tail. There was almost no debris, no bodies, no blood, no body parts, no baggage, no wreckage typical of a 757 plane crash, and of course no sheared off wings. Further there was no fire or smoke damage similar to the other two crashes. There should have been. The plane had a similar load of fuel. In contrast, after the shuttle disaster, it was possible to find pieces of the seven astronauts' bodies spread over hundreds of square miles. Some of the rubble appears to belong to a small Global Hawk drone (44 feet long by 15 feet high) including the tiny engine, including a tiny turbofan engine. The Pentagon blatantly lied in its story published by the Washington Post, saying the hole in the Pentagon was five stories high and 200 feet wide. Photos show it is no bigger than 18 feet in diameter. To fit in that tiny hole the wings had to have been sheared off. Where are the wings? Further the Pentagon crash did not show up seismically, because the object that hit was too light. Recall your high school physics. We know object that hit the Pentagon was travelling at 400 mph.
mass = energy / velocity2
The low energy of the hit means the object had to have considerably lower mass than a 757. The other two other hits, including another 757, registered seismically. Whatever hit the Pentagon was not nearly heavy enough to be a 757 as the Bush conspiracy theory claims.




See David Griffin's on-line lecture a brief outline of some of the holes in Bush's story. Griffin has written two books on 9/11.

Mike Ruppert's book, Crossing the Rubicon explains exactly they pulled it off. .


Stanley Hilton, Bob Dole's advisor and lead attorney in the 9/11 victims case says he has both documentary evidence and sworn testimony that Cheney and Bush ordered the 9/11 attack.
All of Bush's cabinet met with Mahmoud, the bankroller of 9/11, in the week prior to 9/11.
No planes scrambled to intercept the hijackers. This is standard procedure. Normally a plane would be in the air within four minutes. Just prior to 9/11 Cheney inserted himself in the highjack command loop. He is the one who ordered them to stand down.
There were all manner of war games in progress on 9/11 some simulating a 9/11 style attack. This deflected most of the airforce out west. It further confused air traffic controllers who had to deal with insertions (fake planes for the war games on their radars). No body was really sure if the attacks were real or part of the game. No cave-dwelling terrorists could have arranged so convenient a distraction. The Pentagon publicly admitted this many times, including when Representative Cynthia McKinney grilled Donald Rumsfeld on C-Span 2005-03-24. transcript.
While every one else was in lockdown on 9/11, Bush got the FBI to arrange private jets to collect the bin Laden family and take them safely out of the USA without interrogation. At that point airspace had been reopened to commercial flights but not private flights.
Kevin R. Ryan, Site Manager, Environmental Health Laboratories, for Underwriter Labs, wrote that the fires in the World Trade buildings were not nearly hot enough to cause the UL-rated steel to fail.
...
Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were busy discussing the Iraq war in the immediate aftermath of 9/11. Why were they so unconcerned about 9/11 unless it were an inside job?

“I expected to go back to a round of meetings [on 2001-09-12], examining what the next attacks could be, what our vulnerabilities were, what we could do about them in the short term. Instead, I walked into a series of discussions about Iraq. At first I was incredulous that we were talking about something other than getting al Qaeda. Then I realised with an almost sharp physical pain that Rumsfeld and Wolfowitz were trying to take advantage of this national tragedy to promote their agenda about Iraq. Since the beginning of the administration, indeed well before, they had been pressing for a war with Iraq. My friends in the Pentagon had been telling me that the word was we would be invading Iraq sometimes in 2002.” ~ Richard A. Clarke, White House Counter Terrorism Chief, Against All Enemies
Excerpted from http://mindprod.com/politics/bush911insidejob.html#INSIDEJOB

But do not trust me, or the person who wrote this article - do your own searches. If I might suggest you search under "Bush crime family" - yesterday over 14 million links came up, most of which were quite profound in the level of accuracy and period of time (about sixty years) covered.

We sit today, hostage to "the decider" who has stood down for 9/11, achieved land reformation equivalent to that of Mugabe through Katrina, and now informs us all that he will decide when to remove the troops from Iraq. Let's just change the name of the White House to the Bush Bada Bing.

The Brushoff

Donald Rumsfeld... will he go on trial in Iraq for war crimes, in Viet Nam, in the Philippines, in South America,...Inquiring minds want to know ..WHEN is it murder, when is what the Americans do checked, or when is it balanced...to commit murder, genocide, torture in the name of a nation AND democracy? When?













The Impeachment Case against George W. Bush - Count 4: Criminal Negligence
by
Vyan
Wed Dec 20, 2006 at 11:25:50 AM PST

In this, the last segment in my series on why George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, Condoleeza Rice and Michael Chertoff must be Impeached, Removed, Indicted, Arrested and Prosecuted for their crimes against the American People - I examine what may be the most devastating charge against these men (and woman), their gross dereliction of duty which has which has directly and indirectly led to the loss of nearly 9,000 American lives.http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/12/20/142551/66


Congress, under this hubris of greed, has turned the USA into Bush Inc, a corporate (criminally negligent) police state controlled by George W. Bush.



Under the U.S. Codes of Misconduct
Every captain, engineer, pilot, or other person employed on any steamboat or vessel, by whose misconduct, negligence, or inattention to his duties on such vessel the life of any person is destroyed, and every owner, charterer, inspector, or other public officer, through whose fraud, neglect, connivance, misconduct, or violation of law the life of any person is destroyed, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than ten years, or both.



