Comment: This is an example of how "go for the jugular" the disinfo can be.
This is a WorldNetDaily printer-friendly version of the article which follows. To view this item online, visit http://www.worldnetdaily.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=41073
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
The media matrix
Posted: October 26, 20041:00 a.m. EasternEditor's note: This groundbreaking expose of the "mainstream press" by WND Managing Editor David Kupelian was published originally in the October 2004 edition of Whistleblower magazine, an issue titled "POISON PRESS."
By David Kupelian
© 2000 WorldNetDaily.com-->© 2004 WorldNetDaily.com
When Ronald Reagan finally slipped away from this earthly life in June, most Americans were swept up in the week-long memorial, full of poignancy and praise, eulogies and processions, stories and jokes – all sustained by a deep wellspring of love for the 40th president.
Joining in the pageantry were all of the familiar stars of the news media. With "Hail to the Chief" trumpeting in the background, they memorialized Reagan's paramount role in ending the Cold War, his revitalization of America's stagnant economy after Carter's "malaise," his rekindling of Americans' faith in their country and its enduring values. And they took obvious pride in sharing stories of their personal experiences with "the Gipper."
It continued all week. Gushing references to the "Great Communicator," the "shining city on a hill," "morning in America" and "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down that wall" flowed effortlessly from silver-tongued media orators echoing the deepest sentiments of the vast majority of Americans.
Yes, the big media loved Reagan in death. Just as they reviled and mocked him in life.
Here's what these same media icons were saying just a few short years ago, at the end of Reagan's second term as president:
"I predict historians are going to be totally baffled by how the American people fell in love with [Ronald Reagan] and followed him the way we did." – CBS News reporter Lesley Stahl, Jan. 11, 1989
"... Ronald Reagan presided over a meltdown of the federal government during the last eight years. Fundamental management was abandoned in favor of rhetoric and imagery. A cynical disregard for the art of government led to wide-scale abuse." – CBS News reporter Terence Smith, in the November 4, 1989, New York Times
"On behalf of [the Nicaraguan Contras'] cause, Reagan sold out his oath of office and subverted the Constitution. Oliver North presented himself as the immortal boy in the heroic green uniform of Peter Pan. Although wishing to be seen as a humble patriot, the colonel's testimony showed him to be a treacherous and lying agent of the national security state, willing to do anything asked of him by a president to whom he granted the powers of an oriental despot." – PBS series "America's Century," narrated by Harper's Editor Lewis Lapham, Nov. 28, 1989
"A hundred years from now – long after Ronald Reagan has been lumped with other ineffectual Dr. Feelgoods like William McKinley and Calvin Coolidge who swam with the tide of their times – the last fourth of the 20th century will be remembered for the demise of imperial communism, and the Soviet Union's president will be remembered for both making and letting it happen." – Boston Globe Washington reporter and columnist Tom Oliphant
"Ronald Reagan and Madonna. On the surface, he stood for the fundamental American values that she parodied. But underneath, they conveyed the same Horatio Alger myth: Self-image over reality. Say it or sing it enough, and any dream of yourself might come true, at least in the public's perception." – U.S. News & World Report Senior Editor Donald Baer
"The '80s were the years of excess. We swaggered through the portals and grabbed as much as we could. We were greedy and gluttonous. As long as we wore starched shirts, we could belch at the dinner table. And Ronald Reagan led us." – USA Today's Debbie Howlett on page 1, Nov. 27, 1989
"The decade had its highs (Gorbachev, Bird) ... and the decade had its lows (Reagan, AIDS)" – Boston Globe headlines over '80s reviews by the paper's columnists, Dec. 28, 1989
"Reagan, AIDS"? Whoa, hit the pause button.
The mainstream press hated Reagan, his values, his policies, and his influence on the nation. The nation, meanwhile, loved Reagan. What does this tell us?
It tells us the so-called "mainstream press" is radically out of the mainstream.
But this article is not about how the press is too "biased" or "liberal" or "left-wing." That's old news – very old. Every objective study for the past three decades has proven conclusively the profound bias that is obvious to everyone, except maybe Dan Rather and a few others.
No, the scary fact is that the media – both news and entertainment – are literally the creators and sustainers of what most of us perceive as reality, very much like the malevolent computer program in "The Matrix" film trilogy.
In "The Matrix," humans are born into a slave state in which what they think of as reality is actually a powerful computer-generated virtual-reality program. They live in constant and deep delusion. Without realizing it, these humans have been reduced to the lowest form of servitude, their life energies literally sucked out of them to fuel the insatiable needs of their rulers.
"Wait a minute," you're probably thinking. "I know the media are biased and out of touch with the mainstream. But what's this 'Matrix' stuff? You're losing me."
Ready to swallow the red pill?
Remember in the "Matrix" story when the hero, a young man named Neo, meets Morpheus for the first time? Morpheus is the leader of the tiny remnant of rebels who know the truth about the matrix and are fighting to free mankind from its enslavers ...
Morpheus: Let me tell you why you're here. You're here because you know something. What you know, you can't explain. But you feel it. You felt it your entire life. That there's something wrong with the world. You don't know what it is, but it's there. Like a splinter in your mind – driving you mad. It is this feeling that has brought you to me. Do you know what I'm talking about?
Neo: The matrix?
Morpheus: Do you want to know what it is? (Neo nods his head.) The matrix is everywhere, it is all around us. Even now, in this very room. You can see it when you look out your window, or when you turn on your television. You can feel it when you go to work, or when you go to church or when you pay your taxes. It is the world that has been pulled over your eyes to blind you from the truth.
Neo: What truth?
Morpheus: That you are a slave, Neo. Like everyone else, you were born into bondage, born inside a prison that you cannot smell, taste, or touch. A prison for your mind. (long pause, sighs) Unfortunately, no one can be told what the matrix is – you have to see it for yourself. This is your last chance. After this, there is no turning back. (In his left hand, Morpheus shows a blue pill.) You take the blue pill and the story ends. You awake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. (A red pill is shown in his other hand.) You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit-hole goes. (Long pause; Neo begins to reach for the red pill.) Remember – all I am offering is the truth, nothing more.
(Neo takes the red pill and swallows it with a glass of water.)
'A prison for your mind'
Everyone has heard a little bit about mass manipulation, mind control, brainwashing, suggestion, hypnosis and Pavlovian conditioning – the scary stuff of far-off communist operatives, religious cults and movie thrillers like "The Manchurian Candidate." It pops up in the news now and then, as when the Symbionese Liberation Army kidnapped and brainwashed Patricia ("I am Tanya") Hearst, or more recently in "Stockholm Syndrome" cases, where terrified hostages come to sympathize, and in some cases actually fall in love, with the very terrorists threatening their lives.
Nevertheless, we're never quite sure how much of this mind-control stuff is objectively real, and how much is just psychobabble or science fiction. Right?
Let me help you out here. It's not only real – it's the fabric of our lives.
To demonstrate the real-life matrix programming we consider our reality, let's momentarily set aside the news media and focus on one of the most stunning and audacious real-life matrix programs currently running. I'm referring to what we call "evolution."
In the days prior to the evolution matrix program – that is, from the beginning of human life until Darwin came along in the mid-19th century – human beings would step outside their homes and survey with their eyes and minds the wonders of nature. They'd see majestic 400-year-old redwood trees, hummingbirds that were able to hover, and honeybees that somehow knew how to do a special figure-eight dance that would communicate to all of the other worker bees the precise location of the dancer's newly discovered nectar source.
Looking in every direction, we humans beheld not only fantastic complexity, diversity and order, but also the supreme intelligence behind creation, as brashly evident as the noonday sun.
This ubiquitous natural wonderland caused man to acknowledge and honor the Creator of creation, as Copernicus did when he wrote, "[The world] has been built for us by the Best and Most Orderly Workman of all." Or as Galileo wrote, "God is known ... by Nature in His works and by doctrine in His revealed word." Or as Pasteur confessed, "The more I study nature, the more I stand amazed at the work of the Creator." Or Isaac Newton: "When I look at the solar system, I see the earth at the right distance from the sun to receive the proper amounts of heat and light. This did not happen by chance."
Did not happen by chance?
Ever since Darwin and his successors succeeded in loading the evolution matrix program on mankind – a fantastic theory for which there is no proof, and many serious problems – when we now walk outside and look at the created universe, what do many of us see? Chance!
Although our eyes survey the same wonders of God's creation that inspired faith in our predecessors, in our minds today we see only the meaningless result of millions of years of random, chance mutation. That's what our minds "see" – the eternal dance of purposeless recombination of ever-more-complex forms, but all without meaning, without spirit, without love. And by direct implication we also "see" that man is not a fallen being needful of God's saving grace, but merely the cleverest, most evolved animal of all. Since evolution by definition always results in improvement and advancement, man and all of his violent and lustful and selfish drives are perfectly normal and natural and … advanced. There is no good and evil, no Heaven and Hell – and man, as a highly evolved monkey, has no sin and no guilt – as these are logical impossibilities from the evolutionary point of view.
OK, get the idea? And that's just one matrix program.
Our eyes, our senses, work just fine. But we've been lied to so thoroughly, consistently and convincingly that we no longer perceive the meaning of what we see, nor understand what we hear.
Now that we're clear on what I mean by real-life "matrix programs," let's turn our attention to the news media and examine some of the interesting programs currently running.
Matrix program: Kerry should be president
"Let's talk about media bias here. The media, I think, want Kerry to win."
That's Newsweek's Evan Thomas candidly admitting the obvious on PBS's "Inside Washington." In fact, during the Democratic convention, New York Times columnist John Tierney asked 153 journalists whether they thought John Kerry or George W. Bush would make a "better president." Reporters from outside the beltway favored Kerry 3 to 1, while the approximately 50 Washington-based journalists polled favored Kerry over Bush by a stunning 12-to-1 margin!
This bias, of course, reached absurd levels recently when Dan Rather and CBS News pathetically stonewalled the entire world – even the rest of the "mainstream media" – arrogantly defending the obviously bogus documents Rather and "60 Minutes" had featured for the intended purpose of bringing down a U.S. president.
But that was just the time they got caught. What about the other thousands of news stories that form the fabric of confusion, cover-up and deceit that passes for "political analysis" in the establishment press?
The net result of this syndrome, as regards the 2004 election, is that somehow the truth about John Kerry never takes root in the public mind. And thus is the nation betrayed.
Let's unplug the Kerry matrix program for a few minutes and look with real eyes at the man who would be commander in chief:
Kerry says he believes human life begins at conception, but he supports unrestricted abortion on demand up until the very moment of birth, opposes bans on the horrific partial-birth abortion procedure, and opposes parental-notification laws.
Kerry says he wants to balance the budget, but he has opposed a balanced-budget amendment five times.
Kerry says he'll cut taxes on "working people," but has a long record of supporting tax increases and opposing tax cuts.
Kerry says he'll make a "stronger America" and will win the war on terror, but he is profoundly anti-military, having voted for at least seven major reductions in defense and military spending.
Kerry says he opposes same-sex marriage – but he was one of only 14 senators to vote against the Defense Of Marriage Act, which was signed into law by President Clinton.
These impossible contradictions are all easily and objectively provable – they're Kerry's Senate voting record – and yet, the public doesn't know them. Because the press, which wants Kerry to win, won't report it so it sinks in.
Kerry has made his four-month tour of duty in Vietnam the centerpiece of his campaign, but the best-selling book "Unfit for Command," giving voice to dozens of decorated Vietnam vets that served alongside Kerry, paints a grotesquely disturbing picture of a budding sociopath.
Kerry's Vietnam colleagues overwhelmingly portray him, as columnist David Limbaugh summarizes, "as a ruthless, self-promoting egomaniac who systematically placed his own interests above his fellow soldiers and who was obsessively involved in building his resume at all costs during the entirety of his short tour in Vietnam." Author John O'Neill, Limbaugh adds, "depicts Kerry – with mountains of documented evidence – as a pathological, unconscionable liar whose penchant for dishonesty in Vietnam was only exceeded by his brutal, unmitigated slander of his fellow soldiers when he rushed stateside to lobby against them, their superiors and the entire military establishment."
In sum, John Kerry is a dangerous fraud, whose election as president would cause unfathomable human suffering and national harm.
So, where are the media? Same place they were when Bill Clinton was trading sensitive weapons technology to the Communist Chinese in return for campaign contributions, when they learned he was having a sexual affair in the Oval Office with a woman barely older than his own daughter, when a credible allegation of forcible rape was made public, when he was subverting America's intelligence capability which later allowed 9-11 to happen, when he committed outrage after impeachable outrage right under the media's noses. The press looked the other way.
You see, corruption and even criminality on the part of a candidate don't matter with the establishment media nearly as much as that candidate's support for legalized abortion on demand, the activist homosexual agenda and the rest of the secular, big-government agenda.
Indeed, the press today share none of the concern and skepticism the Founding Fathers had over government. Rather, the media – and because of them a good deal of the population – have come to look to government as the primary problem-solvers. This is simply because the more God diminishes in our lives, the more government has to rise to take His place. As William Penn said, "Men must be governed by God or they will be ruled by tyrants."
Thus, the media tend always to favor the Democratic Party and big-government solutions to all problems precisely because God isn't real to them. Please don't tell me some of them "go to church" or that this one's "a Catholic" or some other nonsense. I'm saying that when people have a real, moment-to-moment relationship – with "fear and trembling," as the Good Book says – with the Living God, they do not look to government to solve all of their problems.
One detrimental result of having such a subversive press is that it generates a low-grade hypnotic effect on the president and other leaders. Put yourself in the president's place: You're basically always surrounded by the press corps – professional on the surface, but secretly hostile to you and, in fact, hostile to the foundational values underlying Western Civilization. They're watching every move you make, recording every word that comes out of your month, looking for ways to undermine you. Remember – they want Kerry to win.
Clearly, this dynamic exerts a powerful subconscious pressure on the president (and other leaders) to please the media, and thus to bow to the agenda the media champion. After all, the media determine what much of the public will see, hear and think about the issues of the day, and about the president himself. Any president obviously wants the public to approve of him and what he's doing (not to mention getting re-elected), and this depends to a significant extent on his being portrayed favorably by the press. Thus, there is a constant and powerful pressure on elected leaders to bend, to compromise their principles, and to betray the public trust, fearing that not to do so will result in disastrously negative media coverage, and their ultimate defeat.
Why did George W. Bush come up with a budget-busting prescription drug benefit program before the 2000 election? Because Al Gore had promised a budget-busting prescription drug benefit program and the media made the public feel that any candidate that didn't offer a prescription drug benefit program hated old people and shouldn't be president. Honest reporting would have relieved Bush of the election-year pressure to mirror Gore's vote-buying giveaway promises.
In short, politicians always have the temptation to abandon their principles and fall to corruption in any of a thousand ways. The media, if they were doing their job, would not only keep politicians honest through watchdog reporting, but would also reduce leaders' temptation to stray from the Constitution by not making evil and corruption look so reasonable and attractive, and not making the Constitution and biblical principles look so unfair and mean-spirited.
OK, it gets much worse. Let's follow the trail down the rabbit-hole and see how deep it goes.
Matrix program: Abortion is a basic human right
It is because of the news media that abortion destroys 1.3 million little human lives in America every year. Most members of the establishment press want abortion to be legal, and that's why it's legal.
If you doubt my placing the blame squarely on the news media, let's review exactly how abortion became a "constitutional right" in America in the first place.
Here's how one of the pioneers of the abortion-rights movement and co-founder of the pro-abortion vanguard group NARAL, Bernard Nathanson, M.D., describes how he and his comrades used the willing news media to implement their radical agenda.
It was Nathanson who made up the original abortion-rights slogans in the early '70s, which remain virtual articles of faith for today's "pro-choice" movement: "Freedom of choice" and "Women must have control over their own bodies."
"I remember laughing when we made those slogans up," recalls Nathanson, reminiscing about the early days of the abortion-rights movement in the late '60s and early '70s. "We were looking for some sexy, catchy slogans to capture public opinion. They were very cynical slogans then, just as all of these slogans today are very, very cynical."
"In 1968 I met Lawrence Lader," says Nathanson. "Lader had just finished a book called 'Abortion,' and in it had made the audacious demand that abortion should be legalized throughout the country. I had just finished a residency in obstetrics and gynecology and was impressed with the number of women who were coming into our clinics, wards and hospitals suffering from illegal, infected, botched abortions.
"Lader and I were perfect for each other. We sat down and plotted out the organization now known as NARAL. With Betty Friedan, we set up this organization and began working on the strategy."
"We persuaded the media that the cause of permissive abortion was a liberal, enlightened, sophisticated one," recalls the movement's co-founder. "Knowing that if a true poll were taken, we would be soundly defeated, we simply fabricated the results of fictional polls. We announced to the media that we had taken polls and that 60 percent of Americans were in favor of permissive abortion. This is the tactic of the self-fulfilling lie. Few people care to be in the minority. We aroused enough sympathy to sell our program of permissive abortion by fabricating the number of illegal abortions done annually in the U.S. The actual figure was approaching 100,000, but the figure we gave to the media repeatedly was 1,000,000.
"Repeating the big lie often enough convinces the public. The number of women dying from illegal abortions was around 200-250 annually. The figure we constantly fed to the media was 10,000. These false figures took root in the consciousness of Americans, convincing many that we needed to crack the abortion law.
"Another myth we fed to the public through the media was that legalizing abortion would only mean that the abortions taking place illegally would then be done legally. In fact, of course, abortion is now being used as a primary method of birth control in the U.S. and the annual number of abortions has increased by 1,500 percent since legalization."
'We captured the media'
In New York, the law outlawing abortion had been on the books for 140 years. "In two years of work, we at NARAL struck that law down," says Nathanson. "We lobbied the legislature, we captured the media, we spent money on public relations ... Our first year's budget was $7,500. Of that, $5,000 was allotted to a public relations firm to persuade the media of the correctness of our position. That was in 1969."
New York immediately became the abortion capital for the eastern half of the United States.
"We were inundated with applicants for abortion," says Nathanson. "To that end, I set up a clinic, the Center for Reproductive and Sexual Health (C.R.A.S.H.), which operated in the east side of Manhattan. It had 10 operating rooms, 35 doctors, 85 nurses. It operated seven days a week, from 8 a.m. to midnight. We did 120 abortions every day in that clinic. At the end of the two years that I was the director, we had done 60,000 abortions. I myself, with my own hands, have done 5,000 abortions. I have supervised another 10,000 that residents have done under my direction. So I have 75,000 abortions in my life."
Wondrously and ironically, over time Nathanson became convinced of the humanity of the unborn baby and ultimately left the abortion movement. He later wrote "Aborting America" and "The Abortion Papers" and produced two movies – "The Silent Scream" and later "Eclipse of Reason" – which captured actual abortions on film. Today, Nathanson is committed to the cause of ending legalized abortion in America.
However, the news media he manipulated into embracing legalized abortion are still under its spell.
What do you think would happen if today's news media were to report accurately, objectively and courageously on abortion – as the New York Times did in the 1870s? What if reporters and editors cut through the high-flying rhetoric of "civil rights" and "constitutional freedom" and "women's health" and brought the issue down to little, perfectly formed human babies – 3,000 of them every single day, the same number of people as perished on 9-11 – being painfully ripped apart, suctioned, chemically burned, dismembered or decapitated? What if the press diligently reported on the proven and devastating physical and psychological effects abortion has on women, including the increased risk of breast cancer? What if the press actually broadcast pictures or video of abortions?
What if the press reported – not just once, equivocally and in subdued tones, as it is prone to do with facts it doesn't like but feels compelled to report – but aggressively and relentlessly, with saturation coverage, as the New York Times did day after day this year with dozens upon dozens of front-page stories on the Abu Grahib prison scandal?
Can there be any doubt as to the result? The abortion matrix program would be unplugged. Americans would see the truth once again, and the realization of the horror of abortion would seep into, and eventually permeate, the public consciousness, as it did for centuries before this generation. Abortion would not only become illegal once again, but would widely be recognized as grossly immoral and criminal.
