Discussion about 09/11/2001: 05/06/06

Saturday, May 06, 2006

the talking dog: May 4, 2006, TD Blog Interview with David Scheffer

Guardian Unlimited | Comment is free | Editor's week

Guardian Unlimited Comment is free Editor's week

Blogger Thoughts: Emily Bell write a clueless nod to non-MSM media, focusing mainly on blogs. As is often true, the depth of the discussion and analysis is pitiful. The idea that it's a Blogs v. News Organizations battle seems to be the only particulars identified. Even with Ms. Bell's listing of the blogs she reads, she fails to capture the significance of blogging and news reporting on the internet and it is this: MSM is horribly compromised, part of massive social control. The battle going on, especially when viewing a bastion such as the BBC, is whether the lying, obfuscation, and manipulation is going to win the day, or whether alternative voices are going to break through. One individual or one news organization doesn't break through the rigged system by having bloggers on staff, or by keeping abreast of the blogosphere. The only honest approach is to point out at every turn the dishonest, sometimes propagandistic manipulation that is omnipresent in our current media. In many cases, the blogosphere simply extends this highly contaminated environment.

The Abu Ghraib-Titan- 9/11 Connection

The Abu Ghraib-Titan- 9/11 Connection: "NSA director Lt. Gen. Michael Hayden testifies before the House intelligence committee. He says media reports that the NSA collects all electronic communications, spies on U.S. citizens and provides intelligence information to U.S. companies are 'false or misleading.' However, Hayden and CIA director George Tenet, who also testifies, neither confirm nor deny the existence of the Echelon system." [2000]
Blogger Comment: Reviewing web for references to Hayden, the new CIA Chief.

French political scandal threatens Chirac's legacy at the end of his career

BBC: We are biased in favor of Israel

Myspace.com

From:
Majid
Date:
May 6, 2006 4:56 AM
Subject:
BBC: We're biased in favour of Israel
Body:
Osama Saeed of Rolled Up Trousers ( http://www.osamasaeed.org/osama/ ) comments on the recent BBC impartiality review on the BBC coverage of the Palestine/Israel issue. His commentary:
http://www.osamasaeed.org/osama/2006/05/bbc_were_biased.html
..moreThe report:
http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/docs/reviews/panel_report_final.pdf
The BBC panel website:
http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/docs/rev_israelipalestinian.html
It's well worth reading. Just to keep things in context, Europe generally has much better media coverage of the Middle East than the outright propaganda mouthpieces of the US, but it's still not perfect. Another great resource on media coverage in the Middle East is the documentary 'Peace, Propaganda and the Promised Land', I highly recommend watching this highly informative documentary.You can watch this documentary on Google video here:
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-7828123714384920696&q=peace+propaganda+and+the+promised+land

Or download it using a torrent program, for example here:
http://www.mininova.org/tor/300011
Peace all, Keep up the struggle,-MZ

Rigorous Intuition: Bodies of Intelligence

[911TruthAction] Digest Number 1271

There are 19 messages in this issue.

Topics in this digest:

1. Re: Ramsey Clark: Whats At Stake? --- Want to restore the consti
From: "President, USA Exile Govt." prez@usa-exile.org
2. A Day in the Life: 5/5/6
From: "President, USA Exile Govt." prez@usa-exile.org
3. Retired CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Takes on Rumsfeld Over Justificatio
From: "advokris@aol.com" advokris@aol.com
4. Former CIA Middle East Expert accuses Bush admin of organized manipu
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
5. Families Hunt for Iraq's "Lost"
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
6. Good-bye US -- 'Perfect storm' as dollar is rejected worldwide drivi
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
7. Re: Are we still in the USA?
From: "Kevin Hammond" sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com
8. Fw: Mayor Daley in ISRAEL during Chicago 911 Terror Exercise
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
9. daily war crimes will come to light -- Tony Swindell: Decent into
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
10. CIA Director Porter Goss Resigns Without Notice over Bush Actions !!
From: "ranger116@webtv.net" ranger116@webtv.net
11. JUST ANNOUNCED! "9/11 + The Neo-Con Agenda" Symposium
From: "Cait" ansith@gmail.com
12. [Dalzell] All Hail to Charlie Sheen
From: "Edward Pickersgill" edward@mytown.ca
13. Notice to all County Sheriffs within these United States
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
14. articles: FCC approves Internet wiretapping taxes - estimated cost $
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
15. articles2: Mearsheimer & Walt reply to their critics re Israel Lobby
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
16. Where is Guy Heron? Address no longer active and he has disappeared
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
17. today targeted censorship on internet obvious == clamping down on d
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
18. articles: FCC approves Internet wiretapping taxes - estimated cost $
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
19. Notice to all County Sheriffs (government of last resort)
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 1
From: "President, USA Exile Govt." prez@usa-exile.org
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 6:55am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Ramsey Clark: Whats At Stake? --- Want to restore the consti

I had a similarly frustrating time with Ramsey a couple years ago when
I tried to get him to follow up on his expressed interest during a
phone conversation in helping form a coalition of movements so there
could be, for example, some fusion of the 9/11 Truth and anti-war ones.
-- Pondo

On May 4, 2006, at 12:11 PM, janet phelan wrote:

Ramsey Clark's office was contacted at least three times in an effort
to get counsel for Susan Lindauer. Clark never even responded to the
inquiries.

But he sure looks good on paper. So much for excessive verbiage.

Janet Phelan

Dick Eastman <olfriend@nwinfo.net> wrote:

What’s At Stake?
A message from Ramsey Clark
George W. Bush and his principal officials are the greatest threat to
world peace, to human rights, to economic justice, to the Constitution
of the United States and the rule of law that the American people and
the world at large face today. His personal, unilateral war of
aggression has wrecked Iraq, taken 250,000 lives or more, created
tensions worldwide and significantly isolated the United States,
costing us international friendships, trust, respect and
alliances. War of aggression was judged to be “the Supreme
International Crime” by the Nuremberg Tribunal.
Proclaiming himself the “Decider,” President Bush insists he decides
what is right. He threatens North Korea, Cuba, Syria, Sudan,
Venezuela, and most critically at the moment, Iran. The threats
themselves violate international law and the U.N. Charter. His threats
are made real by his personal record of false claims followed by
arbitrary acts including the criminal aggression against and occupation
of Iraq with its painful consequences just beginning for Iraq and the
world. The additional U.S. military costs approach a trillion dollars
and the occupation stretches the limits of U.S. military capacity.
Yet he has ordered detailed plans for attacks on Iran that he could
order to be executed as early as this summer. He may believe some
radical action can save his presidency.
Iran has more than three times the population of Iraq. It was not
debilitated by the Gulf War which cost Iraq more than 150,000 lives and
destroyed its basic infrastructure. Thirteen years of sanctions, from
Hiroshima Day, August 6, 1990 to “Mission Accomplished” Day “ending”
the war of aggression against Iraq announced from the deck of the USS
Abraham Lincoln by President Bush on May 1, 2003, cost Iraq 1 million
lives, half children under the age of five. Iraq suffered near total
isolation. Without international commerce, or the ability to rebuild,
Iraq’s economy was devastated. It suffered physically and
psychologically from frequent punitive bombings by U.S. aircraft
throughout the sanctions period. Iran’s economy and power fueled by
its oil, grew steadily through all these years.
Nothing could unify Iran like a military strike against it by the U.S.
Few acts could better convince Muslims worldwide that George Bush is on
a crusade against them. Iran with its long border with Iraq could
radically alter political alignments and the level of conflict in Iraq
and serve as an open conduit for fighters from many nations. Violence
could spread from Egypt to neighboring Pakistan and beyond.
The Geneva Conventions prohibit assaults on “inherently dangerous”
facilities, which would threaten civilian populations. Nuclear power
plants are the prime example. Iran has a right to develop such
plants. The Shah had ambitious plans 30 years ago, well financed and
advanced, to construct nuclear plants across Iran to replace depleting
oil reserves. Iran is six years or more away from the ability to build
nuclear warheads if that is its purpose. The U.S. could incinerate
Iran with a single launch from its worldwide land, sea and air nuclear
missile capacity in place and alert today. Iran knows this. Surely it
is better to seek to stop threatening and start seeking better
relations and understanding with Iran and other nations that may be
hostile.
Aside from the criminal nature of an attack on Iran, further
aggressions by George Bush could put the United States in a rapid
decline in international standing, economically and military on the
defense, globally and at home.
This is only to suggest what might happen if George Bush remains
President. The immediate question is whether We, the People of the
United States of America, believe the future of our country is a
spectator sport, or whether we will be players.
Will we let George Bush decide the fate of the nation?
Have his judgment and actions been acceptable?
With thirty-two months remaining in his Presidency, George Bush can
inflict greater, even devastating injury on our people and the poor of
the rest of the planet. He has squandered the largest federal surplus
in history and created the largest national debt with his determination
to be a War President and his ambition to enrich the rich.
He continues increasing military expenditures including the unlawful
development of a new generation of nuclear weapons and a “Star Wars”
shield for the U.S., insuring an arms race and increasing the
probability of war.
His threats against other governments have strengthened opposition to
the U.S. throughout the Muslim world, Latin American, former Soviet
Union bloc countries, China, Africa and even West Europe.
President Bush’s tax cuts and “Free Trade” pressures have accelerated
the concentration of wealth in oligarchies at home and abroad and
further impoverished the poor. Nearly 1/3 of his tax cuts have gone to
the top one percent of the population. When his estate tax cuts take
hold the top one percent of the population will receive 40% of his tax
cuts.
The number of billionaires is increasing rapidly while incomes of
workers and the poor decline and organized labor continue to decline.
And tax cuts combined with increased military expenditures and
increasing deficits in balance of payments which make the U.S. the
largest debtor nation are compelling cuts in federal expenditures for
health care, education, social security, Medicare, humanitarian foreign
aid and other needed programs for the poor. The real income of college
graduates fell more than 5% from 2000 to 2004 under President Bush,
eroding the middle class while concentrating wealth in the few. The
richest ten percent of the population received more than half of all
his tax cuts benefits.
But the concentration of wealth is accelerating most rapidly in the
top 1/100th of one percent, about 30,000 individuals. The rise in
income of these very rich has been astronomical. Just look at the
growing number of billionaires and the bonuses and stock options of
corporate CEO’s.
President Bush’s contempt for human rights and civil liberties is
unprecedented in the American Presidency. He is not only above
international law, he is above the Bill of Rights. He can arrest and
detain people worldwide, including U.S. citizens, as enemy combatants.
He condones torture. He wiretaps U.S. citizens and foreigners alike
without court approval. Proclamations concerning his Presidential
powers by his Attorneys General, Ashcroft and Gonzales, have stunned
the international community. Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo now symbolize
U.S. regard for human dignity. Yet George Bush proclaims himself the
champion of freedom and democracy!
Katrina is only one measure of the incompetence and indifference of the
Bush Administration. Secretary of State Rice has acknowledged
thousands of mistakes in Iraq without acknowledging the greatest
mistake: the unilateral criminal invasion and occupation.
President Bush adheres ideologically to the belief that global warming
is not caused in major part by the ever increasing human consumption of
oil and other hydrocarbons.
He believes he can bully the world into accepting his way and the
American people into accepting his decisions as right. For him, his
ideology is truth. He professed to believe, despite overwhelming
evidence to the contrary, that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction.
Because Iraq was "evil," and the U.S. is free and democratic, he
believes Iraq should be controlled by the U.S. Iran is racing to
develop nuclear weapons in his view, because of its dangerous hatred
for freedom and democracy and must be stopped by force now. His truth
translated into force has done more to damage freedom and democracy at
home and abroad than all the “evil empires” he threatens. For him, his
tax cuts, free trade policies and deficits benefited the poor and lower
income groups most, if not in dollars, because his ideology holds that
when the oligarchy rule, all will fare better.
The imperative need is action now. We cannot risk delay.
If the American people fail to impeach George Bush and his principal
officials for his war of aggression, the world can only see the
American people as either powerless, or supportive of it. If he is
charged only, or primarily, with misleading, or lying to the American
people, the world can only believe the American people will accept mass
murder if it is not lied about.
Why should any other nation refrain from Wars of Aggression against oil
rich states and others unable to defend themselves if they believe they
can win and get away with it, while the U.S. proceeds with impunity
with its threats and attacks?
Impeachment is essential to the integrity of constitutional
government. It is the most urgent duty of the American people. We
have the power to cause impeachment, if we have the will. Do your part
now! Participate and contribute to the Constitutional Crusade to
Impeach George Bush. Click here to make a donation.
Ramsey Clark
May 3, 2006

--------
Letter to Stu
Dear Stu,
Our impeachment ads in the New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, and
Boston Globe show that we can make a difference. They broke the media
silence on the call for Impeachment and have helped spark widespread
discussion of the grounds and basis for taking this necessary
constitutional step. The ads have reached millions of people and
generated tens of thousands of new votes for impeachment.
The New York Times carried the Impeachment message in the first
section, full page, to readers of more than a million copies of the
National Edition and the New York Edition of the New York Times. The
most recent ad in the San Francisco Chronicle reached people all over
Northern California.
We are planning for the next ad to appear soon in the USA Today
newspaper. The impeachment movement will reach people all over the
country with this next ad. We can continue to place these ads with the
contributions of those are committed to the impeachment movement.
Please help by making a contribution. You can make a donation on-line
or by sending a check. Click here to help with your donation.
Spreading the word with more newspaper ads, getting more people to vote
for Impeachment, increasing our organizing and fundraising efforts -
this can make Impeachment a major issue in the 2006 midterm
Congressional elections. A committed effort over the next months can
move Impeachment to the forefront in the elections and to the floor of
the House of Representatives which has the "sole power of Impeachment,"
and onto the Senate for trial.
Ads in newspapers in Congressional Districts can help activate
impeachment organizing to bring the issue home to members and
candidates where their election will be decided.
<image.tiff>

Yahoo! Messenger with Voice. PC-to-Phone calls for ridiculously low
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Message 2
From: "President, USA Exile Govt." prez@usa-exile.org
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 7:03am(PDT)
Subject: A Day in the Life: 5/5/6

GOVERNMENT OF THE USA IN
EXILE
Free Americans
Reaching Out to Amerika's Huddled Masses Yearning to Breathe Free

Via <prez@usa-exile.org>

May 5, 2006

From: "goldbugger_y2k" <pgalier@neo.rr.com>
Date: May 4, 2006 7:27:53 AM EST
To: 911TruthAction@yahoogroups.com
Subject: [911TruthAction] Re: Cutter Charges’ Brought Down WTC Buildings

Video with run time of 2:49 shows thermite in stunning action at WTC.
A must-see.

http://youtube.com/watch?v=ExrVgioIXvk

--------------------------------------------------

--- In 911TruthAction@yahoogroups.com, "mojo_j_2000" <mojo_j_2000@...>
wrote:

Professor Says `Cutter
Charges' Brought Down WTC Buildings
Evidence of Thermite
Uncovered at World Trade Center

By Christopher Bollyn

PROVO, Utah—"In times of universal deceit, telling the truth is a
revolutionary act," said the British writer George Orwell. Orwell's
words aptly describe the situation of Steven E.

Jones, a soft-spoken professor at Brigham Young University (BYU) who
has turned his attention to the unanswered questions of the Sept. 11
attacks.

Provo, the home of BYU, is America's most conservative city in the
most Republican county. With more than 85 percent of the population
supporting President George W.

Bush, Provo seems an unlikely place for any "revolutionary act"—
unless that act were simply telling the truth.

On the picturesque campus of the private Mormon university,
surrounded by snow-capped peaks, Jones teaches physics and carries
out research in the fields of metal-catalyzed fusion, solar energy
and archeometry, or the scientific study and analysis of artifacts.

As an archeometrist, Jones applies physics to explain events in the
past. Since last year when he became aware of the unanswered
questions of 9-11, he has focused his attention on the available
data and evidence.

The unexplained presence of molten metal at the World Trade Center
(WTC) puzzled Jones and he contacted this writer to confirm the
reports first published in American Free Press in 2002. These
reports came from two men involved in the removal of the rubble:
Peter Tully of Tully Construction of Flushing, N.Y., and Mark
Loizeaux of Controlled Demolition, Inc. of Phoenix, Md.

Tully told AFP that he had seen pools of "literally molten
steel" in the rubble.

Loizeaux confirmed this: "Yes, hot spots of molten steel in the
basements," he said, "at the bottom of the elevator shafts of the
main towers, down seven levels."

The molten steel was found "three, four, and five weeks later, when
the rubble was being removed," he said. He confirmed that molten
steel was also found at WTC 7, which mysteriously collapsed in the
late afternoon.

SERIOUS INVESTIGATION

Last November, Jones presented a draft which has since evolved into
a 52-page paper. His paper begins with an appeal for "a serious
investigation of the hypothesis that WTC 7 and the Twin Towers were
brought down . . .through the use of pre-positioned cutter-charges."

Jones presents evidence that an "aluminothermic process"
called "thermite" was used to weaken and sever the 47 massive core
columns that held up the towers. The official version fails to
explain how these critical columns failed. When ignited, thermite, a
combination of finely ground aluminum and iron oxide (rust), cuts
through steel like a "warm knife through butter," Jones said,
especially when mixed with 2 percent sulfur. The resulting
combination, called "thermate," lowers the melting point of steel.

Thermite was patented in Germany by Hans Goldschmidt in the late
1800s. Extremely high temperatures are produced when the aluminum
and iron oxide react. The reaction produces temperatures of more
than 2,500 degrees Celsius (4,500 degrees Fahrenheit) as the ferric
oxide is reduced to molten iron. Iron melts at 1,535 degrees
Celsius. The reaction causes the oxygen from the ferric oxide to
bond with the aluminum, producing aluminum oxide, molten iron, and
approximately 750 kilocalories per gram of thermite. The aluminum
oxide is a whitish smoke.

AFP recently attended a presentation of Jones's 9-11 research at
BYU. Jones began with footage of the unexplained collapse of Larry
Silverstein's 47-story building, WTC 7, at 5:25 p.m.

When Jones was interviewed by Tucker Carlson of MSNBC, the producers
refused to air this short but crucial video segment.

AFP observed thermite reactions in Jones's physics class. As a
colleague combined the powdered rust and aluminum in a mounted
ceramic flowerpot, Jones filmed the reaction. A paper wick with
magnesium ignited the sand-like mixture.

The reaction was intense, nearly explosive, and white flames and
pieces of metal flew out of the pot. From the bottom poured a white-
hot liquid—pure molten iron. After a few seconds a glowing yellow-
hot piece of iron was lifted with tongs and shown to the students.

Because thermite does not require air and can react underwater, it
may explain the persistent hot spots that were unaffected by a
continuous dousing from fire hoses. The white-hot molten iron and
slag can itself prolong and extend the heating and incendiary action.

"As of 21 days after the attack, the fires were still burning and
molten steel was still running," Leslie Robertson, structural
engineer responsible for the design of the WTC, told fellow
engineers.

Footage taken by WABC-TV of the burning South Tower at 9:53 a.m.,
immediately before the building collapsed, reveals large amounts of
white-hot molten metal, presumably iron, pouring from the 81st floor
of the east corner.

The amount of spilling molten metal suggests a pool of molten iron
was in that area of the building. While some have suggested that the
molten metal was aluminum, this is easily disproved by the fact that
molten aluminum appears silver-gray in daylight. The only possible
explanation is that the white-hot metal gushing from the South Tower
was molten iron and had been produced by a very large amount of
thermite.

The amount of molten metal seen falling would indicate that tons of
thermite had been used on that floor. From the video footage it
appears that several cubic yards of molten metal fell, which, if
iron, would have weighed over eight tons.

Jones's explosive paper is accessible on his web page
(physics.byu.edu) and will be published in a forthcoming book by
David Ray Griffin and Peter Dale Scott. Reading Jones' paper on-line
allows the reader to review the photographic/video evidence.

"I consider the official FEMA, NIST, and 9-11 Commission reports,"
Jones writes, which claim "that fires plus impact damage alone
caused complete collapses of all three buildings."

He challenges the official explanation and provides evidence to
support the controlled-demolition hypothesis, which, he says "is
suggested by the available data, testable and falsifiable."

Jones notes that the hypothesis that the towers were demolished by
explosives "has not been analyzed in any of the reports funded by
the U.S. government."

Ignoring the evidence of the controlled-demolition hypothesis, the
FEMA-sponsored study of 2002 concluded, "The specifics of the fires
in WTC 7 and how they caused the building to collapse remain
unknown."

Furthermore, the official report found that the fire-induced
collapse hypothesis "has only a low probability of occurrence."

The engineers concluded that "further research, investigation, and
analyses are needed to resolve this issue."

"That is precisely the point," Jones says, "further investigation
and analyses are indeed needed, including serious consideration of
the controlled-demolition hypothesis which is neglected in all of
the government reports."

The fact that the 9-11 Commission report does not even mention the
collapse of WTC 7 "is a striking omission of data highly relevant to
the question of what really happened on 9-11," he said.