The Impeachment Case against George W. Bush - Count 4: Criminal Negligence
by
Vyan

Wed Dec 20, 2006 at 11:25:50 AM PST

In this, the last segment in my series on why George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Alberto Gonzales, Condoleeza Rice and Michael Chertoff must be Impeached, Removed, Indicted, Arrested and Prosecuted for their crimes against the American People - I examine what may be the most devastating charge against these men (and woman), their gross dereliction of duty which has which has directly and indirectly led to the loss of nearly 9,000 American Lives.

The Impeachment Case Against George W. Bush - Count 4 :
Dereliction of Duty and Criminal Negligence. George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Condoleeza Rice, Micheal Chertoff and Donald Rumsfeld did commit a series of inexcusable errors of judgement and failures of leadership amounting to malfeasance, misconduct, dereliction of duty and criminal negligence.
Vyan's diary :

Under the Uniform Code of Military Justice.

"Any person subject to this chapter who—
(3) is derelict in the performance of his duties; shall be punished as a court-martial may direct."
...
Rather than head the warnings provided by Counter-Terrorism Chief Richard Clarke - who called for an urgent NSC Principles meeting on Al-Qaeda on January 25th 2001(PDF) just five days after Bush inaguration - President Bush and his administration did nothing.
...
Yet Clarke was ignored, and found his position downgraded. No longer would he be one of the NSC Principles (key members of the FAA, FBI, CIA and other agencies tasked with national Security issues) and no longer would he have the ability to call a Principles meeting in the case of an emergency. No resources were directed toward dismantling Al-Qeada and no significant policy attention was paid. Not until after September 11th and it made no difference.

Before the 9-11 Commission Condoleeza Rice claimed that she had not been presented a plan to address al-Qaeda.

The January 25, 2001, memo, recently released to the National Security Archive by the National Security Council, bears a declassification stamp of April 7, 2004, one day prior to Rice's testimony before the 9/11 Commission on April 8, 2004. Responding to claims that she ignored the al-Qaeda threat before September 11, Rice stated in a March 22, 2004 Washington Post op-ed, "No al Qaeda plan was turned over to the new administration."
Unfortunately for Rice - the Plan she says she didn't receive was attached the Clarke's Jan 25th Memo and is Right Here.(PDF)

Not only did Rice receive warnings and a plan from Clark, she was also advised that Al-Qaeda would be the "most serious issue" facing the Bush Administration from outgoing National Security Advisor Sandy Berger and even President Clinton himself.

Bush
supporters have attempted to blame Clinton for the lack of response to 9-11. But the record is clear that the responsibility for the bombing of the Cole was not established until after he left office. (What a disaster it would have been for a American President to respond to an attack on America - without first verifying the source of the attack, hmm??)

As was revealed by Bob Woodward, Clarke's memo wasn't the only warning that was ignored.
The CIA'S top counterterrorism officials felt they could have killed Osama Bin Laden in the months before 9/11, but got the "brushoff" when they went to the Bush White House seeking the money and authorization.

CIA Director George Tenet and his counterterrorism head Cofer Black sought an urgent meeting with then-national security adviser Condoleezza Rice on July 10, 2001, writes Bob Woodward in his new book "State of Denial."

They went over top-secret intelligence pointing to an impending attack and "sounded the loudest warning" to the White House of a likely attack on the U.S. by Bin Laden.
Woodward writes that Rice was polite, but, "They felt the brushoff."

Denial is not a river a Egypt, but rather a state of normalacy for a highly dysfunctional, criminally negligent government and the excuses for human beings who claim to lead it.

Thursday, December 28, 2006

Grand Theft Truth

Among the many explosive revelations in Grand Theft Pentagon is a first--hand account from an emissary to Afghanistan of how the Bush administration refused an offer by the Taliban to turn over Osama Bin Laden and his top leadership. They wanted total war instead. First on Afghanistan, then Iraq. In shocking detail, St. Clair unveils how the Bush administration hired a team of marketing and PR executives to sell their fraudulent war claims to a panic--striken public, a complicit congress engorged with arms PAC money and a gullible national press corps. Here you will find scathing portraits of the enablers of this corrupt system---- from George Bush and Donald Rumsfeld, to Senators Ted Stevens and the pseudo--maverick John McCain---- and the war profiteers themselves, from DynCorp (also cited in slave sex trade) and Lockheed (torture contractor) to the devious machinations of the RAND Corp and Magnequench, the missile company that outsourced its work to China.


Grand Theft PentagonTales of Corruption and Profiteering in the War on Terror
By JEFFREY ST. CLAIR
Common Courage Press November 2005360 Pages / $19.95 CLICK HERE TO ORDER.
...
The unelected Grover Norquist nearly has his wish thanks to HAARP and the permanent displacement of over 220,000 human beings in New Orleans. Katrina, the expected, projected hurricane that broke through levees, while the repair money for which had been deliberately and criminally rerouted to Iraq. Like 9/11, Bush KNEW this would happen, and did nothing. Worse, he deliberately rerouted funding for the levees in advance of the storm, knowing the hurricane was predicted. ANYWHERE where there is law, that behavior is criminally negligent.