Matrix program: Israeli 'Goliath' threatens Arab 'David'
One of the most spectacular virtual-reality mass illusions in the world today – reinforced constantly by the news media – is the widely held perception that, in the never-ending Arab-Israeli conflict, Israel is the evil aggressor "Goliath" threatening the righteous but powerless Arab "David."
How is this possible? Israel, a sliver of a country the size of New Jersey, is surrounded by 22 Arab nations with vastly more population, land, wealth, armies and oil. Israel has been attacked by its Arab neighbors five times in all-out wars of intended annihilation – the first war coming one day after Israel's 1948 founding! To this day, Israel is obligated to continue defending itself against a perpetual state of war declared by hostile neighbor nations openly sworn to destroy it – as well as constant terrorist attacks on innocent civilians by jihadist suicide bombers.
To regard the tiny Jewish state as the aggressor in the Arab-Israeli conflict, then, is delusional. It's like putting a 7-year-old in the ring with a heavyweight boxer and seeing the adult boxer as the underdog and the child as the bully.
Here's how this illusion is accomplished: Arab leaders, many of whom have from the start vowed to eliminate the Jewish state from the Middle East, have conspired to attain by guile and deceit what their militaries could not accomplish through repeated wars of aggression: They cultivated a campaign to establish a "Palestinian state" – directly on top of a vanquished Israel.
The Palestinian cause is a modern-day myth, broadcast and reinforced endlessly by the news media. The "Palestinian state" is the Trojan Horse of the Arab world, designed to get inside Israel by way of deception and promises of peace. The Palestinian leadership doesn't want peace with Israel; it wants Israel.
Like the Palestinian leadership, the other leaders of the Arab world care nothing for the Arab people who call themselves "Palestinians" – they care only for the destruction of Israel they hope the Palestinian cause will ultimately bring. As President Jimmy Carter confessed at a 1979 press conference, "I have never met an Arab leader that in private professed a desire for an independent Palestinian state. Publicly, they all espouse an independent Palestinian state ..."
Let's pull on just one thread in the fabric of the "Palestinian cause" and see what happens.
Remember the "martyrdom" death of 12-year-old Mohammed al-Dura?
The entire world was horrified as news broadcasts played the sensational video footage over and over again of the Palestinian boy being shot on Sept. 30, 2000, apparently by Israeli forces, dying pitifully in his father's arms.
Heart-wrenching photos of the father and son in death's grip became immortalized in posters that were plastered up and down the streets of the West Bank and Gaza, inspiring many a youthful suicide bomber to join Mohammed in "martyr's" paradise. He became the poster boy and rallying cry of the bloody intifada, which claimed hundreds of lives.
Although the Israeli military initially assumed responsibility for the incident, it soon became apparent that the Israel Defense Force could not have shot the boy, due to a large barrier between the Israeli military outpost across the remote junction in Gaza and the position of the boy and his father.
Finally, an in-depth investigation concluded that the al-Dura affair was actually a piece of Palestinian street theater, similar to the dramatic Palestinian funeral processions that were observed after the Israeli incursion into the Jenin refugee camp. During that public spectacle, a martyred "corpse" twice fell off the stretcher, only to hop back up and retake his place in the procession. (The Palestinians had claimed 3,000 deaths in Jenin – the actual toll turned out to be 52.)
It turns out many Palestinians were "playing to the camera" on the day Mohammed al-Dura was "martyred." Israeli commentator Amnon Lord's account of the larger scene at Netzarim Junction when the boy was supposedly shot to death describes "incongruous battle scenes complete with wounded combatants and screeching ambulances played out in front of an audience of laughing onlookers, while makeshift movie directors do retakes of botched scenes."
Palestinian journalist Sami El Soudi echoes Lord's observation, revealing that:
... almost all Palestinian directors take part more or less voluntarily in these war commissions, under the official pretext that we should use all possible means, including trickery and fabulation, to fight against the tanks and airplanes the enemy has and we don't ... Our official press reported 300 wounded and dead at Netzarim junction the day when Mohammed was supposedly killed. Most of the cameramen there were Palestinians ... They willingly took part in the masquerade, filming fictional scenes, believing they were doing it out of patriotism. When a scene was well done the onlookers laughed and applauded.
"It is incredible," says French journalist Gerard Huber,
how many people were calmly filming the battle of Netzarim on September 30th, 2000. Not only professionals – some of them standing no more than 10 meters away from the al-Dura incident – but amateurs as well.
The rushes [video clips] are full of surprising incongruities: Children smile as ambulances go by. A 'wounded' Palestinian collapses and two seconds later an ambulance pulls up to take him to the hospital. It looks as if the driver had been cued in, knew in advance where the Palestinian was going to fall, or was waiting in the upper right hand corner just out of the photographic field ready to zoom in on signal.
Street theatre. The Mohammed al-Dura story – which rather than documenting Israeli brutality toward Palestinians, shows instead the Arab propaganda machine being enabled, magnified and laundered by the "mainstream press" – is but one story.
There are hundreds and hundreds of similar shabby episodes – from the "Jenin massacre" to the "murder" of Rachel Corrie – that together create and reinforce this preposterous virtual-reality illusion of Israel as the aggressor.
The truth is, the Palestinian cause is itself a giant piece of street theatre, just as the separate scenes – Mohammed al-Dura's "martyrdom," children being told they'll go to heaven if they commit mass murder, Yasser Arafat pretending to seek peace with Israel (in English) while simultaneously urging violent jihad (in Arabic) – are the little charade pieces that comprise the whole.
It takes an incredible amount of effort and energy on the part of the news media to maintain such an obviously outrageous suspension of reality.
But what would happen if the press reported accurately, objectively and courageously on the Middle East conflict? Media reports would reflect, truthfully, that Israel is a Western democracy surrounded by dozens of backwards, lying, terror-supporting Arab police states dedicated to Israel's annihilation. They'd show that Nobel Peace Prize winner Yasser Arafat is the father of modern terrorism. They'd show that the so-called "Palestinian problem" was cynically created for the precise purpose of eliminating the Jewish state by deception. The media would reveal that the Palestinian leadership is not now, nor has it ever been, interested in a separate Palestinian state next to Israel, but rather, in taking over all of Israel.
"Well, what about the West Bank?" you say. "Doesn't that belong rightfully to the Palestinians?"
When did it belong to the Palestinians? Before 1967, when Israel seized it in an unprovoked war of intended annihilation launched by neighboring Arab nations, the "West Bank" was part of Jordan. So, whence comes this idea that it belonged to the "Palestinians"? It's a myth, a lie – a matrix program – created in the Arab Middle East, and presented endlessly by the Western press as though it were reality.
"OK, OK. So you're picking out a few horror stories where the media got it wrong. What's the point?"
They're not horror stories. They're normal. They are the very fabric of the daily news coverage churned out by today's journalism organizations.
"The Arab-Israeli conflict." "Gay rights." "Abortion rights." "Gun control." "Hate crimes." "Separation of church and state." "The terror war." These are all virtual-reality constructs, sophisticated marketing products composed of lies and truth seamlessly sewn together. Poke at them a little and they burst – spilling out the half-truths, emotionalized "reasoning," marketing slogans, distortions and audacious, bald-faced lies that comprise a mind-numbing web of deceit. Whatever the focus, today's so-called "mainstream" news coverage is rooted in powerfully propagandistic impulses and results in a web of matrix-induced delusions – which most of us think of as "the real world."
So, how to break out? Let me first tell you how not to break out. With anger.
Being angry at life will only serve to lock you more deeply into the matrix programming. Oh, you may think you're moving away from the matrix at light-speed, but you're not. You're just logging on to the alternate program that's been prepared for people like you. An angry rebel is not free.
Alternate matrix program: For rebels against 'mainstream press'
"This [9-11 terror] was all planned. This was a government-ordered operation. Bush personally signed the order. He personally authorized the attacks. He is guilty of treason and mass murder."
Those are the words of attorney Stanley Hilton, who claims he is representing 400 family members of 9-11 victims in a $7 billion lawsuit against the federal government.
Here's what Hilton said recently on the Alex Jones radio show:
Yeah, we are suing Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Mueller, etc. for complicity in personally not only allowing 9-11 to happen, but in ordering it. The hijackers, we retained, and we had a witness who is married to one of them. The hijackers were U.S. undercover agents. They were double agents, paid by the FBI and the CIA to spy on Arab groups in this country. They were controlled. Their landlord was an FBI informant in San Diego and other places. And this was a direct, covert operation, ordered, personally ordered by George W. Bush. Personally ordered.
We have incriminating evidence, documents as well as witnesses, to this effect. It's not just incompetence – in spite of the fact that he is incompetent. The fact is, he personally ordered this, knew about it. He, at one point, there were rehearsals of this. The reason why he appeared to be uninterested and nonchalant on September 11th – when those videos showed that Andrew Card whispered in his ear ... [as] he listened to kids reading the pet goat story, is that he thought this was another rehearsal. These people had dress-rehearsed this many times. He had seen simulated videos of this.
You get the idea.
There are many people who believe this dark conspiracy theory, despite its outrageous claims and total lack of evidence.
Do you know why the "Big Lie" is much more believable than the small lie, as Hitler so correctly observed? Because the "Big Lie" is shocking. And shock does something to people – it disturbs their normal logical processes. It emotionalizes them, which Hitler recognized was the key to controlling people. The "Big Lie" is both upsetting and strangely exciting. It plays on people's doubts and hidden resentments – and thus, it mysteriously feeds their ego, imparting a sense of growth.
You're especially vulnerable to the "Big Lie" type of matrix program if it can induce in you a bit of doubt. For instance, this lawyer, Stanley Hilton, reportedly used to be an aide to Sen. Bob Dole.
"Gosh, he represents all these 9-11 family members, and he used to work for Bob Dole! And Dole ran for president! Maybe there is something to this!"
If a bit of doubt can worm its way into your mind, that doubt will make you emotional. And once you're upset and emotionally off-balance, you're suggestible. And that means you're ripe to start believing things you wouldn't and couldn't have believed five minutes before.
Who would want to believe such an extraordinarily evil interpretation of reality, especially without evidence? Well, people who are extremely angry at the government.
For such people, it's emotionally exciting to believe President Bush consciously and intentionally ordered the 9-11 terror attacks. It's like a drug-induced high – you are one of the few Americans who actually possess the secret truth about 9-11 that the masses don't have.
Furthermore, when you're high on the idea that the president consciously and intentionally ordered the 9-11 terror attacks, your mind is aglow with self-righteous judgment. Whatever dim consciousness, guilt or anxiety you might have had previously regarding your own very real faults, is long gone. You are a "true believer." You see yourself as a righteous patriot, and the president and his consorts as evil incarnate – and that makes for a pretty powerful ego trip on your part.
This delusion, like the other matrix-induced beliefs, affects the way you see everything else in life. If Bush was behind the 9-11 attacks, then all the other people close to him also knew, and therefore are all supremely evil and equally guilty. By the same token, people who support the president are stupid fools, and the government is worthy of violent overthrow at any cost according to this view. People who disagree with you are somnambulistic idiots, and those who agree with you are patriots and brothers.
You're totally swept up in the matrix, while believing you're plugged into hardcore truth.
The real matrix
In truth, the news media, just like the entertainment media, politicians, the government school system, cultural leaders – in short, the "authority" class the average person looks up to as experts and role models – are themselves just pawns in a great cosmic game of deception. In a very real sense, they're also caught up in, and subject to, a "matrix program" that's been running, not only during this generation or for the past century, but for as long as man has been around.
And this real-world matrix is every bit as powerful, consuming and seemingly inescapable as that in the science-fiction thriller.
The problem, dear reader, is that the real "matrix" of deception in this world, of which the news media are only pathetic channels, is the dark spiritual dimension that "waits upon" the human race to tempt, ensnare, deceive and otherwise prevent any mortal from finding the Kingdom of Heaven.
Almost every one of us, from the time we're born, is conditioned by parents, family, friends, teachers, employers and the larger culture to become something we're not. With the promise of reward and the threat of punishment, through intimidation, seduction, cruelty, phony kindness, and endless other ways of appealing to the various hidden weaknesses in all of us, our lives are shaped by others.
In some parts of the Muslim world, children are heartlessly bred and nurtured for their highest purpose – attaching explosives to their beautiful bodies and blowing themselves up while they take with them as many innocent human lives as possible, in the insane belief they are thereby earning their way into heaven.
The thoughts and feelings and beliefs of these Muslim youngsters are not their own thoughts and feelings and beliefs. They have been cruelly injected into them, by means of the same sorts of brainwashing techniques that have been used to change loyalties of prisoners of war, or by cult leaders like Charles Manson and Jim Jones. Powerful emotions of hatred, false love, appeals to pride, lying philosophies of what God's will really is and how to please Him, and always – the brainwasher's best ally in this conversion process – the victim's own lower nature. What Christianity calls our "pride" and psychology calls "ego" is full of weaknesses that can easily be exploited.
So, the Palestinian child's desire for glory and his mortal fear of shaming his family –remember, this is a culture that literally revolves around pride and shame, rather than right and wrong – can be played like a musical instrument by a skillful practitioner. Whether you call it programming, mind control, brainwashing or hypnosis, you must admit that whatever it is, it must be very strong to induce a young person to overcome his or her own natural desire to live, to avoid pain, to have a family, to be happy.
Now, don't think for a minute this dynamic occurs only in far-off lands. It goes on right here in the good ol' U.S. of A., in your state, in your county – indeed, in your home.
Pick a behavior – say, body piercing. Do you really think millions of people independently arrived at the idea that it's a good idea to bore holes in multiple parts of their bodies and imbed metal objects there? Or is it more likely a bizarre case of mass suggestion we sugarcoat by calling it a "fashion trend"?
If you're unable to see, or even sense or suspect, your own conditioning, that means – at least for the present – you're totally consumed by it. Very simply, you're not yourself. If you are a more conscious and sincere person – introspective and honest enough to see your own flaws and how they got there – then you can break out of the matrix.
The problem is, we have a powerful component of our nature that does not want to face reality. Indeed, it could be argued that we have a dark tendency to manufacture our own matrix constantly, specially customized to "protect us" from the Truth that would set us free. Why? Because to become truly free as a child of God, living in His light, means we must "die" to the life of pride. And to many people, that is a deal-killer. No wonder the deceptions of the media are so believable.
To rise above the programming of evil – to receive God's moment-to-moment re-programming in our soul, to have the light of His life streaming through our consciousness and to act from that – requires that we face ourselves.
As the Good Book says, "Be still, and know that I am God" (Psalm 46:10). With all the religious practices we engage in, thinking we're following or praising God, we somehow manage to forget the one thing most needful:
We need to learn to be still, calm, sincere and objective. We need a willingness to stand naked in the Light and repent of our sins.
Jesus said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32). The most important truth we can confront is also the hardest. That is, we need to realize that we have been deceived, that we don't really have what we thought we had, that we're more messed up than we thought, that the "love" we thought we had wasn't real love, that some cherished beliefs we had were ill-founded. Indeed, we may well have wasted most of our lives going in the wrong direction.
But it's OK, it really is. We're not condemned for realizing the truth. We're blessed. And just beyond that pain of realization, there is great hope and joy. Because if we become truly conscious of ourselves, our matrix "programming," our sins both obvious and subtle – which is possible only if we're close to our Creator and Redeemer – there is freedom just around the corner. The inner-connectedness to Truth that we've always searched for, and that is hidden so well by the "matrix" illusion-makers of this world, is waiting for us patiently.
We love fantasy stories like "The Matrix," "The Lord of the Rings" and "The Chronicles of Narnia." But these stories, despite the powerful strain of truth in them, were hatched in the mind of man. The story we ourselves are characters in, however, has been conceived in the mind of God. I'm talking about the real world in which we live, a world where good is more good and evil is more evil than in any of these spectacular fantasy stories. And our story is even full of magic and miracles. (How can an acorn become a tree? If that isn't magic, then nothing is.)
Life is real. It doesn't have to be lived in a deceitful matrix program. We can live in God's light always. The Creator of the universe can – and still does – impart His insight and revelation and life directly to His children.
It takes courage to break out of the matrix. It takes guts to sit still, alone – just ourselves and God.
Words are not necessary at this moment. God knows our hearts, and what we need before we ask.
As the brilliant 17th-century scientist, mathematician and philosopher Blaise Pascal put it: "All human evil comes from a single cause, man's inability to sit still in a room."
We need to do the most painful and difficult thing in all of life – which is to stand still and allow the anxiety of our wrong way of life to catch up with us. Don't run away. Feel what you feel, see what you see, observe everything, but react to nothing – all with a wordless cry to God directly from your soul: Help me. Hang on to your faith that regardless of what problems, sin and corruption you see lurking inside, God can and will help you, if you'll be faithful and watch. And somewhere, through that obedient stillness, from beyond time and space will come real understanding, and new "programming" from another dimension, called Grace.
Editor's note: "The media matrix" by David Kupelian was published originally in "POISON PRESS," the October 2004 edition of WorldNetDaily's popular monthly Whistleblower magazine.
Subscribe to Whistleblower and receive 12 powerful monthly issues, starting with "POISON PRESS."
David Kupelian is vice president and managing editor of WorldNetDaily.com and Whistleblower magazine.
Wednesday, October 27, 2004
Cops of the World?-by Kate Raphael
« A tragedy has happened in Iraq | Main | Hello From Baghdad- By Victoria Cunningham »
January 28, 2004
Cops of the World?-by Kate Raphael
Today was a rather strange day. Every day I have been here, there has been
at least one incident in which U.S. soldiers were killed. Yesterday, there
were two. Today,planes and helicopters circled overhead much of the day.
We visited a children's hospital, where the director of medicine explained
that their biggest problem, more than lack of supplies (which they have, but
they also get lots of international donations) is lack of access to updated
information and training. The internet would help them immeasurably, but
the Ministry of Health has not managed to get them connected. The other big
problem, we learned from Tuna of the Nurses and Doctors Care Organization,
is that both nurses and doctors are paid so little, that there is no
incentive for people to choose the professions. Nurses, we were told,
during the Saddam regime made $1 a month. So there is a big nursing
shortage and a lack of training.
After that, we headed to the police station to report the things that had
been stolen on the road. Of course, there will be no chance of recovering
the things, but people need a report for their insurance claims. As we
entered, we met two U.S. policemen who are here on a contract with Dyncorp
(it took me a while to get to that, they kept insisting they were working
for the State Department), to train Iraqi police in internal affairs. The
whole encounter with them, as well as our interview with the police chief
and the head of internal affairs, who are both long-term veterans of the
regime police force, was quite interesting. One of them, who is from
Chesapeake, Virginia, near where I am from originally, almost convinced some
members of the group that we should hire an armed escort (Kurdish
mercenaries) for the trip back to the border. Paola from Occupation Watch
says that nothing would make us more of a target than an armed convoy, which
I am inclined to believe. We have not consensed on what to do with that
advice yet, but I think we are unlikely to do it.
The police chief told us, not that surprisingly, that rape hardly ever
happens. He seemed to fear that we had a misconception that rape was
particularly common here. I explained that no, we also talk to U.S. police
departments about their handling of reports of rape, because women
everywhere are afraid to report it. Rape under the old laws was punishable
by the death penalty, but in his 32 years of policing, he only took two
reports of rape and neither of the perpetrators was convicted. So he does
not know of anyone actually executed for it. On the other hand, he
described to us in rather gruesome detail the public executions of
prostitutes, which he has witnessed.
The internal affairs guy told us that he believes it is the policy of the
President of the United States to attract everyone who wants to commit
attacks ("terrorists") into Iraq, so they only have one place to worry
about. In other word, he says, the highest levels of the U.S. government
wants this to be a long-term war zone. For this reason, he says, the
borders are not controlled. I don't know if he is right, but it is
certainly true that the borders are not controlled, which is quite
surprising. It took us, as I previously mentioned, three hours to cross out
of Jordan and not five minutes to cross into Iraq.