FURTHER INVESTIGATION

Further investigation is what Jones is trying to get other
scientists to do. One would think that the mainstream media would be
interested in a highly respected physicist answering questions about
9-11, but that has not been the case. The controlled media and
supporters of the official version completely avoid Jones.

Like a modern-day Galileo or Luther, Jones has exposed the flaws in
the official version, "a myth," he says, "which has taken on
religious proportions.

"There is a clear disconnect between what the official reports say
happened and what actually happened," Jones says. "A scientific
theory has to be falsifiable. It must be able to be tested and
challenged.

"The data stands on its own. Where are the honest scientists?" Jones
asks. "Take the blinders off and find out what happened."

The official 9-11 reports are what Jones calls "pathological
science," in which investigators ignore all evidence that
contradicts the conclusion they have been asked to prove.

AFP contacted three scientists who support the official theory to
ask if they would review Jones's paper.

Thomas W. Eagar of MIT refused to even look at the paper and said
there is no evidence of molten metal pouring from the WTC.
Challenged with the evidence, he hung up the phone.

Zdenek P. Bazant of Northwestern University submitted his fire-
induced collapse theory to the American Society of Civil Engineers
(ASCE) two days after 9-11, without examining any evidence. Asked if
he would review Jones's paper, Bazant also refused, "I have seen
Jones's fiction before. If you want my private opinion, it is
nothing but sensationalism," he said. "His purported refutation of
my analysis is baseless."

Asked to simply look at five photos in an e-mail showing the
cascading molten metal and core columns, which appear to have been
cut with thermite, Bazant responded, "I do not have time."

Abolhassan Astaneh-Asl, an Iranian-born professor at Berkeley, who
was a member of the ASCE team studying the WTC collapse, also
refused to look at Jones's paper.

"I will not be able to find time to review the material that you
have sent me," said Astaneh-Asl.

(Issue #18 & 19, May 1 & 8, 2006

========================================================================
=================================================================

From: Henri the Celt <henrithecelt@gci.net>
Date: May 4, 2006 8:04:09 PM EST
To: AAAHenri <henrithecelt@gci.net>
Subject: Universal Admits Defeat, Removes Flight 93 Forum

"Flight 93 is a badly researched hit piece on the reality of what
happened on the day and an insult to those who lost their lives and
their families...

Now a visit to the website only returns the text, "There are no
message boards currently available."

Universal Admits Defeat, Removes Flight 93 Forum
Crescendo of dissent on official fairy
tail leads to wiping of website

Paul Joseph Watson/Prison Planet.com | May 4 2006

Universal Studios has admitted defeat in its efforts to re-package the
official 9/11 fraud and has completely deleted its own forum after the
website was hijacked by individuals posting truthful information about
what really happened to Flight 93.

We previously reported that Universal's forum moderators were deleting
entire threads in real time deeming them, "inappropriate."

The website had been turned into a battle ground for countering the
Flight 93 government apologist propaganda being regurgitated in an
impetuous lunge to give credibility to a tale about as reality-based as
Humpty Dumpty.

Now a visit to the website only returns the text, "There are no
message boards currently available."

The fact that Universal took the decision to remove the entire forum
suggests they were concerned that people voicing alternative
explanations behind 9/11 and attacking the government version of events
was harmful to the reputation of the film, proving again that Flight 93
was produced, in addition to making hundreds of millions of dollars, to
negatively reinforce the official 9/11 orthodoxy.

Polls on the website returned results of 80% believing a government
cover-up behind 9/11.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------
Find out the truth about 9/11: Subscribe to Prison Planet.tv and watch
all of Alex Jones' films!
------------------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------

The Stop The Lie website highlights one exchange with a debunker that
illustrates how the forum portrayed those opposing anything other than
the official story as ignorant and ill-informed.

"Those challenging the official account were mostly polite and
articulate. -They laid out well-reasoned arguments and produced
references to back their assertions. The defenders of the "Official
account" on the other hand were habitually rude and inarticulate. They
laid out poorly reasoned arguments and relied on pejoratives to back
their assertions."

"For instance, a post about the importance of the Northwoods Document
was made. One of the boards "Official theory" defender's considered
this a sufficient response:

"It never happened; people got fired, next-"

I replied:

"The relevance of the Northwoods Document is: It irrefutably
establishes our government WOULD openly conspire to not only provoke
and allow an attack (to further an already established military agenda)
...they'd actually manufacture the entire event."

"Perhaps equally important: If the plan hadn't been made public, the
same type of people who blindly accept whatever the government says
would be calling the Northwoods Document an "urban legend" spun by
kooks, loons, and moonbats."

" -Worse, if it had been enacted, the government groupies would have
bought the official account hook, line, and sinker."

The removal of the Flight 93 forum can be marked down as a victory for
the 9/11 truth movement. Just as the San Francisco Chronicle had to
issue a major retraction to a badly researched 9/11 hit piece, so
overwhelmed were Universal with the crescendo of dissent, the majority
of it sent by way of big alternative websites encouraging people to
participate, that they were forced to retreat and pull the website.

Flight 93 is a badly researched hit piece on the reality of what
happened on the day and an insult to those who lost their lives and
their families.

========================================================================
================================================

----------

IRAQ: �The Occupation Is the Disease�

By Sarah Meyer
May 3, 2006

Index Research and Global Research

The following information is from three highly esteemed Iraqi
professional people. Their lives are in danger. Two people�s names and
professions have, by request, thus been withheld.

ONE: �There is no way out of this �Camp Iraq.� �

Iraq is worse than during sanctions �

�By February 2006, 224 (health professionals) had been killed. 1000 had
left the country. Since February, I personally know six more highly
specialised doctors who have been killed � Many in medical training
have also left Iraq � Post graduate studies have closed down because of
lack of teaching staff. So a (generation) gap has been created.
Experienced doctors are unable to pass on their experience to new
doctors � Specialised health services have declined.

"The airport road used to be a lovely area, with trees and roses.
Families used to go there for picnics. An American soldier threw a
stone at me because I didn�t stop. My architect friend was killed �
shot dead on this road by Americans. If you don�t stop, the Americans
will shoot you �

"The US kill civilians and blame the resistance �

"A doctor friend of mine was shot in front of his home by Americans.
There was no apology. Why have doctors been killed � some by Americans?
Some are kidnapped. In Fallujah, why did the Americans go inside the
operating theatre and kill? Why go to a house at night? At 2 AM, there
were helicopters and bombs. He was a neighbour of mine. His name was
Riad Khammal.

"A child runs to his mother when he hears a helicopter. A child is now
afraid of helicopters �

"Once a bullet came into my office, towards me, but it hit the metal on
the window�

"Omar Salem Khattab, a urology surgeon, was taken by the US-trained
Iraqi police and National Guard when he was trying to help people in a
bomb blast. He was taken away for detention. I went to ask about him.
The doctor had been abused and hit. He was released. He left Iraq �

"There is a difference in the study of history. In the West, one
learned a little about western history, but nothing about the rest of
the world. In our country, we studied the history of Europe and of the
world.

"Education had been free since Saddam. Books were free. It was
compulsory for children to go to school until 1993. Literacy was
compulsory for everyone who didn�t know how to read or write, no matter
how old they were. Before the Gulf War, 92% of the children attended
school. And now? The schools are closed; 362 schools are closed in
Baghdad because of the difficult situation. Dijula school was bombed.
Children are not going to school. People are afraid � I have a
daughter. It is dangerous for her to go out.

"There is poverty. The children are outside, begging. Begging is
greater than in the �70s or �80s. There is malnutrition. Iraqi people
want to eat just like all other people.

"Why destroy the electricity, water supply, waste-product system? � The
aim is the complete destruction of Iraqi society � The healthy aspects
of home life have disappeared. There is no water, no electricity. There
are no drugs in the hospitals; no theatre gloves. Hospitals need to be
renewed. They were destroyed in the sanctions, and now we can�t renew
them. Twice my hospital has been destroyed � first in 1991, when it
then took two years to rebuild; and again in 2003, it was destroyed
when an American bomb hit the building beside the hospital, causing the
hospital roof to collapse. The hospital needed to be renewed again, but
there was no money - and there was the occupation. The hospital was out
of action for 8 months. Now, the generator is sometimes not working.
This is a danger to the patient during an operation, as the generator
has to be worked by hand.

"It is difficult and frustrating for a patient to go to hospital. There
are bombs, no oxygen, no drugs, can�t do surgery. In the private
sector, it is better.

"Those inside the wire are not like those outside the wire. We need
courageous men inside the wire.

"Do you fight, or do you negotiate? If you negotiate, will you not be
killed anyway? How can you say �fight� when are also speaking for the
children, who will be killed?

"There is no way out of this �Camp Iraq.�

"The US should announce that their forces will go out by � X - this
date. And on this date, the UN should move the security forces to Iraq,
so no one can then criticize anyone.�

TWO: Heart of Darkness

Another Iraqi source told me that there is a DU (Depleted Uranium)
project in Baghdad supported by the University of (!) Texas.
�Congenital abnormalities and stillborn children increased five-fold
during the 90s, particularly in the Basra region � DU is killing
thousands � Cancer increased 1 year after the bombing in Basra; there
were 460 cases that year.�

My source suffers from �bad memories � first from the severe sanctions,
then war and imprisonment in a 3x3m cell, now with the occupation.

"It is a long pain, an interruption of peaceful living. � To live under
occupation is Hell. We have elusive enemies we do not know. We don�t
know why they are targeting us �

"Many academics had senior posts; for example, they were the head of a
department.

"Academics have been subjected to four types of hassle. First, to being
interrogated and detained, right after the war. This was due to an
accusation of participating in the (non-existent) WMD secret programme.
Detention was from a few days to three years. Two women scientists, Dr.
Huda Amash and Dr. Rehab Taha, were only recently released after
confirmation that there was no such secret programme.

"The second hassle is that many have been subjected to
�de-Baathification.� Hundreds were fired from their jobs because they
were members of the Baath party, although all of them were seniors in
different scientific fields.

"The third problem is having to endure threats and intimidation by
students who are motivated by different political and sectarian
parties. Academics receive threatening letters, asking them to leave
the institute and the country. Or they find a bullet in their
letterbox. Some letters are written by students who are not doing well
� a kind of blackmail � but we cannot take chances.

"The fourth problem is the assassination list. Those who are still
alive try and survive in the heart of danger � the heart of darkness.
Many are trying to leave Iraq.

"Iraq is very chaotic � The academics need temporary jobs or
fellowships to get them away from the risks. They are the treasures of
Iraq. The heart of darkness is overshadowing them.�

I ask: And if the US leaves Iraq?

�America is the germ. We need to flush the germ out. The symptoms can
then be treated and relieved. Then we can restore our living.�

THREE: �We need international support�

Eman Khamas is a journalist, author and human rights advocate. She is
passionate about her work; driven by and dedicated to justice. Eman
says:

�With every dead man, woman and child, Iraq is killed anew. The bombing
continues to this minute. The US bombs hospitals, and buries the people
under the rubble. Schools are bombed and destroyed. Every time, all
Iraqis rights are violated.

"It is criminal to kill thousands of people because there are a few
individual criminals. Almost 300,000 Iraqis have been killed in the
last 3 years. 1,400 Iraqi civilians were killed in the last month.

"Students cannot go to school. Professors cannot go to school. Many
girls do not go to school. It is dangerous for girls. The roads are
closed, or there is a curfew, or bombs, or suicide bombing. People have
to walk for miles to get to their school. For some, it is a two-hour,
dangerous walk ... We had a demonstration under the window of the dean
of a university. He wouldn�t look out the window �

"We have never had this phenomena in the past � only since the
occupation. 224 (health professionals) have been killed. 1000 are in
exile. The only thing these people have in common is that they are
Iraqi and intellectual. If they are in jail, they are tortured,
released, and then they disappear � People are assassinated by
Americans and insurgents. We don�t know who they are. There are lists
on the wall of people who are going to be killed � so these people
leave Iraq. They are afraid of retaliation. People are threatened
either by being accused by the occupation or by those who are giving
information to the occupation. If one talks about the occupation, one
is fired. It is dangerous to talk about the occupation.

"The United States and the United Kingdom have programmes. There is
collaboration. They are only interested in scientists with certain
qualifications. They want to ensure those scientists stay in the
country, and not to go to the �Axis of Evil� countries. They say, �come
attend a workshop in Jordan,� for example. There are �trainers.� They
might organise something for environmental health, for example, in
Oman.

"There is no information from any institution. They are not allowed to
give information to journalists �

"What is the future of Iraq under occupation? The killing is done by
the militias � political militias, using the religious emotions of the
Iraqi people to gain power. The US know they can do this and get away
with it. There are no official Iraqi investigations. The people in
government are behind this killing �

"What about the families of those who have been assassinated?
Displacement, too, is a problem because of the bombing and fear. These
people need everything. They cannot wait. They need help NOW. There are
widows, orphans. They have no financial help. Their husbands have been
killed or are in jail. There are homeless families, living in tents or
in unsafe structures. There is a problem with a shortage of medicines.
The US apologises for bombing hospitals, but this means nothing.

"We need to work to educate people. It is the right of any people to
resist occupation. Iraqis have resisted because of the killing of
civilians � the bombing of cities. Mainstream Media does not understand
the urgency � The US and Mainstream Media concentrate on political
success, elections, democracy. All of this is irrelevant to the Iraqi
people.

"The occupation is responsible for everything that happens. What
happens are the symptoms. The occupation is the disease. The occupation
works on division. The issue they are working on now is civil war. We
have never had civil war in our history. Because the occupation is in
Iraq, there is violence. The US says that Iraqis are not capable. This
is a lie. There are many Iraqis who are capable, given a chance.

"We need international support for the Iraqi intellectuals � I have a
recommendation � to call for Spanish universities and then to the
International Federation of World Universities and the Association of
Arab Universities, and ask them to raise the issue in regular meetings
� Scientists are national treasures."

The Dead and Homeless

Refugees. The number of Iraqi refugees is up for grabs. The
Displacement and Migration Ministry said two weeks ago that the number
of refugees was about 60,000. A 28.04.06 Reuters article quotes the
Iraqi vice president as recently saying that there are around 1/2
million refugees.

The number of widows in Iraq is increasing. There is a rising number of
orphans. Families huntfor Iraq's Lost.

Murdered Academics and Doctors

On 01.06, The Washington Post reported on the Exodus of Iraqi educated
professionals.

The Iraqi Minister of Health has just declared that �220 health
professionals� have been assassinated. Approximately 190 academics have
been murdered. See the BRussels Tribunal list, report and Madrid
conference resolution here. The Spanish website CEOSI, (Statewide
Campaign to End the Occupation and Restore the Sovereignty of Iraq) has
further details.

For latest information on doctors in Mosul, see 01.05.06 Reuters report.

The BRussels Tribunal needs help from the Iraqi people themselves to
substantiate the number of doctors and academics killed, when, and how.
The dead are victims of war crimes.

Murdered Journalists

Reporters without Borders says that 88 journalists and media assistants
have been killed since the start of fighting in Iraq in March 2003. Two
are still missing. To put this in perspective, �around 63 journalists
were killed in Vietnam during the 20 years from 1955 to 1975.� Read
their March �06 report, Three Years of Slaughter, here.

Dead Iraqi Civilians

The Iraq Body Count, 38,661 killed, appears to be incorrect. Mr.
Sloboda has tried to defend his figures. Both Media Lens and Gabriele
Zamparini at The Cat�s Dream have disputed the Iraq Body Count figures,
backed by evidence. William Bowles does not find Mr Sloboda�s Newsnight
defense convincing.

In 2004, The Lancet, a UK medical journal, wrote a report, Mortality
before and after the 2003 invasion of Iraq: cluster sample survey. This
report said there were approximately 100,000 dead Iraqi civilians.

The estimated number of civilian dead now is between 250,000 -
300,000+. Iraqis are afraid to go to the police if a relative has been
killed.

Suicide Bombers

There have been rumours that in Iraq, the US secretly puts bombs in
cars and then sets them off from a helicopter. These rumours are now
becoming more substantiated. See The Independent, 29.04.06, Robert Fisk

+
The url for Iraq: The Occupation is a Disease is:
http://indexresearch.blogspot.com/2006/05/iraq-occupation-is-
disease.html

Sarah Meyer is a researcher living in Sussex, UK. Her email is:
sarahmeyer@freedom255.com

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole
responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of
the Centre for Research on Globalization.

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Evo Morales' Courageous Move Now Makes Him a US Target
along with Hugo Chavez

By Stephen Lendman
May 3, 2006

GlobalResearch.ca

To get a good sense of where US policy is heading, one need only read
the front page of the New York Times or Wall Street Journal - painful
as that may be to do. I skip the Times but do read the Journal daily
because of the audience it reaches - high-level people in business and
government who want real information to guide them in their work. So
despite the Journal being a voice for US business and imperialism,
knowing how to read it and doing it carefully yields useful information
and clues about what future US policy is likely to be.

The Wall Street Journal Signals Evo Morales Is Now a US Target

The May 2 Journal was a good example as they had a feature front-page
story headlined "Bolivia Seizes Natural-Gas Fields in a Show of Energy
Nationalism." That alone signals a call to arms that's backed up
strongly in the copy that follows.

The Journal began its heated rhetoric claiming Evo Morales has been
"emboldened by Hugo Chavez's moves against private oil companies" and
on May 1 (symbolically on May Day celebrating working people around the
world including in the US in a big way for the first time) nationalized
the country's largest natural gas field, San Alberto, and ordered the
army to "take control of it and the country's other fields." It went on
to explain that it ordered foreign oil companies to relinquish control
of the fields, accept "much tougher operating terms or leave the
country."

Bolivian law is clear that the state owns the resources in the
country. Up to now it's allowed foreign investors to operate the fields
and take the majority share of production from them to sell for their
gain. Last year, however, Bolivia raised the state's take to an
effective 50% of production by increasing taxes and royalties.
Yesterday the government went further by declaring the state owns the
gas once it's been extracted and that the companies operating in the
two largest fields would only get 18% of the production for themselves.

Translating the Journal's Message Including What They Failed to Explain

A little translation is in order. What the Journal didn't explain and
never would is that those "tougher operating terms" are simply
Bolivia's right as an independent nation (and all other nations as
well) to get the majority benefits from its own natural resources and
that foreign investors are there sharing in them only because the
country allowed them to. But instead of being grateful, the Journal
makes clear, without stating it, that the investors are greedy and want
the lion's share and on their terms. What's also left unsaid or
unsatisfactorily explained is nationalization does not mean
expropriation.

Evo Morales has made it clear that foreign investors will not lose the
rights to their investments. What they will lose once Morales' plan is
implemented (he's giving them six months to comply) is their unfair
share of the profits and benefits they never had a right to have in the
first place. Under the Morales plan, a new contract will be made
between the government and foreign investors guaranteeing that the
people of Bolivia will receive the majority of benefits from its own
resources while at the same time foreign investors will receive their
fare share but no more than that. It also means the government alone
now will decide the terms of revenue sharing and tax obligations due
rather than Big Oil dictating them with the long shadow of the US
looming in the background, which is still the case, of course. The
Journal then became more inflammatory as it has in its past and recent
railings against Hugo Chavez. It claimed high energy prices have
sparked a resurgent wave of nationalism from Caracas to Moscow. Of
course, it forgot to mention the one country above all others where
so-called nationalism and protectionism is a national religion - the
US. Here where I live, no outside investors are allowed in (especially
from developing nations) to profit except on the ironclad rules we set,
take it or leave it. So by US imperial rules (the only ones, no others
allowed), what's good for us is not acceptable or allowed for anyone
else because we said so.

The Journal went on to say Morales is mimicking measures against Big
Oil by "Mr. Chavez" (he happens to be the President and should be
addressed that way), and that Morales and Chavez are "both playing a
game of chicken with foreign oil companies." It also couldn't resist
raising the specter of Fidel Castro and the fact that Chavez and
Morales signed a free trade accord over the past weekend with the man
the imperial US hates most. There's more to this story as well which
the Journal points out into their long article. The leading Peruvian
candidate, Ollanta Humala, in the upcoming presidential runoff election
against US choice by default Alan Garcia, has also called for
nationalization of the country's natural gas and mining resources. And
Evo Morales has made it clear he intends to nationalize Bolivia's other
natural resources likely beginning with its forests and mines. Further,
to cap off a growing US Latin American nightmare, last month Equador
passed a law designed to cut the windfall profits of foreign crude
producers (including US based Occidental Petroleum) by giving the
government (meaning the people) 50% of oil company profits whenever the
international oil market exceeds the prices established in existing
contracts.

