date:20021224

-Caveat Lector-

December 24, 2002

Terror Suspect's Departure From Germany Raises Concern in
Other Nations
By DESMOND BUTLER

 BERLIN, Dec. 23  A German man under investigation for links to
top figures of Al Qaeda slipped out of the country last month,
withdrawing his four children from school, terminating his lease and
obtaining visas for Saudi Arabia without attracting any attention from
the police, according to German officials.

Christian Ganczarski, 36, a Polish immigrant who until recently lived
in the western German city of Mülheim, had been under
investigation since the German police overheard a telephone call
from Nizar Nawar, shortly before Mr. Nawar detonated a bomb on
April 11 in front of the Ghriba Synagogue on the Tunisian island of
Djerba. The blast killed 21 people, including 14 German tourists.

Prosecutors overseeing the investigation say that under German
law, the evidence tying Mr. Ganczarski to the bombing and his own
confession of recent contact with Qaeda leaders were insufficient to
keep him under constant surveillance or to prevent him from
traveling. They say those limitations are the consequence of a
Constitution devised to prevent the reoccurrence of the country's
totalitarian past.

The case has caused concern among officials in France and Tunisia
involved in an investigation into the Djerba bombing and illustrates
the complexities of fighting a global network like Al Qaeda.

Last week, the Tunisian justice minister complained openly about
Mr. Ganczarski's departure. Investigations into the attack on Djerba
have moved forward very well, and I hope that the flight from
Germany of an accomplice of the suspected perpetrator of the
attack will not hamper inquiries, the minister, Bechir Tekkari, told
Agence France-Presse.

In a recent interview a high-ranking French official, who insisted on
anonymity, expressed frustration that Mr. Ganczarski had not been
detained. Under French law, the official said, he would have been.
Mr. Ganczarski is a figure who German prosecutors say may have
been able to provide unique knowledge of Qaeda cells. Under
interrogation, he has admitted to traveling five times to Qaeda
camps in Afghanistan, including once about a month after the Sept.
11 attacks.

This suspect stands out from all others because he has had
contact with the inner circles of Al Qaeda, said Kay Nehm,
Germany's chief federal prosecutor, in a recent interview. We do
not find such a witness every day. He is someone who knows a lot.

He is also a European Muslim convert, which might pose some
concern to investigators. The blond-haired, blue-eyed Al Qaeda
terrorist is an investigator's nightmare because he does not fit the
typical profile, Col. Nick Pratt, a professor at the George C.
Marshall European Center for Security Studies in Garmisch-
Partenkirchen, Germany, said in an interview.

Until recently, Mr. Ganczarski, who was unemployed, lived in
Mülheim, near the industry of the Ruhr Valley. As a child, he
immigrated to Germany from Poland under laws providing for the
return of ethnic Germans from Eastern Europe.

In the mid-1990's, Mr. Ganczarski converted to Islam. The police
believe that he was recruited by Al Qaeda in nearby Duisburg. The
suspected recruiter, Elfatih Musa Ali, also under investigation in
connection with the Tunisian blast, left Germany for Sudan in May,
according to the German weekly Der Spiegel.

In the weeks following the bombing on Djerba, Mr. Ganczarski was
questioned on a number of occasions. The German police had been
monitoring him because he had been seen in the company of known
extremists at a mosque in Duisburg.

However, they did not realize the potential significance of the
telephone call until after the bombing. Although Mr. Ganczarski
admitted to having met Mr. Nawar while in Asia, he denied any
connection to his plot, and the police, who have released parts of
the transcript, say his involvement was impossible to prove.

Don't forget to remember me in your prayers, Mr. Nawar told Mr.
Ganczarski, according to the transcript.

God willing, replied Mr. Ganczarski. Do you need anything?

No thanks, came the reply from Mr. Nawar. I need your blessing.

God willing, O.K., Mr. Ganczarski said.

Shortly before the blast, Mr. Nawar had also called Khalid Shaikh
Mohammed, who is widely believed to be one of the chief planners
of the Sept. 11 attacks.

The deaths of the German tourists on Djerba prompted German
legislators to revamp terrorism laws intended to combat domestic
terrorism during the 1970's and 80's. But Mr. Nehm said he could
not use new laws, which allow the prosecution of members of
foreign terrorist organizations, in Mr. Ganczarski's case because
they were passed after the Djerba attack and were not made
retroactive.

The failure to monitor Mr. Ganczarski occurred after he had
confessed to the police that he had been in Afghanistan five times
and that he had met on occasions with Mr. Mohammed and once
with Osama bin Laden.

In their parallel

[CTRL] The Good Guys

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/24/opinion/24KRUG.html?todaysh
eadlines

December 24, 2002
The Good Guys
By PAUL KRUGMAN

Time magazine's persons of the year are three whistle-blowers:
Sherron Watkins of Enron, Cynthia Cooper of WorldCom and
Coleen Rowley of the F.B.I.