On our way out, I asked the police chief one question I had not thought to
ask in the meeting. "Andchum internet?" (I am learning to sub "ch" for "k"
because people understand me much better that way.) Do you have the
internet? He said they expect to have it within a week. I mentioned this
to other delegation members at lunch. So the hospitals cannot get it, but
of course the police get a majority of the money that the U.S. is sending
for "reconstruction." They are also hoping for new jails, new checkpoints,
all the other things Bush and cronies love to fund. But I think that is not
the whole problem. It is also because everything is being done by contract,
so Dyncorp is running everything having to do with security, while another
company may be working with the Ministry of Health (doubtless Vencor or
someone) and they probably don't even know that the police are about to get
the internet. Whereas if one authority was overseeing the whole
reconstruction, then presumably they could hook up all the departments of
the government at once.
Back in the van, Jodie told us the most shocking piece of news, which may or
may not be true.
One of the Americans had confided to her that he had just watched a group of
police line 12 prostitutes up against the wall and beat them. They then
took them out into a yard, tied them with electrical cords, and gave them
electric shocks, after which they shot them. Van told her that he was not
able to convince the police that there was anything wrong with this
behavior, and that was why he had come to meet with the chief.
My mouth dropped open. I said, "Are you telling me that Iraqi police just
massacred 12 women, and a U.S. policeman stood and watched them?" Yes, she
said, he said he didn't have their trust to be able to stop it.
We are trying to figure out ways to substantiate this story, because it is
huge to us. Later in the afternoon, we were meeting with two amazingly
articulate women from the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq. Jodie
told them the story and asked what they thought. Yanar Mohammed, who runs
the organization, said that her past experience is that prostitutes are not
considered people, and so yes, she said, she believes the story.
Yesterday, I mentioned many of the similarities between this occupation and
the one I know so well in Palestine. Today, I was struck most by the vast
differences. We need a very different approach here. Even Yanar and
Sawsan, who are with the Workers Communist Party and have a great radical
vision (Yanar outlined four goals for the short term future, the first of
which is "share the wealth"), said, "We cannot call for the Americans to
leave with no substitution. There needs to be some form of peacekeepers,
without a political agenda they will impose on us." I know that many of you
are opposed to "internationalizing the occupation," and I often would be
too, but I have not heard one Iraqi say that they favor all international
troops leaving their country. The situation is much more complicated than I
can hope to understand in a week.
***
Kate Raphael has recently been kicked out of Palestine and is now on a 7-day
delegation to Baghdad organized by CodePink and Occupation Watch. The group
is investigating the status of women under occupation.
Posted by Victoria Cunningham at January 28, 2004 01:03 AM | TrackBack
January 28, 2004
Cops of the World?-by Kate Raphael
Today was a rather strange day. Every day I have been here, there has been
at least one incident in which U.S. soldiers were killed. Yesterday, there
were two. Today,planes and helicopters circled overhead much of the day.
We visited a children's hospital, where the director of medicine explained
that their biggest problem, more than lack of supplies (which they have, but
they also get lots of international donations) is lack of access to updated
information and training. The internet would help them immeasurably, but
the Ministry of Health has not managed to get them connected. The other big
problem, we learned from Tuna of the Nurses and Doctors Care Organization,
is that both nurses and doctors are paid so little, that there is no
incentive for people to choose the professions. Nurses, we were told,
during the Saddam regime made $1 a month. So there is a big nursing
shortage and a lack of training.
After that, we headed to the police station to report the things that had
been stolen on the road. Of course, there will be no chance of recovering
the things, but people need a report for their insurance claims. As we
entered, we met two U.S. policemen who are here on a contract with Dyncorp
(it took me a while to get to that, they kept insisting they were working
for the State Department), to train Iraqi police in internal affairs. The
whole encounter with them, as well as our interview with the police chief
and the head of internal affairs, who are both long-term veterans of the
regime police force, was quite interesting. One of them, who is from
Chesapeake, Virginia, near where I am from originally, almost convinced some
members of the group that we should hire an armed escort (Kurdish
mercenaries) for the trip back to the border. Paola from Occupation Watch
says that nothing would make us more of a target than an armed convoy, which
I am inclined to believe. We have not consensed on what to do with that
advice yet, but I think we are unlikely to do it.
The police chief told us, not that surprisingly, that rape hardly ever
happens. He seemed to fear that we had a misconception that rape was
particularly common here. I explained that no, we also talk to U.S. police
departments about their handling of reports of rape, because women
everywhere are afraid to report it. Rape under the old laws was punishable
by the death penalty, but in his 32 years of policing, he only took two
reports of rape and neither of the perpetrators was convicted. So he does
not know of anyone actually executed for it. On the other hand, he
described to us in rather gruesome detail the public executions of
prostitutes, which he has witnessed.
The internal affairs guy told us that he believes it is the policy of the
President of the United States to attract everyone who wants to commit
attacks ("terrorists") into Iraq, so they only have one place to worry
about. In other word, he says, the highest levels of the U.S. government
wants this to be a long-term war zone. For this reason, he says, the
borders are not controlled. I don't know if he is right, but it is
certainly true that the borders are not controlled, which is quite
surprising. It took us, as I previously mentioned, three hours to cross out
of Jordan and not five minutes to cross into Iraq.
On our way out, I asked the police chief one question I had not thought to
ask in the meeting. "Andchum internet?" (I am learning to sub "ch" for "k"
because people understand me much better that way.) Do you have the
internet? He said they expect to have it within a week. I mentioned this
to other delegation members at lunch. So the hospitals cannot get it, but
of course the police get a majority of the money that the U.S. is sending
for "reconstruction." They are also hoping for new jails, new checkpoints,
all the other things Bush and cronies love to fund. But I think that is not
the whole problem. It is also because everything is being done by contract,
so Dyncorp is running everything having to do with security, while another
company may be working with the Ministry of Health (doubtless Vencor or
someone) and they probably don't even know that the police are about to get
the internet. Whereas if one authority was overseeing the whole
reconstruction, then presumably they could hook up all the departments of
the government at once.
Back in the van, Jodie told us the most shocking piece of news, which may or
may not be true.
One of the Americans had confided to her that he had just watched a group of
police line 12 prostitutes up against the wall and beat them. They then
took them out into a yard, tied them with electrical cords, and gave them
electric shocks, after which they shot them. Van told her that he was not
able to convince the police that there was anything wrong with this
behavior, and that was why he had come to meet with the chief.
My mouth dropped open. I said, "Are you telling me that Iraqi police just
massacred 12 women, and a U.S. policeman stood and watched them?" Yes, she
said, he said he didn't have their trust to be able to stop it.
We are trying to figure out ways to substantiate this story, because it is
huge to us. Later in the afternoon, we were meeting with two amazingly
articulate women from the Organization for Women's Freedom in Iraq. Jodie
told them the story and asked what they thought. Yanar Mohammed, who runs
the organization, said that her past experience is that prostitutes are not
considered people, and so yes, she said, she believes the story.
Yesterday, I mentioned many of the similarities between this occupation and
the one I know so well in Palestine. Today, I was struck most by the vast
differences. We need a very different approach here. Even Yanar and
Sawsan, who are with the Workers Communist Party and have a great radical
vision (Yanar outlined four goals for the short term future, the first of
which is "share the wealth"), said, "We cannot call for the Americans to
leave with no substitution. There needs to be some form of peacekeepers,
without a political agenda they will impose on us." I know that many of you
are opposed to "internationalizing the occupation," and I often would be
too, but I have not heard one Iraqi say that they favor all international
troops leaving their country. The situation is much more complicated than I
can hope to understand in a week.
***
Kate Raphael has recently been kicked out of Palestine and is now on a 7-day
delegation to Baghdad organized by CodePink and Occupation Watch. The group
is investigating the status of women under occupation.
Posted by Victoria Cunningham at January 28, 2004 01:03 AM | TrackBack
Respected Leaders and Families Launch 911 Truth Statement Demanding Deeper Investigation into the Events of 9/11
911 Truth Statment
Respected Leaders and Families Launch 911 Truth Statement Demanding Deeper Investigation into the Events of 9/11
NEW YORK CITY, NY (Oct. 26, 2004) – An alliance of 100 prominent Americans and 40 family members of those killed on 9/11 today announced the release of the 911 Truth Statement, a call for immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur. The Statement supports an August 31st Zogby poll that found nearly 50% of New Yorkers believe the government had foreknowledge and “consciously failed to act,” with 66% wanting a new 9/11 investigation.
Focusing on twelve questions, the Statement highlights areas of incriminating evidence that were either inadequately explored or ignored by the Kean Commission, ranging from insider trading and hijacker funding to foreign government forewarnings and inactive defenses around the Pentagon. The Statement asks for four actions: an immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Congressional hearings, media analysis, and the formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.
The Statement’s list of signatories includes notables spanning the political spectrum, from Presidential candidates Ralph Nader, Michael Badnarik, and David Cobb to Catherine Austin Fitts, a member of the first Bush administration, as well as Washington veterans like Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern. Other signers range from peace activists like Code Pink president Jodie Evans and Global Exchange’s Kevin Danaher to retired lieutenant colonel Dr. Robert Bowman; from environmentalists like Randy Hayes and John Robbins to business leaders such as Paul Hawken and Karl Schwartz, CEO of Patmos Nanotechnologies; from populist journalist Ronnie Dugger to renowned investigative reporter Kelly Patricia O’Meara. The statement includes 43 noted authors, including New York Times #1 bestseller John Gray, as well as 18 eminent professors, historians, and theologians. Other notables include five-term Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, singers Michelle Shocked and Michael Franti, and actors Ed Asner and Mimi Kennedy.
The Statement was facilitated by 911truth.org, a leading coalition. The organization has also announced a press conference outside of Eliot Spitzer’s Manhattan office (corner of Cedar and Nassau) at 2:00PM on Thursday, Oct. 28th where 9/11 family members and victim group representatives will file a formal complaint demanding the first criminal investigation of 9/11 events by the New York Attorney General.
The Statement We Want Real Answers About 9/11
On August 31, 2004, Zogby International, the official North American political polling agency for Reuters, released a poll that found nearly half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of those in New York state believe US leaders had foreknowledge of impending 9/11 attacks and “consciously failed” to act. Of the New York City residents, 66% called for a new probe of unanswered questions by Congress or the New York Attorney General.
In connection with this news, we have assembled 100 notable Americans and 40 family members of those who died to sign this 9/11 Statement, which calls for immediate public attention to unanswered questions that suggest that people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.
We want truthful answers to questions such as:
Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?
Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack?
Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the schoolchildren?
Why hasn’t a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
Why haven't authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results of multiple investigations into trading that strongly suggested foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of traceable gains?
Why has Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator who claims to have knowledge of advance warnings, been publicly silenced with a gag order requested by Attorney General Ashcroft and granted by a Bush-appointed judge?
How could Flight 77, which reportedly hit the Pentagon, have flown back towards Washington D.C. for 40 minutes without being detected by the FAA’s radar or the even superior radar possessed by the US military?
How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants, and flight schools they were known to frequent?
What happened to the over 20 documented warnings given our government by 14 foreign intelligence agencies or heads of state?
Why did the Bush administration cover up the fact that the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency was in Washington the week of 9/11 and reportedly had $100,000 wired to Mohamed Atta, considered the ringleader of the hijackers?
Why did the 911 Commission fail to address most of the questions posed by the families of the victims, in addition to almost all of the questions posed here?
Why was Philip Zelikow chosen to be the Executive Director of the ostensibly independent 911 Commission although he had co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice?
Those who are demanding deeper inquiry now number in the hundreds of thousands, including a former member of the first Bush administration, a retired Air Force colonel, a European parliamentarian, families of the victims, highly respected authors, investigative journalists, peace and justice leaders, former Pentagon staff, and the National Green Party.
As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:
An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.
Given the importance of the coming election, we feel it is imperative that these questions be addressed publicly, honestly, and rigorously so that Americans may exercise their democratic rights with full awareness.
In closing, we pray and hope for the strength to approach this subject with wisdom and compassion so that we may heal from the wounds inflicted on that terrible day.
Note: All organizations are mentioned for identification purposes only. Individuals have signed this statement as an act of their own conscience, not to signify organizational endorsement.
Signed,
Virginia Deane Abernethy, Ph.D., anthropologist, author, Population Politics
Ed Asner, actor, activist
Marshall Auerback, international portfolio strategist for David W. Tice & Associates, Inc.
Catherine Austin Fitts, Asst. Secretary of Housing in the first Bush administration
Keidi Obi Awadu, aka The Conscious Rasta, talk show host, LIBRadio
Michael Badnarik, Libertarian candidate for President
Byron Belitsos, publisher, Origin Press, author Planetary Democracy
Philip J. Berg, Esquire, former deputy attorney general, Pennsylvania
Medea Benjamin, activist, author, co-founder, Global Exchange and Code Pink
Dennis Bernstein, investigative reporter, radio host of KPFA’s Flashpoints
Carolyn Betts, ex-partner, Washington D.C. law firm Brownstein and Zeidman, specialist in cases involving US Govt.
Steve Bhaerman aka Swami Beyondananda, author, political comedian
Brad Blanton, Ph.D., psychotherapist, author, Radical Honesty
Saniel Bonder, spiritual teacher and author, Great Relief
Dr. Robert Bowman, USAF Lt. Col. (Rtd.), founder, Institute for Space and Security Studies
John Buchanan, author, candidate for the Republican Party Presidential nomination, 2004
Gray Brechin, Ph.D., author, environmental historian, professor, UC Berkeley
Fred Burks, presidential interpreter for Bush, Clinton, Cheney, and Gore
Mariana Caplan, Ph.D., author, professor of psychology and religion
Norma Carr-Rufino, Ph.D., author, professor of management, San Francisco State University
Angana Chatterji, Ph.D., scholar-activist and professor of anthropology
Paul Cienfuegos, co-founder, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County
David Cobb, attorney, national presidential candidate, US Green Party
John Cobb, Ph.D., theologian, co-author, For the Common Good
Ernest Callenbach, founder/editor, Film Quarterly, author, Ecotopia
Kevin Danaher, Ph.D., author, speaker, co-founder, Global Exchange
Stephen Dinan, author, Radical Spirit
Bill Doyle, advocate for 9/11 families, father of Joseph Doyle, Cantor Fitzgerald employee
Ronnie Dugger, journalist/author, co-founder, Alliance for Democracy
Daniel Ellsberg, author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
Jodie Evans, president, Code Pink
Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University
Michael Franti, musician, filmmaker, human rights worker
Jim Garrison, Ph.D., president, State of the World Forum, author, America as Empire
Bruce Gagnon, Chair, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Ric Giardina, author, consultant, speaker, former Director of Trademarks and Brands for Intel
John Gray, Ph.D., #1 bestselling author, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
Stan Goff, 25-year Army Special Ops veteran, author, Full Spectrum Disorder
Morton Goulder, Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter
David Ray Griffin, Ph.D., theologian, author, New Pearl Harbor
Doris "Granny D" Haddock, campaign finance crusader, NH Democratic candidate for Senate
Thom Hartmann, radio host; author, Unequal Protection
Richie Havens, singer, songwriter, performer, artist
Paul Hawken, bestselling author, environmentalist, entrepreneur, founder of Smith & Hawken
Randy Hayes, founder, Rainforest Action Network, US National Director, Direction Conservation
Richard Heinberg, author, The Party's Over, core faculty, New College of California
Kyle Hence, co-founder of 9/11 CitizensWatch, organizer of 9/11 Citizens' Commission
Van Jones, executive director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Rob Kall, editor, OpEdNews.com, president, Futurehealth, Inc.
Georgia Kelly, executive director, Praxis Peace Institute
Sean Kelly, Ph.D., author, professor of philosophy and religion, CA Institute of Integral Studies
John Joseph Kennedy, Democratic Write-in Presidential Candidate for 2004
Mimi Kennedy, actress, Dharma and Greg, progressive activist
Faiz Khan, M.D., Triage Emergency Physician on 9/11, Assistant Imam
David Korten, author, When Corporations Rule the World
France Moore Lappé, author, Diet for a Small Planet; founder, Small Planet Institute
Scott M. Legere, 25 year radio broadcaster as Scott Ledger, Tampa FL
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN Magazine, author, Healing Israel/Palestine
Michael Levine, bestselling author of Deep Cover, journalist, 25-year veteran of the DEA
Joanna Macy, Ph.D., eco-philosopher, author
Enver Masud, founder, The Wisdom Fund, author, The Truth About Islam
John McCarthy, former Special Forces Captain, president, Veterans Equal Rights Protection Advocacy
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Cynthia McKinney, five-term Congresswoman from Georgia
Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., author, professor, co-founder, Green Earth Foundation
Mark Crispin Miller, media critic, author, professor, New York University
Joseph W. Montaperto, New York City Fire Department
Leuren Moret, geoscientist, radiation specialist, environmental commissioner
Ralph Nader, Independent candidate for President
Craig Neal, author, co-founder, The Heartland Institute, former publisher, Utne Reader
Jeff Norman, executive director, Tour of Duty
Jenna Orkin, Esquire, World Trade Center Environmental Organization
Kelly Patricia O’Meara, investigative journalist, public relations
Michael Parenti, Ph.D., author, Superpatriotism and The Terrorism Trap
Peter Phillips, Ph.D., professor, Sonoma State University, director, Project Censored
Henri Poole, Internet pioneer, board member, Free Software Foundation
Robert Rabbin, author, speaker, creator of TruthForPresident.org
Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., sociologist, author, The Cultural Creatives
John Renesch, business futurist, author, Getting to the Better Future
John Rensenbrink, professor emeritus, Bowdoin College, co-founder, US Green Party
John Robbins, author, founder, EarthSave International
William Rodriguez, 9/11 rescue effort hero, founder, Hispanic Victims Group
Neal Rogin, Emmy-award winning writer, performer, social observer
Allen Roland, Ph.D., psychotherapist, published author and peace activist
Rosemary Radford Ruether, professor of feminist theology, Graduate Theological Union
Michael Ruppert, publisher/editor, From The Wilderness, author, Crossing the Rubicon
Chris Sanders, founder, Sanders Research Associates
Karl W. B. Schwarz, President, CEO, Patmos Nanotechnologies, LLC
Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, author, Drugs, Oil, and War
Firefighter Kevin Shea, FDNY Hazmat Operations
Michelle Shocked, singer/songwriter, activist
Indira Singh, risk management and computer systems consultant
J. Michael Springmann, attorney, former Foreign Service Officer, US Department of State
Douglas Sturm, Ph.D., university professor emeritus, Bucknell University
Marjorie Hewit Suchocki, Ph.D., theologian, author
Chuck Turner, Boston City Council
James W. Walter Jr., venture investor, philanthropist, founder of Walden Three
Dan Whaley, E-commerce pioneer, founder of GetThere.com, acquired for $750M
Burns H. Weston, J.S.D., Professor of Law Emeritus, Director, Center for Human Rights, U-Iowa
Howard Zinn, professor, historian, author, A People’s History of the United States
Family Members
Joanne Barbara, wife of FDNY Asst. Chief of Dept. Gerard Barbara
Gayle Barker, sister of William A. Karnes, WTC
Michele Bergsohn, wife of Alvin Bergsohn, Cantor Fitzgerald
Derrill Bodley, father of Deora Bodley, passenger on Flight 93
Kathryn C. Bowden, sister of Thomas H. Bowden, Jr. WTC1, 104th floor
Janet Calia, wife of Dominick Calia, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC1
Maggie Cashman, wife of William Joseph Cashman, United Flight 93
Lynne Castrianno Galante, sister of Leonard Castrianno, 1WTC, 105th floor
Elza Chapa-McGowan, daughter of Rosemary Chapa, Pentagon
Bruce De Cell, father-in-law of Mark Petrocelli North Tower, 92nd floor
Ralph D'Esposito, father of Michael D’Esposito, WTC, 96th floor
Loisanne Diehl, Surviving Spouse, Michael D. Diehl, WTC2, 90th floor
Jonathan M. Fisher, son of Dr. Gerald Paul "Geep" Fisher, Pentagon
Michael J. Fox, brother of Jeffrey L. Fox, Tower 2, 89th floor
Laurel A. Gay, sister of Peter A. Gay, AA Flight 11
Ilene Golinsky, wife of Col. Ronald F. Golinski USA RET, Pentagon
Kristen Hall, daughter of fallen firefighter Thomas Kuveikis 9/11
Kurt D. Horning, father of Matthew D. Horning, WTC Tower One, 95th floor
Jennifer W. Hunt, wife of William C. Hunt, Euro Brokers
Lori, Jerry, and Beatrice Guadagno, sister and parents of Richard Guadagno, Flight 93
John Keating, son of Barbara Keating, passenger on AA Flight 11
L. Russell Keene II, father of Russ Keene III, WTC2, 89th floor, KBW
Peter Kousoulis, sister died in WTC
Barbara Krukowski-Rastelli, mother of William E. Krukowski, NYC firefighter
Laura and Ira Lassman, parents of Nicholas C. Lassman, died in WTC, Tower One
Johnny Lee, husband of Lorraine Greene
Alicia LeGuillow, mother of Nestor A. Cintron III
Francine Levine, sister of Adam K. Ruhalter, who died on 9/11
Christopher Longing, husband of Laura M. Longing, WTC1
Bob McIlvaine, father of Robert McIlvaine, WTC, Merrill Lynch
Mary McWilliams, mother of FF Martin E. McWilliams- Engine 22
Daryl J. Meehan, brother of Colleen Ann Barkow, WTC 1, 105th floor
Elvira P. Murphy, wife of Patrick Murphy, WTC 1
Natalee Pecorelli, sister of Thomas Pecorelli of Flight 11
James L Perry, M.D and Patricia J. Perry, parents of John W. Perry, Esq., NYPD Officer 9/11
Elaine Saber, mother of Scott Saber
Julie Scarpitta, mother of Michelle Scarpitta, WTC Building 2, 84th floor
Kathleen A. Stanton, WTC South, Injured Survivor
Elizabeth Turner, wife of Simon Turner, lost on 11th September 2001
Joan W. Winton, mother of David Winton, WTC, South Tower, 89th floor
David Yancey, husband of Vicki Yancey, American Airlines Flight 77
Take action!