What These Developments Mean for the US and How It's Likely to Respond

There certainly is trouble for the US in Latin America and in the oil
patch there as well as in Iraq, Iran, Nigeria and who knows where else
it may spread. So what can we make of all this, and what's most likely
to happen going forward. The US is now spending hundreds of billions of
dollars trying to hold on to the oil treasure it stole by invading
Iraq. It's also made it clear it has designs on those same resources in
neighboring Iran and may attack that country using nuclear weapons. And
if that isn't enough on one plate to digest, it faces a dilemma in
Venezuela it's tried unsuccessfully three times to solve. Venezuela has
even greater hydrocarbon reserves than Iraq or Iran (possibly the
largest in the world even above Saudi Arabia's) and is led by a
courageous man unwilling to surrender his nation's sovereignty (or its
resources) to its imperial northern neighbor demanding it and them. And
now the heavenly virus of the desire to be truly independent is
beginning to spread to Bolivia, Peru if Hamala wins the runoff
election, hopefully Equador and significant opposition groups outside
the governments in other countries as well like Nigeria and Nepal.
These nations, or opposition groups in them, are demanding equity and
justice for their people, and are beginning to raise their heads and
demand the rights they're entitled to. If they all get them, that's bad
news for the US and the dominant corporate interests here that profit
handsomely by exploiting the resources of underdeveloped nations and
its cheap labor as well.

Hugo Chavez and Evo Morales know this and have spoken out and acted
courageously against these longtime abuses in defense of the rights of
their own people. But their doing so is intolerable to the US which
will do everything in its power to reverse the loss of its special
privilege. So what can we expect ahead? I have no doubt whatever, and
I've written about this several times. When the heat is turned up
against US interests, this country won't go quietly into the night. The
plans are well underway now for a fourth attempt to oust Hugo Chavez
that may include assassinations and possibly an armed assault by US
invading forces.

Last Sunday VHeadline published a commentary/review I wrote about Noam
Chomsky's new book Failed States. In an email I received from Chomsky
on April 29 he updated the views he stated in his new book and gave a
blunt assessment of what may be in prospect which I'll quote again
here: he said he "wouldn't be surprised to see (US inspired)
secessionist movements in the oil producing areas in Iran, Venezuela
and Bolivia, all in areas that are accessible to US military force and
alienated from the governments, with the US then moving in to 'defend'
them and blasting the rest of the country if necessary."

I share that view although I'm not privy to what hostile plans my
government has in mind. I'll only state my strong belief that something
big is planned to oust President Chavez (and now maybe Evo Morales as
well) that will only become apparent once the fireworks begin. Today's
feature article in the Wall Street Journal only strengthens my view.

Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at
lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog address at
sjlendman.blogspot.com.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole
responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of
the Centre for Research on Globalization.

To become a Member of Global Research

To express your opinion on this article, join the discussion at Global
Research's News and Discussion Forum

For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com

� Copyright Stephen Lendman, GlobalResearch.ca, 2006

The url address of this article is:
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?
context=viewArticle&code=LEN20060503&articleId=2379

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==================================

From: Henri the Celt <henrithecelt@gci.net>
Date: May 3, 2006 6:08:43 PM EST
To: AAAHenri <henrithecelt@gci.net>
Subject: The Inevitable Collapse of the Greenback

�

The Inevitable Collapse of the Greenback

Mike Whitney
May 2, 2006

"The ultimate financial impact of trading oil in Euros rather than
dollars is a complex one, but according to many experts, such a move
could lead to a collapse in value for the American currency,
potentially putting the U.S. economy in its greatest crisis since the
depression era of the 1930s." "Petro-euro: a reality or distant
nightmare for the US?" -- AlJazeera.com

Today, Iran fired the first shot in a battle that will ultimately
change the global economic system. Mehr News Agency announced that the
long-anticipated Iran Oil Bourse (OIB) will open sometime next week on
Kish Island competing head-on with the US dollar. Currently, all oil
transactions are denominated exclusively in greenbacks (via the London
and New York oil exchanges) giving the US a virtual monopoly on the oil
trade and maintaining the dollar�s position as the world�s reserve
currency. This privilege has allowed the US to generate massive
deficits as well as a national debt of $8.4 trillion without fear of
economic collapse but, the "time�s they are a-changin�". If Iran
proceeds with its plan, the central banks around the world will convert
some of their reserves into euros sending billions of dollars back to
America. This will result in either recession or depression.

The notion that the bourse poses a serious threat to the US economy has
been widely dismissed as a left-wing, internet-conspiracy theory. In
fact, there is nothing conspiratorial about it, unless the fundamental
law of "supply and demand" no longer applies.

If fewer people want the greenback it becomes worth less. Is that
conspiratorial?

Articles about the bourse have magically disappeared from the internet.
The more reputable accounts of the potential disaster have slipped into
a cyber black-hole.

No matter. If the bourse opens next week, then gold will shoot into the
stratosphere while jittery currency traders continue to edge away from
the shaky greenback.

The Bush administration has done irreparable damage to our currency.
Under the guidance of the Federal Reserve, Bush has increased
government spending by 35% while raising the national debt a whopping
$3 trillion. The only thing keeping the dollar on its lofty perch is
the oil trade and that may soon change.

The dollar fell steadily during Bush�s first years in office as
currency traders recognized Bush�s intention to enshrine deficit
spending as a permanent function of government. The greenback has
managed to keep its head above water due to shaky lending practices in
the mortgage industry (which sluiced trillions into domestic housing)
and because of the estimated $2.3 trillion circulating in oil
transactions. The increase in oil prices has allowed the Fed to keep
the printing presses going at full-tilt while Bush�s friends were
making off with hundreds of billions in lavish tax cuts.

Now, it appears that the game is over. Oil-thirsty nations will be free
to purchase petroleum in a stable currency leaving Uncle Sam to flail
away in ocean of red ink.

Nearly 70% of the reserves in the world�s central banks are currently
denominated in US dollars. This monopoly allows the US to purchase
valuable resources with fiat currency and maintain enormous deficits
without hyper-inflation. It is the perfect rip-off. The administration
has shown its willingness to go to war and kill hundreds of thousands
of innocent people to defend this global extortion racket. However,
forces are in play now that will make it impossible to maintain the
present system. If the Fed increases interest rates much more the $9
trillion housing bubble will burst, and if it doesn�t raise rates, the
$2 billion of cash inflows the government needs each day to cover its
trade deficit will evaporate.

It is a "lose-lose" situation.

The opening of Iran�s bourse will only hasten the inevitable decline of
the dollar and a death-spiral for the American economy; that is why
Congress passed the Iran Freedom Support Act last week (even before the
Security Council had made its recommendations!) Hidden in the small
print of the legislation is a clue that reveals Congress� real
intentions:

"The Congress declares that it is the policy of the United States to
deny Iran the ability to support acts of international terrorism�.by
limiting the development of Iran�s ability to explore for, extract,
refine, or transport by pipeline petroleum resources."

Yes indeed; Iran�s plan to sell oil in euros is now tantamount to an
act of "international terrorism", a clear sign of the importance that
Washington attaches to the coming bourse.

The fate of the greenback is entirely the result of Bush�s enormous tax
cuts, profligate spending, and a deeply-flawed foreign policy agenda.
By now, Bush and Co. had expected to topple regimes in Iraq, Iran,
Syria, Libya, Sudan and Somalia. If his "5-year campaign" had been
successful, then Washington would control enough of the world�s oil to
force the other nations to continue using the dollar even while the
gargantuan debt kept piling up. This explains why the oil giants linked
arms with the 12 central banks to dupe the American people into the
apocryphal war on terror. Terrorism is simply a public relations scam
that conceals the ongoing global resource war.

America is now facing a slow-motion meltdown that could escalate into a
widespread run on the dollar. Attacking Iran will only aggravate the
situation and push tenuous states towards new alliances. (China, India,
Venezuela and Russia have already expressed support for the new
bourse.)

If the bourse opens as scheduled they�ll be no turning back. The Bush
administration is loaded with hawks who still believe the issue can be
resolved through force. They have learned nothing from Iraq.

Military action will do nothing to relieve America�s enormous account
imbalances or lesson the vulnerability of the ailing greenback. The
dollar is teetering on the brink and it�s about to get a big shove from
behind.

Big changes are coming whether we want them or not.

:: Article nr. 23009 sent on 03-may-2006 03:37 ECT

:: The address of this page is : www.uruknet.info?p=23009

:: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of
the author and do not necessarily reflect those of Uruknet .

========================================================================
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Gradual Change Is Not Progress

By Prof Denis G. Rancourt
May 3, 2006

GlobalResearch.ca

Comfortable First World liberal and left intellectuals claiming to work
for change often project the opinion that positive change is best
achieved by incremental improvements, gradual progress, dialogue, and
negotiations that acknowledge the legitimacy of the other side. They
assert that confrontation is �counter productive�. There is an army of
academics, managers, and professionals, who will argue this point quite
strenuously. They are the service intellectuals.

Their job is to block any model that would involve people of the
disadvantaged side actually demanding change in the structure that
keeps them at the bottom. Instead, they promote a dialogue model in
which the disadvantaged side enters into loaded and unwinable
negotiations with players that hold all the cards. These negotiations
ensure that institutional structures of inequity are reinforced rather
than progressively dismantled.

The service intellectuals argue that the only alternative to gradual
change via education and dialogue is all out revolution where all the
leaders are killed and replaced by tyrants. They propose a binary
landscape of change where one must choose between either the gradual
evolution that they manage or civil war and its uncertain outcomes.
They monitor attempts for change and intervene when the latter attempts
are �too confrontational� or �too undiplomatic� or �too aggressive� or
�too radical�, implying that those guilty of such crimes risk pushing
us towards a bloody carnage. They contrast the restraint that they
promote, design and manoeuvre to chaos.

This fallacy is so ingrained in much of the First World middle class
that it has become part of our culture. Many of us are allergic to
opinions, differences, arguments, political discussions, etc.

The truth is that there is a broad spectrum of possibilities between
polite consultation and an armed revolution. The truth is that change
requires confrontation. Change requires confrontation because we are
not talking about a change in hairstyle; we are talking about changes
that redistribute power and relative advantages between different
groups and between undemocratically controlled entities (corporations,
banks, institutions) and people.

One argument of service intellectuals is that we are all people, that
mutual respect must prevail, that those on both sides want what is good
for everyone and that both sides only need a chance to see this.

The latter is certainly the right working assumption in interpersonal
relations between individuals but what are the two sides in societal
and political struggles? The two sides in societal change are:
management and workers, corporations and citizens, ruling elite and
ordinary people, developers and residents, investors and inhabitants,
etc. A manager representing a corporation cannot be abstracted into the
shoes of one�s next-door neighbour who wants to talk about repairing a
shared fence. The manager yields power over employees and is backed by
a corporation with political clout. The situation is highly asymmetric.
She may be a good mother to her children and she may be on the boards
of a dozen charity organizations but all that is irrelevant. This
manager has a job to do and it�s not a pretty one. It�s about
manipulating and exploiting people (workers and consumers) to maximize
profits for investors. It�s about making sure that those with money get
more money, as much as can be extorted. Public pressure and organized
resistance are the employee�s only chance.

If you don�t need to use force, if a polite discussion will do the job,
then you are on the same side! You are collaborating. You are in a
symbiotic relation. You collaborate with your peers; you fight your
exploiters. You love your neighbour; you fight your oppressor. Your
heart is the size of your fist.

It�s so damn obvious that it�s hard to recognize. Union officials that
collaborate with employer executives are part of the same management
elite. Professions that collaborate are part of the same system of
exploitation or of inherited privilege, such as the medical
establishment and big pharma. Where there is �cooperation� there is
relative advantage for both parties, relative to other groups. Where
there is institutionalized asymmetry and injustice, only confrontation
and forced adjustments can partially restore equitable distribution. It
doesn�t take a Ph.D....

Actually, it does take a Ph.D.: One must be indoctrinated by a
sufficient amount of formal education to not see the obvious and to
partake in the lie. Gradual change my ass. A true intellectual doesn�t
preach the religion of gradual change but instead steps out of the
mental framework of privilege to defend those on the other side. A true
intellectual helps the other side develop the tools it needs and does
not participate in neutralizing defiance.

Change occurs when people risk as much as they need to. First World
citizens have a responsibility to risk as much as they need to to be as
effective as possible. True intellectuals are impolite, unprofessional,
uncollegial, inconsiderate, etc., in pushing the limits as far as they
must. In the light of the crimes being perpetrated by our governments
and our corporations and financial institutions, true intellectuals
have no choice. The question is not �What is too far?� but rather �What
is far enough?�.

Respect for individuals as persons is distinct from attacking
representatives of oppressive power structures. The representatives
must be attacked as representatives, as strongly as is necessary. They
must be attacked as individuals wielding illegitimate (undemocratically
controlled) power that is used unjustly. One must assume that they can
be intimidated, perturbed, educated, etc., and that our actions will
either make them see the light or at least force them to back down.
People enmeshed in a system and culture of power and privilege cannot
be reasoned with from the other side of the divide without the
reasoning being based on a real threat.

Polite discussions and orderly debates are fine between different
segments of the ruling class arguing about how best to preserve and
enhance their class dominance but social justice comes only out of risk
and confrontation, organized resistance and mass movements. True
intellectuals speak truth to power [1]. True intellectuals expose power
and say the obvious. True intellectuals side with the exploited and
oppressed and are examples of defiance.

Service intellectuals maintain a mental environment that preserves
privilege. Service intellectuals maintain intellectual discipline �
constantly identifying, isolating, and neutralizing true intellectuals,
however few there are.

----------------------------------
Denis G. Rancourt is Professor of Physics at the University of Ottawa.

References:

[1] Said, Edward. Representations of the intellectual. Vintage Books,
1994.

Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole
responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of
the Centre for Research on Globalization.

To become a Member of Global Research

To express your opinion on this article, join the discussion at Global
Research's News and Discussion Forum

For media inquiries: crgeditor@yahoo.com

� Copyright Denis G. Rancourt, GlobalResearch.ca, 2006

The url address of this article is:
www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?
context=viewArticle&code=RAN20060503&articleId=2377

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================================================
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Message 3
From: "advokris@aol.com" advokris@aol.com
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 7:59am(PDT)
Subject: Retired CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Takes on Rumsfeld Over Justificatio

( advokris@aol.com )
sent you this story from democracynow.org

This is what Democracy looks like.

+--------------------------------------------------------------------+
| Retired CIA Analyst Ray McGovern Takes on Rumsfeld Over Justification for Iraq Invasion
| http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/05/1432203
+--------------------------------------------------------------------+

Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld comes under fire from retired CIA analyst Ray McGovern at a speech in Atlanta on Thursday. Rumsfeld was interrupted by protesters several times in his address. We speak with McGovern and play excerpts from the event.
This story continues at:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=06/05/05/1432203

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 4
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 8:52am(PDT)
Subject: Former CIA Middle East Expert accuses Bush admin of organized manipu

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20060504/wl_mideast_afp/iraqusciaattacks

Thu May 4, 9:46 AM ET

MADRID (AFP) - A former Middle East specialist of the US Central Intelligence Agency has condemned what he called an organised campaign of manipulation by the Bush administration to justify the Iraq war.

Paul Pillar, a former CIA analyst specialising in counter-terrorism in the Middle East and Asia, said in an interview with the Spanish newspaper El Pais that the United States had particularly wanted to prove a link between Al-Qaeda and Saddam Hussein.

"That was not the case," he was quoted as saying. "I suppose by some definitions that could be called a lie."

"There was an organised campaign of manipulation," El Pais also quoted Pillar as saying. "That would be the proper way to define it." The decision to invade Iraq was taken as early as the beginning of 2002, a year before hostilities began, Pillar said.

It was decided "for other reasons and did not depend on weapons of mass destruction or the results of United Nations inspections," he said,

________________________________________________________________________
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Message 5
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 8:55am(PDT)
Subject: Families Hunt for Iraq's "Lost"

Families Hunt for Iraq's "Lost"
David Enders, The Christian Science Monitor
Monday 01 May 2006
www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050106C.shtml

More than 34,000 Iraqis have been jailed, but officials often do not
know where.

Baghdad - At the small, crowded prisoner-tracking department of the
Ministry of Human Rights (MOHR), tears often flow freely.

"He was arrested from his house on December 25," sobs Jameela Abdullah
Hikmet, who was looking for her brother, Jameel Abdullah Hikmet.

With thousands of Iraqis kidnapped and arrested over the past three
years, often in murky circumstances, the MOHR has become one more
place Iraqis look for missing relatives. More than 34,000 Iraqis,
according to MOHR figures, are held at one of the dozens of prisons
across the country run by either the US military or the Iraqi
Ministries of Interior, Defense, and Justice.

The system has become more organized in recent months, but prisoners
are still "lost," says one Iraqi official. Ms. Hikmet says she visited
morgues first, believing initially that her brother had been taken by
men posing as government officials.

Hikmet says she then visited dozens of prisons before she was told by
an official at the Ministry of Interior (MOI) that her brother was
being held by the Wolf Brigade, one of the ministry's elite police
units. She was then sent to the MOHR, which tracks prisoners in the US
military and Iraqi detention systems centrally. She has been coming to
the MOHR for two weeks, but they can still not confirm that it is the
MOI that is holding her brother.

Even for prisoners who can be located, families often face confusing
circumstances and long waits before legal proceedings take place. As
the US military has tried to turn over more responsibilities to the
Iraqi government since 2004, some prisoners have been transferred
multiple times.

Fayyez Daoud has been in Iraqi or US custody for more than a year
without charges. His family says that he was mistakenly arrested after
being injured in crossfire during a tribal dispute in March 2005 near
his home in Haswa, one of the capital's western suburbs.

His family says that he was first in the custody of the Iraqi National
Guard (ING), then the US. Then, they say, he was moved back into Iraqi
custody after the US military pulled out of their base in Haswa,
leaving it under the control of the ING. Now he is in a Ministry of
Defense (MOD) prison, the MOHR says.

Last month, his family received a letter from Mr. Daoud via MOHR. It
read, in part: "I have decided to commit suicide, because it is the
only solution available. These people want us to die in prison of
broken hearts. If slow death is our destiny, why shouldn't we speed it
up?"

MOHR and US officials both say that they are working to speed up the
process for trying and releasing detainees. International human rights
groups have reported that some prisoners have been held as long as two
years without due process. Daoud's lawyers, who have also represented
other prisoners, accuse the MOD and MOI of stalling cases.

Under current Iraqi law, it is illegal for anybody but the Ministry of
Justice (MOJ) to operate prisons, but the MOJ says it is not receiving
training or new facilities quickly enough to accommodate the thousands
of prisoners in various custodies.

"The Ministry of Interior used to avoid transferring detainees to the
Ministry of Justice," says Saad Sultan, director of the MOHR's prison
monitoring department.

Jumaa Hussein, the general in charge of the MOJ's prisons, says that
though his department has been operating for more than two years, only
two new prisons are under construction, and that those can only hold
1,600 prisoners total.

"We have asking the ministry to speed it up," Mr. Hussein says. "They
just hadn't planned for this. If more prisons are not built, maybe
there will be more human rights violations in the future. The number
of prisoners is growing."

Daoud's family suspects he has been tortured while in custody. Mr.
Sultan says his office visits each of the country's declared prisons
every seven to 10 days and that they have continued to find instances
of abuse and torture, especially at the hands of Iraqi police.

Also hard to track are prisoners kept at brigade level both by the US
military, which does not officially track prisoners until they are
held in one of four major theater-level facilities, and by some of the
MOI forces, which continue to operate their own prisons. Though Sultan
says some of the MOI's brigade prisons had been shut down in recent
months, there are at least three still operating.

Jumaa says the US military is training his men to take over Camp Bucca
- which presently holds nearly 7,000 prisoners, says the MOJ - in as
soon as six months. The MOJ took over the existing buildings at Abu
Ghraib last year, though the US military maintains an outdoor prison
facility.

The US has also recently begun transferring prisoners to Fort Suse, a
recently opened prison near Sulaymaniyah in Iraq's Kurdish-controlled
north, in preparation for shutting down US operations at Abu Ghraib
entirely.

Families of prisoners and Iraqi human rights groups have complained
that it is hard for Arab families to visit their relatives in Suse
because of discrimination against them by Kurdish security forces, and
Arab Sunnis have complained that the trip to Bucca, near Basra, has
become dangerous because of the risk of being arrested by Shiite
security forces while traveling there.

Sultan says that the moving of prisoners from Abu Ghraib prison, near
Baghdad, to locations in the south and the north, was a direct result
of the impossibility of keeping prisoners safe in restive central
Iraq. At least 35 prisoners have been killed by insurgent mortar
strikes at Abu Ghraib since 2003 and dozens more injured.

"What should we do? Build each person a prison next to his house?"
asks Sultan.

===

"Where is my son? Where is my son?"
Truth About Iraqis
May 1, 2006
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m23006

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Message 6
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 9:11am(PDT)
Subject: Good-bye US -- 'Perfect storm' as dollar is rejected worldwide drivi

Mike Whitney - The Inevitable Collapse of the Greenback

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

From: FPF
May 04, 2006
Subject: Mike Whitney - The Inevitable Collapse of the Greenback

THE INEVITABLE COLLAPSE OF THE GREENBACK

By Mike Whitney

05/03/06 "ICH" - Why is George Bush destroying the dollar?