They deserve to be celebrated. After all, thanks to Ms. Watkins and
Ms. Cooper, Jeff Skilling, Ken Lay and Bernie Ebbers have been
indicted, and the politicians who did their bidding have been
disgraced. Thanks to Ms. Rowley, incompetent officials at the F.B.I.
and C.I.A. have been removed from their posts, and we've had a
searching inquiry into what went wrong on Sept. 11.

Oh, I'm sorry. None of that actually happened. The bravery of the
whistle-blowers was real enough, but Time seems to be celebrating
what should have been, not what was.

This past year brought shocking revelations about how American
institutions, from corporations to government agencies, really
operate. But the whistle-blowers haven't been rewarded; Time
makes it clear that Ms. Cooper and Ms. Rowley are personae non
gratae in their organizations. And those on whom the whistle was
blown have mostly gone unpunished. Last week one F.B.I. official
singled out by Ms. Rowley  he blocked an investigation that might
have averted Sept. 11  received a special presidential award.

I'm a history buff, so the events of 2002 made me think of a
historical parallel  the English peasant rebellion of 1381. The
rebels very nearly took London, but were turned aside by King
Richard II, who promised to end the oppression of the common
people by the aristocracy. As soon as the danger had passed,
however, he made it clear that promises to little people don't count.
Villeins ye are, and villeins ye shall remain.

During the late spring and summer, amid corporate scandals and
tales of F.B.I. ineptitude, Americans received many promises of
reform. But once the political danger had passed, all those promises
 even, incredibly, the promise that families of victims would get to
choose one member of the Sept. 11 commission  became non-
operational. Villeins ye are . . .

Yet some good guys did win victories.

Time named New York's attorney general, Eliot Spitzer, crusader of
the year. Mr. Spitzer's achievement shouldn't be overstated; he
didn't save capitalism, as some would have it. The $1.4 billion
settlement he wrung out of the securities industry was a small
fraction of what investors lost on highly touted stocks, stocks that
insiders knew were worthless. And while the settlement requires that
investment banks pay for some independent stock research, it
probably won't be enough to erase suspicions that analysis is
slanted in favor of big customers.

But Mr. Spitzer achieved far more than anyone else, and more than
anyone could have expected. With no help from federal regulators,
who should have been taking the lead, he used the limited powers
of his office  the power to investigate and to publicize the outrages
he found  brilliantly. It's a tribute to his effectiveness that
powerful congressmen tried to shut him down, by inserting language
into reform legislation that would have stripped state attorneys
general of the right to carry out Spitzer-type investigations. (What
about states' rights? Oh, that only applies when states want to, well,
you know.)

You also have to admire Mr. Spitzer's style. Key to his success was
the discovery of incriminating internal communications. Addressing
an investment industry dinner, he told the audience, It is wonderful
to be here this evening, because I really want to put faces to all
those e-mails.

So I'm glad that Mr. Spitzer has gotten his due. But let me put in a
plug for another group of good guys who haven't gotten their due:
California's long-suffering electricity regulators.

Back during the crisis of 2000-2001, those regulators were ridiculed
for saying that energy companies were manipulating the market.
 Nobody except an Op-Ed columnist or two believed them. But over
the course of 2002, as incriminating memos and tapes came to
light, they were fully vindicated. As with Mr. Spitzer, the
compensation they have recently managed to extract  $1.8 billion
in refunds  falls far short of the tens of billions looted from the
public. But also like Mr. Spitzer, they've done very well given the lack
of cooperation, and often active hostility, from Washington.

If truth be told, 2002 was a very good year for cynics. But it's the day
before Christmas, so let's be thankful for our gifts: the good guys
who made a difference.

Copyright 2002 The New York Times Company

--

Outgoing mail is certified virus free
Scanned by Norton AntiVirus

Ankh-Morpork had dallied with many forms of government
and had ended up with that form of democracy known as
One Man, One Vote.  The Patrician was the Man; he had
the Vote. ~~Terry Pratchett

A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion

[CTRL] PC Forestry

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/12/24/opinion/24PAKE.html?todayshe
adlines

December 24, 2002

A Short History of a Tall Tree
By THOMAS PAKENHAM
LONDON

Those fortunate enough to be in London this Christmas season
should stand under the neo-Classical portico of the National Gallery
and cast their eyes to the south, where they will see something
altogether delightful and unexpected. Below, in Trafalgar Square,
this city's only great civic piazza, two pillars leap toward the
heavens: Nelson's column and London's largest Christmas tree, a
green spire of common spruce 60 feet high, lit with 1,000 bulbs and
crowned with a star.