DONATE NOW – We need to raise $70K immediately to get the full statement and signatories in the NY Times as a full-page advertisement this week. Contribute yourself and urge friends to do so: http://rate.affero.net/911truth
Send this information to your congresspeople and journalists, demanding attention
Help New York citizens and 9/11 family members, beginning Thursday, Oct. 28th, by signing an online petition in support of their formal complaint to be filed with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Petition at www.justicefor911.org
Get MoveOn moving! Join MoveOn and urge them in member forums to focus on this issue.
Stay informed here at www.911truth.org and get active in local groups at www.septembereleventh.org
Respected Leaders and Families Launch 911 Truth Statement Demanding Deeper Investigation into the Events of 9/11
NEW YORK CITY, NY (Oct. 26, 2004) – An alliance of 100 prominent Americans and 40 family members of those killed on 9/11 today announced the release of the 911 Truth Statement, a call for immediate inquiry into evidence that suggests high-level government officials may have deliberately allowed the September 11th attacks to occur. The Statement supports an August 31st Zogby poll that found nearly 50% of New Yorkers believe the government had foreknowledge and “consciously failed to act,” with 66% wanting a new 9/11 investigation.
Focusing on twelve questions, the Statement highlights areas of incriminating evidence that were either inadequately explored or ignored by the Kean Commission, ranging from insider trading and hijacker funding to foreign government forewarnings and inactive defenses around the Pentagon. The Statement asks for four actions: an immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer, Congressional hearings, media analysis, and the formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.
The Statement’s list of signatories includes notables spanning the political spectrum, from Presidential candidates Ralph Nader, Michael Badnarik, and David Cobb to Catherine Austin Fitts, a member of the first Bush administration, as well as Washington veterans like Pentagon whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern. Other signers range from peace activists like Code Pink president Jodie Evans and Global Exchange’s Kevin Danaher to retired lieutenant colonel Dr. Robert Bowman; from environmentalists like Randy Hayes and John Robbins to business leaders such as Paul Hawken and Karl Schwartz, CEO of Patmos Nanotechnologies; from populist journalist Ronnie Dugger to renowned investigative reporter Kelly Patricia O’Meara. The statement includes 43 noted authors, including New York Times #1 bestseller John Gray, as well as 18 eminent professors, historians, and theologians. Other notables include five-term Georgia Congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, singers Michelle Shocked and Michael Franti, and actors Ed Asner and Mimi Kennedy.
The Statement was facilitated by 911truth.org, a leading coalition. The organization has also announced a press conference outside of Eliot Spitzer’s Manhattan office (corner of Cedar and Nassau) at 2:00PM on Thursday, Oct. 28th where 9/11 family members and victim group representatives will file a formal complaint demanding the first criminal investigation of 9/11 events by the New York Attorney General.
The Statement We Want Real Answers About 9/11
On August 31, 2004, Zogby International, the official North American political polling agency for Reuters, released a poll that found nearly half (49.3%) of New York City residents and 41% of those in New York state believe US leaders had foreknowledge of impending 9/11 attacks and “consciously failed” to act. Of the New York City residents, 66% called for a new probe of unanswered questions by Congress or the New York Attorney General.
In connection with this news, we have assembled 100 notable Americans and 40 family members of those who died to sign this 9/11 Statement, which calls for immediate public attention to unanswered questions that suggest that people within the current administration may indeed have deliberately allowed 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war.
We want truthful answers to questions such as:
Why were standard operating procedures for dealing with hijacked airliners not followed that day?
Why were the extensive missile batteries and air defenses reportedly deployed around the Pentagon not activated during the attack?
Why did the Secret Service allow Bush to complete his elementary school visit, apparently unconcerned about his safety or that of the schoolchildren?
Why hasn’t a single person been fired, penalized, or reprimanded for the gross incompetence we witnessed that day?
Why haven't authorities in the U.S. and abroad published the results of multiple investigations into trading that strongly suggested foreknowledge of specific details of the 9/11 attacks, resulting in tens of millions of dollars of traceable gains?
Why has Sibel Edmonds, a former FBI translator who claims to have knowledge of advance warnings, been publicly silenced with a gag order requested by Attorney General Ashcroft and granted by a Bush-appointed judge?
How could Flight 77, which reportedly hit the Pentagon, have flown back towards Washington D.C. for 40 minutes without being detected by the FAA’s radar or the even superior radar possessed by the US military?
How were the FBI and CIA able to release the names and photos of the alleged hijackers within hours, as well as to visit houses, restaurants, and flight schools they were known to frequent?
What happened to the over 20 documented warnings given our government by 14 foreign intelligence agencies or heads of state?
Why did the Bush administration cover up the fact that the head of the Pakistani intelligence agency was in Washington the week of 9/11 and reportedly had $100,000 wired to Mohamed Atta, considered the ringleader of the hijackers?
Why did the 911 Commission fail to address most of the questions posed by the families of the victims, in addition to almost all of the questions posed here?
Why was Philip Zelikow chosen to be the Executive Director of the ostensibly independent 911 Commission although he had co-authored a book with Condoleezza Rice?
Those who are demanding deeper inquiry now number in the hundreds of thousands, including a former member of the first Bush administration, a retired Air Force colonel, a European parliamentarian, families of the victims, highly respected authors, investigative journalists, peace and justice leaders, former Pentagon staff, and the National Green Party.
As Americans of conscience, we ask for four things:
An immediate investigation by New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer
Immediate investigation in Congressional Hearings.
Media attention to scrutinize and investigate the evidence.
The formation of a truly independent citizens-based inquiry.
Given the importance of the coming election, we feel it is imperative that these questions be addressed publicly, honestly, and rigorously so that Americans may exercise their democratic rights with full awareness.
In closing, we pray and hope for the strength to approach this subject with wisdom and compassion so that we may heal from the wounds inflicted on that terrible day.
Note: All organizations are mentioned for identification purposes only. Individuals have signed this statement as an act of their own conscience, not to signify organizational endorsement.
Signed,
Virginia Deane Abernethy, Ph.D., anthropologist, author, Population Politics
Ed Asner, actor, activist
Marshall Auerback, international portfolio strategist for David W. Tice & Associates, Inc.
Catherine Austin Fitts, Asst. Secretary of Housing in the first Bush administration
Keidi Obi Awadu, aka The Conscious Rasta, talk show host, LIBRadio
Michael Badnarik, Libertarian candidate for President
Byron Belitsos, publisher, Origin Press, author Planetary Democracy
Philip J. Berg, Esquire, former deputy attorney general, Pennsylvania
Medea Benjamin, activist, author, co-founder, Global Exchange and Code Pink
Dennis Bernstein, investigative reporter, radio host of KPFA’s Flashpoints
Carolyn Betts, ex-partner, Washington D.C. law firm Brownstein and Zeidman, specialist in cases involving US Govt.
Steve Bhaerman aka Swami Beyondananda, author, political comedian
Brad Blanton, Ph.D., psychotherapist, author, Radical Honesty
Saniel Bonder, spiritual teacher and author, Great Relief
Dr. Robert Bowman, USAF Lt. Col. (Rtd.), founder, Institute for Space and Security Studies
John Buchanan, author, candidate for the Republican Party Presidential nomination, 2004
Gray Brechin, Ph.D., author, environmental historian, professor, UC Berkeley
Fred Burks, presidential interpreter for Bush, Clinton, Cheney, and Gore
Mariana Caplan, Ph.D., author, professor of psychology and religion
Norma Carr-Rufino, Ph.D., author, professor of management, San Francisco State University
Angana Chatterji, Ph.D., scholar-activist and professor of anthropology
Paul Cienfuegos, co-founder, Democracy Unlimited of Humboldt County
David Cobb, attorney, national presidential candidate, US Green Party
John Cobb, Ph.D., theologian, co-author, For the Common Good
Ernest Callenbach, founder/editor, Film Quarterly, author, Ecotopia
Kevin Danaher, Ph.D., author, speaker, co-founder, Global Exchange
Stephen Dinan, author, Radical Spirit
Bill Doyle, advocate for 9/11 families, father of Joseph Doyle, Cantor Fitzgerald employee
Ronnie Dugger, journalist/author, co-founder, Alliance for Democracy
Daniel Ellsberg, author, Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers
Jodie Evans, president, Code Pink
Richard Falk, Professor Emeritus of International Law, Princeton University
Michael Franti, musician, filmmaker, human rights worker
Jim Garrison, Ph.D., president, State of the World Forum, author, America as Empire
Bruce Gagnon, Chair, Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
Ric Giardina, author, consultant, speaker, former Director of Trademarks and Brands for Intel
John Gray, Ph.D., #1 bestselling author, Men Are from Mars, Women Are from Venus
Stan Goff, 25-year Army Special Ops veteran, author, Full Spectrum Disorder
Morton Goulder, Deputy Secretary for Intelligence and Warning under Nixon, Ford, and Carter
David Ray Griffin, Ph.D., theologian, author, New Pearl Harbor
Doris "Granny D" Haddock, campaign finance crusader, NH Democratic candidate for Senate
Thom Hartmann, radio host; author, Unequal Protection
Richie Havens, singer, songwriter, performer, artist
Paul Hawken, bestselling author, environmentalist, entrepreneur, founder of Smith & Hawken
Randy Hayes, founder, Rainforest Action Network, US National Director, Direction Conservation
Richard Heinberg, author, The Party's Over, core faculty, New College of California
Kyle Hence, co-founder of 9/11 CitizensWatch, organizer of 9/11 Citizens' Commission
Van Jones, executive director, Ella Baker Center for Human Rights
Rob Kall, editor, OpEdNews.com, president, Futurehealth, Inc.
Georgia Kelly, executive director, Praxis Peace Institute
Sean Kelly, Ph.D., author, professor of philosophy and religion, CA Institute of Integral Studies
John Joseph Kennedy, Democratic Write-in Presidential Candidate for 2004
Mimi Kennedy, actress, Dharma and Greg, progressive activist
Faiz Khan, M.D., Triage Emergency Physician on 9/11, Assistant Imam
David Korten, author, When Corporations Rule the World
France Moore Lappé, author, Diet for a Small Planet; founder, Small Planet Institute
Scott M. Legere, 25 year radio broadcaster as Scott Ledger, Tampa FL
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor, TIKKUN Magazine, author, Healing Israel/Palestine
Michael Levine, bestselling author of Deep Cover, journalist, 25-year veteran of the DEA
Joanna Macy, Ph.D., eco-philosopher, author
Enver Masud, founder, The Wisdom Fund, author, The Truth About Islam
John McCarthy, former Special Forces Captain, president, Veterans Equal Rights Protection Advocacy
Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst, co-founder, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity
Cynthia McKinney, five-term Congresswoman from Georgia
Ralph Metzner, Ph.D., author, professor, co-founder, Green Earth Foundation
Mark Crispin Miller, media critic, author, professor, New York University
Joseph W. Montaperto, New York City Fire Department
Leuren Moret, geoscientist, radiation specialist, environmental commissioner
Ralph Nader, Independent candidate for President
Craig Neal, author, co-founder, The Heartland Institute, former publisher, Utne Reader
Jeff Norman, executive director, Tour of Duty
Jenna Orkin, Esquire, World Trade Center Environmental Organization
Kelly Patricia O’Meara, investigative journalist, public relations
Michael Parenti, Ph.D., author, Superpatriotism and The Terrorism Trap
Peter Phillips, Ph.D., professor, Sonoma State University, director, Project Censored
Henri Poole, Internet pioneer, board member, Free Software Foundation
Robert Rabbin, author, speaker, creator of TruthForPresident.org
Paul H. Ray, Ph.D., sociologist, author, The Cultural Creatives
John Renesch, business futurist, author, Getting to the Better Future
John Rensenbrink, professor emeritus, Bowdoin College, co-founder, US Green Party
John Robbins, author, founder, EarthSave International
William Rodriguez, 9/11 rescue effort hero, founder, Hispanic Victims Group
Neal Rogin, Emmy-award winning writer, performer, social observer
Allen Roland, Ph.D., psychotherapist, published author and peace activist
Rosemary Radford Ruether, professor of feminist theology, Graduate Theological Union
Michael Ruppert, publisher/editor, From The Wilderness, author, Crossing the Rubicon
Chris Sanders, founder, Sanders Research Associates
Karl W. B. Schwarz, President, CEO, Patmos Nanotechnologies, LLC
Peter Dale Scott, Ph.D., Professor Emeritus, author, Drugs, Oil, and War
Firefighter Kevin Shea, FDNY Hazmat Operations
Michelle Shocked, singer/songwriter, activist
Indira Singh, risk management and computer systems consultant
J. Michael Springmann, attorney, former Foreign Service Officer, US Department of State
Douglas Sturm, Ph.D., university professor emeritus, Bucknell University
Marjorie Hewit Suchocki, Ph.D., theologian, author
Chuck Turner, Boston City Council
James W. Walter Jr., venture investor, philanthropist, founder of Walden Three
Dan Whaley, E-commerce pioneer, founder of GetThere.com, acquired for $750M
Burns H. Weston, J.S.D., Professor of Law Emeritus, Director, Center for Human Rights, U-Iowa
Howard Zinn, professor, historian, author, A People’s History of the United States
Family Members
Joanne Barbara, wife of FDNY Asst. Chief of Dept. Gerard Barbara
Gayle Barker, sister of William A. Karnes, WTC
Michele Bergsohn, wife of Alvin Bergsohn, Cantor Fitzgerald
Derrill Bodley, father of Deora Bodley, passenger on Flight 93
Kathryn C. Bowden, sister of Thomas H. Bowden, Jr. WTC1, 104th floor
Janet Calia, wife of Dominick Calia, Cantor Fitzgerald, WTC1
Maggie Cashman, wife of William Joseph Cashman, United Flight 93
Lynne Castrianno Galante, sister of Leonard Castrianno, 1WTC, 105th floor
Elza Chapa-McGowan, daughter of Rosemary Chapa, Pentagon
Bruce De Cell, father-in-law of Mark Petrocelli North Tower, 92nd floor
Ralph D'Esposito, father of Michael D’Esposito, WTC, 96th floor
Loisanne Diehl, Surviving Spouse, Michael D. Diehl, WTC2, 90th floor
Jonathan M. Fisher, son of Dr. Gerald Paul "Geep" Fisher, Pentagon
Michael J. Fox, brother of Jeffrey L. Fox, Tower 2, 89th floor
Laurel A. Gay, sister of Peter A. Gay, AA Flight 11
Ilene Golinsky, wife of Col. Ronald F. Golinski USA RET, Pentagon
Kristen Hall, daughter of fallen firefighter Thomas Kuveikis 9/11
Kurt D. Horning, father of Matthew D. Horning, WTC Tower One, 95th floor
Jennifer W. Hunt, wife of William C. Hunt, Euro Brokers
Lori, Jerry, and Beatrice Guadagno, sister and parents of Richard Guadagno, Flight 93
John Keating, son of Barbara Keating, passenger on AA Flight 11
L. Russell Keene II, father of Russ Keene III, WTC2, 89th floor, KBW
Peter Kousoulis, sister died in WTC
Barbara Krukowski-Rastelli, mother of William E. Krukowski, NYC firefighter
Laura and Ira Lassman, parents of Nicholas C. Lassman, died in WTC, Tower One
Johnny Lee, husband of Lorraine Greene
Alicia LeGuillow, mother of Nestor A. Cintron III
Francine Levine, sister of Adam K. Ruhalter, who died on 9/11
Christopher Longing, husband of Laura M. Longing, WTC1
Bob McIlvaine, father of Robert McIlvaine, WTC, Merrill Lynch
Mary McWilliams, mother of FF Martin E. McWilliams- Engine 22
Daryl J. Meehan, brother of Colleen Ann Barkow, WTC 1, 105th floor
Elvira P. Murphy, wife of Patrick Murphy, WTC 1
Natalee Pecorelli, sister of Thomas Pecorelli of Flight 11
James L Perry, M.D and Patricia J. Perry, parents of John W. Perry, Esq., NYPD Officer 9/11
Elaine Saber, mother of Scott Saber
Julie Scarpitta, mother of Michelle Scarpitta, WTC Building 2, 84th floor
Kathleen A. Stanton, WTC South, Injured Survivor
Elizabeth Turner, wife of Simon Turner, lost on 11th September 2001
Joan W. Winton, mother of David Winton, WTC, South Tower, 89th floor
David Yancey, husband of Vicki Yancey, American Airlines Flight 77
Take action!
DONATE NOW – We need to raise $70K immediately to get the full statement and signatories in the NY Times as a full-page advertisement this week. Contribute yourself and urge friends to do so: http://rate.affero.net/911truth
Send this information to your congresspeople and journalists, demanding attention
Help New York citizens and 9/11 family members, beginning Thursday, Oct. 28th, by signing an online petition in support of their formal complaint to be filed with New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer. Petition at www.justicefor911.org
Get MoveOn moving! Join MoveOn and urge them in member forums to focus on this issue.
Stay informed here at www.911truth.org and get active in local groups at www.septembereleventh.org
Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi blames US coalition for deadly ambush of Iraqi troops
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi blames US coalition for deadly ambush of Iraqi troops by John in DC - 10/26/2004 12:53:03 PM Chimpy's going to be vewy vewy angwy at you. Now the US is to blame for the 50 security forces executed. You know what we have to say about that?And another thing, I thought Iraq was a part of the coalition? Remember Cheney during the debates, claiming the US has only had 50% (only 50%!) of the coalition deaths, not 90%. So how is that now Allawi is blaming the coalition if Iraq is a part of the coalition? I'm so confused! Tell me Tricky Dick didn't lie?
From USA Today:
Iraq's interim prime minister blamed U.S.-led coalition forces Tuesday for "great negligence" in the ambush that killed about 50 American-trained soldiers, and a U.S. airstrike in Fallujah killed an aide to Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the military said.
