[cia-drugs] Fwd: Fox News slipping....
-Original Message- From: don.stacey [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: Undisclosed-Recipient:; Sent: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 7:24 am Subject: Fox News slipping ? ? Please read carefully this message which was sent to media insiders. Fox News is in trouble and a key part of it is the growing realization that Fox has mounted a vendetta against Ron Paul. In a previous message, their unfair question in the South Carolina primary debate and Dr. Paul's powerful answer was presented in video form. As the message related, Fox replayed the debate later that night and cut that question and Dr. Paul's answer from the replay. Just another demonstration of what a fair and balanced outfit Fox is! ? But Fox is suffering some consequences for its behavior. It is losing out against its competitors. ? Meanwhile, Ron Paul is gaining strength and the race is narrowed to four with Guiliani dropping out. Huckabee is fading and McCain is not well funded. Ron Paul may surprise a lot of people! ? Don Stacey ? http://mediamatters.org/columns/200801290001 More new features than ever. Check out the new AOL Mail ! - http://webmail.aol.com
[cia-drugs] Akha Journal: New Drug War, Your help on the Bus,
URGENT NEWS PASS FAR AND WIDE PLEASE FORWARD PLEASE POST Dear Friends: As we work to get enough donations in to provide for the Bus, we see another drug war looming in Thailand. http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10566797 The work here is relentless and has been hard on all of us in the family as well as volunteers. We need your support at this time, we need you to pass the word about the project for the bus as shown at www.akha.org to your friends, media contacts, my space, facebook, message boards, websites, blogs and anything else you can think of. Your generosity can make this happen. You can help us to make a difference, as we take the Akha story to the world. We have been at this for a long time, 16 years. And each time we have made a progress step, its taken a lot of work. This one right now is one of our biggest challenges ever, as we increase the publicity for the Akha cause. Last week Oregon's Polk County Itemizer Observer had an article about the upcoming trip and campaign in the Jan 23 paper, page 6, but haven't seen it in electronic form. This is a pivotal year, a pivotal time for us. The last drug war slaughtered many of the Akha, with no proof of guilt and no accountability. We need your support to have any chance at bringing light to the conditions the Akha have faced for years now, that only intensify year by year. Matthew McDaniel The Akha Heritage Foundation. http://www.akha.org Akha Heritage Site. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Akhaweeklyjournal Discussion http://groups.yahoo.com/group/akha Donate Via Credit Card Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=akha%40akha.org PO Box 6073 Salem, OR. 97304 USA. - Be a better friend, newshound, and know-it-all with Yahoo! Mobile. Try it now.
[cia-drugs] Akha Journal: New Drug War, Your Help Needed on the Bus
URGENT NEWS PASS FAR AND WIDE PLEASE FORWARD PLEASE POST Dear Friends: As we work to get enough donations in to provide for the Bus, we see another drug war looming in Thailand. http://www.economist.com/world/asia/displaystory.cfm?story_id=10566797 The work here is relentless and has been hard on all of us in the family as well as volunteers. We need your support at this time, we need you to pass the word about the project for the bus as shown at www.akha.org to your friends, media contacts, my space, facebook, message boards, websites, blogs and anything else you can think of. Your generosity can make this happen. You can help us to make a difference, as we take the Akha story to the world. We have been at this for a long time, 16 years. And each time we have made a progress step, its taken a lot of work. This one right now is one of our biggest challenges ever, as we increase the publicity for the Akha cause. Last week Oregon's Polk County Itemizer Observer had an article about the upcoming trip and campaign in the Jan 23 paper, page 6, but haven't seen it in electronic form. This is a pivotal year, a pivotal time for us. The last drug war slaughtered many of the Akha, with no proof of guilt and no accountability. We need your support to have any chance at bringing light to the conditions the Akha have faced for years now, that only intensify year by year. Matthew McDaniel The Akha Heritage Foundation. http://www.akha.org Akha Heritage Site. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Akhaweeklyjournal Discussion http://groups.yahoo.com/group/akha Donate Via Credit Card Paypal: https://www.paypal.com/xclick/business=akha%40akha.org PO Box 6073 Salem, OR. 97304 USA. - Never miss a thing. Make Yahoo your homepage.