OR IS IT BUSH? MAYBE, IT IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE, THE PRIVATELY OWNED GROUP OF 12 CENTRAL BANKS THAT PRINTS OUR MONEY AND SETS THE POLICY? - http://tinyurl.com/9jypc]

A UK Telegraph article on Tuesday ³Dollar Drops as great Sell-Off Looms² explains the current dilemma. The dollar is falling against the euro and the Asian currencies while gold and energy prices continue to skyrocket. ³Greenback liquidation comes amid growing concerns that global central banks and Middle East oil funds are quietly paring back their holdings of US bonds.

² David Bloom, a currency expert at HSBC, said the dollar was vulnerable to a steep sell-off as investors begin to refocus on America¹s yawning current account deficit, now 7% of GDP². (UK Telegraph)

Just to add some perspective to this topic; Argentina¹s economy collapsed when its trade deficit reached 4% of GDP. The US deficit is at an unprecedented level.

Normally, we could say that these are the predictable effects of market forces, but that¹s not the case here. After all, we know that Bush insisted that the lavish tax cuts be made permanent even though it was understood that such action would undercut the dollar. So, what is going on here; why does Bush want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg?

There are two ways to weaken the currency; either print more money which dilutes the supply, or create new debt which lowers the value.

Bush has done both simultaneously and with such gusto that it¹s a wonder the dollar hasn¹t crashed already. He¹s expanded government spending by 35% and produced humongous $450 billion per year tax cuts. Add this to the projected costs of a $2 trillion war and the dollar was bound to get hammered.

At the same time Bush has been spending us into oblivion, the Federal Reserve has kept the printing presses humming along at full-throttle doubling the money supply in the last decade. Almost half of all greenbacks are now located outside the country, which means that if the dollar becomes less attractive to investors those greenbacks will come flooding back to America and plunge the country into recession.

Regardless of one¹s political leanings, there is an obvious and demonstrable attempt to savage the currency by the political and banking establishment.

WHY?

THE REAL FORCE BEHIND BUSH¹S ACTIONS IS THE FEDERAL RESERVE.

No one has any illusion that our paper-mache president, who even boasts about not reading the newspapers, is making complex policy decisions about geopolitics and finance. As a privately owned institution, the Fed has its own agenda which runs contrary to the interests of the American people. Many people fail to realize that it was Greenspan who cooked up the massive increases in Social Security in 1983 to help Reagan reduce the soaring interest rates that were caused by his tax cuts for the wealthy. Ever since then, Social Security payments have gone directly into the general fund; paying for roads, social programs and war. This was the Fed¹s clever way of creating a flat tax directed exclusively at the poor and middle class.

The Federal Reserve has engineered many similar coups, the most impressive being the huge stock market bubble of the late 1990s. Greenspan kept the cheap money flowing into the Wall Street Casino (and refused to even increase marginal rates on stock purchases) while PE¹s skyrocketed and the bubble expanded to Hindenburg-proportions.

Following the explosion, which left tens of thousands of Americans stripped of their retirement and savings, Greenspan breezily noted that it is not the task of the Fed to stop bubbles.

Really? The European Central Bank (ECB) takes an entirely different tack intervening whenever it is clearly in the public interest. Greenspan¹s recalcitrance has nothing to do with principle; he was simply acting on behalf of constituents in the investment community.

Currently, the Fed has created the largest equity bubble of all time; the $9 trillion housing bubble, slapped together over the last 3 years by lowering rates to an unbelievable 1.5% (at one point) and facilitated through shabby lending practices. As rates continue to rise to satisfy America¹s need for $2 billion cash inflows from foreign lenders every day, the carnage from the housing-bomb is bound to be extensive and agonizing.

THE FEDERAL RESERVE HAS ALWAYS SERVED THE SINGULAR INTERESTS OF THE RULING CLASS, THE ONLY DIFFERENCE NOW IS THAT THE PRESENT CLASH IS DESIGNED TO DRIVE THE WOODEN-STAKE INTO THE HEART OF THE MIDDLE CLASS AND CREATE A PERMANENT AMERICAN OLIGARCHY.

BUSH HAS PURPOSELY GENERATED ANOTHER $3 TRILLION IN DEBT ENSURING THAT THE DOLLAR WILL FALL MIGHTILY AND WORKING CLASS PEOPLE BE LEFT WITH A TRIFLING OF THEIR LIFE SAVINGS.

6 months ago, the Federal Reserve, anticipating the day when the foreign inflows would dry up, eliminated the M-3, their public record of foreign purchases of dollars and securities. It all sounds very abstract, but what it means is that we no longer have any way of knowing how quickly foreign banks are dumping their greenbacks. This means that the American people will be left holding the bag once again; stuck with an inflationary dollar while foreign investors bail out.

The Federal Reserve gave Bush the go-ahead on his ³war of choice² just as they cheerily endorsed the budget-busting tax cuts. They¹ve doubled the money supply and done everything in their power to shift middle class wealth to corporate kingpins and American plutocrats.

STILL, THIS DOESN¹T EXPLAIN WHY THEY APPEAR TO BE INTENTIONALLY SAVAGING THE DOLLAR?

Here¹s the key: We are not a ³capitalistic² system or a ³free market² system, that¹s all just philosophical mumbo-jumbo. In practical terms, we are a ³Dollar system² and the greenback must continue to dominate the world oil trade or the Federal Reserve, the IMF, the World Bank* and all the privately owned global institutions will crash and burn. That¹s not their plan; their plan is to perpetuate this debt-pyramid into infinity; integrating dissident states into an expanding and predatory neoliberal network.

The face value of the dollar doesn¹t matter to the men who print the money. The actual value is constantly manipulated to shift wealth from one class to another. (via bubbles and inflation)

WHAT REALLY MATTERS IS WHO CONTROLS THE SYSTEM AND THE MEANS WHEREBY OTHERS ARE COERCED TO PARTICIPATE.

In the last decade the amount of dollars stockpiled in foreign banks has gone from 53% to nearly 70%; this is a monopoly that the US intends to defend by every means possible. To maintain this monopoly, the Federal Reserve has linked arms with the oil industry (and the US military) in its effort to control the world oil market. This has become an ³existential² issue for the corporate elites who run American foreign policy. If the dollar is not supported by access to the world¹s dwindling oil supplies, then there is no incentive for foreign banks to accumulate the anemic dollar. (Oil is sold exclusively in US greenbacks)

By this standard, we can see that Bush¹s fictitious war on terror is really just a smokescreen for a global resource war that will decide which economic system prevails.

WILL IT BE THE DOLLAR SYSTEM, WITH ITS WARS AND GULAGS SPREAD ACROSS THE PLANET?

Or will some other system emerge, some non-ideological incarnation of socialism that redistributes wealth according to people¹s needs like we see in Venezuela?

The future of the dollar may be decided sooner than any of us had imagined. Iran¹s Mehr News Agency announced that the long-awaited Iran Oil Bourse (OIB) will open sometime next week on Kish Island challenging head-on America¹s monopoly on the sale of oil in dollars. Iran¹s plan is a direct attack on the greenback as the world¹s ³reserve currency². The US must preserve that advantage because it allows it to maintain massive deficits as well as a national debt of $8.4 trillion without fear of economic collapse or hyper-inflation. The opening of the bourse guarantees that central banks around the world will convert some of their reserves into euros precipitating a sharp decline in the dollar¹s value.

This may be the most serious threat the dollar has ever faced. The fundamental economic law of ³supply and demand² ensures that the bourse means hard times for the greenback. This explains why the Bush administration is cobbling together a feeble coalition of European allies (England, France and Germany) to push a resolution through the Security Council expressing their ³serious concern² about Iran¹s alleged nuclear programs.

Washington is looking for international cover to conceal its battle-plans. The hawkish members of the administration want to preempt the opening of the bourse with a unilateral attack (nuclear?) on Iranian facilities.

Even if Washington succeeds in stopping Iran¹s plans to compete in the oil market, it¹s still a bumpy road ahead for the greenback. The dollar is under growing pressure from overspending and mismanagement. The prospect of diminishing foreign inflows and a fragile housing market are telltale signs of an inflationary cycle.

AMERICA IS NOW FACING A SLOW-MOTION MELTDOWN THAT COULD ESCALATE INTO A WIDESPREAD RUN ON THE DOLLAR.

Attacking Iran will only aggravate the situation and push tenuous states towards new alliances. (China, India, Venezuela and Russia have already expressed support for the new bourse) Military action will do nothing to relieve America¹s enormous account imbalances or lesson the vulnerability of the ailing greenback.

The problems facing the dollar are purely systemic. The privately owned central banks in the Federal Reserve cannot be trusted to decide monetary policy any more than the oil giants can be trusted to decide foreign policy. When the public interest is excluded from policy-making, catastrophe is inevitable.

EXPECT THE GREENBACK TO FOLLOW A LONG-DOWNWARD SPIRAL.

MIKE WHITNEY

=====================================

'Perfect storm' on horizon as confidence in paper money breaks, Embry says

Embry Sees Trouble for Paper Money;
Gold Headed for US$1,000, Sprott Strategist Says

By Levi Folk
National Post, Toronto
Monday, May 1, 2006

http://www.canada.com/nationalpost/financialpost/story.html?
id=628fa11d-48d3-4c21-8416-7ffb020bef2e&rfp=dta

We are "in the early throes of paper money getting seriously
debased," warns John Embry of Sprott Asset Management, and the price
of gold is headed to US$700 this year and US$1,000
conceivably "within two to three years -- maybe quicker."

This story is finally gaining traction because of the remarkable
deterioration in the financial position of the United States, he
says. Confidence in U.S. paper money is starting to ebb, "and, boy,
when it really starts to move, you'll be shocked, I think, at how
fast the prices will move."

"I think what you've got here is a perfect storm," he concludes. The
United States has shown "very little interest in any fiscal
responsibility," and has created, in the face of declining
savings, "an enormous debt pyramid" that can be sustained only by
ever-greater credit expansion, he explains.

The supply of money is ever expanding, whereas the supply of gold is
relatively scarce, hence the "perfect storm." Insufficient
exploration for at least the last five years suggests "at best a
flat production profile" for gold, says Embry -- this in a situation
where demand already outstrips supply by roughly 1,500 tons/year.

Behind this "perfect storm" is a conspiracy theory advanced by Embry
that points to the U.S. Federal Reserve Bank doing whatever it can
to hide the truth about its debased currency. To give one subtle
example, the Fed recently stopped publishing a broad measure of the
money supply (M3) because it suggests that the money supply remains
accommodative despite the rate hikes in the United States. To take
another, central banks have been selling gold over the past decade
to make their currencies appear stronger.

The problem with conspiracy theories is that they can be used to
dismiss any evidence that does not corroborate one's view of the
markets.

For example, inflation is the smoking gun that Embry cannot find. In
fact, expected inflation, which can be calculated as the difference
between current yields on real-return bonds (Treasury Inflation-
Protected Securities in the United States) and nominal bonds,
remains muted. Embry explains this conflicting evidence by
suggesting that the bond market is also being manipulated, this time
by the U.S. Treasury.

[Bullshit there is no inflation:

Almonds have doubled in price to $8400 per ton in the past 2 years.
Cocoa beans have soared from 600 UK pounds to 1647 UK pounds in 2 years.
Hazelnuts have quintupled from $2150/ton to $11,120/ton in 2 years.

"the cost of inputs for highway and street construction leaped 16%, nearly 10% for other heavy construction and 8% for building construction. Many materials contributed to this spike."
"The price index for copper and brass mill shapes was up 21%; asphalt 18%; gypsum products, such as wallboard 15%; plastic construction products 13%, and concrete products 10%.

"The worst news has been about diesel fuel, which affects contractors in three ways," Simonson added.

"The producer price index for diesel jumped 59% from October 2004 to October 2005. That directly raises the cost of operating off-road equipment, like tower cranes and bulldozers. Contractors also buy diesel fuel to run dump trucks, concrete mixers and other vehicles. And the truckers who deliver construction materials are passing through higher diesel costs in the form of fuel surcharges on most deliveries."

Over the past five months, consumer prices have risen 5% on an annualized basis -- the highest inflation rate since the early 1990s.

Chinese's Biggest Steelmaker to Pay 71.5 Percent More for Brazilian Iron Ore.

Also check out the incredible price increases in basic metals copper & zinc. Their charts look like a rocket launch. MPR]
===================================

* WHO'S FINANCING? - THE 'FEDERAL RESERVE' AND IT'S USURERS IS THE ABSOLUTE BIGGEST CRIME AGAINST ALL HUMANITY EVER. - URL.: http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm

* NWO letter: ''We can cancel your credit or freeze your accounts'' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/cjo7l

* ''THE CITY OF LONDON / NWO CENTRAL?'' - THIS IS WHAT HAS HAPPENED AND IS HAPPENING, NOT ONLY TO THE UNITED STATES BUT TO ALL 'PNAC COLONIES' IN THE WORLD: THE US GREEN INK & PAPER 'MONEY' FROM THE PRIVATE PRINT SHOP CALLED 'FEDERAL RESERVE' HAS IT'S BOARD OF DIRECTORS HERE - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/hwtgc

GLOBALLY ALL CRIMINALS (especially their propagandists in the PNAC's media, without whom this never would have been possible) MUST BE JUDGED BY WAR CRIMES TRIBUNALS:

* US CONGRESSMAN RON PAUL CONFIRMING THE CREATION OF A WORLD GOVERNMENT - "He asked if there was an international conspiracy to overthrow our government: The answer is ''Yes" - Short video - Url.: http://100777.com/media/RonPaul-NewWorldOrder.wmv

* THE BILDERBURGERS: AFTER THE LYING BLAIR THE GROUP IN LONDON WILL MAKE OF OF THEIR OWN PRIME (CRIME) MINISTER OF THE UNITED KINGDOM WHICH THEY RUN: GORDON BROWN, THE MAN KNOWN TOO FROM BILDERBERG: The Secret World Government? - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/rzuxv
Or Url.: http://www.freepressinternational.com/bilderberg.html

* THE 'WHY' OF GLOBAL RESISTANCE - HOW IT IS DONE BY THE PNAC'S CIA JACKALS & THE WORLD BANK's SERIAL KILLER WOLFOWITZ - 'Confessions of an economic 'hit man'. World Bank insider Perkins explains: "Jackals' are C.I.A. - sanctioned people that come in and try to foment a coup or revolution. If it doesn't work, they perform assassinations, or try to." - They steal billions for the World Bank, IMF, USAID, UNDP, AID etc. - Perkins web site - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/jvhbu - It's your life too: Must watch Video Url.: www.informationclearinghouse.info/article8171.htm

* THIS IS A VERY INFORMATIVE ARTICLE - AN EYE-OPENER - After working around the globe for more than forty years, I can not find anything wrong with this eloquent description of the state of affairs: ''Just six simple words that carry the weight of the world upon them, six simple words that act as the engine for so much turmoil and unrest.'' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/gj4x5

* "Sarah, if the American people had ever known the truth about what we Bushes have done to this nation, we would be chased down in the streets and lynched." - George Bush Senior speaking in an interview with Sarah McClendon in December 1992.

* HOW THE BUSH FAMILY MADE ITS FORTUNE FROM THE NAZIS: THE DUTCH CONNECTION - by John Loftus, a former U.S. Department of Justice Nazi War Crimes prosecutor, the President of the Florida Holocaust Museum and the highly respected author of numerous books on the CIA-Nazi connection including The Belarus Secret and The Secret War Against the Jews, both of which have extensive material on the Bush-Rockefeller-Nazi connection. - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/omczx

* GLOBAL PREDATORS - OFRAUDS-R-US¹ - The Bush Family Saga - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/elarx

* The 9/11 drama was the 'trigger' used by the PNAC Group, killing Americans to further their inhuman goals: Anybody who after seeing this video - '9/11 revisited' - still believes the version from the 'PNAC pack' - the Washington cabal - is beyond all professional help - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/jn5jx

* SCHOLARS FOR 9/11 TRUTH - American and other scientists, diplomats, researchers etc.: What happened on 9/11? - What is happening to our world? - How can we improve our situation? - Url.: http://www.st911.org/

* The MAD COW MORNING NEWS is one of the absolutely best 9/11 sites on Internet - by Daniel Hopsicker - Url.: http://www.madcowprod.com/01042004.html

* PSYOPS: How to make anybody say and see anything - William M. Arkin's "The U.S. Military Online" - When Seeing and Hearing Isn't Believing - Special to the Washington Post - already on Feb. 1, 1999 - Url.:http://tinyurl.com/hvnrq

* FOX: Video 49" - The example how viewers are brainwashed and 'outfoxed' - Url.: http://tinyurl.com/b2zzl

* All the more reason to read the 'FIGHTIN' COCK FLYER' - Url.: http://fightincockflyer.blogspot.com/

* THE ONLY SOLUTION? - Help all the troops, including the revolting generals and other officers - of whatever nationality - to come back from abroad! - AND WITH ALL THEIR WEAPONS, WHICH WE ARE FORCED TO PAY FOR BY TAXES - [http://www.apfn.org/apfn/reserve.htm] - We need them badly at home in many countries to fight with us against our so called 'governments' and their malignant managers - Url.: http://www.bringthemhomenow.org/

The Dutch author this far has lived and worked abroad for more than 4 decades for international media - when they still knew what honest journalism was - as an independent foreign correspondent. Of which 10 years - also during Gulf War I - in the 'Arab World' and the Middle East. Seeing worldwide that every bullet and every bomb breeds more terrorism !

distributed by the Foreign Press Foundation under fair use, without profit or payment, to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the information. Url.: http://liimirror.warwick.ac.uk/uscode/17/107.html

FOREIGN PRESS FOUNDATION
http://forpressfound.blogspot.com/
Editor: Henk Ruyssenaars
http://tinyurl.com/amn3q
The Netherlands
fpf@chello.nl

-0-

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 7
From: "Kevin Hammond" sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 9:19am(PDT)
Subject: Re: Are we still in the USA?

This to me, Is not at all about politics, though we must unfortunately enter that slimy, slithery realm. This to me is about saving lives and educating our brothers and sisters. I am of the belief that we if not brainwashed are quite capable of governing ourselves and policing ourselves quite well without some control freak vermin trying to do it FOR US.
Kevin.

Scott Peden <scotpeden@cruzio.com> wrote:

v\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} o\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} w\:* {behavior:url(#default#VML);} .shape {behavior:url(#default#VML);} My Grandfather noted, when I was 14, that hardly anyone under the age of 35 or so was ever interested in politics. He stirred a lot of questions in me so I paid attention, because I didn’t want to be as stupid as I felt when I didn’t understand what he was getting at.

I noted in School I was only taught that America was always right and everyone else was wrong. I learned in hushed whispers for 2 different teachers that were educated, that this is called Nationalism and to use the dictionary to differentiate between that and Patriotism.

I noted that American has never done any wrong and we have been around to save the world from bad guys time and again and if it wasn’t for us we’d been over run with those that would destroy our way of life.

That is the only thing I can think of, why most of our youth could care less about politics. It is hard to argue with them when I hear, I voted and it didn’t make a difference. It is hard to remember if we don’t pay any attention, that is where they want us to go, so that we stop interfering with ‘their’ agenda.

WE protested, even when infiltrated by the FBI about Viet Nam and the WTO, and the infiltrators made us look like violent people bent on destroying middle class America, when it was actually the Military Industrial Complex and the Multi National Mega corporations we were against. They twist what we are trying to fix and never do we effectively get our message back out.

I never forget the words of the editor that said, he missed the article now called ‘Watergate’ as if he’d seen it, he would have squashed it right then and there. The media is as liberal as I am a Fascist.

The MSM hasn’t been our news media for many decades. That is one of the things we have to overcome, and now they are trying to control the internet, that only means that our communications are becoming more effective in a medium that they use to say only nuts and fruitcakes used.

So, my hats off to you Naveed, recruit amongst your own age group if you can, I suppose anyone that makes it to a university isn’t totally addicted to the population control poisons of choice, white processed sugar, Corn Syrup and the best one yet, Aspartame. There are some there that can still think for themselves rather than be the empty vessels the government wants, whom they can fill with their dogma.

Of course, I keep that in mind that if we can present our case credibly, and use the same techniques, that is, give data that doesn’t require our fellow Americans to think, and then tell them they aren’t so stupid to believe the lies of the Government/MSM/Multi National Mega Corporations, then I have noticed that they go right out and spread the truth as we have disseminated it, even though I’d rather see them think it through and make that conclusion on their own.

Scott

-----Original Message-----
From: 911TruthAction@yahoogroups.com [mailto:911TruthAction@yahoogroups.com]On Behalf Of Kevin Hammond
Sent: Wednesday, May 03, 2006 8:00 PM
To: 911TruthAction@yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [911TruthAction] Are we still in the USA?

Oops! well, you are a exception my dear brother who I most deeply respect. And good work too.