I fully expect this to be the floral display at the border between Canada and the USA if Stephen Harper is allowed to remain in office. Heck our census is contracted to Lockheed a known torture contractor, and our Canada Pension plan is vested in US military stock.




These are the cretins who would rule us, who stood down for 9/11 and lie, lie lie..

An illegal immoral war and they are debating over whether or not to send more troops. Pardon me...did I say "debating"....Hell NO...one man, one cretin who has been wrong about everything in the past six years since being placed in office, is making the decision.

Can anyone tell me what Americans are defending in Iraq? You cannot give away abroad what you do not have at home.

Come to the Light

American civil rights are now that of citizens of Saudi Arabia, where slavery is still practiced.

http://www.netctr.com/milcommact.html

"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin." -- Samuel Adams



Olbermann: Our freedoms in peril, Beginning of the end of America
"The legislation signed by the President today violates basic principles and values of our constitutional system of government. It allows the government to seize individuals on American soil and detain them indefinitely with no opportunity to challenge their detention in court. And the new law would permit an individual to be convicted on the basis of coerced testimony and even allow someone convicted under these rules to be put to death. The checks and balances of our system of government and the fundamental fairness of the American people and legal system are among our greatest strengths in the fight against terrorism. I am deeply disappointed that Congress enacted this law. We will look back on this day as a stain on our nations history." -- Sen. Russ Feingold (D-Wi) It was more than a stain though, on Tuesday October 17, 2006 Bush signed the Military Commissions Act S.3930 into law. alt link, 6166 link. This day will be forever known as the day America and it's Heritage died. Bush signs law authorizing harsh interrogation.


Additionally, There is a big problem with something called the "Pocket Veto" Pocket Veto wherein the President has only 10 days to sign a bill into law if CONgress is adjourned otherwise it is automatically vetoed. It took 18 days for Bush to sign it into law. Therefore the Act is Null and Void. ?
From the U.S. Constitution Article 1, Section 7: "...If any Bill shall not be returned by the President within ten Days (Sundays excepted) after it shall have been presented to him, the Same shall be a Law, in like Manner as if he had signed it, unless the Congress by their Adjournment prevent its Return, in which Case it shall not be a Law." At this website U.S. Congress Votes Database you will find that the most recent votes in the House and the Senate were on Sept. 29, 2006. President’s Inaction May Equal Pocket Veto on MCAdays to sign bill pocket veto law - Google Search Now, who has the balls to call them on these facts?


Breaking News: In a stealth maneuver, President Bush has signed into law a provision which, according to Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont), will actually encourage the President to declare federal martial law (1). It does so by revising the Insurrection Act, a set of laws that limits the President's ability to deploy troops within the United States. The Insurrection Act (10 U.S.C.331 -335) has historically, along with the Posse Comitatus Act (18 U.S.C.1385), helped to enforce strict prohibitions on military involvement in domestic law enforcement. With one cloaked swipe of his pen, Bush has neutered those prohibitions.
...Bush now has absolute power over all armed troops within the country, a state of affairs which the constitution purposely tried to prevent. The administration’s dream of militarizing the country under the sole authority of the executive has now been achieved although the public still has no idea that a coup that has taken place. Prison planet is not coming, it is Now setup and Here.
It PASSED the House, Senate and was signed. Now anyone (even Americans) for any reason can be labeled a combatant, hauled away and never seen again. It abolishes Habeas corpus, due process, and the presumption of innocence. It is not just "alien combatants," it includes anyone they so designate. No more 4th amendment rights which automatically removes all other rights when you are incarcerated. Speak out too boldly against the many usurpations upon this great land and our inherent and god given liberties and you too can be labeled.



So while the entire history of a barbaric enemy- trading- family named Bush sat in the US national archives, the US mainstream media did not print it or report it on TV.

Yet the world has been subjected to American aggression unparallelled since the times of the blood soaked Christian crusades. Mostly emanating from the paranoid, pious, minds of psychopaths who do anything in the name of winning, and seem to think they are impervious before God and all humanity.

Well I see you and I see the ones who sit silent not speaking the truth. We are growing in numbers daily and we will sit silent no longer. We will surround the White House holding candles, shedding light on this dark evil that has destroyed the country from within.

And, as Etta James sings Honey, "what's done in the dark will come to the light".

Tuesday, December 26, 2006

Remembering Why We Are Here



When things are so desperate in the world, it is easy for me to lose hope. When I start to slide I turn to Mother Earth and Father Sky... often falling asleep to the voice of Clarissa Pinkola Estes whose stories and deep tribal roots help me connect to a time and place that grounds me.

I come away from my time with her, replenished..my flame once again aglow, rather than a flicker.

I believe that Mother Earth and Father Sky speak to us in the voice of each creature who can hear. Estes hears ... . In her own words,

Mis estimados:
Do not lose heart. We were made for these times.
I have heard from so many recently who are deeply and properly bewildered. They are concerned about the state of affairs in our world right now. It is true, one has to have strong cojones and ovarios to withstand much of what passes for "good" in our culture today. Abject disregard of what the soul finds most precious and irreplaceable and the corruption of principled ideals have become, in some large societal arenas, "the new normal," the grotesquerie of the week. It is hard to say which one of the current egregious matters has rocked people's worlds and beliefs more. Ours is a time of almost daily jaw-dropping astonishment and often righteous rage over the latest degradations of what matters most to civilized, visionary people.
…You are right in your assessments. The lustre and hubris some have aspired to while endorsing acts so heinous against children, elders, everyday people, the poor, the unguarded, the helpless, is breathtaking. Yet ... I urge you, ask you, gentle you, to please not spend your spirit dry by bewailing these difficult times. Especially do not lose hope. Most particularly because, the fact is — we were made for these times. Yes. For years, we have been learning, practicing, been in training for and just waiting to meet on this exact plain of engagement. I cannot tell you often enough that we are definitely the leaders we have been waiting for, and that we have been raised since childhood for this time precisely.