Iraqi Prime Minister Allawi blames US coalition for deadly ambush of Iraqi troops by John in DC - 10/26/2004 12:53:03 PM Chimpy's going to be vewy vewy angwy at you. Now the US is to blame for the 50 security forces executed. You know what we have to say about that?And another thing, I thought Iraq was a part of the coalition? Remember Cheney during the debates, claiming the US has only had 50% (only 50%!) of the coalition deaths, not 90%. So how is that now Allawi is blaming the coalition if Iraq is a part of the coalition? I'm so confused! Tell me Tricky Dick didn't lie?
From USA Today:
Iraq's interim prime minister blamed U.S.-led coalition forces Tuesday for "great negligence" in the ambush that killed about 50 American-trained soldiers, and a U.S. airstrike in Fallujah killed an aide to Jordanian terrorist Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, the military said.
The sinister twist to The Hague tale
The sinister twist to The Hague tale
10/26/2004 10:51
Assassination attempt against Milosevic?
How low can Washington stoop? After George Bush's policy in Iraq has brought the international community together, standing up for what is right and reason against lies, forgery, blackmail, and arrogance, the diplomatic tools used by Colin Powell, nothing much would surprise anyone any more.
Now we have the proof that former President Slobodan Milosevic is being given the wrong medicine, or else The Hague tribunal is telling lies, which seems to be an endemic trend of the Bush regime.
Slobodan Milosevic has declared recently that his medication against hypertension is administered to him daily in the detention unit by guards, and that he has to take it in their presence.
How, then, is it possible that blood tests reveal that the level of the drugs prescribed are lower than they should be and how is it possible that the same tests reveal the presence of drugs that were not prescribed?
Is someone manipulating the medication regime, trying to kill the ex-President to stop him telling the truth about what really happened in Yugoslavia, or is the Hague tribunal lying? If the medicine to combat hypertension is not being administered properly, is someone trying to murder him?
Mr.Milosevic's supporters have sent the following report to PRAVDA.Ru: "On November 23, 2002 the Dutch paper NRC Handelsblad reported in a story entitled "Milosevic Kreeg Verkeerd Medicijn " that the Tribunal had given him the wrong medicine. Their report said, "In the Scheveningen prison Slobodan Milosevic was given the wrong medicine, causing his blood pressure to rise very quickly. This was why at the beginning of this month the trial against the former president of Yugoslavia was suspended. Sources within the tribunal have confirmed this."
The Hague Tribunal is in total disarray, the defense counsel, Mr. Kay, a British lawyer, having resigned over the weekend, claiming that: "My team and me are unable to properly perform our function, we are ineffective in this trial and we are unable to say we are acting in the interest of justice." Kay said, "People are kidding themselves making believe that what is happening here is a proper defense."
Why was Kay imposed in the first place? Because Slobodan Milosevic was pumped full of drugs to raise his blood pressure so that he could not continue his defense (which he was doing so well, that he made a mockery of the ridiculous allegations of Prosecutor Carla del Ponte, cross-examining all of her witnesses and making many of them turn back on their stories). The result? He was silenced. Is this justice? Probably, in George Bush's Washington.
Just as Mr. Milosevic was making a mockery of Carla del Ponte's assertions, the "court", which started with the prosecutor stating to the press that Mr. Milosevic was guilty, before the trial had started, which holds the former President of Yugoslavia as a result of an act of kidnapping, against Yugoslav Federal law and against Serbian law, without any international arrest order being formally recognized in the state where he was kidnapped from, decided that he could no longer defend himself.
Changing the position of the goal posts during the game? Legal counsel was imposed on ex-President Milosevic when his blood pressure was lower than it had been in 2002, when he was considered fit enough to defend himself.
This Hague farce is degrading for the United States of America, degrading for the administration of President Bush, a disgrace for international law (wholly disrespected by the Bush regime) and degrading for the European Union, on whose territory this nonsense is being committed.
How can Slobodan Milosevic be denied the right to defend himself when his blood pressure was lower than it had been when they said he was well enough to speak?
Stop the war, in this case against international law, against the norms of diplomacy and common decency! When will the former enemies of the Soviet Union just drop the gauntlet? The answer? When Cheney and Rumsfeld become political history.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
10/26/2004 10:51
Assassination attempt against Milosevic?
How low can Washington stoop? After George Bush's policy in Iraq has brought the international community together, standing up for what is right and reason against lies, forgery, blackmail, and arrogance, the diplomatic tools used by Colin Powell, nothing much would surprise anyone any more.
Now we have the proof that former President Slobodan Milosevic is being given the wrong medicine, or else The Hague tribunal is telling lies, which seems to be an endemic trend of the Bush regime.
Slobodan Milosevic has declared recently that his medication against hypertension is administered to him daily in the detention unit by guards, and that he has to take it in their presence.
How, then, is it possible that blood tests reveal that the level of the drugs prescribed are lower than they should be and how is it possible that the same tests reveal the presence of drugs that were not prescribed?
Is someone manipulating the medication regime, trying to kill the ex-President to stop him telling the truth about what really happened in Yugoslavia, or is the Hague tribunal lying? If the medicine to combat hypertension is not being administered properly, is someone trying to murder him?
Mr.Milosevic's supporters have sent the following report to PRAVDA.Ru: "On November 23, 2002 the Dutch paper NRC Handelsblad reported in a story entitled "Milosevic Kreeg Verkeerd Medicijn " that the Tribunal had given him the wrong medicine. Their report said, "In the Scheveningen prison Slobodan Milosevic was given the wrong medicine, causing his blood pressure to rise very quickly. This was why at the beginning of this month the trial against the former president of Yugoslavia was suspended. Sources within the tribunal have confirmed this."
The Hague Tribunal is in total disarray, the defense counsel, Mr. Kay, a British lawyer, having resigned over the weekend, claiming that: "My team and me are unable to properly perform our function, we are ineffective in this trial and we are unable to say we are acting in the interest of justice." Kay said, "People are kidding themselves making believe that what is happening here is a proper defense."
Why was Kay imposed in the first place? Because Slobodan Milosevic was pumped full of drugs to raise his blood pressure so that he could not continue his defense (which he was doing so well, that he made a mockery of the ridiculous allegations of Prosecutor Carla del Ponte, cross-examining all of her witnesses and making many of them turn back on their stories). The result? He was silenced. Is this justice? Probably, in George Bush's Washington.
Just as Mr. Milosevic was making a mockery of Carla del Ponte's assertions, the "court", which started with the prosecutor stating to the press that Mr. Milosevic was guilty, before the trial had started, which holds the former President of Yugoslavia as a result of an act of kidnapping, against Yugoslav Federal law and against Serbian law, without any international arrest order being formally recognized in the state where he was kidnapped from, decided that he could no longer defend himself.
Changing the position of the goal posts during the game? Legal counsel was imposed on ex-President Milosevic when his blood pressure was lower than it had been in 2002, when he was considered fit enough to defend himself.
This Hague farce is degrading for the United States of America, degrading for the administration of President Bush, a disgrace for international law (wholly disrespected by the Bush regime) and degrading for the European Union, on whose territory this nonsense is being committed.
How can Slobodan Milosevic be denied the right to defend himself when his blood pressure was lower than it had been when they said he was well enough to speak?
Stop the war, in this case against international law, against the norms of diplomacy and common decency! When will the former enemies of the Soviet Union just drop the gauntlet? The answer? When Cheney and Rumsfeld become political history.
Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey
Bush says Civil Unions are 'ok'
Bush says Civil Unions are 'ok'by kos Tue Oct 26th, 2004 at 17:10:41 GMTFrom Bush's Good Morning America interview:
President Bush said in an interview this past weekend that he disagreed with the Republican Party platform opposing civil unions of same-sex couples and that the matter should be left up to the states.
Mr. Bush has previously said that states should be permitted to allow same-sex unions, even though White House officials have said he would not have endorsed such unions as governor of Texas. But Mr. Bush has never before made a point of so publicly disagreeing with his party's official position on the issue.
In an interview on Sunday with Charles Gibson, an anchor of "Good Morning America" on ABC, Mr. Bush said, "I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so." ABC, which broadcast part of the interview on Monday, is to broadcast the part about civil unions on Tuesday.While this appears to be a calculated, late attempt to move to the middle, it still is a significant milestone in the battle for equality under the law.
Remember, it was just a year ago that Howard Dean was a far-left crazy wacko for daring to defend civil unions during the primary campaign. It was one of his stances that allegedly made him "unelectable". Now, it's the default position for even those who would seek to deny gays the right to marry.
President Bush said in an interview this past weekend that he disagreed with the Republican Party platform opposing civil unions of same-sex couples and that the matter should be left up to the states.
Mr. Bush has previously said that states should be permitted to allow same-sex unions, even though White House officials have said he would not have endorsed such unions as governor of Texas. But Mr. Bush has never before made a point of so publicly disagreeing with his party's official position on the issue.
In an interview on Sunday with Charles Gibson, an anchor of "Good Morning America" on ABC, Mr. Bush said, "I don't think we should deny people rights to a civil union, a legal arrangement, if that's what a state chooses to do so." ABC, which broadcast part of the interview on Monday, is to broadcast the part about civil unions on Tuesday.While this appears to be a calculated, late attempt to move to the middle, it still is a significant milestone in the battle for equality under the law.
Remember, it was just a year ago that Howard Dean was a far-left crazy wacko for daring to defend civil unions during the primary campaign. It was one of his stances that allegedly made him "unelectable". Now, it's the default position for even those who would seek to deny gays the right to marry.
Free Speech, Bush Style
Free speech, Bush styleby kos Tue Oct 26th, 2004 at 17:46:27 GMTAn email from Wisconsin.
A friend with a child in the Richland County,WI high school where George Bush appears today reports the following. Students were told they could not wear any pro-Kerry clothing or buttons or protest in any manner, at the risk of expulsion. After a parent inquired, an alternative activity will be provided, probably a movie being shown in an auditorium. (The school secretary reportedly said that students had the choice of just staying home if they didn't want to attend the Bush rally, but the principal subsequently offered an alternative.) If Bush comes to a high school, how dare his campaign dictate what students can wear?
This is out of control.
A friend with a child in the Richland County,WI high school where George Bush appears today reports the following. Students were told they could not wear any pro-Kerry clothing or buttons or protest in any manner, at the risk of expulsion. After a parent inquired, an alternative activity will be provided, probably a movie being shown in an auditorium. (The school secretary reportedly said that students had the choice of just staying home if they didn't want to attend the Bush rally, but the principal subsequently offered an alternative.) If Bush comes to a high school, how dare his campaign dictate what students can wear?
This is out of control.
60 MINS PLANNED BUSH MISSING EXPLOSIVES STORY FOR ELECTION
XXXXX DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX TUE OCT 26 2004 11:02:38 ET XXXXX 60 MINS PLANNED BUSH MISSING EXPLOSIVES STORY FOR ELECTION EVENews of missing explosives in Iraq -- first reported in April 2003 -- was being resurrected for a 60 MINUTES election eve broadcast designed to knock the Bush administration into a crises mode.Jeff Fager, executive producer of the Sunday edition of 60 MINUTES, said in a statement that "our plan was to run the story on October 31, but it became clear that it wouldn't hold..."Elizabeth Jensen at the LOS ANGELES TIMES details on Tuesday how CBS NEWS and 60 MINUTES lost the story [which repackaged previously reported information on a large cache of explosives missing in Iraq, first published and broadcast in 2003].The story instead debuted in the NYT. The paper slugged the story about missing explosives from April 2003 as "exclusive."An NBCNEWS crew embedded with troops moved in to secure the Al-Qaqaa weapons facility on April 10, 2003, one day after the liberation of Iraq. According to NBCNEWS, the explosives were already missing when the American troops arrived.It is not clear who exactly shopped an election eve repackaging of the missing explosives story.The LA TIMES claims: The source on the story first went to 60 MINUTES but also expressed interest in working with the NY TIMES... "The tip was received last Wednesday."CBSNEWS' plan to unleash the story just 24 hours before election day had one senior Bush official outraged."Darn, I wanted to see the forged documents to show how this was somehow covered up," the Bush source, who asked not to be named, mocked, recalling last months CBS airing of fraudulent Bush national guard letters.
Marsh's Cherkasky, Mr. Monitor, Failed Up
Top Of The News Marsh's Cherkasky, Mr. Monitor, Failed Up Dan Ackman, 10.26.04, 11:15 AM ET Michael Cherkasky, the new chief executive of Marsh & McLennan, was, until recently, known for five things: He tried John Gotti; he "investigated mobsters," he "participated" in the trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers, he was a prosecutor in the BCCI scandal, and he ran for district attorney of Westchester County. Also: he was once Eliot Spitzer's boss.
More From Dan Ackman
How did it all work out? -- A Manhattan jury acquitted Gotti on charges arising from the 1986 shooting of a union leader. He was later convicted, but by federal prosecutors. -- The investigation of mobsters was a mixed bag at best. In 1992, in the middle of a jury trial led by Spitzer, the Manhattan district attorney's office, where Cherkasky led the rackets bureau, accepted a plea from Thomas and Joseph Gambino, sons of the late Carlo Gambino, founder of the Gambino crime family. The deal required the sons to quit the trucking business and to pay a $12 million fine. But there was no criminal conviction and no jail time. Cherkasky, however, did well, as he was later, along with his new company, Kroll Associates, assigned as a court-appointed monitor of the trucking business on Long Island. -- The trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers led to several convictions. But it, too, was in federal court, and by the time the jury ruled, Cherkasky had left the district attorney's office, which played a relatively minor role in the investigation. -- In the most celebrated aspect of the BCCI case, Washington lawyer Robert Altman was acquitted in 1993--and in near-record time. This was after a five-month trial that included 45 prosecution witnesses, but zero defense witnesses. Cherkasky was not the lead prosecutor, but he was head of the division that investigated and tried the case. -- Also in 1993, Cherkasky, then just 43 years old, ran for the district attorney's job in Westchester. Logically, he might have run in Manhattan, but Robert Morgenthau (think Adam Schiff on Law & Order, but without the charisma) had long fossilized into the job, which he still holds. Cherkasky lost badly to Jeanine Pirro. After losing the race, Cherkasky, now 54, joined Kroll, the investigations firm, and was quickly elevated. By the time it was bought by Marsh & McLennan (nyse: MMC - news - people ) for $1.9 billion this summer, he was CEO. Yesterday, after Marsh wound up in a series of scandals, the first involving mutual funds, the second involving its core insurance business, he was named CEO of the parent company, the world's largest insurance brokerage firm. That the former prosecutor is friends with, a contributor to and the former boss of the New York attorney general, who is investigating the company, is lost on no one. Indeed, Spitzer seems directly responsible for his friend's elevation, having announced that he could not negotiate with Marsh's existing leadership. Enter Cherkasky, who immediately called to restart the talks with Spitzer. As Cherkasky is a career prosecutor and investigator with little financial services experience, many wonder if he is the right man for the job long term. For now, though, the main job is fixing the company's reputation and getting its legal house in order. In that area, Cherkasky is experienced. In addition to overseeing the trucking industry, Cherkasky has served as a court-appointed federal election monitor of the Teamsters union and as a federal monitor of the Los Angeles Police Department. As for being Spitzer's former boss, that situation has been reversed. Today, Spitzer's the boss.
More From Dan Ackman
How did it all work out? -- A Manhattan jury acquitted Gotti on charges arising from the 1986 shooting of a union leader. He was later convicted, but by federal prosecutors. -- The investigation of mobsters was a mixed bag at best. In 1992, in the middle of a jury trial led by Spitzer, the Manhattan district attorney's office, where Cherkasky led the rackets bureau, accepted a plea from Thomas and Joseph Gambino, sons of the late Carlo Gambino, founder of the Gambino crime family. The deal required the sons to quit the trucking business and to pay a $12 million fine. But there was no criminal conviction and no jail time. Cherkasky, however, did well, as he was later, along with his new company, Kroll Associates, assigned as a court-appointed monitor of the trucking business on Long Island. -- The trial of the 1993 World Trade Center bombers led to several convictions. But it, too, was in federal court, and by the time the jury ruled, Cherkasky had left the district attorney's office, which played a relatively minor role in the investigation. -- In the most celebrated aspect of the BCCI case, Washington lawyer Robert Altman was acquitted in 1993--and in near-record time. This was after a five-month trial that included 45 prosecution witnesses, but zero defense witnesses. Cherkasky was not the lead prosecutor, but he was head of the division that investigated and tried the case. -- Also in 1993, Cherkasky, then just 43 years old, ran for the district attorney's job in Westchester. Logically, he might have run in Manhattan, but Robert Morgenthau (think Adam Schiff on Law & Order, but without the charisma) had long fossilized into the job, which he still holds. Cherkasky lost badly to Jeanine Pirro. After losing the race, Cherkasky, now 54, joined Kroll, the investigations firm, and was quickly elevated. By the time it was bought by Marsh & McLennan (nyse: MMC - news - people ) for $1.9 billion this summer, he was CEO. Yesterday, after Marsh wound up in a series of scandals, the first involving mutual funds, the second involving its core insurance business, he was named CEO of the parent company, the world's largest insurance brokerage firm. That the former prosecutor is friends with, a contributor to and the former boss of the New York attorney general, who is investigating the company, is lost on no one. Indeed, Spitzer seems directly responsible for his friend's elevation, having announced that he could not negotiate with Marsh's existing leadership. Enter Cherkasky, who immediately called to restart the talks with Spitzer. As Cherkasky is a career prosecutor and investigator with little financial services experience, many wonder if he is the right man for the job long term. For now, though, the main job is fixing the company's reputation and getting its legal house in order. In that area, Cherkasky is experienced. In addition to overseeing the trucking industry, Cherkasky has served as a court-appointed federal election monitor of the Teamsters union and as a federal monitor of the Los Angeles Police Department. As for being Spitzer's former boss, that situation has been reversed. Today, Spitzer's the boss.
Tuesday, October 26, 2004
How Does Bush Do It?
How Does Bush Do It?
Pat BooneMonday, Oct. 25, 2004 Lots of folks just don’t get it.Millions of Americans, mostly liberal Democrats and high-profile entertainers and 90 percent of the media elite, are aghast and disbelieving the president’s lead in the polls leading to the election Nov. 2. How can it possibly be?
Several hundred million dollars have been spent on blistering, derisive and belittling attacks on the president, on television, in print and on radio, in mail campaigns and even on sensationalized and highly publicized concert tours. Billionaire George Soros and other mega-millionaires have given more lavishly in seething hatred and condemnation of the president than at any time in America’s history – and yet the pugnacious middle-weight George W. Bush, like the fabled Timex watch, “takes a lickin’ but keeps on tickin’”!
How can this be? It just doesn’t make sense – at least if you’re humanistic liberal in your thinking.
And that’s the point, the whole point.
A majority of middle Americans, though not as large a majority as previously, just aren’t humanistic liberals. They are old-fashioned, Bible-believing and moral citizens, and they’ll overlook a lot in their leaders, if the leaders look and seem like them. And George W. Bush, with all of his occasional fumbles and garbled syntax and inability to correctly pronounce “nuclear,” is a homeboy, a neighbor kid who got into government and made a big difference. Remember Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”? That kind of guy – not slick or glib, but sleeves-rolled-up hardworking, honest and direct and good-from-the-gut.
A Harry Truman kind of guy, the unspectacular, plain-talking Kansas City haberdasher who became president when Franklin Delano Roosevelt died so suddenly. Many today can remember their feelings of dismay when this rather insignificant little man took over the presidency of the United States. “He can’t do this!” they cried. “What’s going to happen to us?”
But he too rolled up his sleeves, put a little plaque on his desk that said “The buck stops here” and began to make tough, history-making decisions. He dropped the first atomic bombs, knowing that noncombatant Japanese would die in a surprise attack – but that bold, horrific move saved thousands of American lives, probably even more Japanese lives, and ended the second World War abruptly. Not many men would have been tough or brave or decisive enough to do that, but Harry Truman was.
And today, the little haberdasher from Kansas City is thought by many historians to be one of our most able presidents.