[cia-drugs] Qatar on cusp of breaking dollar peg
http://cartmanist.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/qatar-on-cusp-of-breaking-dollar-peg/ Qatar on cusp of breaking dollar peg http://cartmanist.wordpress.com/2008/01/31/qatar-on-cusp-of-breaking-dollar-peg/ January 31, 2008 by E. Cartman http://cartmanist.wordpress.com/author/jforshaw/ As Bernanke immolates his credibility by insisting that inflation remains contained, the dollar union is cracking up. The Gulf sheikdoms, which have all been pegged to the dollar for decades, are tired of double-digit and rising inflation so that they can maintain an antiquated currency peg with an obviously politicized http://www.gulf-times.com/site/topics/article.asp?cu_no=2item_no=19version=1template_id=48parent_id=28 central bank. Kuwait really did very little, al-Ibrahim said. His comments helped the euro strengthen against the dollar. The US currency fell to a two-week low against a basket of major currencies yesterday ahead of a US interest rate decision later in the day. The comments are very sensible. Any currency reform needs to be substantial, said Marios Marathefis, Standard Chartered's regional head of research. Gulf states should allow their currencies to appreciate by 20% against the dollar, he said late last year. Simon Williams, senior economist at HSBC, said: The comments are a very strong sign that the Qatari authorities are seriously examining all of their policy options to deal with inflation, including monetary reform. Qatari officials will make foreign-exchange policy recommendations to the government of HH the Emir Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa al-Thani this year, including possibly a call to revalue the currency, al-Ibrahim said, without saying exactly when. We are studying all kinds of possible ways to price our exchange rate or to price our currency, said al-Ibrahim, who heads Qatar's General Secretariat for Planning. The government is willing to look into these alternatives, al-Ibrahim said. Qatar currently holds the chair of the GCC which ispreparing for monetary union as early as 2010. Really, we would like to do everything we can through the GCC, he said. As a small country we cannot float our currency ... it has to be tied. Still, when asked if Qatar could act unilaterally, he said: I think we can. Gulf states are constrained in their fight against inflation because dollar pegs force them to track US monetary policy at a time when the Federal Reserve is cutting rates. Gulf currencies rallied last year after the UAE called for the region's central banks to sever their dollar pegs. Saudi Arabia dismissed the idea and the Gulf states agreed last month to retain their dollar pegs and keep any talks on currency reform secret. Qatar, which is contending with the region's highest inflation rate, reopened the debate last week when its finance minister said that Gulf states could consider revaluing their currencies together at some stage to fight inflation. The central bank, the General Secretariat for Planning and a state inflation committee are debating several policy options, al-Ibrahim said, after inflation hit 13.73% in September.
[cia-drugs] Fwd: G.W. Bush Is a Criminal, Like His Dad
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 4:58 pm Subject: Fwd: G.W. Bush Is a Criminal, Like His Dad Republican presidential candidate Rudy Giuliani cited Reagan's supposed toughness with terrorists as the reason the Iranians suddenly freed the hostages after a 444-day standoff. The best way you deal with tyrants and terrorists, you stand up to them. You don't back down. But the House task force learned a different reality in December 1992, as witnesses came forth and documents surfaced indicating that Reagan operatives, including then George H.W. Bush, had engaged in their own secret diplomacy in 1980, promising a swap of arms for the hostages. Among this new evidence: -- Former Iranian President Abolhassan Bani-Sadr sent the task force a detailed letter describing the Iranian infighting that had occurred around this Republican overture and how Iran's most radical elements favored a deal with the Reagan-Bush team. -- The biographer for French intelligence chief Alexandre deMarenches recounted how deMarenches had confessed his role in arranging secret meetings in Paris, a statement that was corroborated by several other French intelligence operatives. -- Former C.I.A. officer Charles Cogan described a meeting in early 1981 at which Joseph Reed, an aide to David Rockefeller, boasted to C.I.A.-Director William Casey about their success in sabotaging President Carter's efforts to get the hostages released before the election, [thereby guaranteeing that the Republicans would be victorious and re-capture power].. The new evidence was so compelling that the task force's chief counsel approached chairman, Rep. Lee Hamilton*, D-Indiana, with a request that the investigation be extended a few months so the new information could be evaluated. Hamilton rejected the request for an extension. The task force then finished up work on a report that reached its conclusion -- the opposite of what all the new evidence indicated. The task force report claimed there was no credible evidence to support the long-standing allegations that Bush loyalists had criminally interfered with the U.S. government's own negotiations to resolve the 1980 hostage crisis, all for partisan political gain. That conclusion could not be reached without Lee Hamilton burying the new evidence. - *Hamilton, a Lieberman-style Democrat, was so successful in the coverup that saved Bush's ass from impeachment and jail time that he was later hand-picked by the Bushes to serve on two other obfuscating fact-finding committees, the 911 Commission and the Iraq Study Group. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lee_H._Hamilton As chair of the Select Committee to Investigate Covert Arms Transactions with Iran, Hamilton chose NOT to investigate President Reagan or President George H. W. Bush, stating that he didn't think it would be good for the country to put the public through another impeachment trial. He was one of Bill Clinton's top choices for vice-presidential running mate in 1992. Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape in the new year. Attached Message From: Jim S. [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: G.W. Bush Is a Criminal, Like His Dad Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:29:00 -0800 Cowardice asks the question -- is it safe? Expediency asks the question -- is it politic? Vanity asks the question -- is it popular? But conscience asks the question -- is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/013108.html *G.W. Bush Is a Criminal, Like His Dad* By Robert Parry January 31, 2008 Watching Attorney General Michael Mukasey evade the obvious fact that waterboarding is torture -- and the reluctance of Democrats to press him -- I was reminded of how the first President Bush got away with an earlier batch of national security crimes. Indeed, one of the common questions I've been asked over the years is -- if the evidence really does show that the Reagan-Bush crowd was guilty of illegal dealings with Iran, Iraq and the Nicaraguan contras -- why didn’t the Democrats hold those Republicans to account? For people who have posed that question, I would suggest that they watch the Senate Judiciary Committee's Jan. 30 hearing with Mukasey. Everybody in the room knew what the unspoken reality was, but nobody dared say it: George W. Bush authorized torture, which is a crime under U.S. and
[cia-drugs] Fwd: Iniquities of War, Inequities of Life
-Original Message- From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Cc: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 3:59 pm Subject: Fwd: Iniquities of War, Inequities of Life Finally, the truth is seeping out. Contrary to how Bush has tried to justify the Iraq war in the past, he has now clumsily -- if inadvertently -- admitted the primary purpose of the invasion and occupation of Iraq. He did this by adding a signing statement to the defense appropriation bill, indicating that he would *not* be bound by the law's prohibition against expending funds: (1) To establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of U.S. Armed Forces in Iraq, or (2) To exercise U.S. control of the oil resources of Iraq. Start the year off right. Easy ways to stay in shape in the new year. Attached Message From: Jim S. [EMAIL PROTECTED] To: [EMAIL PROTECTED] Subject: Iniquities of War, Inequities of Life Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2008 14:18:53 -0800 Cowardice asks the question -- is it safe? Expediency asks the question -- is it politic? Vanity asks the question -- is it popular? But conscience asks the question -- is it right? And there comes a time when one must take a position that is neither safe, nor politic, nor popular; but one must take it because it is right.-- Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. http://www.consortiumnews.com/2008/013108a.html *Iniquities of War, Inequities of Life* By Ray McGovern January 31, 2008 For the oppressors, what is worthwhile is to have more -- always more -- even at the cost of the oppressed having less or having nothing. For them, to be is to have and to be the class of the 'haves'.-- Paulo Freire, Pedagogy of the Oppressed Finally, the truth is seeping out. Contrary to how President George W. Bush has tried to justify the Iraq war in the past, he has now clumsily -- if inadvertently -- admitted that the invasion and occupation of Iraq was aimed primarily at seizing predominant influence over its oil by establishing permanent (the administration favors enduring) military bases. He made this transparently clear by adding a signing statement to the defense appropriation bill, indicating that he would *not* be bound by the law’s prohibition against expending funds: (1) To establish any military installation or base for the purpose of providing for the permanent stationing of United States Armed Forces in Iraq, or (2) To exercise United States control of the oil resources of Iraq. But, if you have been asleep for the past five years, you may ask, what about Iraq's weapons of mass destruction and its ties to al-Qaeda? A recent study by the Center for Public Integrity found that Bush made 260 false claims about these in the two years after 9/11. He was followed closely by then-Secretary of State Colin Powell with 254. Nor can they any longer pretend they were deceived by faulty intelligence, since accumulating hard evidence shows they knew exactly what they were doing. Moreover, it has become abundantly clear that the surge of 30,000 troops into Iraq was aimed -- pure and simple -- at staving off definitive defeat until Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney are safely out of office. Some, but not all, of those 30,000 troops are slated for withdrawal, but those who still expect more sizable withdrawals have not been reading the tea leaves. It is altogether likely there will still be some 150,000 U.S. troops, and even more than that number of contractors, in Iraq a year from now. In the administration's view, the oil-and-bases prize is well worth the indignity of refereeing a civil war and additional troop casualties. That view was reflected recently in the words of a well-heeled suburbanite, who suggested to me, You must concede that a few G.I.s killed every week is a small price to pay for the oil we need. Many more died in Vietnam, and there wasn't even any oil there. That person was unusually blunt, but I believe his thinking may be widely shared, at least subconsciously, by those Americans who are not directly affected by the war. It is easier to assimilate and parrot the administration’s dishonesty than to confront the reality that these are consequential lies. They bring untold death and destruction -- and not only in Iraq, where several hundred thousand civilians are dead and one out of every six families has been displaced -- but to thousands of our fellow citizens as well. The Human Cost Not only have almost 4,000 American troops been killed, but another 30,000 have been wounded in action. Based on V.A. documents obtained by Veterans for Common Sense, nearly 264,000 Iraq and Afghanistan war veterans already have