…I grew up on the Great Lakes and recognize a seaworthy vessel when I see one. Regarding awakened souls, there have never been more able crafts in the waters than there are right now across the world. And they are fully provisioned and able to signal one another as never before in the history of humankind. I would like to take your hands for a moment and assure you that you are built well for these times. Despite your stints of doubt, your frustrations in arighting all that needs change right now, or even feeling you have lost the map entirely, you are not without resource, you are not alone. Look out over the prow; there are millions of boats of righteous souls on the waters with you. In your deepest bones, you have always known this is so. Even though your veneers may shiver from every wave in this stormy roil, I assure you that the long timbers composing your prow and rudder come from a greater forest. That long-grained lumber is known to withstand storms, to hold together, to hold its own, and to advance, regardless.

…One of the most calming and powerful actions you can do to intervene in a stormy world is to stand up and show your soul. Soul on deck shines like gold in dark times. The light of the soul throws sparks, can send up flares, builds signal fires ... causes proper matters to catch fire. To display the lantern of soul in shadowy times like these — to be fierce and to show mercy toward others, both – are acts of immense bravery and greatest necessity. Struggling souls catch light from other souls who are fully lit and willing to show it. If you would help to calm the tumult, this is one of the strongest things you can do.
…There will always be times in the midst of "success right around the corner, but as yet still unseen" when you feel discouraged. I too have felt despair many times in my life, but I do not keep a chair for it; I will not entertain it. It is not allowed to eat from my plate. The reason is this: In my uttermost bones I know something, as do you. It is that there can be no despair when you remember why you came to Earth, who you serve, and who sent you here. The good words we say and the good deeds we do are not ours: They are the words and deeds of the One who brought us here. In that spirit, I hope you will write this on your wall: When a great ship is in harbor and moored, it is safe, there can be no doubt. But … that is not what great ships are built for.

…This comes with much love and prayer that you remember who you came from, and why you came to this beautiful, needful Earth,
Dr. Estés is a psychoanalyst; Member Hispanic Journalists; Post-trauma specialist, Columbine High School and community, since massacre, 1999-2003; Board member: Author's Guild, New York.
To read more of her articles and learn about her appearances visit her web pages.
Clarissa Pinkola Estés

Sunday, December 24, 2006

Bush Breaks Bank to Wind Up 2006

Gee wouldn't THAT be a breath of fresh air (especially with the record in the National Archives)

« Look Out Below!
The United States is Insolvent

Prepare to be shocked.

The US is insolvent. There is simply no way for our national bills to be paid under current levels of taxation and promised benefits. Our combined federal deficits now total more than 400% of GDP.
That is the conclusion of a recent Treasury/OMB report entitled Financial Report of the United States Government that was quietly slipped out on a Friday (12/15/06), deep in the holiday season, with little fanfare. Sometimes I wonder why the Treasury Department doesn’t just pay somebody to come in at 4:30 am Christmas morning to release the report. Additionally, I’ve yet to read a single account of this report in any of the major news media outlets but that is another matter.

...
In his accompanying statement to the report, David Walker, Comptroller of the US, warmed up his audience by stating that the GAO had found so many significant material deficiencies in the government’s accounting systems that the GAO was “unable to express an opinion” on the financial statements.




Then Walker went on to deliver the really bad news:
Despite improvement in both the fiscal year 2006 reported net operating cost and the cash-based budget deficit, the U.S. government’s total reported liabilities, net social insurance commitments, and other fiscal exposures continue to grow and now total approximately $50 trillion, representing approximately four times the Nation’s total output (GDP) in fiscal year 2006, up from about $20 trillion, or two times GDP in fiscal year 2000.











Perhaps the reason US bonds and the dollar have held up so well is that we are far from alone in our predicament. In a recent article detailing why the UK Pound Sterling may fall, we read this dreadful evidence:
Officially, [UK] public sector net debt stands at £486.7bn. That’s equal to US$953.9bn and represents a little under 38% of annual GDP. Add the state’s “off balance sheet” debt, however – including its pension promises to state-paid employees – and the total shoots nearly three times higher. Research by the Centre for Policy Studies in London says it would put UK government deficits at a staggering 103% of GDP. ...


If we perform the same calculations for the US, however, we find that the official debt stands at $8.507 trillion or 65% of (nominal) GDP but when we add in our “off balance sheet” items the national debt stands at $53 trillion or 403% of GDP. ...

(Left to right, Sam Bush, Prescott Bush George H. W. Bush and George Jr, each a Merchant of Death - each involved in trading with dubious entities and profiting from war).