The tree, botanically known as Norway spruce, is appropriately a
present from the people of Oslo  a tribute in gratitude for the help
Britain gave them in World War II. Similar arboreal compliments are
exchanged between other communities of the world; to the people
of Boston comes a Christmas tree from Halifax, Nova Scotia, in
gratitude for help in a fire in 1917. (In the spirit of civic pride, this
year's tree at Rockefeller Center in Manhattan, another Norway
spruce, was donated by a family from New Jersey.)

This is the year to visit Trafalgar Square. For the first time in two
centuries the great space is at peace with itself. The fetid tide of
cars and trucks, sluiced down from Piccadilly Circus, has been
banished to the south and east. So Nelson, the one-eyed adulterer,
can be left to dream of his mistress Emma Hamilton amid the whir
of London pigeons, and one can walk down to salute the Christmas
tree without being knocked down by a bus.

For 150 years this species of evergreen has served as Britain's
symbol of peace at Christmas  ever since Queen Victoria's
German husband, Albert, set the fashion by putting a German-style
Christmas tree in a drawing room at Windsor Palace.

The custom apparently originated in Protestant Germany around the
time of the Reformation, and was associated with Luther, who was
supposed to have looked up one starry night and decided that a star
on the tree would symbolize the star of Bethlehem. Significantly,
America lost its heart to the Christmas tree even earlier than Britain.
Of course the custom was brought to the young republic by less
glamorous German immigrants than Prince Albert.

In fact the name Norway spruce is misleading  outside Trafalgar
Square. The species, Picea abies, is the common spruce of Europe
that extends its dark green empire from the mountains of Western
Norway to the Black Forest of Germany, from the Italian Alps to the
borders of Turkey. In Britain it dominates the Christmas-tree market
(although the American silver firs, like the balsam and the Noble,
are gaining ground because they hold their needles longer).

Millions in England buy a tree to decorate their living rooms at the
double festival of Christmas and New Year's. It may be somewhat
incongruous as a Christian symbol. Luther's star  if it is Luther's
star  is fine. But who ever heard of a spruce in the Holy Land? Yet
the tree suits the New Year to perfection. The deep, mournful green
of its needles represents the passing of the old year, the moment
when primitive man held his breath to see if the sun would ever
return.

Strange to say, this species, the Norway spruce, is now under threat
from conservationists in Britain. In recent years conservation groups
have been buying forests and chopping down by the thousands
trees they denounce as alien. Unlike a true native tree, the
conifer it has no right to be in Britain, they tell us. Native trees are
those that came to Britain after the last ice age ended 12,000 years
ago, crossing from Europe by their own exertions. (There was a land
bridge between Calais and Dover until melting ice raised the level of
the world's oceans.)

These groups set their own rules about which species of trees to
plant and which to cut down. One group has acquired more than
1,000 separate woods covering nearly 50,000 acres on which it can
impose its goal of eradicating the imposing sea of conifers. The
campaign also includes pressure on the government's forestry
commission to restore all ancient woods planted with conifers on its
own estate, and to stimulate comprehensive action by other
landowners in England, Scotland and Wales.

Of course it makes sense to try to ban immigrant trees if they abuse
the hospitality of the host country. The world is full of examples of
invasive weeds that have damaged the environment. In America the
Norway maple, Acer platanoides, has made a thorough nuisance of
itself. New Zealand is tormented by alien British gorse. In South
Africa the crude Australian silver wattle, Acacia dealbata, is torturing
the delicate fynbos plant.

But in Britain the Norway spruce is the most inoffensive of trees.
 Generations of the tree have been born and bred in this country,
and have lived cheerfully with the natives. In fact no one knows
when or by whom the tree was introduced. Naturalization should
have earned it

[CTRL] N Korea threatens to 'destroy world'

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,36
04,865061,00.html

N Korea threatens to 'destroy world'
Rumsfeld gets tough on North Korea

John Gittings in Hong Kong and Suzanne Goldenberg
in Washington
Tuesday   December  24, 2002
The Guardian

Donald Rumsfeld, the US defence secretary,
yesterday warned North Korea that America could
fight and win two regional conflicts. He advised
Pyongyang not to become emboldened by the US
administration's immediate focus on Iraq.

We are capable of fighting two major regional
conflicts. We're capable of winning decisively in
one and swiftly defeating in the case of the
other, and let there be no doubt about it, Mr
Rumsfeld said.

His comments came amid desperate diplomatic
efforts to head off the growing Korean crisis.

The UN has confirmed that North Korea has carried
out its threat to remove UN seals and dismantle
monitoring cameras at a laboratory used to produce
weapons-grade plutonium.

A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy
Agency said: There is not any legitimate purpose
for the facility other than separating plutonium
from spent fuel.