Middle America (not just geographically but sociologically) sees George W. Bush as another Harry Truman. And not just because he has become a tough, gritty commander in chief, leading us into a controversial pre-emptive war against global terrorism – but because he represents and champions the moral values that have defined America since its beginnings and given us our character and identity in the world.
That’s the main thing the humanist liberal don’t get; they can’t figure why so many millions of Americans still want marriage to be defined as between a man and a woman, demand a freedom to speak openly about their faith anywhere, any time, and certainly include the words “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, and devoutly believe that the life of an infant is sacred, in the womb or out. To them, these ideas are passé, outmoded, and irrelevant. They just don’t get it.
But George W. Bush does. And so Americans get George W. Bush.
Pat BooneMonday, Oct. 25, 2004 Lots of folks just don’t get it.Millions of Americans, mostly liberal Democrats and high-profile entertainers and 90 percent of the media elite, are aghast and disbelieving the president’s lead in the polls leading to the election Nov. 2. How can it possibly be?
Several hundred million dollars have been spent on blistering, derisive and belittling attacks on the president, on television, in print and on radio, in mail campaigns and even on sensationalized and highly publicized concert tours. Billionaire George Soros and other mega-millionaires have given more lavishly in seething hatred and condemnation of the president than at any time in America’s history – and yet the pugnacious middle-weight George W. Bush, like the fabled Timex watch, “takes a lickin’ but keeps on tickin’”!
How can this be? It just doesn’t make sense – at least if you’re humanistic liberal in your thinking.
And that’s the point, the whole point.
A majority of middle Americans, though not as large a majority as previously, just aren’t humanistic liberals. They are old-fashioned, Bible-believing and moral citizens, and they’ll overlook a lot in their leaders, if the leaders look and seem like them. And George W. Bush, with all of his occasional fumbles and garbled syntax and inability to correctly pronounce “nuclear,” is a homeboy, a neighbor kid who got into government and made a big difference. Remember Jimmy Stewart in “Mr. Smith Goes to Washington”? That kind of guy – not slick or glib, but sleeves-rolled-up hardworking, honest and direct and good-from-the-gut.
A Harry Truman kind of guy, the unspectacular, plain-talking Kansas City haberdasher who became president when Franklin Delano Roosevelt died so suddenly. Many today can remember their feelings of dismay when this rather insignificant little man took over the presidency of the United States. “He can’t do this!” they cried. “What’s going to happen to us?”
But he too rolled up his sleeves, put a little plaque on his desk that said “The buck stops here” and began to make tough, history-making decisions. He dropped the first atomic bombs, knowing that noncombatant Japanese would die in a surprise attack – but that bold, horrific move saved thousands of American lives, probably even more Japanese lives, and ended the second World War abruptly. Not many men would have been tough or brave or decisive enough to do that, but Harry Truman was.
And today, the little haberdasher from Kansas City is thought by many historians to be one of our most able presidents.
Middle America (not just geographically but sociologically) sees George W. Bush as another Harry Truman. And not just because he has become a tough, gritty commander in chief, leading us into a controversial pre-emptive war against global terrorism – but because he represents and champions the moral values that have defined America since its beginnings and given us our character and identity in the world.
That’s the main thing the humanist liberal don’t get; they can’t figure why so many millions of Americans still want marriage to be defined as between a man and a woman, demand a freedom to speak openly about their faith anywhere, any time, and certainly include the words “under God” in our Pledge of Allegiance, and devoutly believe that the life of an infant is sacred, in the womb or out. To them, these ideas are passé, outmoded, and irrelevant. They just don’t get it.
But George W. Bush does. And so Americans get George W. Bush.
Attention Fence Sitters: 101 Points to Ponder Before Taking to the Polls
October 25, 2004
MAUREEN FARRELL ARCHIVES
Attention Fence Sitters: 101 Points to Ponder Before Taking to the Polls
by Maureen Farrell
"Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for -- but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him." – Hunter S. Thompson
Though the country is more polarized than it’s been since the Vietnam War, a palpable sense of "we’re in it togetherness" exists below the rancor and angst. Because of this, the question, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" has been replaced with the broader, "Is the country better off"?
At this particular fork in the road, we have to imagine where each path might lead. Where will we be five years from now? Twenty years from now? Should we "stay the course," even though the course is headed into a ravine?
Of course, the Bush campaign has been trying to scare Americans with images of wolves, suggesting that this administration will keep danger at bay. But George Bush has made us decidedly less safe by driving us deeper into the forrest. Should we reward the man who's steered the country into a ditch by giving him the keys to the company car?
One week from now, our collective futures will be decided. If you're still undecided, I beg you to consider the following:
The last presidential election
["George Bush’s presidency was] signed, sealed and delivered months before anyone entered a voting booth." – Investigative reporter Greg Palast
1. Scrubbed voter rolls.
2. Disappearing votes.
3. Thugs on Enron planes.
4. Another debacle in the making.
Incompetence prior to 9/11
"I don't believe any longer that it's a matter of connecting the dots. I think they had a veritable blueprint, and we want to know why they didn't act on it." — Sen. Arlen Specter
5. In addition to the Aug. 6, 2001 PDB entitled 'Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US,' the president saw a string of reports, including ones entitled: 'Bin Laden planning multiple operations,' 'Bin Laden network's plans advancing' and 'Bin Laden threats are real.'"
6 "Bush acknowledged that bin Laden was not his focus or that of his national security team. ‘I was not on point,' the president said [to Bob Woodward in Bush at War]. ‘I didn't feel a sense of urgency.' Well, how can you not feel a sense of urgency when George Tenet is telling you in daily briefings, day after day, that a major al Qaeda attack is coming?"
7. "'Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon," Richard Clarke told White House staffers in July 2001. "For six weeks. . . the U.S. government was at its highest possible state of readiness. . . By the time Bush received his briefing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, the government had begun to stand down from the alert."
8. FBI officials complained after Bush took office, intelligence agencies were instructed to "'back off' from investigations involving other members of the Bin Laden family, the Saudi royals, and possible Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan."
9. Former Sen. Gary Hart says he warned Condoleezza Rice "about an imminent terror attack on two occasions before 9/11."
10. Senator: "incompetence. . . a contributing factor toward Sept. 11."
Incompetence on 9/11
"For more than two hours after the Federal Aviation Administration became aware that the first plane had been violently overtaken by Middle Eastern men, the man whose job it was to order air cover over Washington did not show up in the Pentagon's command center. It took him almost two hours to 'gain situational awareness'. . . "-- Gail Sheehy, the Los Angeles Times
11. Bush’s Pet Goat.
12. "How much in command was the commander in chief?"
13. John Dean: "It seems very probable that those in the White House knew much more than they have admitted, and they are covering up their failure to take action."
14. "Why don’t we have answers to these 9/11 questions?"
15. "FBI rewarding incompetence?"
16. "The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names."
Incompetence in Iraq
"Iraq is a terrible mess because of the criminal incompetence of the Bush national security team, and we are more alone in the world than ever."—Thomas Friedman, the New York Times
17. Zinni: "In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption."
18. "As the toll of mayhem inspired by terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi mounts in Iraq, some former officials and military officers increasingly wonder whether the Bush administration made a mistake months before the start of the war by stopping the military from attacking his camp in the northeastern part of that country." (Shades of bin Laden's escape?)
19 The Bush administration failed to guard Iraq’s military and nuclear sites and, as a result, explosives
and nuclear materials have been pilfered. As one writer put it, "your chances of getting nuked in your jammies have gone way up."
20. Career CIA officer: "America is losing the war on terror, in part because of the invasion of Iraq."
21. "Iraq war 'helped al-Qaeda recruit.' and "succeeded only in stimulating terrorism."
22. Brigadier General: "If we continue to proceed the way we are proceeding with the current strategy, there's going to become a point in time where the draft could be very necessary."
23. "If Bush is re-elected there are only two possible outcomes in Iraq" – and neither is good for America.
Bush Administration Secrecy
"This White House. . . is the most secretive ever to run the United States." – Former Nixon counsel John Dean
24. "I believe a veil of secrecy has descended around the administration and I think that's unseemly," Republican Congressman Dan Burton remarked, after Bush signed an Executive Order restricting access to Presidential records.
25. Cheney’s Energy Task force forced the question, "What are they hiding?"
26. As of Feb. 2003, there were more than 300 rollbacks of the Freedom of Information Act.
27. 9/11 family members said the White House "smothered every attempt to get to the bottom of the outrageous intelligence failures that took place on its watch."
28. 'What is your government not telling you’?
Deception
"Sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies." -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld paraphrasing Winston Churchill
29. Even while publicly making mushroom cloud claims, hawks in the U.S. government privately admitted that Iraq was not a threat to the United States.
30. Early on, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell both publicly asserted that Saddam was not capable of attacking America.
31. The Pentagon constructed its own "lie factory" to justify a pre-planned war.
32. Paul Wolfowitz skirted the human and monetary costs of the war in Iraq, causing one lawmaker to note: "I think you're deliberately keeping us in the dark."
33. The Bush administration relied on "misrepresentation [and] manipulation" to make its case for Iraq.
34. As of Oct. 25, 2004, the White House Web site still contained a list of Iraq-related whoppers.
Trickery
"President Bush may not be dumb, but he sure does think the rest of us are." – Molly Ivins
35. "The Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, struck a deal with the US not to seize Bin Laden after the Afghan war for fear of inciting trouble in his own country."
36. "The White House withheld information about North Korea's nuclear weapons program until after Congress passed its resolution authorizing war with Iraq."
37. The White House instructed Rep Dick Armey to insert a provision blocking lawsuits against vaccine makers into homeland security legislation. "Why would anyone want to save Eli Lilly on our children's backs?" one mother asked.
38. The Bush administration knew that claims about aluminum tubes and "uranium from Africa" were not true, but "cooked information" made its way into President’s speeches anyway.
39. 'The quickest way home is through Baghdad', they told us. So we took the city, and here we are still," one staff sergeant complained, long before troops were forced to stay in the military.
Weirdness
"First it is clear the US authorities did little or nothing to pre-empt the events of 9/11. It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks.. . . Was this inaction simply the result of key people disregarding, or being ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have been deliberately stood down on September 11?" -- Former British environmental minister Michael Meacher
40. "On Sept. 10, Newsweek has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns."
41. Former FBI translator: "I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with airplanes."
42. In 2000, the U.S. military conducted exercises to see how many would perish if a plane flew into the Pentagon and on Sept. 11, 2001 the CIA ran a similar simulation.
43. Days after the 9/11 attacks, Bin Laden family members were flown out of the country.
44. "Judicial Watch is aggressively pursuing the disclosure of the facts and the decision for White House staff, and President Bush as well, to begin taking Cipro nearly a month before anthrax was detected on Capitol Hill."
45. Bush knew.
Threats to Civil Liberties
"It's bombs away for Iraq and on our civil liberties if Bush and his cronies get their way." – Helen Thomas
46. ‘Bush gets "f" on Civil Rights.’
47. "Patriot Act sequel worse than original"
48. School teachers threatened with arrest and tossed out of a Bush rally for wearing T-shirts that read ‘Protect our civil liberties.’
49. Mother of a slain solider arrested for interrupting Laura Bush.
50. Solider tossed out of a Bush rally for befriending a Democrat.
51. John Ashcroft's camps.
52. ‘Uncle Sam will soon want your kids.’
Threats to Democracy
"It's not an overstatement to say that on Nov. 2, the fate of traditional American democracy will hang in the balance." – Neal Gabler, the Los Angeles Times
53. "On the issue of war and peace, the United States is no longer a democracy."
54. ‘Threats to Democracy at Code Red.’
55. Former Reagan official bemoans the "Brownshirting of America."
56. Bush-Connected Clear Channel raises questions about censorship and the merger of government and the media.
57. ‘Dirty Tricks return to the sunshine state’
58. "So even before most of the country votes on November 2, it is likely that John Kerry will have been denied thousands upon thousands of votes, well in excess of one or two hundred thousand possibly, due to a national GOP strategy of voter suppression, intimidation and dirty tricks, using multiple strategies."
59. 'U.S. spies on chat rooms.’
60. Congress kept in dark about Bush’s Shadow Government
61. ‘The end of Democracy.’
Threats to Core Values
"Give us back the America we loved, and your friends will be waiting for you." – John Le Carre, the Los Angeles Times
62. "Unilateral preventive war is neither legitimate nor moral. It is illegitimate and immoral. For more than 200 years we have not been that kind of country."
63. Bush "will go down in history as the first president to try to write bias back into the Constitution."
64. "[Bush’s] international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies -- a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky's concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies -- temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election -- are just as extreme."
65. "Bush has shown an ideological commitment to the literalist Christian tradition at the expense of the broader view of the larger religious community. He is the first president not to meet with the leadership of mainline Christian traditions since George Washington."
66. "The nation's founders, smarting still from the punitive pieties of Europe's state religions, were adamant about erecting a wall between organized religion and political authority. But suddenly, that seems like a long time ago. George W. Bush -- both captive and creator of this moment -- has steadily, inexorably, changed the office itself. He has created the faith-based presidency."
67. "How did eight or nine neoconservatives who believed that a war in Iraq was the answer to international terrorism get their way? How did they redirect the government and rearrange long-standing American priorities and policies with so much ease? How did they overcome the bureaucracy, intimidate the press, mislead the Congress, and dominate the military? Is our democracy that fragile?"
Threats to America’s Worldwide Reputation
"Never before have so many climbed into the underbelly of U.S. foreign policy and left holding their noses." -- The Toronto Star
68. 'America's reputation as land of the free looking increasingly tarnished.'
69. "[In] eight out of 10 nations, those polled said - often in landslide proportions - that they hoped to see Democrat John Kerry beat President Bush in next month's election."
70. Brits lobby to get rid of George W. Bush.
71. Germany has signaled that if Kerry wins, they’d reconsider sending troops to Iraq.
72. "Probably no American president in history has been so universally hated abroad as Bush."
War Profiteering
"Between now and the November election, it's crucial that Americans come to understand how four generations of the current president's family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and personal financial links." -- Kevin Phillips, the Los Angeles Times
73. ‘Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill Dubya his former business partner’?
74. ‘The Bush Crony Act’
75. "‘Bush ally set to profit on war on terror."
76. ‘Bush and the Saudis Sitten’ in a tree’.
77. "Donald Rumsfeld, the US defense secretary, sat on the board of a company which three years ago sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea - a country he now regards as part of the "axis of evil. . . "
78. "Nowhere is the revolving U.S.-Saudi money wheel more evident than within President Bush's own coterie of foreign policy advisers, starting with the president's father, George H.W. Bush."
79. "Bush Family Values."
80. "Cheney claimed that he supported the U.S. sanctions on Iraq, but the Financial Times of London reported that through foreign subsidiaries and affiliates, Halliburton became the biggest oil contractor for Iraq, selling more than $73 million in goods and services to Saddam Hussein's regime."
81. "A U.S. grand jury issued a subpoena to Halliburton Co. seeking information about its Cayman Islands unit's work in Iran, where it is illegal for U.S. companies to operate. . . "
Non-Presidential Behavior
"The disdainful smirks and grimaces that many viewers were surprised to see in the first presidential debate are familiar expressions to those in the administration or in Congress who have simply asked the president to explain his positions." – Ron Suskind, the New York Times
82. The reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."
83. "A blind man in a room full of deaf people."
84. A "shot across the bow."
85. Has Bush lost his reason?
Human Rights Abuses
"[A] secret U.S. military unit has been ‘disappearing’ people since December 2001, and America has no idea how irreparably its torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison has damaged its image in the Middle East." – Summary of Seymour Hersh speech
86. 'Bush Administration lawyers greenlight torture.'
87. The US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison.
88. Rumsfeld knew of prisoner abuse and possible war crimes as early as 2002, but did nothing to stop it.
The Religious Right
"The outcome [of this election] threatens to transform the U.S. into an ironfisted theocracy." – Neal Gabler, the Los Angeles Times
89. ‘Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power: US Christian fundamentalists are driving Bush's Middle East policy.’
90 "The Rev. Jerry Falwell said yesterday that evangelical Christians, after nearly 25 years of increasing political activism, now control the Republican Party and the fate of President Bush in the November election."
91. "It is one of the saddest ironies of our time that as America tries to calm the fires of theocracy abroad, it should be stoking milder versions of the same at home."
92. When former Council for National Policy member Pat Robertson resigned as head of the Christian Coalition, some saw it as a sign. "I think Robertson stepped down because the position has already been filled," Gary Bauer said, referring to President Bush's role as head of the Religious Right.
93. "The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected."
The Home Front
"Voters should reject the notion that the current administration ‘inherited’ a bad economy or was the victim on 9/11 of previous White House policies. The state in which this nation finds itself can be traced to a single misfortune: four years of the Bush administration." -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
94. "Nearly 2.7 million manufacturing and 1 million professional-services and information-technology jobs have been lost since President Bush took office."
95. "Mr. Bush's foreign policy. . . has undoubtedly boosted the cost of gas and fuel oil to all Americans."
96. "The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million last year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million, the Census Bureau reported. . ."
97. "The Bush Social Security plan poses a major threat to the economic security of future generations of older Americans. And it also poses major risks for current beneficiaries."
Weird Science
98. "The administration's stem-cell stand is just one of many examples, from climate change to abstinence-only sex-education programs, in which the White House has made policies that defy widely accepted scientific opinion."
99. "George W. Bush will go down as the worst environmental president in our nation’s history."
100. "Under Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed."
And finally. . .
"If the past informs the future, four more years of the Bush Administration will be a tragic period in the history of the United States and the world." -- The Nation
101. '100 Facts and 1 opinion'
BACK TO TOP
Maureen Farrell is a writer and media consultant who specializes in helping other writers get television and radio exposure.
MAUREEN FARRELL ARCHIVES
Attention Fence Sitters: 101 Points to Ponder Before Taking to the Polls
by Maureen Farrell
"Nixon was a professional politician, and I despised everything he stood for -- but if he were running for president this year against the evil Bush-Cheney gang, I would happily vote for him." – Hunter S. Thompson
Though the country is more polarized than it’s been since the Vietnam War, a palpable sense of "we’re in it togetherness" exists below the rancor and angst. Because of this, the question, "Are you better off than you were four years ago?" has been replaced with the broader, "Is the country better off"?
At this particular fork in the road, we have to imagine where each path might lead. Where will we be five years from now? Twenty years from now? Should we "stay the course," even though the course is headed into a ravine?
Of course, the Bush campaign has been trying to scare Americans with images of wolves, suggesting that this administration will keep danger at bay. But George Bush has made us decidedly less safe by driving us deeper into the forrest. Should we reward the man who's steered the country into a ditch by giving him the keys to the company car?
One week from now, our collective futures will be decided. If you're still undecided, I beg you to consider the following:
The last presidential election
["George Bush’s presidency was] signed, sealed and delivered months before anyone entered a voting booth." – Investigative reporter Greg Palast
1. Scrubbed voter rolls.
2. Disappearing votes.
3. Thugs on Enron planes.
4. Another debacle in the making.
Incompetence prior to 9/11
"I don't believe any longer that it's a matter of connecting the dots. I think they had a veritable blueprint, and we want to know why they didn't act on it." — Sen. Arlen Specter
5. In addition to the Aug. 6, 2001 PDB entitled 'Bin Laden Determined To Strike in US,' the president saw a string of reports, including ones entitled: 'Bin Laden planning multiple operations,' 'Bin Laden network's plans advancing' and 'Bin Laden threats are real.'"
6 "Bush acknowledged that bin Laden was not his focus or that of his national security team. ‘I was not on point,' the president said [to Bob Woodward in Bush at War]. ‘I didn't feel a sense of urgency.' Well, how can you not feel a sense of urgency when George Tenet is telling you in daily briefings, day after day, that a major al Qaeda attack is coming?"