There is no way to ‘grow out of this problem’. What really jumps out is that the US financial position has deteriorated by over $22 trillion in only 4 years and $4.5 trillion in the last 12 months (see table below, from page 10 of the report). The problem did not ‘get better’ as a result of the excellent economic growth over the past 3 years but rather got worse and is apparently accelerating to the downside.
..
The American people are bankrupted by a corporate war that has increased the wealth of the select few. It is quite frankly, treason.

Who Are These Men?

Men without Honor (65 comments )
READ MORE: Iraq, Radical Right, Saddam Hussein, George W. Bush

"No one can acquire honor by doing what is wrong."- Thomas Jefferson

As the trumpets were blaring and the guns were sounding, I watched Donald Rumsfeld and President Bush on television and wondered anew, "What kind of men are these?" Surely, they must be among the first Americans to be almost devoid of conscience....

What kind of men are these?"

Rumsfeld got it all wrong and still thinks that's all right. He went to war with the army he had and then did not take responsibility for the horror they got. He was a partner in corporate America's giant profits off of the war and it did not bother him as small towns had to take up donations to buy bulletproof vests for their children at war. Rumsfeld sent in his army "light and fast" against an enemy even novices knew was going to be slow and asymmetrical. American troops were scavenging in junk yards for scrap metal to armor-up their Humvees while Rumsfeld assured the president freedom was on the march. Instead, it was stumbling into a hopeless abyss.

...


We now need peacemakers; not more warriors. Yet John McCain comes to us and says the answer is more soldiers, which only means more death. General William Westmoreland consistently was able to convince Lyndon Johnson more troops were the answer to an asymmetrical enemy in Vietnam. But they never were. They were only more kids that did not need to die. Iraq is Vietnam without the trees.
McCain served our country with honor but he is slowly sacrificing it for his craven political ambitions. In South Carolina in 2000, from backstage I watched him stand and confront George W. Bush about the nasty attacks on McCain's mental health, his time in the service, and his personal life. Bush explained it all away with the flip, "It's just politics, John." Eventually, McCain was out on the trail with the man who had lied about his character and his honorable service to America; a man who had found a way to avoid the danger of the combat that had turned McCain into a prisoner of war. How could McCain support such a man? ...
Whenever George W. Bush has had a chance to act on principle and honorably, he has chosen the politically expedient course. While his then congressman father promoted the War in Vietnam for the sons of others, his own son was finding a safe spot in an Air Guard unit in Houston. Dealing with Saddam Hussein, our president had a chance to do what is right and honest but he changed the truth and blamed others so that he might have an excuse to work out his psychological yearnings over his own father and their innate competitiveness. Daddy had an oil company; W. drilled dry holes. Daddy played varsity baseball at Yale; W. became a general manager of a baseball team. Daddy ran for congress, W. ran for governor. Daddy got elected president; W. got reelected president. Daddy chased Saddam out of Kuwait; W. ran him down in Baghdad and today shows the former dictator's pistol to close friends visiting the Oval Office. We are all victims of the Bush family's tortured psychology and the people like Rumsfeld, Powell, and McCain who have been drawn into their dark inner circle.
"What kind of men are these?"
The full text is at:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/men-without-honor_b_36658.html

Friday, December 15, 2006

A Dirty Business

Negroponte's 'Serious Setback'
By Dahr Jamail t r u t h o u t

Perspective
Friday 03 March 2006

John Negroponte, the US National Intelligence Director, provided testimony on Tuesday at a Senate Armed Services Committee hearing on "global threats."
Negroponte, who was the US ambassador to Iraq from June 2004 to April 2005, was immediately promoted to his current position after his presence in Iraq. Ironically, he warned the committee on Tuesday, "If chaos were to descend upon Iraq or the forces of democracy were to be defeated in that country ... this would have implications for the rest of the Middle East region and, indeed, the world."
Warning of the outcome of a possible civil war in Iraq, Negroponte said sectarian civil war in Iraq would be a "serious setback" to the global war on terror. Note - he did not say it would be a "serious setback" to the Iraqi people, over 1,400 of whom have been slaughtered in sectarian violence touched off by the bombing of the Golden Mosque last week in Samarra.
...
Referred to not-so-subtly as "the Salvador option," the January 2005 rhetoric from the Pentagon publicized a proposal that would send Special Forces teams to "advise, support and possibly train " Iraqi squads." Members of these squads would be hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga militia and Shia Badr militiamen used to target Sunni resistance fighters and their sympathizers.
What better man to make this happen than John Negroponte? His experience made him the perfect guy for the job. What a nice coincidence that he just happened to be in Baghdad when the Pentagon/Rumsfeld were discussing "the Salvador option."
Fast forward to present day Iraq, which is a situation described by the Washington Post in this way: "Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday - blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound."
If we briefly review the political history of John Negroponte, we find a man who has had a career bent toward generating civilian death and widespread human rights abuses, and promoting sectarian and ethnic violence.
Remember when Negroponte was the US ambassador to Honduras, from 1981 to 1985? While there he earned the distinction of being accused of widespread human rights violations by the Honduras Commission on Human Rights while he worked as "a tough cold warrior who enthusiastically carried out President Ronald Reagan's strategy," according to cables sent between Negroponte and Washington during his tenure there.
The human rights violations carried out by Negroponte were described as "systematic."
These violations Negroponte oversaw in Honduras were carried out by operatives trained by the CIA. Records document his "special intelligence units," better known as "death squads," comprised of CIA-trained Honduran armed units which kidnapped, tortured and killed hundreds of people. Victims also included US missionaries (similar to Christian Peacemaker Teams in Iraq) who happened to witness many of the atrocities.