Senator Joseph Biden, the outgoing chairman of the
Senate foreign relations committee, warned that
North Korea's plan to restart a programme for
plutonium extraction could allow it to produce
bombs within months.

Mr Biden said the crisis was a greater danger
immediately to US interests _ than Saddam
Hussein.

While the rhetoric sharpened, Mr Rumsfeld insisted
that Washington would pursue a diplomatic strategy
against North Korea for the moment, as that crisis
was still at a relatively early stage.

Pyongyang has issued a series of threats,
including one to destroy the earth if the US
resorted to nuclear war against it. South Korea's
president, Kim Dae-jung, and the president-elect,
Roh Moo-hyun, sought to calm the mood by saying
they wanted a peaceful resolution.

While Russia expressed concern at the North's
weekend announcement, the deputy foreign minister
warned the US not to aggravate the crisis.

But the US state department yesterday rejected
Pyongyang's insistence that the crisis can be
solved if the US signs a treaty of non-aggression.
We will not bargain or offer inducements for
North Korea to live up to the treaties and
agreements it has signed, a spokesman said.

US intelligence sources were quoted by the BBC as
saying they believe North Korea may already have
a small number of nuclear bombs and the material
to make a few more.

The North Korean media has given Bush
administration hardliners all the material they
may want.

The communist party's newspaper, the Workers'
Daily, declared that the army and people of the
DPRK are fully ready to mercilessly strike the
bulwark of US imperialist aggressors - implying
that they could hit targets in the US.

Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited
2002

--

Outgoing mail is certified virus free
Scanned by Norton AntiVirus

It is the need to bridge the chasm between the
socialist dream and the socialist reality that produces
the totalitarian state.
~~ Peter Collier and David Horowitz, _Destructive
Generation_, 1988

A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

[CTRL] (Fwd) [I-S] Meet Sean Penn, Saddam's useful idiot

-Caveat Lector-

--- Forwarded message follows ---
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Date sent:  Tue, 24 Dec 2002 08:09:34 -0500
Subject:[I-S] (fwd) Meet Sean Penn, Saddam's
useful idiot

[ Double-click this line for list subscription options ]

Comprehending the cause of the famine was more
difficult.  Was it the result of not enough
rainfall?  Or was a different root cause
suggested by the curious fact that Ethiopia had
the largest army in black Africa--and a very well-
fed army--while most of those who were starving
came from the countryside where the food was
grown?

bh

Wall Street Journal

'Useful Idiot' Sean Penn learned little on his
Baghdad visit.

BY CLIFFORD D.  MAY

Tuesday, December 24, 2002

I know exactly what Sean Penn went through in
Iraq.  Unfortunately, Sean Penn hasn't a clue.

In the mid-1980s, I was the New York Times
correspondent in Ethiopia, covering the Great
Famine, the one that inspired Michael Jackson and
Lionel Ritchie to write We Are the World.

For a time, it became fashionable for Hollywood
types to descend on Addis Ababa.  As a result, I
got to fly in a helicopter with Harry Belafonte
and play tennis with one of Michael Jackson's
brothers, Jermaine or Marlon, I can't quite
recall.

I also got to dine with Cliff Robertson at my
favorite Italian restaurant.  A survivor of the
Mussolini era--the restaurant, I mean, not Mr.
Robertson--it was run by an Italian expatriate
family.  The waiters were Ethiopians who were
fluent in spoken Italian but illiterate.  They
memorized the customers' orders and I never knew
them to make a mistake.  The owner of the
restaurant recognized Robertson--or at least
remembered seeing him in PT 109. He pointed
excitedly and shouted: Kennedy!  Kennedy!

It wasn't difficult for these celebrities to get a
glimpse of Ethiopia's suffering--one visit to a
camp like those at Korem and Makele to see the
babies with their swollen bellies and rust-colored
hair (symptoms of severe malnutrition) was all
that was required.

Comprehending the cause of the famine was more
difficult.  Was it the result of not enough
rainfall?  Or was a different root cause
suggested by the curious fact that Ethiopia had
the largest army in black Africa--and a very well-
fed army--while most of those who were starving
came from the countryside where the food was
grown?

Some of these celebrities--Mr.  Robertson comes to
mind--were genuinely open-minded and eager to hear
different perspectives.  Others had barely stepped
off the plane before they began blaming America,
accusing Washington of providing less aid because
Ethiopia was ruled by a pro-Soviet, pro-Cuban,
Marxist dictatorship.  Such prepackaged views were
reaffirmed by ever-present government minders.

This is what Sean Penn experienced.  He may have
believed that he would be able to mystically
intuit the truth in Baghdad--In my professional
life, I function on impressions, he told CNN--but
in fact all he could hope to see is what his Iraqi
hosts showed him, for example children's hospitals
where, he's been grimly told, illness is the
consequence of American-imposed sanctions.