Naveed <flanker12k@yahoo.com> wrote:
ahem, i'm 23!

I just happened to wake up a friend of mine just today,

In the beginning of a change the patriot is a scarce man, and brave, and hated and scorned. When his cause succeeds, the timid join him, for then it costs nothing to be a patriot.
- Notebook, 1904

http://www.fightthenwo.org/

----- Original Message ----
From: Kevin Hammond <sir_oglaigh@yahoo.com>
To: 911TruthAction@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Wednesday, May 3, 2006 9:03:13 PM
Subject: Re: [911TruthAction] Are we still in the USA?
NO! WE ARE NOT STILL IN THE USA! WE ARE IN FUCKING LALA LAND! I ran into a chinese kid today that I gave a copy of lloose change to and told him how important it was and to PLEASE watch it asap and it has been a FUCKING MONTH and the worthless little punk still has not watched it! Too busy he said! So I guess thousands of lives is'nt worth a little bit of time! I wanted to reach out and strangle the little punk! Or slap him or something! And the fact that 75 % of kids ranging in age from 18-25 cant find either louisiana or iraq on a GODDAMNED MAP might tell you what we are UP AGAINST HERE! And from what i have seen of people that are actually ACTIVE DOING SOMETHING aboutthis stuff I would say that a large majority are over 35. And if some young shit wants to get offended by what i am saying here about your pathetic generation then PROVE me WRONG and get off of your lazy pathetic punk ass and DO SOMETHING! And while yer at it ya might want to get others from
your generation to DO SOMETHING as well.

Sincerely,
46 year old Kevin

Bugs <brawny@twlakes.net> wrote:

Administration Is Singing More Than One Tune on Spanish Version of Anthem By Peter Baker

Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, May 3, 2006; Page A06
President Bush declared last week that the national anthem should be sung in English not Spanish, but he evidently never told his own government or campaign organizations.
The State Department posts four Spanish versions of "The Star-Spangled Banner" on its Web site, and accounts from the 2000 election suggest that the song was at times performed in Spanish at Bush campaign events. Critics even turned up one reference to Bush himself singing the anthem in Spanish on the trail, but there was no confirmation.

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The furor over a newly released Spanish version of the anthem has underscored once again the power of symbols in American politics. At a time when the immigration debate in Washington has divided Republicans on Capitol Hill, drawn hundreds of thousands of protesters into the streets and triggered a nationwide boycott, all sides are scrutinizing the words and records of the president and other politicians for signs of inconsistency.
Bush waded into the matter last week after British producer Adam Kidron issued " Nuestro Himno ." Responding to a reporter, Bush said: "I think the national anthem ought to be sung in English. And I think people who want to be a citizen of this country ought to learn English, and they ought to learn to sing the national anthem in English."
But Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice chose not to repeat his formulation Sunday on CBS's "Face the Nation." "I've heard the national anthem done in rap versions, country versions, classical versions," she said. "The individualization of the American national anthem is quite underway."
And there seems little evidence that the matter had concerned Bush before. The Center for American Progress, a liberal group run by Clinton chief of staff John D. Podesta, posted on its blog a reference to Bush singing the anthem in Spanish. In his book, "American Dynasty," Kevin Phillips wrote that Bush "would drop in at Hispanic festivals and parties, sometimes joining in singing 'The Star-Spangled Banner' in Spanish, sometimes partying with a 'Viva Bush' mariachi band flown in from Texas."
White House spokesmen and former campaign operatives said they could not recall whether that happened, though given the level of Bush's Spanish proficiency, they seemed dubious.
"Honestly, I don't remember him ever singing the national anthem in Spanish," said Leonard Rodriguez, who was national director of Hispanic Coalition for Bush/Cheney 2000. "I can't see any of his advisers recommending it." But he added: "They may have played it. That's certainly in the realm of possibility." And Rodriguez said he does not recall Bush ever objecting to it.
The Center for American Progress also cited a news report that the anthem was performed in Spanish by singer Jon Secada at a 2001 inauguration event, but Bush aides and most news accounts said he actually sang a Spanish version of "America the Beautiful."
Secada later performed "The Star-Spangled Banner" at the White House, in May 2001, but in English, according to the White House.

Saoirse go deo! www.fightthenwo.org

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Message 8
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 9:40am(PDT)
Subject: Fw: Mayor Daley in ISRAEL during Chicago 911 Terror Exercise

Mayor Daley heading to Israel to study security measures:
http://chicagobusiness.com/cgi-bin/news.pl?id=20267

... The Chicago mayor is in Israel with the state security apparatus! It doesn't make any sense to me at all, since the mayor should have been a big part of the major (and secret) terror exersices, in order to round out the command cell. ...

... Chicago police have established exchange programs with Israeli police/military entities, and this is most disturbing to those of us who understand the role of Isreal in our current "War on Terror" woes. ...

Eric H. May

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 9
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 10:19am(PDT)
Subject: daily war crimes will come to light -- Tony Swindell: Decent into

http://informationclearinghouse.info/article12948.htm

By TONY SWINDELL

05/04/06 "Counterpunch" -- -- A few weeks ago we got a friendly letter
from Tony Swindell, a newspaper editor in Sherman, Texas. "Begin paying
attention," Swindell urged, ''to stories from Iraq like the very recent
one about U.S. Marines killing a group of civilians near Baghdad. This
is the next step in the Iraq war as frustration among our soldiers grows
-- especially with multiple tours.

''I served with the 11th Light Infantry Brigade, Americal Division, and
My Lai was not an isolated incident. We came to be known as the
Butcher's Brigade, and we also were the birthplace of the Phoenix
Program. The brigade commander and a battalion commander were charged
with murdering civilians (shooting them from helicopters, recorded in
some of my photos), although both skated. If you recall from his
autobiography, Colin Powell served briefly with the 11th in Duc Pho
before going to division HQ in Chu Lai.
''The atrocities against Iraqi civilians are slipping under the media
radar screen, but they're going to explode in America's face not too
long from now and dwarf the Abu Ghraib (sic) incident. That was a
fraternity beer bust by comparison. The Ft. Sill episode [described in
JoAnn Wypijewski's piece from April, "The Army Slays Its Own."] is
another one of the same storm clouds on the horizon. I sincerely fear
for our country.''
We asked Swindell to expand these thoughts. Here's his powerful
response. AC/JSC
In Iraq, our descent into hell, our "Apocalypse Now" moment, has begun.
First there was Gitmo, then the global rendition program, then Abu
Ghraib, then the pulverizing of Fallujah, and now trigger-happy raids
that are filling multitudes of sandy graves with men, women and
children. Has "Kill 'em all and let God sort 'em out" become the mission
in Babylon? Can't anyone remember Vietnam, where we left behind more
than a million dead civilians? In Iraq, we've way past the half-million
mark, probably the million mark, if you count the 1990s sanctions. Are
the American people as blind and deaf as they seem? Don't we see
ourselves walking through the gates of hell and can't we hear the doors
clanging shut on our country?
Who am I to say all this, you might ask. Fair enough, I reply. So let me
tell you a story about monstrous crimes and tragedies from my generation
about to be repeated in Iraq in front of the whole world. First,
understand that a single soldier can't be expected to grasp the total
criminality of war because his whole universe is a tiny place right in
front of his nose. So he can stay alive. If he knew everything that was
going on, he would be heartbroken, and if he also knew why, he would go
insane.
The narrowness of his vision is exactly how even the best and most
humane soldier unwillingly becomes a monster, and the people who create
war know this. Out of grief and rage, with the stench of his buddy's
shredded flesh in his nostrils, the soldier stops asking questions and
then begins making up his own rules with a rifle. He has touched the
heart of darkness and there's no going back ever. Embracing the whore
called war destroys morality, and doing all this in a dishonorable cause
compounds the damage.
That's why we who have been there must speak out forcefully. If it
requires a stiff punch in the mouth to jump-start some addled neocon
brains, so be it. And for anyone who gets their political truth from
self-inflating whoopee cushions like Rush Limbaugh and Bill O'Reilly, it
will come none too soon. To remain silent this time risks the loss of
everything that our country stands for.
The story I want to tell you begins on a miserably hot day in February,
1969, as I watched U.S. Army Col. John W. Donaldson put a cup of rice
wine mixed with blood to his lips and drink deeply. No matter that the
concoction was alive with heartworms, Donaldson never flinched. At the
time, I was serving as an army combat correspondent attached to the 11th
Light Infantry Brigade and my job that day was to follow Donaldson
around, snapping picture after picture of the macabre festivities
unfolding in front of my eyes. He was the brigade commander at a bloody
punching bag called LZ Bronco next to the village of Duc Pho. The
brigade base camp was part of the Americal Division, headquartered to
the north in Chu Lai.
The colonel and a large contingent of other brigade and division
officers were guests of honor at a Tet festival in the Montagnard
village of Ba To in the central highlands southwest of Chu Lai. Nearby
was a Special Forces A Team camp, an ominous triangular fortress
bristling with 105 mm cannon at each corner firing flechette rounds. A
snake couldn't have crawled through the maze of sharp barbed and razor
tape wire surrounding the compound, and dozens of claymore mines were
set in the walls. A claymore at close range will instantly render you
into your constituent molecules.
The Montagnard village and A Team camp had been hit hard by concentrated
North Vietnamese forces earlier in the week, and Donaldson's presence
was in part a thumb in the eye to enemy commanders licking their wounds
in nearby triple canopy jungle. The landscape gave me chills, because
the beautiful, green-dappled hills all around the village were
pockmarked with hundreds of fresh artillery and bomb craters exposing
the bright red soil. I couldn't get the image of the Jolly Green Giant
with a bad case of acne out of my mind. While topless Montagnard women
spruced up the area with totems and bright banners to cover attack
damage, a sacrificial water buffalo calf was slowly being prodded to
death with a spear by the local village chief. It took about half an
hour before the calf sagged to its knees in exhaustion, at that point
too weak to even cry out. The chief then cut the calf's throat above a
large earthen jug to catch the pulsing blood while another villager
poured rice wine and stirred.
Unknown to the visitors, the Montagnards had earlier tortured to death
three North Vietnamese captives and partook of their blood in the
company of Special Forces A Team troopers. These unfortunate had been
impaled through their anuses with bamboo poles and given the same spear
prodding. Later, their bodies were staked out along enemy infiltration
trails as a mortal warning to the enemy.
This day became my own personal "Apocalypse Now" moment, a full decade
before the Francis Ford Coppola's movie was released. Not long before,
we became personally aware that soldiers from the 1st Battalion, 20th
Infantry, had rampaged in My Lai when military police ransacked our
hooch looking for evidence and then hauled Rusty Calley off in
handcuffs. Meanwhile, Tiger Teams were creating ruthless, bloody havoc
across the Batangan Peninsula against suspected enemy cadre. Brutality
against civilians was standard operating procedure. Because of the
Pacification Program mass relocations, entire swathes of the countryside
began to resemble the Missouri Burnt District during the Civil War.
The Phoenix Program was in full swing, and it was the horror to end all
horrors. I had earlier tagged along on a Phoenix mission directed by the
ARVN National Police, and will spare you the details. Trust me, you do
not want to know what was being done. Standing there and watching
Donaldson drink from the cup, the profound symbolism of all that was
wrong in this place hit me like a blow in the face. Ironically, an
anti-war rag called the Overseas Weekly or Overseas latched onto one of
my pictures and captioned it, "Army Brass Drinks Blood In Pagan
Ceremonies".
By February 1969, morale in the brigade had hit rock bottom because of
horrific casualties caused primarily from booby traps, and an entire
battalion had been stood down as non-functional. The North Vietnamese
were endlessly blasting our firebases with 122 mm rocket artillery, and
LZ Bronco was soon to be hit more than 200 times during a famous assault
that came to be called "Duc Pho Burning". Mutinies, insubordination and
fragging of officers became commonplace. Soldiers cracked and a few
committed suicide. One grunt over the edge opened fire into the POW
compound, killing a number of captured enemy. Col. Donaldson and a
battalion commander, two of the highest-ranking officers in the brigade,
were charged with murdering civilians from helicopters while the My Lai
investigation was still underway. A young Major Colin Powell assigned to
the 11th Brigade � who was well acquainted with Donaldson � wrote in
his autobiography about being stunned by what he saw going on in the
11th. Perhaps, he had experienced his own "Apocalypse Now" moment.
There's a numbness in my guts as I see the same nightmares becoming
reality again in Iraq, and I wonder what's happened to America's soul.
Is this what we want, another generation suckled on the poison of
another renegade leadership? Gooks have become ragheads, every adult
male is an insurgent eligible for torture, and every Iraqi home filled
with men, women and children is a free-fire zone. Even places of worship
get flattened. Once again, we've been marched into another lunatic
asylum in the Twilight Zone.
How did it happen? Why did we sit on our hands and let our leaders
initiate an unprovoked proxy war? A mushroom cloud over Cleveland
delivered by a pipsqueak Iraq that couldn't even get an airplane in the
air or a dilapidated tank outside its own borders without throwing a
track? Gimme a break. How could the average John Doe let himself be
deceived into believing that Saddam Hussein was really a threat?
With Iran now in the crosshairs, I pray that our national amnesia is
wearing off. I know that from coast to coast a growing number of people
� especially many combat veterans like myself � feel helpless,
confused, frightened, and completely out of the loop. Three years into
Iraq, why do we still keep hearing the same refrain, pre-emptive war
into the next generation? On and on and on it goes, but unfortunately
our emperors in Washington treat middle Americans asking hard questions
like bill collectors at a funeral or, publicly skewer them as extremists
and traitors. And don't even think about asking about Israeli
involvement in the disaster that Dubya calls a Middle Eastern policy.
I listen in vain to hear the voices of young Americans who will be
directly and immediately affected. Current events in the Middle East
should be a paramount issue, but, inexplicably, the kids are completely
nonchalant. Raised on the Internet and X-Boxes, maybe Iraq is just
another Hollywood-style media production to them. But, I'm going to make
a prediction. Our salvation will come when Selective Service notices
begin arriving in mailboxes, and make no mistake, they are coming. I
predict that young voices will soon become the loudest against empire as
the hip-hoppers, the teeny boppers and the slackers rudely discover that
involuntary combat means no video games or boom boxes, no marathon beer
busts, and certainly no teenaged girls in thong bikinis.

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 10
From: "ranger116@webtv.net" ranger116@webtv.net
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 11:31am(PDT)
Subject: CIA Director Porter Goss Resigns Without Notice over Bush Actions !!

CIA Director Porter Goss Resigns Without Notice over Bush Actions !!

Goss gives ass kissing conference with Bush to protect his pension, But
the facts remain ! He resigned with No prior notice and no replacement
waiting ? !

Bush's empire crumbling Fast !

``````````````````````````````````````````````
CNN- CIA Analyst Ray Mcgovern exposes Rumsfeld's lies about Iraq WMD !

Address:http://disc.server.com/discussion.cgi?disc=234999;article=37;

Rumsfeld heckled during speech - U.S. Security - MSNBC.com

Address:http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/12632127/

``````````````````````````````````````````````
DailyKos
Re-Improved Colbert transcript (now with complete text of Colbert-Thomas
video!)

Address:http://dailykos.com/storyonly/2006/4/30/1441/59811

ActForChange : Act Now

Address:http://www.workingforchange.com/activism/action.cfm?itemid=20751&afccode=n49jnb

``````````````````````````````````````````````
The Official Minuteman Civil Defense Corps

Address:http://www.minutemanhq.com/hq/
Send a Brick - Secure our Borders!

Address:http://www.send-a-brick.com/brick.htm