Negroponte had full knowledge of these activities, while he made sure US military aid to Honduras increased from $4 million to $77.4 million a year during his tenure, and the tiny country became so jammed with US soldiers it was dubbed the "USS Honduras."
It is also important to remember that Negroponte oversaw construction of the air base where Nicaraguan Contras were trained by the US. This air base, El Aguacate, was also used as a secret detention and torture center during his time in Honduras.
While Negroponte was the US ambassador to Honduras, civilian deaths sky-rocketed into the tens of thousands. During his first full year, the local newspapers carried no less than 318 stories of extra-judicial attacks by the military.
He has been described as an "old fashioned imperialist" and got his start during the Vietnam War in the CIA's Phoenix program, which assassinated some 40,000 Vietnamese "subversives."
Negroponte's death squads used electric shock and suffocation devices in interrogations, kept their prisoners naked, and when a prisoner was no longer useful he was brutally executed.

Outraged at the human rights abuses by the Reagan-Bush administration, in 1984 Nicaragua took its case to the World Court in The Hague. The decision of the court was for the Reagan-Bush administration to terminate its "unlawful use of force" in international terrorism and pay substantial reparations to the victims. The White House responded by brushing off the court's findings and vetoed two UN Security Council resolutions that affirmed the judgment that all states must observe international law.

In the middle of Negroponte's tenure in Iraq, the Pentagon (read Donald Rumsfeld) openly considered using assassination and kidnapping teams there, led by the Special Forces.
Referred to not-so-subtly as "the Salvador option," the January 2005 rhetoric from the Pentagon publicized a proposal that would send Special Forces teams to "advise, support and possibly train" Iraqi "squads." Members of these squads would be hand-picked Kurdish Peshmerga militia and Shia Badr militiamen used to target Sunni resistance fighters and their sympathizers.

What better man to make this happen than John Negroponte? His experience made him the perfect guy for the job. What a nice coincidence that he just happened to be in Baghdad when the Pentagon/Rumsfeld were discussing "the Salvador option."
Fast forward to present day Iraq, which is a situation described by the Washington Post in this way: "Hundreds of unclaimed dead lay at the morgue at midday Monday - blood-caked men who had been shot, knifed, garroted or apparently suffocated by the plastic bags still over their heads. Many of the bodies were sprawled with their hands still bound."
The Independent newspaper from London recently reports that hundreds of Iraqis each month are tortured to death or executed by death squads working out of the Shia-run Ministry of Interior.
During the aforementioned committee hearing, Negroponte said that the US is concerned about the purchasing of arms by Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez. Negroponte accused Chavez of using funds generated from the sale of oil to purchase weaponry, saying, "It's clear that he is spending hundreds of millions, if not more, for his very extravagant foreign policy at the expense of the impoverished Venezuelan population."

Coincidentally, on the exact same day he said this, the US State Department announced that the only new rebuilding money in its latest budget request for Iraq is for prisons.
With no other big building projects scheduled for Iraq in the next year, the State Department coordinator for Iraq is asking Congress for $100 million for prisons, while the Iraqi people languish with 3.2 hours of electricity daily in the average home, staggering unemployment and horrendous security, with most still dependent upon a monthly food ration.

Meanwhile John Pace, the Human Rights Chief for the UN Assistance Mission in Iraq until last month, recently stated that he believes the US has violated the Geneva Conventions in Iraq and is fueling the violence via raiding Iraqi homes and detaining thousands of innocent Iraqis. Pace estimates that between 80-90% of Iraqi detainees are innocent.

During an interview on Democracy Now!, when asked to described the role of the militias in Iraq, Pace said "they first started as a kind of militia, sort of organized armed groups, which were the military wing of various factions. And they have - they had a considerable role to play in the [security] vacuum that was created by the invasion."

He went on to describe their actions: "So you have these militias now with police gear and under police insignia basically carrying out an agenda which really is not in the interest of the country as a whole. They have roadblocks in Baghdad and other areas, they would kidnap other people. They have been very closely linked with numerous mass executions ..."
Pace, when asked if there were death squads in Iraq, replied, "I would say yes, there are death squads," and "my observations would confirm that at least at a certain point last year and in 2005, we saw numerous instances where the behavior of death squads was very similar, uncannily similar to that we had observed in other countries, including El Salvador."
What we're witnessing in Iraq now with these death squads and escalating sectarian violence is the product of policies implemented by Negroponte when he was the US Ambassador in Iraq.
But let us remove the covert operations factor for a moment.
For over a year now, Shia death squads have been killing Sunni en masse.
Thus, at first glance, the bombing of the Golden Mosque last week as Sunni retaliation makes sense.
However, what doesn't make sense is the immediate showing of solidarity between Shia and Sunni clerics following the bombing.
Let us now reinsert the covert operations factor into this equation.
Along with the showing of religious solidarity, there is widespread belief by Shiite religious clerics both in and outside Iraq, as well as belief in the Arab media, that US covert operations were behind the bombing:
Shiite Cleric Muqtada Al Sadr blamed the United States occupation for the current violence. He recently stated, "My message to the Iraqi people is to stand united and bonded, and not to fall into the Western trap. The West is trying to divide the Iraqi people. As God is my witness, I hereby demand an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of the occupation forces from Iraq."
In another interview, Sadr stated, "We say that the occupiers are responsible for such crisis [Golden Mosque bombing] ... there is only one enemy. The occupier."