Lenin, father of the Soviet Union, had a name for
people like Mr.  Penn:  useful idiots. Lenin's
successor, Stalin, was even able to dupe Walter
Duranty, the New York Times correspondent in
Moscow whose Pulitzer Prize-winning reporting
helped convince the world that no government-
orchestrated famine was occurring in the Ukraine.

Similarly, during World War II, the Nazis took
representatives of the Red Cross to the model
concentration camp at Thereisenstadt, where they
established to the Red Cross's satisfaction that
those nasty rumors about Hitler's mistreatment of
the Jews were unfounded and really quite
outrageous.

How can Sean Penn be so naive as to believe he
would see the reality of Iraq touring around
Baghdad by limo and dining on kabobs with Saddam's
deputies?  Does he really believe that average
Iraqi citizens were going to invite him into their
living rooms and share their feelings with him?
Did he expect Saddam to open his dungeons to show
him the political prisoners whose tongues have
been sliced and whose eyes have been gouged?  Did
he think he'd have more luck finding caches of
biological and chemical weapons than has Hans
Blix?

Mr.  Penn also told CNN: The insight that I would
have and I think for it to be productive, I would
hope that this would not be a political commentary
on my part but more a human commentary. To which
one can only respond: Whaaa???

If Mr.  Penn  Co.  were serious about grasping
Iraqi reality, they would meet with those who have
fled Saddam's oppression to London and Washington
and, yes, probably to Los Angeles.  They would
visit the Kurdish areas in northern Iraq,
protected from Saddam troops by U.S.  and British
air power.  They would learn about the 182,000
Kurds who were slaughtered by Saddam, about the
villages wiped

[CTRL] The Trial of Lott

2002-12-24 Thread M.A. Johnson

-Caveat Lector-

EXCELLENT!


~~for educational purposes only~~
[Title 17 U.S.C. section 107]

The Trial of Lott
by Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr.

Following the media campaign against Lott,
many people were astonished by the Senator's
willingness to jettison all political
principle for the sake of saving his status
as Majority Leader. Why would a conservative
Republican suddenly find himself embracing
the full panoply of the left-wing racial
agenda and flog himself so mercilessly?

Consider what a Chinese political prisoner
under Maoist Communism had to say about the
role of self criticism, denunciation, and
confession:

   It doesn't take a prisoner long to lose
   his self-confidence. Over the years Mao's
   police have perfected their interrogation
   method ... . Their aim is not so much to
   make you invest nonexistent crimes, but
   to make you accept your ordinary life,
   as you led it as rotten and sinful and
   worthy of punishment, since it did not
   accord with the police's conception of
   how life should be led. The basis of
   their success is despair, the prisoner's
   perception that he is utterly and
   hopelessly and forever at the mercy of his
   jailers. He has no defense, since his
   arrest is absolute and unquestionable
   proof of his guilt.
  [The Black Book of Communism, p. 510]

Such means are the tried and true method of assuring
the supremacy of an ideology. Lott was  accused of
segregationism and racism for saying something kind
about the presidential bid of Senator Strom Thurmond
in 1948. Mostly likely, his comments reflected an
affection for the attempt by the South to resist
federal encroachments against the liberties and
rights of the states after the Second World War.
But you would never know that by listening to either
Lott or his critics. As under Mao, the accused was
already guilty as charged so he had only one right:
to repent of his errors. If he appeared insufficiently
repentant, the attacks were renewed until the accused
was completely destroyed.

Even at the outset, it was clear that no effort would
be made to understand the deeper issues involved about
the history or political issues. There would be no
tolerance for anyone who might say that Thurmond's
bid reflected a just political aspiration, that his
States Rights Party might have had a point to make
that extended beyond race hatred. The thousand-year
struggle for liberty made possible by decentralized
political orders was swept away or completely
recast in light of racial politicsas if the
United States had not been founded as anything
but a unified state, and as if this conclusion
were never in question.

No, there was one goal at the outset of Lott's
trial: extract a confession, an apology, and
bring about what the Chinese communists called
rectification: a visible sign that one accepts
the reality of one's ideological apostasy, and
declares publicly that the regime is right and
you are wrong. Anything short of that is regarded
as a personal indictment and further evidence that
you, as the enemy, must be vanquished.

Even so, perhaps it is worth examining the deeper
historical and political issues. It is not true
that supporting the Dixiecrats in 1948 necessarily
reflected a racial bias against blacks. The real
issue was not race; it was the place of freedom
and federalism -- concepts that are apparently not
understood by the national press or by any of
Lott's critics right and left--in the post-war
period. Both parties were split on the direction
they would take after long years of depression and
war. The industrial planning of the New Deal was
shocking enough, but the wartime planning of the
Second World War was as bad as the fascist
governments the US opposed on the battlefront.