7. "'Something really spectacular is going to happen here, and it's going to happen soon," Richard Clarke told White House staffers in July 2001. "For six weeks. . . the U.S. government was at its highest possible state of readiness. . . By the time Bush received his briefing at his ranch in Crawford, Tex., on Aug. 6, the government had begun to stand down from the alert."
8. FBI officials complained after Bush took office, intelligence agencies were instructed to "'back off' from investigations involving other members of the Bin Laden family, the Saudi royals, and possible Saudi links to the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Pakistan."
9. Former Sen. Gary Hart says he warned Condoleezza Rice "about an imminent terror attack on two occasions before 9/11."
10. Senator: "incompetence. . . a contributing factor toward Sept. 11."
Incompetence on 9/11
"For more than two hours after the Federal Aviation Administration became aware that the first plane had been violently overtaken by Middle Eastern men, the man whose job it was to order air cover over Washington did not show up in the Pentagon's command center. It took him almost two hours to 'gain situational awareness'. . . "-- Gail Sheehy, the Los Angeles Times
11. Bush’s Pet Goat.
12. "How much in command was the commander in chief?"
13. John Dean: "It seems very probable that those in the White House knew much more than they have admitted, and they are covering up their failure to take action."
14. "Why don’t we have answers to these 9/11 questions?"
15. "FBI rewarding incompetence?"
16. "The Bush administration is suppressing a CIA report on 9/11 until after the election, and this one names names."
Incompetence in Iraq
"Iraq is a terrible mess because of the criminal incompetence of the Bush national security team, and we are more alone in the world than ever."—Thomas Friedman, the New York Times
17. Zinni: "In the lead up to the Iraq war and its later conduct, I saw at a minimum, true dereliction, negligence and irresponsibility, at worse, lying, incompetence and corruption."
18. "As the toll of mayhem inspired by terrorist leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi mounts in Iraq, some former officials and military officers increasingly wonder whether the Bush administration made a mistake months before the start of the war by stopping the military from attacking his camp in the northeastern part of that country." (Shades of bin Laden's escape?)
19 The Bush administration failed to guard Iraq’s military and nuclear sites and, as a result, explosives
and nuclear materials have been pilfered. As one writer put it, "your chances of getting nuked in your jammies have gone way up."
20. Career CIA officer: "America is losing the war on terror, in part because of the invasion of Iraq."
21. "Iraq war 'helped al-Qaeda recruit.' and "succeeded only in stimulating terrorism."
22. Brigadier General: "If we continue to proceed the way we are proceeding with the current strategy, there's going to become a point in time where the draft could be very necessary."
23. "If Bush is re-elected there are only two possible outcomes in Iraq" – and neither is good for America.
Bush Administration Secrecy
"This White House. . . is the most secretive ever to run the United States." – Former Nixon counsel John Dean
24. "I believe a veil of secrecy has descended around the administration and I think that's unseemly," Republican Congressman Dan Burton remarked, after Bush signed an Executive Order restricting access to Presidential records.
25. Cheney’s Energy Task force forced the question, "What are they hiding?"
26. As of Feb. 2003, there were more than 300 rollbacks of the Freedom of Information Act.
27. 9/11 family members said the White House "smothered every attempt to get to the bottom of the outrageous intelligence failures that took place on its watch."
28. 'What is your government not telling you’?
Deception
"Sometimes the truth is so precious it must be accompanied by a bodyguard of lies." -- Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld paraphrasing Winston Churchill
29. Even while publicly making mushroom cloud claims, hawks in the U.S. government privately admitted that Iraq was not a threat to the United States.
30. Early on, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell both publicly asserted that Saddam was not capable of attacking America.
31. The Pentagon constructed its own "lie factory" to justify a pre-planned war.
32. Paul Wolfowitz skirted the human and monetary costs of the war in Iraq, causing one lawmaker to note: "I think you're deliberately keeping us in the dark."
33. The Bush administration relied on "misrepresentation [and] manipulation" to make its case for Iraq.
34. As of Oct. 25, 2004, the White House Web site still contained a list of Iraq-related whoppers.
Trickery
"President Bush may not be dumb, but he sure does think the rest of us are." – Molly Ivins
35. "The Pakistani president, General Pervez Musharraf, struck a deal with the US not to seize Bin Laden after the Afghan war for fear of inciting trouble in his own country."
36. "The White House withheld information about North Korea's nuclear weapons program until after Congress passed its resolution authorizing war with Iraq."
37. The White House instructed Rep Dick Armey to insert a provision blocking lawsuits against vaccine makers into homeland security legislation. "Why would anyone want to save Eli Lilly on our children's backs?" one mother asked.
38. The Bush administration knew that claims about aluminum tubes and "uranium from Africa" were not true, but "cooked information" made its way into President’s speeches anyway.
39. 'The quickest way home is through Baghdad', they told us. So we took the city, and here we are still," one staff sergeant complained, long before troops were forced to stay in the military.
Weirdness
"First it is clear the US authorities did little or nothing to pre-empt the events of 9/11. It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks.. . . Was this inaction simply the result of key people disregarding, or being ignorant of, the evidence? Or could US air security operations have been deliberately stood down on September 11?" -- Former British environmental minister Michael Meacher
40. "On Sept. 10, Newsweek has learned, a group of top Pentagon officials suddenly canceled travel plans for the next morning, apparently because of security concerns."
41. Former FBI translator: "I saw papers that show US knew al-Qa'ida would attack cities with airplanes."
42. In 2000, the U.S. military conducted exercises to see how many would perish if a plane flew into the Pentagon and on Sept. 11, 2001 the CIA ran a similar simulation.
43. Days after the 9/11 attacks, Bin Laden family members were flown out of the country.
44. "Judicial Watch is aggressively pursuing the disclosure of the facts and the decision for White House staff, and President Bush as well, to begin taking Cipro nearly a month before anthrax was detected on Capitol Hill."
45. Bush knew.
Threats to Civil Liberties
"It's bombs away for Iraq and on our civil liberties if Bush and his cronies get their way." – Helen Thomas
46. ‘Bush gets "f" on Civil Rights.’
47. "Patriot Act sequel worse than original"
48. School teachers threatened with arrest and tossed out of a Bush rally for wearing T-shirts that read ‘Protect our civil liberties.’
49. Mother of a slain solider arrested for interrupting Laura Bush.
50. Solider tossed out of a Bush rally for befriending a Democrat.
51. John Ashcroft's camps.
52. ‘Uncle Sam will soon want your kids.’
Threats to Democracy
"It's not an overstatement to say that on Nov. 2, the fate of traditional American democracy will hang in the balance." – Neal Gabler, the Los Angeles Times
53. "On the issue of war and peace, the United States is no longer a democracy."
54. ‘Threats to Democracy at Code Red.’
55. Former Reagan official bemoans the "Brownshirting of America."
56. Bush-Connected Clear Channel raises questions about censorship and the merger of government and the media.
57. ‘Dirty Tricks return to the sunshine state’
58. "So even before most of the country votes on November 2, it is likely that John Kerry will have been denied thousands upon thousands of votes, well in excess of one or two hundred thousand possibly, due to a national GOP strategy of voter suppression, intimidation and dirty tricks, using multiple strategies."
59. 'U.S. spies on chat rooms.’
60. Congress kept in dark about Bush’s Shadow Government
61. ‘The end of Democracy.’
Threats to Core Values
"Give us back the America we loved, and your friends will be waiting for you." – John Le Carre, the Los Angeles Times
62. "Unilateral preventive war is neither legitimate nor moral. It is illegitimate and immoral. For more than 200 years we have not been that kind of country."
63. Bush "will go down in history as the first president to try to write bias back into the Constitution."
64. "[Bush’s] international policies have been based on the hopelessly naïve belief that foreign peoples are eager to be liberated by American armies -- a notion more grounded in Leon Trotsky's concept of global revolution than any sort of conservative statecraft. His immigration policies -- temporarily put on hold while he runs for re-election -- are just as extreme."
65. "Bush has shown an ideological commitment to the literalist Christian tradition at the expense of the broader view of the larger religious community. He is the first president not to meet with the leadership of mainline Christian traditions since George Washington."
66. "The nation's founders, smarting still from the punitive pieties of Europe's state religions, were adamant about erecting a wall between organized religion and political authority. But suddenly, that seems like a long time ago. George W. Bush -- both captive and creator of this moment -- has steadily, inexorably, changed the office itself. He has created the faith-based presidency."
67. "How did eight or nine neoconservatives who believed that a war in Iraq was the answer to international terrorism get their way? How did they redirect the government and rearrange long-standing American priorities and policies with so much ease? How did they overcome the bureaucracy, intimidate the press, mislead the Congress, and dominate the military? Is our democracy that fragile?"
Threats to America’s Worldwide Reputation
"Never before have so many climbed into the underbelly of U.S. foreign policy and left holding their noses." -- The Toronto Star
68. 'America's reputation as land of the free looking increasingly tarnished.'
69. "[In] eight out of 10 nations, those polled said - often in landslide proportions - that they hoped to see Democrat John Kerry beat President Bush in next month's election."
70. Brits lobby to get rid of George W. Bush.
71. Germany has signaled that if Kerry wins, they’d reconsider sending troops to Iraq.
72. "Probably no American president in history has been so universally hated abroad as Bush."
War Profiteering
"Between now and the November election, it's crucial that Americans come to understand how four generations of the current president's family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and personal financial links." -- Kevin Phillips, the Los Angeles Times
73. ‘Why would Osama bin Laden want to kill Dubya his former business partner’?
74. ‘The Bush Crony Act’
75. "‘Bush ally set to profit on war on terror."
76. ‘Bush and the Saudis Sitten’ in a tree’.
77. "Donald Rumsfeld, the US defense secretary, sat on the board of a company which three years ago sold two light water nuclear reactors to North Korea - a country he now regards as part of the "axis of evil. . . "
78. "Nowhere is the revolving U.S.-Saudi money wheel more evident than within President Bush's own coterie of foreign policy advisers, starting with the president's father, George H.W. Bush."
79. "Bush Family Values."
80. "Cheney claimed that he supported the U.S. sanctions on Iraq, but the Financial Times of London reported that through foreign subsidiaries and affiliates, Halliburton became the biggest oil contractor for Iraq, selling more than $73 million in goods and services to Saddam Hussein's regime."
81. "A U.S. grand jury issued a subpoena to Halliburton Co. seeking information about its Cayman Islands unit's work in Iran, where it is illegal for U.S. companies to operate. . . "
Non-Presidential Behavior
"The disdainful smirks and grimaces that many viewers were surprised to see in the first presidential debate are familiar expressions to those in the administration or in Congress who have simply asked the president to explain his positions." – Ron Suskind, the New York Times
82. The reign of the Mayberry Machiavellis."
83. "A blind man in a room full of deaf people."
84. A "shot across the bow."
85. Has Bush lost his reason?
Human Rights Abuses
"[A] secret U.S. military unit has been ‘disappearing’ people since December 2001, and America has no idea how irreparably its torture of Iraqis at Abu Ghraib prison has damaged its image in the Middle East." – Summary of Seymour Hersh speech
86. 'Bush Administration lawyers greenlight torture.'
87. The US government has videotapes of boys being sodomized at Abu Ghraib prison.
88. Rumsfeld knew of prisoner abuse and possible war crimes as early as 2002, but did nothing to stop it.
The Religious Right
"The outcome [of this election] threatens to transform the U.S. into an ironfisted theocracy." – Neal Gabler, the Los Angeles Times
89. ‘Their beliefs are bonkers, but they are at the heart of power: US Christian fundamentalists are driving Bush's Middle East policy.’
90 "The Rev. Jerry Falwell said yesterday that evangelical Christians, after nearly 25 years of increasing political activism, now control the Republican Party and the fate of President Bush in the November election."
91. "It is one of the saddest ironies of our time that as America tries to calm the fires of theocracy abroad, it should be stoking milder versions of the same at home."
92. When former Council for National Policy member Pat Robertson resigned as head of the Christian Coalition, some saw it as a sign. "I think Robertson stepped down because the position has already been filled," Gary Bauer said, referring to President Bush's role as head of the Religious Right.
93. "The only way Americans will have a presidency in which neoconservatives and the Christian Armageddon set are not holding the reins of power is if Kerry is elected."
The Home Front
"Voters should reject the notion that the current administration ‘inherited’ a bad economy or was the victim on 9/11 of previous White House policies. The state in which this nation finds itself can be traced to a single misfortune: four years of the Bush administration." -- Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
94. "Nearly 2.7 million manufacturing and 1 million professional-services and information-technology jobs have been lost since President Bush took office."
95. "Mr. Bush's foreign policy. . . has undoubtedly boosted the cost of gas and fuel oil to all Americans."
96. "The number of Americans living in poverty increased by 1.3 million last year, while the ranks of the uninsured swelled by 1.4 million, the Census Bureau reported. . ."
97. "The Bush Social Security plan poses a major threat to the economic security of future generations of older Americans. And it also poses major risks for current beneficiaries."
Weird Science
98. "The administration's stem-cell stand is just one of many examples, from climate change to abstinence-only sex-education programs, in which the White House has made policies that defy widely accepted scientific opinion."
99. "George W. Bush will go down as the worst environmental president in our nation’s history."
100. "Under Bush, the decade-long trend of declining abortion rates appears to have reversed."
And finally. . .
"If the past informs the future, four more years of the Bush Administration will be a tragic period in the history of the United States and the world." -- The Nation
101. '100 Facts and 1 opinion'
BACK TO TOP
Maureen Farrell is a writer and media consultant who specializes in helping other writers get television and radio exposure.
Film suggests U.S. has plan to rule the world
Film suggests U.S. has plan to rule the world
Documentary takes look at neoconservatives.
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire • With: Julian Bond (narrator) and Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Karen Kwiatkowski, Michael Franti, Norman Mailer, Scott Ritter and Medea Benjamin. • Location: Key Cinemas. • Running time: 68 minutes. • Rating: None.
By Anita Gates
The New York Times News Service
October 23, 2004
You won't see President Bush swinging any golf clubs in "Hijacking Catastrophe." You won't see his and his advisers' heads attached to the bodies of stars from "Bonanza." This is not Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" revisited.
You will, however, see and hear Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the administration say again and again, with various phrasings, "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction." (That is an exact quotation from Cheney.)
Throngs of Democrats believe that Bush was determined to go to war with Saddam, come hell or high water. The pop-psychology reasoning goes that Bush the Younger is trying to prove himself to his father or to best him, at the expense of thousands of lives.
The writers and directors of this openly polemical but also sobering documentary -- Sut Jhally, a professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Jeremy Earp, a doctoral candidate there -- suggest that the reality is much bigger and even more disturbing.
They suggest that the real reason for the war with Iraq is a two-decade, three-administration, neoconservative master plan to -- well, let's let Norman Mailer say the words, as he does in the film. At the end of the Cold War, he proposes, the Republicans saw a "golden opportunity, now that Russia is out of the way, to take over the world." Or as the author Chalmers Johnson says on camera, without irony, they wanted to create "a new Rome, beyond good and evil."
You don't hear phrases like "take over the world" often these days without a James Bond movie review attached, but "Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire" makes a convincing case with simple methods: talking heads, newspaper articles, an authoritative narrator (Julian Bond) and the occasional chart on military spending or the national debt.
The voices speaking out are not all wild-eyed liberals. In addition to predictable administration critics like Mailer, Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, they include Scott Ritter, a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq; Stan Goff, a retired Army Special Forces master sergeant; and Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (Air Force, retired), a former staff officer at the Pentagon. Their arguments appear to support the filmmakers' most serious accusations.
Documents seem to do the same. A 2000 government report, "Rebuilding America's Defense," suggests that this global empire-building would be a long, tedious process unless some huge event, "like a new Pearl Harbor," speeds it up.
The filmmakers are definitely playing hardball. "Hijacking Catastrophe" begins with a quotation about the ease of making people do what a country's leaders want. "All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked," it begins. Then, after a deliberate pause, the screen reveals that this is something Hermann Goering said during the Nuremberg trials.
Documentary takes look at neoconservatives.
Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire • With: Julian Bond (narrator) and Noam Chomsky, Daniel Ellsberg, Lt. Col. (Ret.) Karen Kwiatkowski, Michael Franti, Norman Mailer, Scott Ritter and Medea Benjamin. • Location: Key Cinemas. • Running time: 68 minutes. • Rating: None.
By Anita Gates
The New York Times News Service
October 23, 2004
You won't see President Bush swinging any golf clubs in "Hijacking Catastrophe." You won't see his and his advisers' heads attached to the bodies of stars from "Bonanza." This is not Michael Moore's "Fahrenheit 9/11" revisited.
You will, however, see and hear Bush, Vice President Dick Cheney and other members of the administration say again and again, with various phrasings, "There is no doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass destruction." (That is an exact quotation from Cheney.)
Throngs of Democrats believe that Bush was determined to go to war with Saddam, come hell or high water. The pop-psychology reasoning goes that Bush the Younger is trying to prove himself to his father or to best him, at the expense of thousands of lives.
The writers and directors of this openly polemical but also sobering documentary -- Sut Jhally, a professor of communications at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst; and Jeremy Earp, a doctoral candidate there -- suggest that the reality is much bigger and even more disturbing.
They suggest that the real reason for the war with Iraq is a two-decade, three-administration, neoconservative master plan to -- well, let's let Norman Mailer say the words, as he does in the film. At the end of the Cold War, he proposes, the Republicans saw a "golden opportunity, now that Russia is out of the way, to take over the world." Or as the author Chalmers Johnson says on camera, without irony, they wanted to create "a new Rome, beyond good and evil."
You don't hear phrases like "take over the world" often these days without a James Bond movie review attached, but "Hijacking Catastrophe: 9/11, Fear and the Selling of American Empire" makes a convincing case with simple methods: talking heads, newspaper articles, an authoritative narrator (Julian Bond) and the occasional chart on military spending or the national debt.
The voices speaking out are not all wild-eyed liberals. In addition to predictable administration critics like Mailer, Noam Chomsky and Daniel Ellsberg, they include Scott Ritter, a former U.N. weapons inspector in Iraq; Stan Goff, a retired Army Special Forces master sergeant; and Lt. Col. Karen Kwiatkowski (Air Force, retired), a former staff officer at the Pentagon. Their arguments appear to support the filmmakers' most serious accusations.
Documents seem to do the same. A 2000 government report, "Rebuilding America's Defense," suggests that this global empire-building would be a long, tedious process unless some huge event, "like a new Pearl Harbor," speeds it up.
The filmmakers are definitely playing hardball. "Hijacking Catastrophe" begins with a quotation about the ease of making people do what a country's leaders want. "All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked," it begins. Then, after a deliberate pause, the screen reveals that this is something Hermann Goering said during the Nuremberg trials.
Iraq ; Margaret Hassan not held by Iraqi rebels
Iraq ; Margaret Hassan not held by Iraqi rebels 19 Hour ago
Iraq News, Rebels commander in the Iraqi city of Falluja said that they are not holding Margaret Hassan, the director of CARE International in Iraq who was kidnapped three days ago, and condemned her kidnapping. "This woman works for a humanitarian organisation. She should not have been kidnapped," the emir, or commander, of one of the Iraqi rebels groups of in Falluja, said on Sunday.
Margaret Hassan was kidnapped in Baghdad at 7:30 a.m., as she was on her way to work in western Baghdad, CARE International said in a statement released in London. Hassan, who is in her early 60s, has been "providing humanitarian relief to the people of Iraq" for more than 25 years”. However, the U.S. military and Iraqi government officials maintain that Falluja houses foreign militants loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Commanders of five rebels groups in Falluja have been interviewed and said that they were not holding Hassan and had seen no evidence that members of Al Zarqawi network had kidnapped her. "She had been living in Iraq for 30 years and she was a humanitarian. The resistance did not kidnap her because this would have left a bad impression of the resistance in the world," said the commander, who asked not to be named. Hassan is the eighth woman hostage to have been kidnapped in Iraq over the past six months. Others, including two Italian aid workers who were held for three weeks last month, have been released unharmed.