Adel Abdul Mehdi, the Iraqi Vice President, held the American Ambassador [Zalmay Khalilzad] responsible for the bombing of the Golden Mosque, "especially since occupation forces did not comply with curfew orders imposed by the Iraqi government."
He added, "Evidence indicates that the occupation may be trying to undermine and weaken the Iraqi government."

At a major demonstration in Beirut, prominent Lebanese Shiite cleric and Secretary General of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, said America and Israel are to blame for the sectarian divisions in Iraq, claiming that the violence will offer further justifications for maintaining the occupation of Iraq.

According to the Saudi-based Arab News editorial, a civil-war scenario may serve the interests of the Bush administration: "This may in the end be what Washington wants, because if Iraq plunges into chaos, it could be the Bush ticket out of the Iraq debacle, albeit paid for in rivers of Iraqi blood as well the utter humiliation of the president's administration and its neo-con agenda."

Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, the Supreme Leader of Iran, urged Iraqi Shia not to seek revenge against Sunni Muslims, saying there were definite plots "to force the Shia to attack the mosques and other properties respected by the Sunni," and blamed the intelligence services of the US and Israel for being responsible for the bombing of the Golden Mosque.
Hoseyn Shari'atmadarit wrote in the Keyhan newspaper of Iran on February 25 of several instances of documented covert operations carried out by occupation forces in Iraq, including: "In Shahrivar two British intelligence officers were arrested [in September 2005] at an inspection post while carrying a considerable amount of explosives, detonators and other equipment necessary to build a bomb. This event certainly shows the direct involvement of the English intelligence service in the bombings in Iraq ... The commander of the English military deployed in Basra [then] issued an order to attack the police centre and release two English saboteurs."
In the recent committee meeting, Negroponte told US senators he was seeing progress in Iraq. He said, "And if we continue to make that kind of progress, yes, we can win in Iraq."
Evidently the kind of progress John Negroponte sees in Iraq is not the kind that benefits the Iraqi people. Because the only progress in Iraq, apart from building prisons, is for the situation to continue growing progressively worse by deepening sectarian divides, despite the best efforts of religious leaders to create peace and unity.
Would civil war in Iraq be a "serious setback" for John Negroponte? Because the sectarian violence happening in Iraq right now is already a "serious setback" for the Iraqi people.
Thus, does Negroponte really care if there is civil war? Does he really concern himself with the wellbeing of the Iraqi people? Or is his main concern creating the catastrophe which keeps them divided?
Weary of the overall failure of the US media to accurately report on the realities of the war in Iraq for the Iraqi people and US soldiers, Dahr Jamail went to Iraq to report on the war himself. Dahr has spent a total of 8 months in occupied Iraq as one of only a few independent US journalists in the country. To read more of his reporting from Iraq go to http://www.dahrjamailiraq.com/.

...
Indeed, the civil war and death squads in Iraq are the signature of Negroponte and a gaggle of other US pimps, politicians and prevaricators who operate above the law.


Telling Iraq to pull itself together as long as the Bush administration is in office is like trying to tap dance while the person ordering you to stop dancing is shooting at your feet.


It is however typical of an administration where over the past sixty years deceit is equated to decency and entitlement is somehow not evil.

When psychopaths can operate unelected and totally above the law, is it any wonder our Western countries are hated for their hypocrisy? It seems to me Robert Baer, a former CIA officer who was based in the Middle East, nailed it when Bush declared a "war on terror"... Baer said, "What are we going to do shoot ourselves in the head?"

Indeed, a grade five student could search out the history of the Bush family and the CIA and find that trading with the enemy is more the norm than not. Intelligence agencies ARE a dirty business and many of us are beginning to wonder just whose side THEY are on. If anything they appear to be working for criminal corporate interests to the detriment of the country.
Think about it, ...Bush has done nothing but lie to the American people and the world, and now (thanks to a criminal congress) holds us hostage to his marginal decision making capability. Democracy truly is dead.

Honouring The Royal Rumsfeld

Representative Cynthia McKinney Grills Rumsfeld On Dyncorp Sex Rings, Missing Pentagon Trillions & 9/11 Wargames
C-Span March 24, 2005

Rumseld and Myers forced to shuffle uncomfortably and fumble for words as McKinney gets in their face about three issues seldom mentioned in official circles.
From a reader: Here is a Video of Representative Cynthia McKinney's Exchange on the House Hearing on FY06 Dept. of Defense Budget, March 11th, 2005.
Watch how McKinney asks questions about Dyncorp slave rings, the 3 trillion missing from the pentagon and the 911 wargames.

http://www.infowars.com/articles/us/mckinney_grills_rumsfeld.htm

This is the mob- owned court that placed the criminals playing president and vice-president, busy bilking the public coffers and gutting the consititution

Every appointment by this criminal administration should be rescinded.







Narcissistic psychopathy at its zenith

The Royal Rumsfeld, who like the Royal family of England, and the Bush family, is above the the law.