The crucial political question concerned the
direction the country would take in the
future -- pushing headlong into the welfare-warfare
state or returning to founding principles -- just as
the country faced this same question in 1989 at
the end of the Cold War. In 1948, the key domestic
question concerned the uses of federal power for
purposes of social planning and redistribution.
On the international front, the Marshall Plan had
already been passed, shocking many in both parties
who had a principled opposition to foreign aid and
international management on this scale. And Truman
and his advisers were already embroiling the US in
a Cold War against Russia, a government that had
been a close US ally only a few years earlier.

Many Democrats had hoped that FDR would be an
aberration -- a man who betrayed his 1932 election
promises (for a balanced budget, for limited
government, for lower taxes, for peace) for personal
power. A strong faction hoped for a return to the
older style Democratic Party that favored free
trade, decentralization, peace, and other
Jeffersonian policies.

Harry Truman, meanwhile, was untested by any
presidential election until 1948. It was unclear
until the convention that year which part of the
party

[CTRL] Fwd: Skull Bones + CFR = Bush II New World Order

-Caveat Lector-



A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

---BeginMessage---
-Caveat Lector-
http://www.conservativeusa.org/whosonfirst.htm

Has a list of Bush cabinet members and other White House staff who are members of the Council on Foreign Relations -- the CFR seems to be running the Bush administration from within and, as advisors and "experts," from without as well.
A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=""Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=""ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om
---End Message---

[CTRL] Fwd: Opus Dei

-Caveat Lector-



A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

---BeginMessage---
-Caveat Lector-
Claire Soares
REUTERS December 20, 2002

" ... The [Pope's] last canonization was on Oct. 6, when the pope made a saint of Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the controversial founder of the conservative Roman Catholic group Opus Dei, before one of the biggest crowds ever to flood the Vatican."




A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=""Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=""ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om
---End Message---

[CTRL] Fwd: Opus Dei

-Caveat Lector-



A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

---BeginMessage---
-Caveat Lector-
Catholic News Service, 2 Dec 2000

Father Bohlin named U.S. vicar for Opus Dei

NEW YORK (CNS) -- Bishop Javier Echevarria Rodriguez, head of Opus Dei worldwide, has named Father Thomas G. Bohlin as vicar for the prelature in the United States. Father Arne Panula, who served in that position since 1998, is now the regional spiritual director for the United States. Father Bohlin, a 48-year-old native of New Jersey, has worked for the last five years in Rome as chancellor at the prelature's headquarters. He holds doctorates in moral theology from the University of the Holy Cross in Rome and in U.S. history from the University of Notre Dame in Indiana. "I am enthusiastic about the possibilities for Opus Dei's service to the church in the United States," he said.





A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=""Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=""ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om
---BeginMessage---
-Caveat Lector-
Claire Soares
REUTERS December 20, 2002

" ... The [Pope's] last canonization was on Oct. 6, when the pope made a saint of Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, the controversial founder of the conservative Roman Catholic group Opus Dei, before one of the biggest crowds ever to flood the Vatican."




A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=""Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=""ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om
---End Message---
---End Message---

[CTRL] Fwd: [smashthestate] Fear Based Control

-Caveat Lector-



A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

---BeginMessage---
-Caveat Lector-

  mongering is turned higher on the society.

  Just a few decades ago people lived a calm and serene life. In most of the areas 
the crime rate was very much lower than today. There was hardly any murder or rape in 
small towns and villages. The children could play outside late into the night and 
people could walk in a store and walk out with rifles. 

  Slowly but surely the Global Elite turned up the level of fear. They did not do 
it very quickly, because that would have led to a panic, but they maintained a steady 
increase in the amount of fear. Freedom is one of the dearest things to the people. 
However it is not THE MOST important thing to a vast majority of the people or 
Sheeple as known in Freedom Movement. The Global Elite exploited this fact. They 
know that by scaring people they can make people give up their freedom. In reality any 
one person's freedom is not for another person to give, but those who are scared for 
their life, willing sacrifice somebody else. 

  One can notice by reading the history that rise in the perception of the fear 
amongst the populace is proportional to the decline of freedoms. The fear of the 
people was first exploited by Marxists. Obviously ordinary people were worried about 
their food, shelter and clothing. Some of them would get laid off from the jobs and 
find themselves penniless. Marxists found a willing victim and started injecting their 
venomous propaganda scaring people that the capitalist was out to exploit them and to 
take away their livelihood. Objectively evaluating the situation gives another 
picture. The Industrial Age bought about a very high standard of living for the 
people. Yet in this case the Fear beat out the Hope. 