Falluja rebels commander said there’s no political motive for abducting Hassan, who had worked in Iraq for the aid agency Care International since the early 1990s. "If she was suspect, Saddam Hussein's intelligence agents would have found out a long time ago," he said. If Margaret got executed, she will be the first woman hostage to be killed in Iraq, for although several women have been abducted in Iraq's spate of kidnappings, none of them have been killed, but freed unharmed.
Iraq News, Rebels commander in the Iraqi city of Falluja said that they are not holding Margaret Hassan, the director of CARE International in Iraq who was kidnapped three days ago, and condemned her kidnapping. "This woman works for a humanitarian organisation. She should not have been kidnapped," the emir, or commander, of one of the Iraqi rebels groups of in Falluja, said on Sunday.
Margaret Hassan was kidnapped in Baghdad at 7:30 a.m., as she was on her way to work in western Baghdad, CARE International said in a statement released in London. Hassan, who is in her early 60s, has been "providing humanitarian relief to the people of Iraq" for more than 25 years”. However, the U.S. military and Iraqi government officials maintain that Falluja houses foreign militants loyal to Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Commanders of five rebels groups in Falluja have been interviewed and said that they were not holding Hassan and had seen no evidence that members of Al Zarqawi network had kidnapped her. "She had been living in Iraq for 30 years and she was a humanitarian. The resistance did not kidnap her because this would have left a bad impression of the resistance in the world," said the commander, who asked not to be named. Hassan is the eighth woman hostage to have been kidnapped in Iraq over the past six months. Others, including two Italian aid workers who were held for three weeks last month, have been released unharmed.
Falluja rebels commander said there’s no political motive for abducting Hassan, who had worked in Iraq for the aid agency Care International since the early 1990s. "If she was suspect, Saddam Hussein's intelligence agents would have found out a long time ago," he said. If Margaret got executed, she will be the first woman hostage to be killed in Iraq, for although several women have been abducted in Iraq's spate of kidnappings, none of them have been killed, but freed unharmed.
British Agents Engineered Capture Of Care International’s Margaret Hassan
British Agents Engineered Capture Of Care International’s Margaret HassanOct 25, 2004 JUS News Desk
JUS has learned from reliable sources close to the Mujahideen in Iraq that the kidnapping of Margaret Hassan is a operation concocted by British agents inside the country in conjunction with Margaret’s husband, in an effort to divert attention away from the American request for British troop deployment into the volatile area of Latifiyah – a move that has struck a raw nerve with the British public.No group has claimed responsibility for Hassan capture. The 59 year old director of CARE international in Iraq was taken captive on her way to work on October 19, 2004 in a picture perfect operation. A videotape issued Oct. 22 and aired by Al-Jazeera showed her pleading for Britain to withdraw troops from Iraq.What was curious from the beginning was the amount of details that husband Tahseen Ali Hassan was telling reporters about his wife’s capture just a few short hours after the incident and while authorities where still unclear what had taken place. To have obtained in-depth details so quickly of the events that actually took place raised suspicions about who was behind Hassan’s capture early on. Sunni clerics who have been heading up the resistance in Fallujah has said previously that they were not responsible Hassan’s kidnapping and were calling for her release. Of the 150 foreigners captured by Mujahideen, few have been women with most being released and none have been killed, unlike the males who have been swiftly executed. Women are enjoined with special privileges in Islam and the Mujahideen are required to protect them under Shariah laws of Islam. This was also a tell tale sign from the start.With Tony Blair facing increased pressure from the public, focusing Britain’s attention on the Hassan capture is a perfect political strategy to subdue the publics concern over the high risk of the Latifiyah deployment.
JUS has learned from reliable sources close to the Mujahideen in Iraq that the kidnapping of Margaret Hassan is a operation concocted by British agents inside the country in conjunction with Margaret’s husband, in an effort to divert attention away from the American request for British troop deployment into the volatile area of Latifiyah – a move that has struck a raw nerve with the British public.No group has claimed responsibility for Hassan capture. The 59 year old director of CARE international in Iraq was taken captive on her way to work on October 19, 2004 in a picture perfect operation. A videotape issued Oct. 22 and aired by Al-Jazeera showed her pleading for Britain to withdraw troops from Iraq.What was curious from the beginning was the amount of details that husband Tahseen Ali Hassan was telling reporters about his wife’s capture just a few short hours after the incident and while authorities where still unclear what had taken place. To have obtained in-depth details so quickly of the events that actually took place raised suspicions about who was behind Hassan’s capture early on. Sunni clerics who have been heading up the resistance in Fallujah has said previously that they were not responsible Hassan’s kidnapping and were calling for her release. Of the 150 foreigners captured by Mujahideen, few have been women with most being released and none have been killed, unlike the males who have been swiftly executed. Women are enjoined with special privileges in Islam and the Mujahideen are required to protect them under Shariah laws of Islam. This was also a tell tale sign from the start.With Tony Blair facing increased pressure from the public, focusing Britain’s attention on the Hassan capture is a perfect political strategy to subdue the publics concern over the high risk of the Latifiyah deployment.
Monday, October 25, 2004
No Riots if Dems Win
Comment: I don't think this will blow up in Dems, face, but if there's a way to try to make it blow up Drudge and Repubs will try.
Just sounds honest to me......
DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON OCT 25, 2004 09:55:21 ET XXXXX EDWARDS WIFE: NO RIOTS IF WE WINThe wife of Dem vice presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday there will be no riots around the election -- if Kerry/Edwards wins! C-SPAN cameras captured spouse Elizabeth Edwards making the startling comments to a supporter during a Kerry Campaign Town Hall Meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.Supporter: Kerry's going to take PA. Liz Edwards: I know that.Supporter: I'm just worried there's going to be riots afterwards.Liz Edwards: Uh.....well...not if we win.DRUDGE presents an audio clip of the exchange.
Just sounds honest to me......
DRUDGE REPORT XXXXX MON OCT 25, 2004 09:55:21 ET XXXXX EDWARDS WIFE: NO RIOTS IF WE WINThe wife of Dem vice presidential hopeful John Edwards said on Sunday there will be no riots around the election -- if Kerry/Edwards wins! C-SPAN cameras captured spouse Elizabeth Edwards making the startling comments to a supporter during a Kerry Campaign Town Hall Meeting in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.Supporter: Kerry's going to take PA. Liz Edwards: I know that.Supporter: I'm just worried there's going to be riots afterwards.Liz Edwards: Uh.....well...not if we win.DRUDGE presents an audio clip of the exchange.
FIT TO PRINT?
October 25, 2004 home
THIS JUST IN DEPT.
FIT TO PRINT?
by Ben McGrath
Issue of 2003-09-08Posted 2003-09-01
Aficionados of the Drudge Report may have noticed several striking headlines recently linking to stories from the World Tribune, an enterprise with a title as grand and ambitious as it is unfamiliar. One such story last week began, “U.S. intelligence suspects Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction have finally been located.” The apparent scoop—of stop-the-presses significance—was unsigned, and billed as a “special to World Tribune.com.” The Times, the Journal, and the Washington Post, meanwhile, not only got beat but failed even to acknowledge the news in the days that followed. What gives?
Not everyone ignored it: Rush Limbaugh, for instance. “There’s a piece in the World Tribune today—one of the papers in the United Kingdom—exactly as theorized on this program early on,” he said on his radio show. “It’s unconfirmed, but it’s a story that many of the weapons of mass destruction are at present buried in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.” Fox News, catering to a similar demographic, enlisted a military analyst that evening to discuss potential ramifications—military intervention in Lebanon?—on “The O’Reilly Factor.” According to the story, the weapons were probably delivered to the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold, in a caravan of tractor-trailers that was spotted leaving Iraq in January, two months before the war began, as part of a multimillion- dollar storage deal between Saddam Hussein and the Syrian government.
In fact, the World Tribune is not published in the United Kingdom, nor is it, to be precise, a newspaper. It is a Web site produced, more or less as a hobby, in Falls Church, Virginia, and is dedicated to the notion, as its mission statement explains, that “there is a market for news of the world and not just news of the weird.” (Nonetheless, the site includes a prominent feature, Cosmic Tribune, with an extraterrestrial focus, and it links to a Mafia journal called Gang Land News.) Its editor and publisher, Robert Morton, is an assistant managing editor at the Washington Times and a former “corporate editor” for News World Communications, the Times’ owner and the publishing arm of the Unification Church, led by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. (Morton and his wife, Choon Boon, are themselves followers of the Reverend Moon.) Among the World Tribune’s other recent half-ignored scoops are that Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for last month’s blackout and that a North Korean defector stressed, during a meeting in July with White House officials, the need for a preëmptive military strike against Kim Jong Il.
Morton said last week via e-mail that he founded the site as an experiment, back in 1998, while serving as a media fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank. “I didn’t expect World Tribune.com to last for more than a few months,” Morton wrote, but now, despite having no dedicated staff (“Everyone involved with World Tribune.com has a day job”), the site receives more than a million page views per month. And, unlike the Washington Times, which has lost at least a billion dollars in its twenty-one-year existence, World Tribune.com, in concert with the subscription-driven weekly intelligence briefing Geostrategy-Direct.com (a partner site), has paid for itself.
The secret of its success seems to involve well-placed informants (“Over the years I have developed an informal, international network of sources and writers I can trust,” Morton said) and an emphasis on immediacy. Although Morton said, “We emphasize newspaper standards to counter the half-baked, unfiltered content on some online sites,” World Tribune.com more fairly qualifies as something between a newspaper and a rumor-mongering blog. Call it “blews.” In this sense, it is part of a loose network of mostly conservative sites—WorldNetDaily, Dr. Koontz’s National Security Message Board, debka File (produced by a pair of Jerusalem-based journalists thought to have moles in Israeli intelligence)—whose dispatches sometimes serve as the journalistic equivalent of trial balloons: a story may not be based on knowable facts, but it nevertheless may occasionally turn out to be right. (Much of the time, of course, it more closely resembles a Bat Boy update in the Weekly World News.)
Take the Lebanon story. National- security buffs may have recalled hearing similar reports as far back as late December (beginning with an accusation from Ariel Sharon), and cropping up again in the spring (via debka). The story never quite stuck, however, and as of the end of last week no major newspaper had seen fit to tell it. Bill Gertz, the Washington Times’ best-known reporter, is a columnist and contributing editor for Geostrategy-Direct.com and a member of the World Tribune advisory board. A few days after the Tribune’s Lebanon lead, Gertz allowed that he, too, had been hearing the reports for months but hadn’t written anything about it for the paper. “I’ve never been able to nail it down myself,” he said. He would presumably have encountered similar difficulties with the story, available at Cosmic Tribune, of the increase in observed U.F.O. activity as Mars neared.
THIS JUST IN DEPT.
FIT TO PRINT?
by Ben McGrath
Issue of 2003-09-08Posted 2003-09-01
Aficionados of the Drudge Report may have noticed several striking headlines recently linking to stories from the World Tribune, an enterprise with a title as grand and ambitious as it is unfamiliar. One such story last week began, “U.S. intelligence suspects Iraq’s weapons of mass destruction have finally been located.” The apparent scoop—of stop-the-presses significance—was unsigned, and billed as a “special to World Tribune.com.” The Times, the Journal, and the Washington Post, meanwhile, not only got beat but failed even to acknowledge the news in the days that followed. What gives?
Not everyone ignored it: Rush Limbaugh, for instance. “There’s a piece in the World Tribune today—one of the papers in the United Kingdom—exactly as theorized on this program early on,” he said on his radio show. “It’s unconfirmed, but it’s a story that many of the weapons of mass destruction are at present buried in the Bekaa Valley of Lebanon.” Fox News, catering to a similar demographic, enlisted a military analyst that evening to discuss potential ramifications—military intervention in Lebanon?—on “The O’Reilly Factor.” According to the story, the weapons were probably delivered to the Bekaa Valley, a Hezbollah stronghold, in a caravan of tractor-trailers that was spotted leaving Iraq in January, two months before the war began, as part of a multimillion- dollar storage deal between Saddam Hussein and the Syrian government.
In fact, the World Tribune is not published in the United Kingdom, nor is it, to be precise, a newspaper. It is a Web site produced, more or less as a hobby, in Falls Church, Virginia, and is dedicated to the notion, as its mission statement explains, that “there is a market for news of the world and not just news of the weird.” (Nonetheless, the site includes a prominent feature, Cosmic Tribune, with an extraterrestrial focus, and it links to a Mafia journal called Gang Land News.) Its editor and publisher, Robert Morton, is an assistant managing editor at the Washington Times and a former “corporate editor” for News World Communications, the Times’ owner and the publishing arm of the Unification Church, led by the Reverend Sun Myung Moon. (Morton and his wife, Choon Boon, are themselves followers of the Reverend Moon.) Among the World Tribune’s other recent half-ignored scoops are that Al Qaeda claimed responsibility for last month’s blackout and that a North Korean defector stressed, during a meeting in July with White House officials, the need for a preëmptive military strike against Kim Jong Il.
Morton said last week via e-mail that he founded the site as an experiment, back in 1998, while serving as a media fellow at Stanford’s Hoover Institution, a conservative think tank. “I didn’t expect World Tribune.com to last for more than a few months,” Morton wrote, but now, despite having no dedicated staff (“Everyone involved with World Tribune.com has a day job”), the site receives more than a million page views per month. And, unlike the Washington Times, which has lost at least a billion dollars in its twenty-one-year existence, World Tribune.com, in concert with the subscription-driven weekly intelligence briefing Geostrategy-Direct.com (a partner site), has paid for itself.
The secret of its success seems to involve well-placed informants (“Over the years I have developed an informal, international network of sources and writers I can trust,” Morton said) and an emphasis on immediacy. Although Morton said, “We emphasize newspaper standards to counter the half-baked, unfiltered content on some online sites,” World Tribune.com more fairly qualifies as something between a newspaper and a rumor-mongering blog. Call it “blews.” In this sense, it is part of a loose network of mostly conservative sites—WorldNetDaily, Dr. Koontz’s National Security Message Board, debka File (produced by a pair of Jerusalem-based journalists thought to have moles in Israeli intelligence)—whose dispatches sometimes serve as the journalistic equivalent of trial balloons: a story may not be based on knowable facts, but it nevertheless may occasionally turn out to be right. (Much of the time, of course, it more closely resembles a Bat Boy update in the Weekly World News.)
Take the Lebanon story. National- security buffs may have recalled hearing similar reports as far back as late December (beginning with an accusation from Ariel Sharon), and cropping up again in the spring (via debka). The story never quite stuck, however, and as of the end of last week no major newspaper had seen fit to tell it. Bill Gertz, the Washington Times’ best-known reporter, is a columnist and contributing editor for Geostrategy-Direct.com and a member of the World Tribune advisory board. A few days after the Tribune’s Lebanon lead, Gertz allowed that he, too, had been hearing the reports for months but hadn’t written anything about it for the paper. “I’ve never been able to nail it down myself,” he said. He would presumably have encountered similar difficulties with the story, available at Cosmic Tribune, of the increase in observed U.F.O. activity as Mars neared.
Superior Ordered soldier to push civilian into river
FORT CARSON, Colo. -- One of four soldiers charged with shoving two Iraqi civilians into the Tigris River where one of them drowned says his superior officers ordered up the incident and told him what to say to officials looking into the death, an Army investigator testified Wednesday.Fort Carson Soldier: I Was Ordered To Push Iraqis Off BridgeInvestigation Under Way Into Fatal Incident Over Tigris RiverPOSTED: 3:45 pm MDT July 28, 2004FORT CARSON, Colo. -- One of four soldiers charged with shoving two Iraqi civilians into the Tigris River where one of them drowned says his superior officers ordered up the incident and told him what to say to officials looking into the death, an Army investigator testified Wednesday.Spc. Terry Bowman said he "was told by his chain of command what version to give CID," Sgt. Irene Cintron of the Army's Criminal Investigation Command (CID) said during a teleconference from Iraq as the military convened a hearing to determine whether the soldiers will be court-martialed.Bowman said he had been ordered to push the men into the river, Cintron said. No names were disclosed, though three of the soldiers' commanders have received nonjudicial punishments for their roles in the incident. None of the punishments include jail time.Sgt. 1st Class Tracy E. Perkins, 33, 1st Lt. Jack M. Saville, 24 and Sgt. Reggie Martinez, 24, are charged with involuntary manslaughter in the Jan. 3 drowning death of a man identified by family members in Iraq as Zaidoun Fadel Hassoun, 19.Bowman, 21, is charged with assault for allegedly pushing the second man into the river at the same time. That man, a cousin of Hassoun named Marwan Fadel Hassoun, 23, survived the incident and described what happened to The Associated Press several weeks ago.Marwan Hassoun said he tried to help his cousin swim to safety, only to lose his grip as the soldiers watched and laughed from above. "They were behaving like they were watching a comedy on stage," he told the AP.Perkins, Martinez and Bowman appeared at Wednesday's Article 32 hearing. Saville's hearing is tentatively scheduled for Sept. 9. The four soldiers face between 5 1/2 years and 26 1/2 years in prison if they are tried and convicted on all charges.The soldiers are assigned to Fort Carson's 3rd Brigade Combat Team. The brigade is part of the 4th Infantry Division, based at Fort Hood, Texas.According to Cintron, investigators learned of the death in an e-mail from the victim's family. She said she met with Marwan Hassoun on Jan. 16, and he told her how they were stopped after getting supplies in Baghdad and then driven to the bridge several miles north of Samarra.Marwan Hassoun said he watched the soldiers push his cousin into the water and then he was pushed in, Cintron testified. He said he could hear his cousin screaming."He said it was eight meters (24 feet) deep and at no point did he feel the bottom of the river," she said. She described the drop from the bridge as 10-12 feet.After he got out on the bank, Hassoun said he could hear the soldiers above laughing as they drove away. He said he then went back to a checkpoint "soaking wet from the river" and reported what happened, Cintron said.A search was begun for a body and it was found two or three miles downriver.Martinez initially told investigators neither he nor anyone in his platoon pushed anyone in the river, Cintron said. He said they dropped the two men off on the side of the road. A week later, on Jan. 23, Martinez said he had gone to the river's edge with the men, "kicked one in the butt" but the man jumped in on his own.Sgt. Alexis Rincon, a member of the patrol that night, testified the soldiers forced the men to jump and that Martinez leveled a rifle at one of the Iraqis to make his point. Rincon said the man hesitated but jumped after the second Iraqi said something to him in Arabic.None of soldiers thought the men were in danger because one quickly made it to shore, Rincon said. He said he would not have left the scene in that event, but asked if he would have gone to the man's aid, Rincon drew laughs in the courtroom when he replied: "I don't know about jumping in and saving him."Rincon, who was granted immunity for his testimony, said Saville later jumped into the water and found it was waist deep only a few feet from shore.The soldiers' commanders, Lt. Col. Nathan Sassaman, Maj. Robert Gwinner and Capt. Matthew Cunningham, were punished last spring under Article 15, which allows punishments without a court proceeding or public record. Rep. Joel Hefley, R-Colo., has asked for congressional hearings into why their cases were handled differently than those of the soldiers.Defense attorneys told the presiding officer, Capt. Robert Ayers, their case is crippled because three commanders are demanding immunity before they testify. Ayers ordered prosecutors to explain whether they offered immunity to defense witnesses and why.The defense also criticized Cintron for relying on relatives to confirm the identity of the drowned Iraqi. Capt. Joshua Norris, a defense attorney for Perkins, also said unfriendly Iraqis have been known to fake the death of Iraqis "to bring the soldiers down."Norris said that because the survivor and his family were not investigated, "you didn't know if they were the enemy or not.""I had a victim," the investigator replied. "I didn't have a suspect of any sort."Cintron also said it wasn't safe to exhume the body and there were no medical or dental records to help with identification. She said she believed the cousin because "we got admissions from the soldiers."Norris suggested Zaidoun Hassoun's family just wanted money for a damaged truck.Cintron said the family got $10,000 for the truck and $2,500 was paid to the dead man's father. She said the man didn't want to take the money because he didn't want the case ignored, and insisted that his lawyer take it.
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