``````````````````````````````````````````````
Tom Flocco .com
Address:http://www.tomflocco.com/

``````````````````````````````````````````````
Pro-American = Anti-BushCo Message: 1
Pro-American = Anti-BushCo

By Cindy Sheehan

t r u t h o u t | Perspective

http://www.truthout.org/docs_2006/050406Z.shtml
Thursday 04 May 2006

I (and every single other individual on this planet working
for peace and justice) am often accused of being "anti-American" for
dissenting against my feral government that has gone wild with
lawlessness and greed, even though dissent from our government is as
American as apple pie. Some people believe that if one is critical of
the Bush criminal regime, then one is anti-American. I
steadfastly believe that to be anti-BushCo means being pro-American,
pro-life, and most of all, pro-peace. In a recent editorial
in the Boston Globe (Sunday, April 30,
2006) the Bush regime is blamed for breaking or giving itself permission
to break over 750 laws. George is the only sitting president to have
admitted to breaking laws and to openly disdaining the Constitution as
an "old scrap of paper." How can we peaceniks be accused of being
anti-American when the squatter in the Oval Office has no respect for
the supreme law of the land? But of course, 9/11 changed the world and
we are a nation "at war" so George thinks he can do whatever he wants,
even though he is the one who made us a nation at war with his lies and
deceptions. I will stipulate that the constitution is a deeply flawed
document, but the founders realized this and gave us ways to amend it,
and one of the ways to amend it is not just "cuz the president says so."
He may be the decider but he is not the amender. Extreme
rendition and torture are being authorized from the top and carried out
in the name of the American people. A recent Amnesty International
report calls torture "widespread" for people in US captivity.
CIA-trained black operatives have even bragged how inhuman and brutal
water-boarding is and gave a high level terrorist his persecution props
for being able to last over two minutes. In this particularly lovely
form of torture, a person has cellophane wrapped around his mouth and
nose and is tipped at an angle so water pours over his face - thus
creating the feeling of drowning. To avoid choking, the prisoner
succumbs. Our own torturers, who have to go through the ropes, can last
for only a few seconds in this torture. Add the sexual depravation
practiced on the prisoners with the tormenting of some prisoners by
flushing the Koran and so forth: not only is the humanity of the
tortured broken, but the torturer also becomes lower than an animal. I
used to watch a lot of "Animal Planet" but I have never sen nor heard of
a four legged creature torturing another four legged creature. However,
as long as we Americans condone this behavior from the ones who
authorize such viciousness from the top, we are the torturers also. We
become the thing that we abhor. George, Condi, Rummy, Dicky,
Wolfie, Colin, et al. went on a media blitz of propaganda before the
invasion. We all know now that they were lying and knew they were lying
when they told us that Saddam had WMD and would use them on America - he
had a fleet of remote control planes that could be deployed to the US at
a moment's notice - the smoking gun could come in the shape of a
mushroom cloud - Powell pointed out where the WMD were hidden on the map
- Saddam was trying to buy yellow-cake uranium from Niger - on and on
and on. By the time that the US military began to use WMD on the people
of Iraq, we all knew that BushCo was full of camel manure and we watched
in horrified near-silence as the people of Fallujah were burned beyond
recognition by white phosphorous and enhanced napalm.
Not withstanding the crimes against our own constitution and
the crimes against humanity that BushCo has executed, the assassins,
with a governmental seal of approval attached, pay lip service to being
anti-abortion. The people who run things into the ground for us have
nothing to do with being pro-life. I wonder how our fellow citizens who
say that they are pro-life reconcile the fact that their government has
massacred thousands of innocent Iraqis, many of whom are mothers,
children, babies and unborn babies. These harmless victims have not only
been killed by bombs, bullets, and shrapnel, but they have been killed
by a lack of clean water, medicine, and basic medical care. We can't
expect the people who bomb abortion clinics and kill doctors to care
about the babies of Iraq. They will even say: "We have to fight them
over there, so we don't fight them over here." I have to believe that
the average American, warnik or not, has to have compassion for the
suffering of Iraqi citizens, whose only crime is to have been born in
the wrong place at the wrong time. An Iraqi woman I have met here in the
states is a doctor who works in the Baghdad morgue; she told me that at
least 1,600 bodies come through her morgue per month. This is just in
Baghdad.
Many of my friends voted for George in the 2004 election,
telling me that he is "pro-life." My answer to them is that George is
"pro-birth," and once the baby gets out, he has no problem with
subjecting them to inadequate education, health care, environment, and
job opportunities, and then, to boot, killing them in war. If George
were truly pro-life, Casey and legions of people would still be alive.
Life is life: born and unborn. The corporations in Iraq are the things
that need to be aborted. Bring the war profiteers home. Save the
children.
Dr. Martin Luther King said that if we do not practice
non-violent co-existence, we will have to suffer mutual annihilation.
With Bush being such a lame duck and under threat of the domino theory
of indictment, I shudder to think of the continued war in Iraq and the
future wars that he will begin just to bolster his sense of failure and
lack of self confidence to insanely ensure his place in history. Even he
must know that he will not be judged kindly by future historians. It is
terribly frightening to think of what a person like this is capable,
especially when there are so many bad men with their hands in the
profitable cookie jar who are pulling his strings and when he is willing
to go along as a puppet with the neo-con PNAC flow and as a corporate
whore to the war profiteers.
If we want to have a viable future to leave as a legacy to
our children and the children of the world, BushCo must be stopped, not
supported and funded by a Congress who is getting their strings pulled
by the same malevolent puppeteers that pull the chains of corporate
greed of the executive branch.
We need to shut down the war machine and realize that to
feed that monster our country has to be, and has been, at constant war
with some country or the other, especially since WWII. It is a fact of
life, whether a Republican or a Democrat is in power, that we are
suppressing and killing other people to make the world safe for our
corporations. To help facilitate the spread of the contaminated semen of
"Planet America" the leaders of every country that stands up to
corporate America are being demonized and are ripe for BushCo to bring
them "freedom and democracy," which is really just a Trojan Horse
carrying genocide and destruction.
How do we throw a monkey wrench into the war machine? We
join boycotts, such as the one against Exxon Mobil. We buy gas from
President Chavez and Venezuela's Citgo to help him in his struggle
against corporate America - not against Americans. Hugo Chavez has done
more to help the less fortunate citizens in our Northeast and Katrina
victims than BushCo who have shown themselves quite adept at fiddling
while the world is burning and enriching themselves in the blood-soaked
process.
Unfortunately, BushCo does symbolize everything that America
is about, but they do not have to. We the people of the United States,
in order to secure a more perfect union, need to vociferously and with
everything we have stand up to the traitors in power and redefine, if
not reclaim, what it means to be Americans. For me, it means living in a
country where health care, education, human rights, jobs, peace and
prosperity are readily available, not just to the rich white ruling
class, but to everyone! This is pro-American. Torture, committing
atrocities on a helpless people, and honoring and protecting the life of
corporate America above human life are not. And, by the way,
if an imminent attack on Iran does not frighten you, think WWIII.
Be pro-American. Urge your congressman, whether he/she is
Republican or Democrat, to stand up for our country by supporting
articles of impeachment against BushCo. November will be too late for
too many people.
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is
distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest
in receiving the included information for research and educational
purposes. t r u t h o u t has no affiliation whatsoever with the
originator of this article nor is t r u t h o u t endorsed or sponsored
by the originator.)

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 11
From: "Cait" ansith@gmail.com
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 0:31pm(PDT)
Subject: JUST ANNOUNCED! "9/11 + The Neo-Con Agenda" Symposium

Alex Jones

Date: May 5, 2006 11:57 AM
Subject: JUST ANNOUNCED! "9/11 + The Neo-Con Agenda" Symposium
Body: May 5, 2006

Alex Jones has just announced a MONUMENTAL NEW EVENT in the 9/11 Truth
Movement.

9/11 + THE NEO-CON AGENDA SYMPOSIUM will be held in Los Angeles at the
Sheraton Downtown on June 24-25, 2006.

BUY TICKETS NOW! Limited Availability. Get them here: http://www
americanscholarssymposium.org/

This will be an Academic Conference featuring members of the 9/11 Scholars
for Truth, New Documentaries and provoking discussions.

This is guaranteed to be unlike any other conference of its kind - the first
one ever presented by Alex Jones, a progenitor of the 9/11 Truth Movement
who was the first speak out and challenge the government's official story of
what happened on 9/11.

Come and experience the biggest ever 9/11 conference - MORE HIGHLY RESPECTED
SPEAKERS than any other, MORE AMAZING FILMS than any other, plus SPECIAL
SUPRISE GUESTS. Come to learn, come to share and come to help eachother
create strategies to defend the constitution and save the republic from the
grip of its greatest enemy.

Participation in this event is not limited to those who are already awake to
the truth of 9/11, but is open to all who have questions about the official
story. We also invite the mainstream media to join us as fellow truth
seekers and face the facts about the events surrounding September 11th, 2001

If you ever only attend one 9/11 event, make sure this is it.

AGAIN, the website for this event is http://www.americanscholarssymposium
org/
Visit for a listing of confirmed and potential guest speakers and a schedule
of events (updated as more films are confirmed).

Get Tickets NOW while they are still available. Don't miss your opportunity
to attend this one-time conference if you possibly can.

Discounts available for groups as well as accomodations at the Sheraton
Downtown.
Stand up! Speak your mind!
My weblog:

"US Constitution, The Bill of Rights 12/15/1791";
'Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech,
or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to
petition the government for a redress of grievances.'

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 12
From: "Edward Pickersgill" edward@mytown.ca
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 1:31pm(PDT)
Subject: [Dalzell] All Hail to Charlie Sheen

Amy Dalzell
Political Permutations for a Post-Modern Planet
All Hail to Charlie Sheen
5 May 2006

Having taught Beowulf to reluctant high school seniors for several years, I am continually impressed by the cultural complexity (or stratigraphy) of the document itself. Having begun as a matter of Anglo Saxon verbal lore, the legend of Beowulf, and the heroic defeat of the monster Grendel, has come down to us as part of recorded Christian text, put to paper by monks absorbed in the process of transcribing pagan orality into monotheistic theological script. In the process, of course, fate becomes God, the enemy is demonized as that which is the debris from the Eden/snake fiasco, and the pagan warrior (by virtue of ripping apart another living creature with his bare hands) becomes a candidate for canonization.

http://www.mytown.ca/dalzell/

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
My Homepage: http://www.mytown.ca/ourvoices/
and http://www.mytown.ca/edzart/
New: http://www.mytown.ca/elections101/
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 13
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 1:41pm(PDT)
Subject: Notice to all County Sheriffs within these United States

Notice!!!

There is no lawful authority for judges or a court to direct
the law enforcement activities of a county sheriff. He is not part
of the judicial system. He holds executive power. He can set up a court,
empanel a jury, and can even try judges or federal officials who violate the law.

Attention All County Sheriffs within These United States:

The office of sheriff is a unique and special Constitutional office. It is a part of the Check and Balance System. When a man becomes a sheriff, he takes on the special responsibility of preserving and protecting the rights, liberties, and freedoms of the people within his county against unlawful acts, including any unlawful act committed by public officials working in the government. He has a direct obligation toward the people living within his county.

For over 200 years, the office of sheriff in the United States has been an office that is controlled by the people through the election process. He is elected as their choice to take hold as the chief law enforcement officer in the county. The people place great trust in him to provide protection for themselves against unlawful acts of all kinds, including usurpation and sedition. This also includes illegal acts by agencies of government. He takes an oath to uphold, preserve, and defend the Constitution of the United States and the Constitution of the State in which his county exists.

There is no lawful authority for judges or a court to direct the law enforcement activities of a county sheriff. He is not part of the judicial system. He holds executive power. He can set up a court, empanel a jury, and can even try judges or federal officials who violate the law.

The federal government is a servant of the people, and the states, and has only the powers that have been enumerated and delegated to it in the Constitution by the action of the people and the states. The people retain all other powers not delegated to the federal government. James Madison made it quite clear that delegated power of the people is not surrendered power.

It is the duty of the federal government to guarantee a republican form of government. It has no authority to build a military government to satisfy desires for a New World Order. Ultimate authority resides in the people. The federal government may not substitute its will for the best interests and the will of the people, nor exercise authority beyond the limits set out in the Constitution. Laws repugnant to the Constitution are void.

The Sheriff must be advised of the instances in which unlawful acts are committed. Power change is like electricity: not easily seen, but the effects are strongly felt. This nation is undergoing massive, frightful, and outrageous changes in its power structure, so much so that an unwelcome militarized form of government is quietly spreading its network over us.

The peoples control over their local government ended when the federal government took control over the General Plans for cities and counties. Local control over city police departments ended when the federal government acquired the nationwide Standard-setting Process by using devices created by the Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, a commission that was instituted under the Gun Control Act of 1968.

Now, our sheriffs are being replaced by federal marshals who are non-elected personnel, who are not obligated to take an oath to the Constitution, and who are not beholden to the best interests of the people. Marshals are federal legmen. Sheriffs have been elected to protect our freedoms and to keep control local. The sheriff takes an oath to uphold the Constitution of the United States and that of his State.

Have you checked your state Constitution? It should include a stipulation that the office of sheriff must be an elective office. Does it? This effort can be enhanced by having the county Board of Supervisors pass an ordinance to support the urgency of retaining the sheriff as one who must be elected by the people. It is important to make sure that this requirement is there as it is a barrier erected against the plans of the federal government to federalize all civilian law enforcement systems.

Voters in some states have been persuaded to reduce the steadfastness of good sheriffs by approving propositions at the polls that reduce sheriffs to an appointive position. This action is the first-step in a two-step maneuver to eliminate the sheriff entirely and replace him with an appointed federal marshal. Speak to trustworthy elected officials in your county, including your county attorney, to see what defense you may undertake against these plans to eliminate sheriffs and replace them with appointed federal marshals.

Dont let happen to your State that which has already happened in the State of Connecticut:[1] movement which threatens to destroy the nations Constitutional system of sheriff authority. Is Connecticuts problem not a classic textbook example of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis?

The sheriff, the last vestige of local control of government by the people, is being engineered to fall under the consolidated power of the federal government for military operation of the United States under international sovietized management. Only an informed population will prevent it from happening!

Bernadine Smith
Second Amendment Committee
P.O. Box 1776 Hanford, California 93232
(559) 584-5209

-----------------------

Distribute to every citizen of these United States.

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 14
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 1:47pm(PDT)
Subject: articles: FCC approves Internet wiretapping taxes - estimated cost $

From: "Peter Myers" <myers@cyberone.com.au>

May 5, 2006

(1) FCC approves Internet wiretapping taxes - estimated cost $7 billion
(2) Who is Adam Kidron, the man behind "Nuestro Himno?"
(3) Swiss keeping Brussels thieves at bay - Switzerland and the EU [ERAInf]
(4) German Railway plans daily freight trains from Germany to Shanghai by 2008
(5) Asian Central Banks continue to buy dollars and sell their own currencies

(1) FCC approves Internet wiretapping taxes - estimated cost $7 billion

Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 14:17:00 -0500 From: "Jacob G. Stansbury, Jr."
<damor1@cox.net>

FCC Approves Net-Wiretapping Taxes

By Declan McCullagh and Anne Broache

Staff Writer, CNET News.com

Published: May 3, 2006, 10:53 AM PDT Last modified: May 3, 2006, 1:11 PM PDT

Update WASHINGTON

http://news.com.com/FCC+approves+Net-wiretapping+taxes/2100-1028_3-6067971.html?tag=nefd.lede

Broadband providers and Internet phone companies will have to pick up the tab
for the cost of building in mandatory wiretap access for police surveillance,
federal regulators ruled Wednesday.

The Federal Communications Commission voted unanimously to levy what likely will
amount to wiretapping taxes on companies, municipalities and universities,
saying it would create an incentive for them to keep costs down and that it was
necessary to fight the war on terror. Universities have estimated their cost to
be about $7 billion.

"The first obligation is...the safety of the people," said FCC Commissioner
Michael Copps, a Democrat. "This commission supports efforts to protect the
public safety and homeland security of the United States and its people."

Federal police agencies have spent years lobbying for mandatory backdoors for
easy surveillance, saying "criminals, terrorists and spies" could cloak their
Internet communications with impunity unless centralized wiretapping hubs become
mandatory. Last year, the FCC set a deadline of May 14, 2007, for compliance.
But universities, libraries and some technology companies have filed suit
against the agency, and arguments before a federal court are scheduled for
Friday.

"We're going to have a lot of fights over cost reimbursement," Al Gidari, a
partner at the law firm of Perkins Coie, who is co-counsel in the lawsuit, said
in an interview after the vote. "It continues the lunacy of their prior order
and confirms they've learned nothing from what's been filed" in the lawsuit, he
said.

The original 1994 law, called the Communications Assistance for Law Enforcement
Act, or CALEA, authorized $500 million to pay telecommunications carriers for
the cost of upgrading their networks to facilitate wiretapping. Some broadband
and voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) providers had hoped that they'd be
reimbursed as well.

Jonathan Askin, general counsel of Pulver.com, likened Wednesday's vote to
earlier FCC rules extending 911 regulations to VoIP. "It essentially imposed a
mandate on the industry without giving the industry the necessary support to
abide by the rules--and the same thing seems to be happening here," Askin said.

Even without the CALEA regulations, police have the legal authority to conduct
Internet wiretaps--that's precisely what the FBI's Carnivore system was designed
to do. Still, the FBI has argued, the need for "standardized broadband intercept
capabilities is especially urgent in light of today's heightened threats to
homeland security and the ongoing tendency of criminals to use the most
clandestine modes of communication."

The American Council on Education, which represents 1,800 colleges and
universities, estimates that the costs of CALEA compliance could total roughly
$7 billion for the entire higher-education community, or a tuition hike of $450
for every student in the nation. Documents filed in the lawsuit challenging the
FCC's rules put the cost at hundreds of dollars per student.

But during Wednesday's vote, commissioners dismissed those concerns as
unfounded. "I am not persuaded merely by largely speculative allegations that
the financial burden on the higher-education community could total billions of
dollars," said FCC Commissioner Deborah Taylor Tate, a Republican.

The FCC's initial ruling last fall had left open the question of whether
broadband and VoIP providers would be reimbursed for rewiring their networks and
upgrading equipment to comply with CALEA.

Another open question is what portion of a university's or library's network
must be rendered wiretap-friendly. One possibility is that only the pipe (or
pipes) connecting a school with the rest of the Internet must be made
CALEA-compliant. Another is that the entire network would be covered.

The FCC adopted its second order on Wednesday but released only a two-page
summary, which didn't offer much clarity. In its initial ruling last year, the
FCC said only that it had reached "no conclusions" about exactly what
universities and libraries would have to do, prompting a flurry of comments
filed with the agency and the federal lawsuit. (Plaintiffs in the lawsuit
include Sun Microsystems, the American Civil Liberties Union, the Center for
Democracy and Technology, the American Library Association, the American Council
on Education and VoIP firm Pulver.com.)

Commissioner Copps acknowledged that there is "still some clarity to be
provided" for library and university network operators, but he suggested that
additional clarity would not be forthcoming from the FCC. Instead, "all those
agencies and offices of government who are involved in CALEA implementation
should be working together to provide clarity there to avoid confusion and
possibly expenses for these institutions," Copps said.

At the Computers, Freedom and Privacy conference here Wednesday, John Morris of
the Center for Democracy and Technology said libraries and universities are
still left with more questions than answers.

"There's some serious uncertainty about how it will really play out for
universities," Morris said. Even if the FCC technically calls for Internet
interception at the edge of a campus network, that likely won't be enough to
satisfy law enforcement demands for all of an individual student's network
traffic, including on-campus activities, he added.

Injecting additional uncertainty is whether the FCC's action is legal. It
represents what critics call an unreasonable extension of CALEA--which was
designed to address telephone features such as three-way calling and call
waiting--to the Internet.

A House of Representatives committee report (click here for PDF) prepared in
October 1994 emphatically says CALEA's requirements "do not apply to information
services such as electronic-mail services; or online services such as
CompuServe, Prodigy, America Online or Mead Data (Central); or to Internet
service providers."

When Congress was debating CALEA, then-FBI Director Louis Freeh reassured
nervous senators that the law would be limited to telephone calls. "So what we
are looking for is strictly telephone--what is said over a telephone?" Sen.
Larry Pressler, R-S.D., asked during one hearing.

Freeh replied: "That is the way I understand it. Yes, sir."

Two of the four FCC commissioners who voted for the initial CALEA ruling last
fall acknowledged that the federal government was on shaky legal ground. The
FCC's regulation is based on arguing that the law's definition of
"telecommunications carrier" applies to broadband and VoIP providers.

Then-FCC Commissioner Kathleen Abernathy, a Republican, said, "Because
litigation is as inevitable as death and taxes, and because some might not read
the statute to permit the extension of CALEA to the broadband Internet access
and VoIP services at issue here, I have stated my concern that an approach like
the one we adopt today is not without legal risk."

The FCC is no stranger to having its decisions rejected by a federal appeals
court that can be hostile to what it views as regulatory overreaching. Last May,
for instance, the FCC's "broadcast flag" was unceremoniously tossed out by the
U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit.

(2) Who is Adam Kidron, the man behind "Nuestro Himno?"

Date: Tue, 2 May 2006 13:57:59 +0100 From: Rowan Berkeley
<rowan.berkeley@googlemail.com>

Who is Adam Kidron, the man behind "Nuestro Himno?"

Steve Sailer, Sunday, April 30, 2006
http://isteve.blogspot.com/2006/04/who-is-adam-kidron-man-behind-nuestro.html

{various embedded links to sources at the URL]

When I first heard of the Spanish rewrite of the "Star-Spangled Banner" that has
been released in time for the May Day pro-illegal immigration rallies, I said,
"Well, that at least is more financially enterprising than anything you normally
see from Mexicans in America, who have otherwise had so little impact on popular
culture, despite their vast numbers."

But then I heard that it was created by record producer Adam Kidron. "That's
funny," I thought, "Because 'Kidron' sure doesn't sound Spanish."

So, who is this guy?

Well, it turns out Adam Kidron is not Hispanic at all. Indeed, he's from a very
interesting family. He was born in England, where his father, Michael Kidron,
was a famous Marxist theoretician and his uncle, the late "Tony Cliff," was the