  Fear was used to inject the Trojan horse known as Gun Control in America. The 
politicians played off on the fear of the populace about the gangsters and got the NFA 
'34 passed. The entire history of Gun Control is the history of fear mongering. Before 
each gun-grabbing bill is passed the media is out scaring people with reports of 
shootings around the country. It is followed by hysterical cries by Gun Grabbers that 
play on the fear of people of their children. Objective reasonable debate is not 
permitted.

  But the fear mongering is not restricted to a specific issue. Otherwise that 
would be an anomaly. The fear pervades the entire society. It is instilled early on in 
the children with a pressure to conform to the specific ideas. There is such a push 
now for compulsory pre-schooling. Children at a very early age are thrown in with 
others who have nothing in common with them except for age. Every child is afraid of 
what this new world will mean for him. Then the schoolteacher gives them some 
preconceived ideas about different things, and the child afraid to stand out all by 
himself receives them passively. This from early on leads to the child becoming afraid 
to voice his own opinion and ideas when such contradict the conventional attitudes. On 
the other hand if the child is with his parents, he is in a very friendly company. A 
child will openly talk to his mother about issues he won't with anybody else. This 
will build up his courage to express himself as an individual. Depriving him of his 
parent's company leads to him being isolated and thrown in of times in the hostile 
environment.

  This is just the beginning. The morally bankrupt entertainment industry produces 
material aimed at children that is not healthy for their normal well-being. Gross 
scenes of blood and gore and disgusting monsters are very common in movies which 
children get their exposure to.

[CTRL] Fwd: The Inner Circle

-Caveat Lector-


The deep politics of regime removal in Iraq: Overt conquest, covert 
operations 
Part Three: The US war lobby and the disciples of NSC-68




By Larry Chin
Online Journal Contributing Editor


 

November 7, 2002The roots of the George W. Bush administration's policy for 
Iraq regime change can be traced to strategies formulated since the early 
1990s by a small network of inveterate Cold Warriors linked by philosophical 
lineage and war-intelligence policy collaborations.
This tightly-knit cabal stretches across the current and previous White 
Houses, the State Department, the CIA, the National Security Council, the 
boards of neo-conservative think tanks and the boards of transnational 
corporations (including Washington-linked energy and war-technology 
companies). Virtually all of the players are members of elite planning 
bodies, such as the Council on Foreign Relations. Many of them are indicted 
criminalsfive individuals were direct participants in the Iran-Contra 
operation.
All have, over the course of their intertwined careers, advocated imperialist 
policies involving 1) pre-emptive wars, 2) the conquest of Iraq and Iran, and 
the breakup of Saudi Arabia, 3) hard-line support of Israel, Ariel Sharon and 
the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), and 5) the encirclement 
and containment of Russia and China.
Tracking the Iraq Regime Change Network: The Gang's All Here
1. 1992 Pentagon Defense Planning Guidance. As noted by Joe Taglieri (From 
the Wilderness 10/1/02), this was one of the first official regime removal 
plans, prepared for then-Defense Secretary Dick Cheney by his two assistants:

*   Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz
*   Lewis Libby

2. The Open Letter of 1998. In February 1998, 40 prominent Americans a 
signed an open letter to President Clinton, which formed the basis of the 
Iraqi Liberation Act of 1998.
This letter calling for an insurrection, and recognition of the (CIA-backed) 
Iraqi National Congress as the official government of Iraq, was spearheaded 
by Ahmed Chalabi of the INC. Signers of the letter were:

*   Wolfowitz
*   Chair of the Defense Policy Board Richard Perle
*   VP Dick Cheney
*   Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
*   Former CIA Director James Woolsey
*   Defense Undersecretary Doug Feith
*   Former Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Frank Gaffney
*   Deputy Secretary of State and Iran-Contra participant Richard Armitage
*   Former CIA operative and Iran-Contra participant Duane Dewey Clarridge
*   NSC official, former Secretary of State and Iran-Contra participant 
Elliott Abrams
*   Former Defense Secretary and Iran-Contra participant Caspar Weinberger
*   Former Defense Secretary and Carlyle Group chairman Frank Carlucci
*   Zalmay Khalilzad, current US envoy to Afghanistan, former UNOCAL 
consultant and RAND Corporation official
*   Former National Security Adviser and Iran-Contra participant Robert 
McFarlane

3. Iraq Liberation Act of 1998. The act itself was promoted in Congress by 
Woolsey, Clarridge, and now-Deputy National Security Advisor for 
Counter-terrorism Wayne Downing. The act (a piece of bombastic anti-Saddam 
propaganda full of historical falsehoods) passed Congress and was signed by 
Clinton, with scant attention from the public at large. Its major sponsors: 

*   Wolfowitz
*   Cheney
*   Rumsfeld
*   Feith
*   Woolsey
*   Clarridge
*   Downing
*   Carlucci
*   Armitage
*   Newt Gingrich
*   Senator Joseph Lieberman
*   Senator John McCain