I wonder if anyone realizes these idiots could have paid each Iraqi a million bucks and walked into Iraq for $35 Million.

Nice job yur majesty - I guess you will join George Tenet, former CIA director who received the medal of freedom for the greatest stand down in history.

AND, with Gates at the helm it will be just like old Iran Contra times eh! Proving crime not only pays, it is above the law.

Cry Freedom - Bugger Off Bush!

McKinney Calls for Impeachment

"President George W. Bush has failed to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States; he has failed to ensure that senior members of his administration do the same; and he has betrayed the trust of the American people," Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney explained in remarks prepared to accompany her submission on Friday of articles of impeachment against Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.




McKinney, in her last legislative act before leaving the House at the end of her current term, represented not merely a final thrust by the Georgia Democrat against the Bush administration that she has so consistently opposed but a challenge to the new House Democratic leadership to pay more than lip service to its Constitutionally-mandated duty to check and balance the executive branch.
"With a heavy heart and in the deepest spirit of patriotism, I exercise my duty and responsibility to speak truthfully about what is before us," continued McKinney, according to a copy of her remarks distributed by the Atlanta Progressive News network. "To shy away from this responsibility would be easier. But I have not been one to travel the easy road. I believe in this country, and in the power of our democracy. I feel the steely conviction of one who will not let the country I love descend into shame; for the fabric of our democracy is at stake. Some will call this a partisan vendetta, others will say this is an unimportant distraction to the plans of the incoming Congress. But this is not about political gamesmanship. I am not willing to put any political party before my principles. This, instead, is about beginning the long road back to regaining the high standards of truth and democracy upon which our great country was founded."

...
McKinney's move ought not be casually discounted. As a legislative veteran whose service at the state and federal levels goes back almost 20 years, she well understands that the coming investigations of administration wrongdoing could well put impeachment back on the table. ...



Democrats who, while they may currently be honoring their leadership's calls for caution on the issue, fully recognize that the president and vice president need to be held to account for their disregard of the rule of law and their Constitutionally-defined responsibilities. Remember that McKinney, who lost a primary runoff earlier this year, was just one of 38 members of the House who cosponsored a resolution submitted last year by Congressman John Conyers, the Michigan Democrat who will take charge of the Judiciary Committee in January, to create "a select committee to investigate the Administration's intent to go to war before congressional authorization, manipulation of pre-war intelligence, encouraging and countenancing torture, retaliating against critics, and to make recommendations regarding grounds for possible impeachment." ...



McKinney speaks, as well, for the 51 percent of Americans who, according to a Newsweek Poll conducted on the eve of the November 7 election, expressed support for impeachment of the president. In that poll, 47 percent of Democrats said that impeachment should be a "top priority" of their party if it took control of the House, as did an intriguing 5 percent of Republicans.
A measure of the pro-impeachment sentiment will be on display this weekend, as activists rally in dozens of communities across the country to express support for sanctioning the president with the Constitutional remedy provided by the founders.
McKinney's impeachment resolution, the last legislation she will introduce as a House member, echoes the concerns that have underpinned the movement to impeach the president and members of his administration: allegations that the White House manipulated intelligence to convince members of Congress and the American people to support going to war in Iraq, the president's approval of an illegal warrantless wiretapping program, seizure of powers and failures to cooperate with Congressional investigations.
Perhaps more importantly, McKinney made clear in the statement she prepared for the Congressional Record that she was concerned not only with presidential wrongdoing but with congressional inaction.
A failure to uphold the delicate system of checks and balances that was put in place by the founders does not occur in isolation. Just as the executive branch pushes the envelope in exceeding its authority, so the Congress must at least to some extent allow the envelope to be pushed.
As a departing member of Congress, McKinney is perhaps freer than most to criticize the House as a whole, and she is doing so with appropriate sternness.
"We have a President who has misgoverned and a Congress that has refused to hold him accountable. It is a grave situation and I believe the stakes for our country are high," read the congresswoman's prepared remarks, which will appear in the Congressional Record next week. "No American is above the law, and if we allow a President to violate, at the most basic and fundamental level, the trust of the people and then continue to govern, without a process for holding him accountable, what does that say about our commitment to the truth? To the Constitution? To our democracy?"
McKinney's answer is an appeal to the people who Thomas Jefferson correctly identified as "the safest depository of the ultimate powers of government."
"To my fellow Americans," declared McKinney, "as I leave this Congress, it is in your hands to hold your representatives accountable, and to show those with the courage to stand for what is right, that they do not stand alone."
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John Nichols' new book, THE GENIUS OF IMPEACHMENT: The Founders' Cure for Royalism has been hailed by author Gore Vidal as "essential reading for patriots." David Swanson, co-founder of the AfterDowningStreet.org coalition, says: "With The Genius of Impeachment, John Nichols has produced a masterpiece that should be required reading in every high school and college in the United States." Studs Terkel says: "Never within my nonagenarian memory has the case for impeachment of Bush and his equally crooked confederates been so clearly and fervently offered as John Nichols has done in this book. They are after all our public SERVANTS who have rifled our savings, bled our young, and challenged our sanity. As Tom Paine said 200 years ago to another George, a royal tramp: 'Bugger off!' So should we say today. John Nichols has given us the history, the language and the arguments we will need to do so."

The Genius of Impeachment can be found at independent bookstores and at www.amazon.