leader of the largest Trotskyite party in Britain, the Socialist Workers Party
or SWP.

Adam was a producer for a bunch of minor early 1980s New Wave musicians such as
East German novelty act Nina Hagen, The Slits, Orchestre Rouge, and Scritti
Politti. Many of the artists were leftwingers.

Here's something revealing from the website of an old anarcho-punk band called
Zounds:

In the process of recording the record, the band involved themselves with Adam
Kidron who was given production credits although his job was more a glorified
engineer.

Steve, "We had a guy engineering called Adam Kidron, he was the millionaire son
and heir of the Socialist publisher who owned Pluto Press. He was really funny
and we were very naive and impressed by him. He talked us in to giving him
producer royalties when we didn't even know what royalties were and we thought
we were producing the album ourselves.... Adam hated guitars so we ended up with
a far less powerful guitar sound than we would have liked. We were a guitar band
after all."

To some people, being raised to want to overthrow capitalism seems to give them
an excuse to behave like the worst kind of robber baron. Hey, don't blame me for
what happened to these poor dumb guitarists' royalties, blame this rotten
capitalist system, man! Come the Revolution, my true saintliness will finally
manifest itself.

During the dot-com era, Kidron was a co-founder and CEO of the hip-hop website
Urban Box Office Networks Inc., which went bankrupt in 2000 after hiring 300
employees, mostly marketing people. UrbanExpose.com wrote:

"After a year and a half of operation UBO has made approximately $150,000
dollars in revenue against nearly $50 million in spending."

Kidron has apparently now converted the remains of Urban Box Office into a
Spanish-language record label selling reggaeton (Caribbean rap).

Adam's dad, the Marxist theoretician Michael Kidron, died in 2003, but it sounds
like his old man would be proud of Adam's contribution to May Day 2006, "Nuestro
Himno."

The Socialist Review began its obituary:

"Mike Kidron, who died last month, was probably the most important Marxist
economist of his generation, although he never received the recognition he
deserved from the academic Marxism of the 1970s and early 1980s."

Here is the conclusion to Wikipedia's article on Michael Kidron:

Kidron remained a Marxist committed to changing the world and therefore
understood the necessity of developing a theoretical understanding of how the
world works precisely in order to change it. His final article appeared in the
Autumn 2002 issue of the International Socialism Journal on The Decline of
Capitalism, and spoke of a sure and certain knowledge that another world is not
just possible but demanded. As ever, the revolutionary role of the working class
in the core countries of capitalism was reasserted and the goal of a communist
society reaffirmed.

Michael Kidron offended pacifist leftists by advocating street violence.

Peter Brimelow writes on VDARE.com's blog:

I remember IS [International Socialism] well from my student days in Britain in
the 1960s. Despite the elegiac tone of the reminiscences I see on Kidron's web
archive, they were never anything but a bunch of thugs who would have happily
brought the Gulag to Britain if they"d had the chance. It's a scandal of
contemporary culture that the MSM would never have been so indifferent to Adam
Kidron's backgound if he was the son of a Nazi.

According to one obituary, Michael Kidron's last article before he died in 2003
was still "full of hatred" for the system that brought wealth to himself and his
children. Obviously, Adam Kidron has inherited that hate.

Here are excerpts from Michael Kidron's lengthy obituary by Richard Kuper in the
Guardian, as reprinted on Marx.org:

Michael Kidron, who has died aged 72, was an economist, a Marxist theorist, an
agitator, an editor, a publisher and the co-author of the bestselling State Of
The World Atlas (1981) and The War Atlas (1983)...

Kidron played a key role in developing a theory, that of the permanent arms
economy, to account for the west's long postwar boom and the strength of working
class reformism...

His sympathy with the peoples of the so-called third world shone through his
biting criticism of theories which romanticised their struggles. An
internationalist, he always placed the peoples of the world above the interests
of their states.

He was born in Cape Town into an ardently Zionist family. ... He left South
Africa just after the war to join his parents, who had already emigrated to
Palestine. There he went to the Tichon Hadash progressive school in Tel Aviv ?
where he rejected Zionism almost immediately ? then on to the Hebrew University
of Jerusalem to study economics... But Israel was a backwater for anyone not
tied in to the Zionist project. So, in 1955 Kidron went to Oxford as a doctoral
student...

He also developed a close working relationship with his brother-in-law Ygael
Gluckstein who, under the name of Tony Cliff (obituary, April 11 2000), was
trying to chart an independent Marxist course in the Trotskyist-infested waters
to the left of the Communist party. [Emphasis mine]

Academic work provided a base for research and independent thinking, but also
for political activity in the Socialist Review (later International Socialism)
Group...

He also edited the quarterly International Socialism, which first appeared in
1960...

He was an academic at Hull University in the late 1960s and gave his
wholehearted backing to the wave of student protest which washed over the
country....

In 1972 he and his wife Nina joined Pluto Press, helping to make it one of the
most influential socialist publishing houses of that time...

His lifelong project was to understand modern capitalism, to help replace it.

In the early 1990s, Kidron returned to that central project of his life ? his
attempt to understand (and write about) capitalism. It was becoming a vast
intellectual project. Now that his conception of capitalism had broadened, he
wanted to address it ? not just as an economic system, but in its political,
social and psychological aspects as well ? capitalism as a truly total system.
Alas, his planned book remained fragmentary, despite three-quarters of a million
words in draft.

Dogged by illness, Kidron found it increasingly difficult to give the focused
attention the subject demanded. But his conviction that an alternative was
possible, indeed was being nurtured within the heart of the system, remained
undimmed as new networked forms of communication and relationships undermined
the command and control relations of earlier capitalism.

In the meantime, before the Revolution, Adam Kidron's sisters seem to be doing
pretty well from the capitalist system. Beeban Kidron is the director of a long
line of mostly lousy movies, the best known of which are the franchise-killing
2004 sequel to Bridget Jones' Diary (which enjoyed a $70 million budget but was
critically-slagged) and the widely-despised drag queen comedy To Wong Foo Thanks
for Everything, Julie Newmar. Cassia Kidron is a photographer of ditches and
girlfriend of another movie director, Oliver Parker, who has directed five
films, including the unsuccessful 2002 adaptation of The Importance of Being
Earnest with Reese Witherspoon.

So, despite the family's evident lack of talent, you can't keep a good (or, to
be precise, mediocre) Kidron down and out of the media spotlight for long!

- A reader writes:

I saw Adam Kidron last Tuesday at a conference. He was bragging about buying Al
Sharpton's 1 million-person mailing list for use in his label-marketing efforts.
He also complimented Sharpton's politics. Kidron, as you might expect, is a very
articulate, affable, self-deprecating guy... For some reason, he didn't mention
his silly song.

I'm sure you're shocked, shocked, that Al Sharpton's mailing list is for sale.

- By the way, I quite like the bloodthirsty lyrics to the Mexican national
anthem -- it's muy macho con mucho sangre. Mark in Mexico, however, points out
that the historical record of the Mexican Army's success in battle hasn't quite
lived up to its anthem.

(3) Swiss keeping Brussels thieves at bay - Switzerland and the EU [ERAInf]

Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 13:15:32 +0930 From: ERA <hermann@picknowl.com.au>
Relayed by: Dion Giles <D.Giles@murdoch.edu.au>

Swiss keeping Brussels thieves at bay

http://www2.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=2605&sid=5247198&cKey=1140612610000

SWITZERLAND AND THE EU Swiss Info Country Profile April 27 2006

Outside

Switzerland is not a member of the European Union. If and when a majority of
Swiss become convinced that the EU is there to stay, the chances for membership
will rise.

In 1992 Swiss voters narrowly turned down the European Economic Area (EEA) or
single market. The three other members of the European Free Trade Agreement
(EFTA) - Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway - did choose to join the EEA,
although EFTA still exists.

Joining the EU remains the cabinet's aim. A Swiss application for membership has
been lodged in Brussels but remains dormant.

Under the Swiss system of direct democracy, a concrete application to join the
EU would entail a national referendum, and a majority of voters and cantons in
favour of joining.

At present, the best the government could hope for would be a 50-50 outcome,
effectively putting the issue on ice for at least five years.

The lukewarm attitude to the EU is based on a number of factors. The union is
perceived as falling short in democratic institutions. Switzerland's frequently
used system of initiatives and referenda would need drastic reform and
curtailment to comply with EU rules.

There is also a concern about the cost: Switzerland would be a net contributor
to the EU coffers (probably the last); and there are doubts about whether
neutrality would be compatible with EU membership.

Trade

Swiss trade and industry is not convinced of the benefits of EU membership.
Switzerland has traditionally traded with the whole world, with every second
franc being earned through exports.

General Swiss scepticism about the EU was underlined by a national vote in 2001,
which turned down a proposal on opening membership negotiations.

The pragmatic response of the Swiss government since 1992 has been to engage in
long and difficult talks with the EU on a series of bilateral accords.

A first set of bilateral treaties between Switzerland and the EU, mainly on
trade, labour and transport issues, came into force in 2002.

A second series of treaties, signed in October 2004, has been approved by
parliament and the people.

The rightwing Swiss People's Party successfully challenged the Schengen/Dublin
accords on closer security cooperation to a nationwide vote. But the electorate
approved of the treaties when they went to the polls in June 2005.

A separate vote, on whether to extend an existing labour accord to include the
ten new EU member states, was approved by voters in September 2005.

Despite a campaign led by the far-right Swiss Democrats and parts of the far
Left, voters accepted the extension of the treaty.

To ensure Switzerland does not suffer discrimination as a non-member, Swiss
legislation in many fields, including trade, has been brought into line with
that of the EU.

But the clearest indication of how matters are on hold is that EU membership no
longer figures as a government goal in the plans for the present legislature
2003-2007 - EU membership is now termed "an option". ####

(4) German Railway plans daily freight trains from Germany to Shanghai by 2008

Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 19:06:16 -0400 From: "David Chiang"
<sino.economics@verizon.net>

Deutsche Bahn Plans Daily Trains to China May 04, 2006 07:38 AM ET
http://news.moneycentral.msn.com/provider/providerarticle.asp?feed=AP&Date=20060504&ID=5694632

BERLIN (AP) - German rail operator Deutsche Bahn AG is seeking to increase its
cooperation with China, with the ultimate goal of running daily freight trains
from Germany to Shanghai by 2008, the company head said Thursday.

During a trip to Russia last week with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Deutsche
Bahn chief Hartmut Mehdorn signed an agreement of cooperation with the Russian
rail operator that foresees setting up a joint logistics operation to run trains
through Siberia -- which makes up the main stretch of the journey between Europe
and China.

"With a transport time of nine days, we can reach Shanghai two weeks faster than
a ship and of course carry more freight than an airplane," Mehdorn said.

(5) Asian Central Banks continue to buy dollars and sell their own currencies

Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 19:07:33 -0400 From: "David Chiang"
<sino.economics@verizon.net>

Asian Ministers May Resist Calls to Let Currencies Rise Faster
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=10000080&sid=aN6GCCL4DUx8&refer=asia

May 3 (Bloomberg) -- Asian finance ministers may this week resist pressure to
allow their currencies to appreciate amid concern that exports, which account
for half of the region's economic growth, would suffer.

Japan's Sadakazu Tanigaki, China's Jin Renqing, South Korea's Han Duck Soo and
India's Palaniappan Chidambaram meet their regional counterparts at the Asian
Development Bank's annual meeting in Hyderabad, India, from today through May 6.

Finance ministers from the Group of Seven nations on April 21 called on China
and other emerging Asian economies to let their currencies gain. Stronger Asian
currencies would reduce demand for the region's exports and smooth trade
imbalances with the rest of the world. Indonesia's rupiah, the Thai baht and
South Korea's won all strengthened after the G-7's call, prompting some
countries to seek to stem gains.

"There are already signals that there will be defiance from Asia," said Nizam
Idris, a currency strategist at UBS AG in Singapore, citing comments by South
Korean and Thai officials. Asian finance ministers "don't want to be bullied."

Bank of Thailand Governor Pridiyathorn Devakula said April 27 the central bank
sold the baht to make sure it didn't "strengthen too fast." Han said the same
day South Korea would "take necessary steps to stabilize" the won, which gained
0.9 percent against the dollar since April 21 and is up 7.3 percent this year.

Greater exchange-rate flexibility is critical to allow "necessary
appreciations," the G-7 said April 21. The group, which accounts for two-thirds
of the world's economy, said Asia needs to strengthen domestic demand and ease
reliance on export- led growth.

`Economic Dislocation'

Central banks in Asia buy dollars and sell their own currencies to help slow
gains, adding to foreign-exchange holdings. China's reserves surged 33 percent
to $875.1 billion at the end of March from a year earlier and those of South
Korea and Taiwan are at records.

"Any drastic appreciation of Asian currencies can lead to severe economic
dislocation and trigger global economic and financial instabilities," Malaysia's
Deputy Finance Minister Awang Adek Hussin said at an International Monetary Fund
meeting in Washington April 22.

China's central bank Governor Zhou Xiaochuan on April 22 said developed nations
need to boost domestic demand and improve competitiveness.

China's trade surplus with the U.S. widened to $11 billion in March from $7.9
billion a year earlier, while the gap with the European Union grew to $6.5
billion from $4.9 billion, the customs bureau said last month. China loosened
the yuan's decade-long peg to the dollar in July. Since then it has gained 1.2
percent.

ASEAN Plus Three

Li Yong, China's vice minister for finance, is scheduled to debate global trade
imbalances with U.S. Treasury Undersecretary Tim Adams, Japan's Tanigaki and
India's Chidambaram on May 4.

Later that day finance minister of China, Japan, South Korea and the 10-member
Association of Southeast Asian Nations will hold their annual meeting and make a
joint statement that may address the issue of currency movements.

Adams will probably repeat calls for more flexibility from China and may even
cite India as an example of a nation that is moving in the right direction,
according to Tim Condon, head of Asian markets research at ING Groep in
Singapore.

India in March said it may allow the rupee to trade freely against other
currencies to increase overseas investment and accelerate economic growth. At
present, India allows its currency to be convertible only on the trade account.
Finance Minister Chidambaram has said India may be ready for full rupee
convertibility after 2009.

To contact the reporter on this story: Amit Prakash in Singapore at
aprakash1@bloomberg.net

--
Peter Myers, 381 Goodwood Rd, Childers 4660, Australia ph +61 7 41262296
http://users.cyberone.com.au/myers Mirror: http://mailstar.net/index.html I
use the old Mac OS; being incompatible, it cannot run Windows viruses or
transmit them to you. If my mail does not arrive, or yours bounces, please ring
me: this helps beat sabotage. To unsubscribe, reply with "unsubscribe" in the
subject line; allow 1 day.

________________________________________________________________________
________________________________________________________________________

Message 15
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 1:50pm(PDT)
Subject: articles2: Mearsheimer & Walt reply to their critics re Israel Lobby

From: "Peter Myers" <myers@cyberone.com.au>

May 5, 2006

Item 1 takes the cake. The Israel lobby, after pushing Bush to attack Iran,
insists that he use some other excuse - because the real reason would wake
Americans up.

This is probably the origin of the slogans about No War for Oil. But that's
wearing thin.

(1) Jewish leaders warn Bush about citing Israel as reason for war with Iran
(2) Tiao Jin Jiao
(3) Assembly of First Nations giving "cover for another form of settler colonialism"
(4) John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt reply to their critics re "The Israel Lobby"
(5) "Apollo" Hufschmid wants to be discredited

(1) Jewish leaders warn Bush about citing Israel as reason for war with Iran

Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 22:10:23 -0400 (EDT) From: IHR News <news@ihr.org>

Iran-Israel Linkage By Bush Seen As Threat

Jewish leaders warn of backlash as president cites Jewish state as rationale for
possible strikes.

James D. Besser And Larry Cohler-Esses

Jewish Week (New York)

http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/newscontent.php3?artid=12350

President Bush is risking a backlash that could injure the Jewish community -
and his own cause - by repeatedly citing Israel as his rationale for possible
U.S. military conflict with Iran, Jewish leaders and Middle East analysts warned
this week.

Bush's repeated, sometimes exclusive, focus on Israel could spark public fury
against the Jewish state and Jews if U.S. military action is accompanied by
skyrocketing gas prices, terrorism at home or fallen G.I.'s who might be seen as
dying for Israel, some said. Others feared it could fracture the shaky
international coalition Bush is striving to assemble to oppose Iran's nuclear
program by framing the threat as primarily to Israel rather than international
stability.

Ambassador Edward Walker, a former U.S. envoy to Israel who now heads the Middle
East Institute in Washington, termed Bush's Israel focus "a terrible idea."

"Just think about if gas prices go up to $7 a gallon as a result, and everybody
is saying it's because of Israel," he said.

"I don't believe it is in Israel's best interests to have the American people
going into a major military action, which is what we're talking about in Iran,
with significant implications on the home front in terms of terrorism and energy
prices, and then having people blame Israel," said Walker.

Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice president of the Conference of Presidents of
Major American Jewish Organizations, said "The linkage to Israel is not a good
idea, because then the Iranians say, you see, it's the Zionists driving this.

"As much as we appreciate it, the question is whether it's beneficial to tie
this to Israel," said Hoenlein, whose organization functions as the Jewish
community's official umbrella group for speaking out on foreign policy issues.

Hoenlein pointed out that Iran is tied to terrorist groups such as Hezbollah,
which operates in Lebanon and other countries. It also exercises influence over
militias accused of atrocities in Iraq and aims to spread its influence
throughout the Muslim world.

The danger of a nuclear-armed Iran "is a much greater one than just Israel,"
said Hoenlein.

In recent days, there have been reports of extensive U.S. military planning,
possibly for a bombing campaign against a variety of Iranian targets. The aim,
say the reports, would be to halt or, at least set back, what Iran insists is a
peaceful program to produce nuclear energy. The United States, Europe and other
countries fear this merely masks a covert Iranian drive to develop nuclear
weapons.

Faced with increasing public clamor about a possible military conflict, Bush has
repeatedly taken note of the threat a nuclear Iran would pose to Israel. Indeed,
Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, has repeatedly called for Israel's
destruction, most recently this week. On some occasions, President Bush has
offered this as his sole rationale for confronting Iran.

In a March 20 speech in Cleveland, for example, Bush replied to a question about
the influence of apocalyptic Christian theology on his policies with a long,
rambling answer in which he raised the threat he saw from Iran and said, "Now
that I'm on Iran . the threat from Iran is, of course, their stated objective to
destroy our strong ally Israel. It's a threat to world peace; it's a threat, in
essence, to a strong alliance. I made it clear, I'll make it clear again, that
we will use military might to protect our ally, Israel."

Other administration leaders have brought Israel into center stage on Iran in a
different way - suggesting strong U.S. action could be necessary to keep Israel
from acting on its own.

"One of the concerns people have is that Israel might [attack Iran] without
being asked," said Vice President Dick Cheney in a February 2005 radio
interview, "that if, in fact, the Israelis became convinced the Iranians had
significant nuclear capability, given the fact that Iran has a stated policy
that their objective is the destruction of Israel, the Israelis might well
decide to act first and let the rest of the world worry about cleaning up the
diplomatic mess afterwards."

Asked why Bush has made Israel a focus, Walker said, "because he is not very
attuned to the history of the situation and he has some really strange advisers
who do not understand the broader implications of this, in terms of the vast
majority of the American public."

Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-L.I./Queens), a frequent administration critic, said
Bush's focus increases the likelihood of a backlash against Jews and Israel if a
U.S.-led war on Iran turns sour.

"It's a horrible thing to do, it's dangerous," he said. "If something goes
wrong, it's a setup to say we did it for Israel and not for America, and to
blame the Jews."

Asked if he thought that was President Bush's intent, Ackerman said "I don't
believe in accidents and coincidences in this business. They choose their words
very carefully. This is not the first time the president has said this, but now
it looks like it's their whole program."

Ironically, Middle East analysts say Israel's own public stand has, by and
large, played down the threat that Bush is playing up.

"For past few years, the position of the Israeli government has been that Iran's
nuclear program was not an Israeli issue," said Shai Feldman, director of
Brandeis University's Crown Center for Middle East studies. Under the leadership
of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon from 2000, said Feldman, Israel stressed the
problem was "an international issue, a challenge to international stability."

Israel may have felt comfortable stepping back because the European countries
and even Russia and China have cooperated with the United States on the issue in
ways they did not in the lead-up to the War in Iraq, Feldman conceded. This may
have allowed Israel to de-emphasize itself, he said.

"In terms of maintaining this kind of international support, to say Israel is a
primary concern is extremely counterproductive," Feldman said. ...

James D. Besser is Washington correspondent;

Larry Cohler-Esses is editor at large.

(2) Tiao Jin Jiao

Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 14:57:47 -0600 From: N. S.

> Hispanics are not terrorists, just poor hard working people

> Date: Wed, 3 May 2006 11:24:22 +0100 From: Rowan Berkeley
> <rowan.berkeley@googlemail.com>

>> Needs to be studied the new role of the Benisraelis
>> in the Indian Government, the tiaokiukiao in China,
>> and the marranos in the Hispanic movement.

> Do you mean "Tiao Jin Jiao"?

> "The Jewish community of China, known as the Tiao Jin Jiao, flourished
> for over a thousand years, building synagogues and study halls, until
> eventually assimilating into mainstream Chinese culture in the 19th century."

Tiao Kiu Kiau = Tiao Jin Jiao, yes. K[J] as Krushov or Jrushov. Good linguistic
phonetic transliteration from Chinese to English.

The assimilations is a matter of perspective and discussion, while are not
anussim, but just people living a double life, one for outsiders as Muslims ---
they found more relaxed mixing within Muslim minorities, as blue hats -- but
remaining Jews indoors.

The same phenomena can be found in several black Africans tribes [Lemba],
Amerindians en Peru [President Toledo], Mexico [Venta Prieta],or mestizo in
Chile [Temuco, Nefatali Reyes, wll known as Pablo Neruda the one who participate
in one failed murder attempt against Leon Trotsky in Mexico City ], and New
Mexico Albuquerque, USA.

The Angloisraelies from Great Britain, Denmark and USA, is different movement,
as the Moderns Khazars of the West. This communities and others crypto-Jews
communities have been living in Portugal, Spain, Southern France, Italy, former
Yugoslavia[ these criptojews melted to a degree into Muslim conversos], Turkey,
and Northern Africa.

Verify who in Taiwan is moving forward the unification to China. Is not the Soon
family? Action-Reaction-Control.

(3) Assembly of First Nations giving "cover for another form of settler
colonialism"

Date: Fri, 5 May 2006 04:27:39 +0100 From: Rowan Berkeley
<rowan.berkeley@googlemail.com>

Native lands

Hilary Leila Krieger, JPost, May. 3, 2006
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1145961274035&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

Growing up in Canada's Yukon, Ricky Vernon O'Brien heard stories from the tribal
elders of the devastation indigenous people suffered at the hands of the
Europeans and their descendents: discrimination, abuse, forced integration and
genocide. They told him it was like the Holocaust. "I cried when I saw the
connection first-hand. In some way it's so similar to what our people have been
through. It brought back a lot of bad memories for me," said O'Brien, fresh from
a trip to Yad Vashem. "They killed our spirit. That's what the Holocaust
reminded me of. It's very sad."

In some circles the narrative of the Native Americans has been equated with that
of the Palestinians rather than the Jews. Indeed, Palestinian groups criticized
the Assembly of First Nations' recent week-long visit here as giving "cover for
another form of settler colonialism," i.e. Zionism. But the leaders of the AFN,
which represents the aboriginal peoples of Canada, rejected that comparison and
came away with a different paradigm: a parallel between the Jewish and native
experience so strong that the former could be a model for the latter. "We're
looking at you [Israelis] as sort of our mentors, how you've gotten your land
back, how you're excelling at economic development. You're doing really well,"
said O'Brien, the AFN regional chief for the Yukon territory. "One of the most
striking aspects of the Jewish experience is the incredible resiliency of the
Jewish people. That is quite similar to the indigenous peoples, or the first
peoples of Canada. We've had to be resilient to survive as we have, in some ways
challenged by the same pressures. We've both been persecuted. We've both been
discriminated against. We've been denied our homeland. We've been denied our
rightful place in the world," said AFN National Chief Phil Fontaine, as he sat
serenely on a bench at the entrance to the Carmel market in Tel Aviv, his gray
hair tied in a long, neat braid. Fontaine pointed to the regeneration of Hebrew
as a spoken language as an instructive example of what can be done. One of the
lessons we will take back to Canada is that it's possible to revive languages,
so that they will once against be living languages that will represent who we
are."

As part of the trip arranged by the Canadian Jewish Congress (CJC), which also
brought along representatives, the group stopped at the National Hebrew Language
Institute to hear more about the language reclamation process. Beyond specific
cross-cultural education programs that they can apply to their communities, the
AFN members had a lot to learn because it was a first trip to Israel for most.
Beverley Jacobs, president of the Native Women's Association of Canada, for one,
didn't know that Judaism, Christianity and Islam all have their roots in the
Holy Land. And that, she said, connected this place to her traditional Native
American faith. "I was always told in my religion that the white race and the
red race all come from the same place," she said. "To learn that three religions
come from the same place is proof of our oral histories." Squatting on a plastic
bench in the Mahane Yehuda market while sampling her first felafel, Jacobs noted
another commonality with Jews: the struggle of maintaining a minority faith in a
Christian-dominated society. "Some of my family say you don't even walk into a
church. You don't even participate in Christianity at all, because it will cause
harm to you," she related. Jacobs herself puts up a non-religious Christmas tree
in winter but said that many other families have stopped the practice as the
community has increasingly embraced its roots.

Several of the delegates on the Israel trip are themselves Christians, however -
largely as a result of the Canadian government's assimilation program which sent
them to sectarian schools. Tina Leveque, chief of Brokenhead Ojibway Nation in
Manitoba, described adopting Christianity in addition to traditional beliefs as
going "full circle". "I acknowledge my creator, my heritage. But I also
acknowledge that the creator has a son," she said, her neck encircled by a black
scarf covered with "I love Jesus" script. "People say you take the white man's
religion. But there's nothing white about Jesus," she added. "Look around here.
Jesus wasn't white at all." Leveque wasn't the only member of the group to be
struck by the heterogeneity of Israelis. "I just had no idea that it was so
diverse," said Cora Voyageur, a sociologist at the University of Calgary and a
member of the Athabasca Chipewyan First Nation. "All we ever hear about are the
bombings."

THE AFN and CJC representatives both acknowledged that their communities had
little interaction or mutual awareness before the trip, though they plan to
strengthen ties and partnerships now. They said the trip had been years in the
making and was only accelerated by the brouhaha over anti-Semitic comments made
by Chief David Ahenakew, former head of the AFN. In a 2002 interview, Ahenakew
called Jews a "disease" and asserted that Hitler was justified when he "fried 6
million of those guys." After being heavily criticized, he profusely apologized
and said his statements stemmed from frustration. He was later stripped of his
Order of Canada for willfully promoting anti-Semitism, a decision which he has
since appealed. The AFN delegates universally condemned the statements and said
they in no way represented the sentiments of First Nations people. Jacobs,
however, suggested that Ahenakew had been treated too harshly. "I think the
media really overdid it. I'm sure that he said some comments about the Jewish
people that aren't right. There are also things that have been said about our
society that were just as racist," she said. "He's being persecuted for it."

While the visit to Israel represented an opportunity for healing between the two
communities, CJC leaders said it was intended most of all as an education
experience. "We invited them to learn about Jewish history and culture," said Ed
Morgan, CJC national president. "We hoped it would be an opportunity for the
First Nations people to get to know us."

Though the trip paved the way for smoother relations between the aboriginal and
Jewish communities, it stirred up resentment among Palestinians. The Canada
Palestine Association sent an "open letter" to the AFN signed by scores of
pro-Palestinian groups and individuals expressing "sadness], hurt and shock" at
the recent visit to Israel. "The victims of genocide at the hands of European
settler colonialism cannot and should not give cover for another form of settler
colonialism that has committed and continues to commit wholesale ethic cleansing
and genocide against the Palestinian people and nation," the letter reads,
referring to Palestinian refugee camps as "reservations." It continues, "Perhaps
the chiefs, elders and leaders of the Assembly of First Nations don't know the
history of the Zionist movement. In fact, it was coined on the model of the
European settler colonialist movement that preceded it hundred of years earlier
and committed the genocide against the indigenous peoples." And it adds, "We are
sorry that we do not have the means to take you on similar tours to show you
what is really happening in Palestine."

Jacobs was reproachful that the mission didn't include time in Palestinian
areas. "I want to learn about what they're going through. We've heard one side
and I want to hear about their experience," she said. "That was some of the
criticism of the mission, that understanding the Palestinian side should have
been part of the mission." But she said that the concept of Israel as a
"colonizer" was unfamiliar to her. "What I'm hearing is that this is the
traditional territory of the Jewish people." Other participants also dismissed
or didn't know of any purported link between Israel and colonialism. Fontaine
declined to liken his people's history to that of the Palestinians. "The purpose
of our trip was not to delve into the Palestinian situation. We came here to
learn about the Jewish experience and witness very directly the transition of
this country and hear it directly from the people who have lived that
transition. They've experienced the creation of one nation-state and secured
their homeland against tremendous odds." And that, he continued, "is
inspirational, it's spiritual, it's heartfelt, it's hopeful. It's a
stay-the-course approach." He also said that for all of the messages that can be
absorbed from Israelis, Israel has something to learn from his people when it
comes to peaceful coexistence. "We have this incredibly uncertain situation in
the Middle East: instability and violence and the denial of Israel's existence
as a nation-state. In spite of all the ill treatment that we've received, we're
still committed to peaceful coexistence. We've lived the principle of peaceful
coexistence and sharing the riches of the land."

The Jews on the trip certainly received hands-on learning - literally - from
their time with the First Nations delegation. Bernie Farber, the CJC's CEO, got
a lesson in Native American healing following the trip to Yad Vashem. As with
O'Brien, Farber was shaken up by the experience. Visiting the children's room
was particularly troubling for him, since he has family who perished at a young
age in the concentration camps. One of the First Nations elders saw that Farber
was in pain upon leaving the museum and gathered the group to surround him in a
friendship circle. Farber said the members of the circle try to absorb the pain
of the person in distress and restore strength to that individual. "I found all
my pain just disappear," he said. "It's the first time I've come out of the
children's room and felt strengthened instead of weakened." Sounding like
O'Brien, Farber said, "It was a remarkable experience."

(4) John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt reply to their critics re "The Israel Lobby"

Date: Thu, 4 May 2006 21:45:28 EDT From: RePorterNoteBook@aol.com

http://www.lrb.co.uk/v28/n09/letters.html

LRB | Vol. 28 No. 9 dated 11 May 2006

Letter

The Israel Lobby

From John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt

We wrote 'The Israel Lobby' in order to begin a discussion of a subject that had
become difficult to address openly in the United States (LRB, 23 March). We knew
it was likely to generate a strong reaction, and we are not surprised that some
of our critics have chosen to attack our characters or misrepresent our
arguments. We have also been gratified by the many positive responses we have
received, and by the thoughtful commentary that has begun to emerge in the media
and the blogosphere. It is clear that many people - including Jews and Israelis
- believe that it is time to have a candid discussion of the US relationship
with Israel. It is in that spirit that we engage with the letters responding to
our article. We confine ourselves here to the most salient points of dispute.

One of the most prominent charges against us is that we see the lobby as a
well-organised Jewish conspiracy. Jeffrey Herf and Andrei Markovits, for
example, begin by noting that 'accusations of powerful Jews behind the scenes
are part of the most dangerous traditions of modern anti-semitism' (Letters, 6
April ). It is a tradition we deplore and that we explicitly rejected in our
article. Instead, we described the lobby as a loose coalition of individuals and
organisations without a central headquarters. It includes gentiles as well as
Jews, and many Jewish-Americans do not endorse its positions on some or all
issues. Most important, the Israel lobby is not a secret, clandestine cabal; on
the contrary, it is openly engaged in interest-group politics and there is
nothing conspiratorial or illicit about its behaviour. Thus, we can easily
believe that Daniel Pipes has never 'taken orders' from the lobby, because the
Leninist caricature of the lobby depicted in his letter is one that we clearly
dismissed. Readers will also note that Pipes does not deny that his
organisation, Campus Watch, was created in order to monitor what academics say,
write and teach, so as to discourage them from engaging in open discourse about
the Middle East.

Several writers chide us for making mono-causal arguments, accusing us of saying
that Israel alone is responsible for anti-Americanism in the Arab and Islamic
world (as one letter puts it, anti-Americanism 'would exist if Israel was not
there') or suggesting that the lobby bears sole responsibility for the Bush
administration's decision to invade Iraq. But that is not what we said. We
emphasised that US support for Israeli policy in the Occupied Territories is a
powerful source of anti-Americanism, the conclusion reached in several scholarly
studies and US government commissions (including the 9/11 Commission). But we
also pointed out that support for Israel is hardly the only reason America's
standing in the Middle East is so low. Similarly, we clearly stated that Osama
bin Laden had other grievances against the United States besides the Palestinian
issue, but as the 9/11 Commission documents, this matter was a major concern for
him. We also explicitly stated that the lobby, by itself, could not convince
either the Clinton or the Bush administration to invade Iraq. Nevertheless,
there is abundant evidence that the neo-conservatives and other groups within
the lobby played a central role in making the case for war.

At least two of the letters complain that we 'catalogue Israel's moral flaws',
while paying little attention to the shortcomings of other states. We focused on
Israeli behaviour, not because we have any animus towards Israel, but because
the United States gives it such high levels of material and diplomatic support.
Our aim was to determine whether Israel merits this special treatment either
because it is a unique strategic asset or because it behaves better than other
countries do. We argued that neither argument is convincing: Israel's strategic
value has declined since the end of the Cold War and Israel does not behave
significantly better than most other states.

Herf and Markovits interpret us to be saying that Israel's 'continued survival'
should be of little concern to the United States. We made no such argument. In
fact, we emphasised that there is a powerful moral case for Israel's existence,
and we firmly believe that the United States should take action to ensure its
survival if it were in danger. Our criticism was directed at Israeli policy and
America's special relationship with Israel, not Israel's existence.

Another recurring theme in the letters is that the lobby ultimately matters
little because Israel's 'values command genuine support among the American
public'. Thus, Herf and Markovits maintain that there is substantial support for
Israel in military and diplomatic circles within the United States. We agree
that there is strong public support for Israel in America, in part because it is
seen as compatible with America's Judaeo-Christian culture. But we believe this
popularity is substantially due to the lobby's success at portraying Israel in a
favourable light and effectively limiting public awareness and discussion of
Israel's less savoury actions. Diplomats and military officers are also affected
by this distorted public discourse, but many of them can see through the
rhetoric. They keep silent, however, because they fear that groups like AIPAC
will damage their careers if they speak out. The fact is that if there were no
AIPAC, Americans would have a more critical view of Israel and US policy in the
Middle East would look different.

On a related point, Michael Szanto contrasts the US-Israeli relationship with
the American military commitments to Western Europe, Japan and South Korea, to
show that the United States has given substantial support to other states
besides Israel (6 April). He does not mention, however, that these other
relationships did not depend on strong domestic lobbies. The reason is simple:
these countries did not need a lobby because close ties with each of them were
in America's strategic interest. By contrast, as Israel has become a strategic
burden for the US, its American backers have had to work even harder to preserve
the 'special relationship'.

Other critics contend that we overstate the lobby's power because we overlook
countervailing forces, such as 'paleo-conservatives, Arab and Islamic advocacy
groups ... and the diplomatic establishment'. Such countervailing forces do
exist, but they are no match - either alone or in combination - for the lobby.
There are Arab-American political groups, for example, but they are weak,
divided, and wield far less influence than AIPAC and other organisations that
present a strong, consistent message from the lobby.

Probably the most popular argument made about a countervailing force is Herf and
Markovits's claim that the centrepiece of US Middle East policy is oil, not
Israel. There is no question that access to that region's oil is a vital US
strategic interest. Washington is also deeply committed to supporting Israel.
Thus, the relevant question is, how does each of those interests affect US
policy? We maintain that US policy in the Middle East is driven primarily by the
commitment to Israel, not oil interests. If the oil companies or the
oil-producing countries were driving policy, Washington would be tempted to
favour the Palestinians instead of Israel. Moreover, the United States would
almost certainly not have gone to war against Iraq in March 2003, and the Bush
administration would not be threatening to use military force against Iran.
Although many claim that the Iraq war was all about oil, there is hardly any
evidence to support that supposition, and much evidence of the lobby's
influence. Oil is clearly an important concern for US policymakers, but with the
exception of episodes like the 1973 Opec oil embargo, the US commitment to
Israel has yet to threaten access to oil. It does, however, contribute to
America's terrorism problem, complicates its efforts to halt nuclear
proliferation, and helped get the United States involved in wars like Iraq.

Regrettably, some of our critics have tried to smear us by linking us with overt
racists, thereby suggesting that we are racists or anti-semites ourselves.
Michael Taylor, for example, notes that our article has been 'hailed' by Ku Klux
Klan leader David Duke (6 April). Alan Dershowitz implies that some of our
material was taken from neo-Nazi websites and other hate literature (20 April).
We have no control over who likes or dislikes our article, but we regret that
Duke used it to promote his racist agenda, which we utterly reject. Furthermore,
nothing in our piece is drawn from racist sources of any kind, and Dershowitz
offers no evidence to support this false claim. We provided a fully documented
version of the paper so that readers could see for themselves that we used
reputable sources.

Finally, a few critics claim that some of our facts, references or quotations
are mistaken. For example, Dershowitz challenges our claim that Israel was
'explicitly founded as a Jewish state and citizenship is based on the principle
of blood kinship'. Israel was founded as a Jewish state (a fact Dershowitz does
not challenge), and our reference to citizenship was obviously to Israel's
Jewish citizens, whose identity is ordinarily based on ancestry. We stated that
Israel has a sizeable number of non-Jewish citizens (primarily Arabs), and our
main point was that many of them are relegated to a second-class status in a
predominantly Jewish society.

We also referred to Golda Meir's famous statement that 'there is no such thing
as a Palestinian,' and Jeremy Schreiber reads us as saying that Meir was denying
the existence of those people rather than simply denying Palestinian nationhood
(20 April). There is no disagreement here; we agree with Schreiber's
interpretation and we quoted Meir in a discussion of Israel's prolonged effort
'to deny the Palestinians' national ambitions'.

Dershowitz challenges our claim that the Israelis did not offer the Palestinians
a contiguous state at Camp David in July 2000. As support, he cites a s tatement
by former Israeli prime minister Ehud Barak and the memoirs of former US
negotiator Dennis Ross. There are a number of competing accounts of what
happened at Camp David, however, and many of them agree with our claim.
Moreover, Barak himself acknowledges that 'the Palestinians were promised a
continuous piece of sovereign territory except for a razor-thin Israeli wedge
running from Jerusalem ... to the Jordan River.' This wedge, which would bisect
the West Bank, was essential to Israel's plan to retain control of the Jordan
River Valley for another six to twenty years. Finally, and contrary to
Dershowitz's claim, there was no 'second map' or map of a 'final proposal at
Camp David'. Indeed, it is explicitly stated in a note beside the map published
in Ross's memoirs that 'no map was presented during the final rounds at Camp
David.' Given all this, it is not surprising that Barak's foreign minister,
Shlomo Ben-Ami, who was a key participant at Camp David, later admitted: 'If I
were a Palestinian I would have rejected Camp David as well.'

Dershowitz also claims that we quote David Ben-Gurion 'out of context' and thus
misrepresented his views on the need to use force to build a Jewish state in all
of Palestine. Dershowitz is wrong. As a number of Israeli historians have shown,
Ben-Gurion made numerous statements about the need to use force (or the threat
of overwhelming force) to create a Jewish state in all of Palestine. In October
1937, for example, he wrote to his son Amos that the future Jewish state would
have an 'outstanding army ... so I am certain that we won't be constrained from
settling in the rest of the country, either by mutual agreement and
understanding with our Arab neighbours, or by some other way' (emphasis added).
Furthermore, common sense says that there was no other way to achieve that goal,
because the Palestinians were hardly likely to give up their homeland
voluntarily. Ben-Gurion was a consummate strategist and he understood that it
would be unwise for the Zionists to talk openly about the need for 'brutal
compulsion'. We quote a memorandum Ben-Gurion wrote prior to the Extraordinary
Zionist Conference at the Biltmore Hotel in New York in May 1942. He wrote that
'it is impossible to imagine general evacuation' of the Arab population of
Palestine 'without compulsion, and brutal compulsion'. Dershowitz claims that
Ben-Gurion's subsequent statement - 'we should in no way make it part of our
programme' - shows that he opposed the transfer of the Arab population and the
'brutal compulsion' it would entail. But Ben-Gurion was not rejecting this
policy: he was simply noting that the Zionists should not openly proclaim it.
Indeed, he said that they should not 'discourage other people, British or
American, who favour transfer from advocating this course, but we should in no
way make it part of our programme'.

We close with a final comment about the controversy surrounding our article.
Although we are not surprised by the hostility directed at us, we are still
disappointed that more attention has not been paid to the substance of the
piece. The fact remains that the United States is in deep trouble in the Middle
East, and it will not be able to develop effective policies if it is impossible
to have a civilised discussion about the role of Israel in American foreign
policy.

John Mearsheimer & Stephen Walt University of Chicago & Harvard University

(5) Eric Hufschmid & Apollo

Date: Thu, 04 May 2006 19:44:29 +0000 From: "Tim OSullivan"
<timos2003z@hotmail.com>

Regarding Eric Hufschmid and the material on his website on the Apollo moon
missions I have had a change of mind. It is not that I have come to believe in
an 'Apollo Hoax' but rather that I have come to realise this material may be
'tongue in cheek' and in that context it might serve multiple purposes.

I emailed Hufschmid about this matter a number of times between Nov. 2004 and
Nov. 2005. Some of our exchanges appeared on your list and some have been quoted
on his website. I searched for the best material on the web and forwarded it to
him, including what I considered an eminently sensible article from 'Holocaust
Heretic' Germar Rudolf.

I also discovered that others before me have attempted with as little success to
convince Hufschmid he had it wrong regarding Apollo. Like me they explained that
his Apollo stance served to discredit the other positions he promoted,
especially those on 911 and the holocaust.

A recent article by him suggests Rudolf might work for the Zionists given that
he believes the US landed on the moon (!!) Rudolf working for the Zionists ?! ?!

See http://www.erichufschmid.net/Separating_truth_from_lies.htm

It could be Hufschmid is on a 'learning curve' and really believes Apollo was a
hoax. Then again it could be he has changed his mind and now realises it was not
a hoax but pride prevents him acknowledging his mistake.

He could be 'playing the clown' as part of a strategy of self protection by
appearing less threatening.

It could be that news of an 'Apollo Hoax' is presented alongside credible
opinions in order to discredit them. In other words he is engaged in a project
of disinformation.

It could be it is just an elaborate idiosyncratic practical joke.

Possibly, I believe, he does not consider Apollo phoney (and never has) but
keeps up this ploy of being an 'Apollo denier' for the sake of its utility in
argument and usefulness in the course of possible future legal proceedings.

Such proceedings could arise as a result of a future clampdown on political
dissidents using newly minted American 'hate crime' laws as exist in continental
Europe, at present. Holocaust and, possibly, 911 'deniers' would be arraigned
for 'facilitating terrorist recruitment' or some such. A stance of Apollo
'denial' might serve to 'jam up the works' of legal procedure. A court may need
to answer the question why 'Apollo denial' was not also listed as a 'hate crime'
against the US government and people. But to prosecute such a 'hate crime' would
serve to bring the moral/legal culture of legalised censorship into disrepute
amidst an atmosphere of some hilarity. Not to accept it as a hate crime would
create an anomaly which might render the legislation incoherent in its aims and
unenforceable.

Conventionally, absurdity is countered with rationality. But there is also a
phrase; 'meet fire with fire'. Why not counter absurdity with specially
contrived absurdity of one's own? Surreal situations may require surreal
approaches. Perhaps this is an instance of just that. Note that outside of the
Apollo matter Hufschmid's work is well argued and researched.

This is just a speculative theory, of course. And will remain and has to remain
just that.

Tim

Reply (Peter M.):

As it happens, I was looking at Hufschmid's Apollo material this morning, and,
even though I earlier tried to persuade him the other way, I was impressed with
some of his arguments.

There are three that stand out: the lack of stars in Apollo photographs on the
moon; NASA's statement that, to land people on the moon in 2020 it first needs
to measure the radiation there; and the astronauts' going-to-ground afterwards,
refusing to talk about their experience on the moon.

I am not competent to judge these arguments. On the first two, I need an expert
scientific opinion, and am hoping for a reply from Dick Barwick. The third
argument would require searching for interviews etc, to see if Hufschmid is
right.

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Message 16
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 1:55pm(PDT)
Subject: Where is Guy Heron? Address no longer active and he has disappeared

Time to check in, Guy.

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Message 17
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 2:25pm(PDT)
Subject: today targeted censorship on internet obvious == clamping down on d

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Message 18
From: "Dick Eastman" olfriend@nwinfo.net
Date: Fri May 5, 2006 5:06pm(PDT)
Subject: articles: FCC approves Internet wiretapping taxes - estimated cost $

From: "Peter Myers" <myers@cyberone.com.au>

May 5, 2006

(1) FCC approves Internet wiretapping taxes - estimated cost $7 billion
(2) Who is Adam Kidron, the man behind "Nuestro Himno?" (agitprop artist)
(3) Swiss keeping Brussels thieves at bay - Switzerland and the EU [ERAInf]
(4) German Railway plans daily freight trains from Germany to Shanghai by 2008
(5) Asian Central Banks continue to buy dollars and sell their own currencies