Fast-forwarding to the present, we find the same network driving Bush 
administration policy, from within the Pentagon as well as from the outside.
4. 1998-Bush II foreign policy team selected. In the summer of 1998, in 
meetings arranged by former President George H.W. Bush in Kennebunkport, 
Maine, and headed by Condoleeza Rice, the George W. Bush foreign policy 
teamthe Vulcansis chosen. If the brain trust reflects who the governor 
would put in office if elected president, his administration would be to the 
right not only of his father's but also of Ronald Reagan's, reported Robert 
Novak to the Washington Post. Among group's leading members we find: 

*   Perle
*   Wolfowitz

5. Defense Policy Board. This civilian advisory board makes Pentagon policy 
recommendations to the Defense Department (Rumsfeld, Wolfowitz and Feith).

*   Perle (chair)
*   Woolsey
*   Gaffney
*   Eliot Cohen, chairman of the PNAC
*   Henry Kissinger
*   Former CIA Director James Schlesinger
*   Gingrich

6. Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS). This Johns 
Hopkins University think tank is well known for churning out policies based 
on US aggression. Associated with SAIS are:

*   Perle
*   Wolfowitz
*   Woolsey
*   Zbigniew Brezezinksi
*   Gaffney
*   Cohen
*   Thomas Donnelly

7. The Project for a New American Century (PNAC). This think tank published a 
plan for toppling Iraq in 2000 based on the Wolfowitz-Cheney-Libby 1992 
Defense Planning Guidance.

[CTRL] For your attention

-Caveat Lector-

Euphorian spotted this on the Guardian Unlimited site and thought you should see it.

To see this story with its related links on the Guardian Unlimited site, go to 
http://www.guardian.co.uk

Email
Chris MacGreal @ Bethlehem
Monday December 23 2002
The Guardian


Once again, there is no room at the Bethlehem Inn. Two thousand years on, the hotel 
has been commandeered by Israeli soldiers, and just about every other lodging in 
Christ's hometown will be closed on his birthday for lack of business.

For the first time in living memory there is no Christmas tree on Manger Square. Even 
the priests at the Church of the Nativity - the 4th-century basilica said to be built 
around the cave where Jesus was born - are down on the festivities at the end of a 
year that has seen Israeli tanks roll into the town five times and a 39-day army siege 
of the church itself. Now the ancient town is enduring a month-long curfew with no 
certainty the Israeli military will lift it for midnight mass on Christmas eve. Yet 
the services will go on, in no small part because of the politics of religion.

The Greek Orthodox, the Armenians and the Franciscans all command control of a share 
of the Church of the Nativity under a rights-of-possession agreement drawn up by the 
Turks in 1757, when Bethlehem fell in the orbit of the Ottoman empire. It is known as 
the status quo. Each church is allocated parts of the building, and specified time 
for services. None dares alter the schedule for fear of undermining the agreement and 
feeding the intense rivalries that have reduced priests to fisticuffs over territorial 
infringements during the annual cleaning.

But this year there will be no parade of boy scouts, choirs in the square or the 
sometimes raucous party ahead of the service. There will be no Yasser Arafat either, 
or his Christian wife to light the Christmas tree. The Israelis have banned the 
Palestinian leader from attending midnight mass for the second year running.

The Franciscan parish priest, Amjad Sabbara, will stick to the annual theme of 
children as he leads prayers during the first hours of Christmas day. But rather than 
celebrating birth, he plans to reflect on death - particularly the sickening reality 
that, just as in Jesus's time, children are being killed by forces indifferent to 
their age or innocence. The latest victim is an 11-year-old girl leaning out of a 
window to watch the funeral procession of another child.

Father Sabbara was among the hundreds of people trapped in the Church of the Nativity 
during the Israeli siege in April and May. That was the busiest the church has been in 
a couple of years, with Palestinian men sheltering in the grotto built around the cave 
of Christ's birth. The Franciscan priest predicts a smaller turnout than that for 
Christmas. Just 400 of the 2,000 once-prized tickets for seats at midnight mass have 
been taken. So most of Bethlehem's hotels have closed and those few that have stayed 
open say they have no bookings.

Over the past month of perpetual curfew, lifted for just a few hours each week, 
Bethlehem has endured the punishment favoured by the Israelis against the people they 
rule. The army is largely of the view that Palestinians are either terrorists or 
terrorist sympathisers, so there's no reason why they shouldn't all suffer for the 
actions of a few.

But there is a deeper and longer crisis. When Bethlehem's mayor, Hanna Nasser, can 
find a tourist, he offers chapter and verse on what the past two years of intifada and 
periodic occupation have done to the town's economy. Bethlehem is dying, he says. For 
years, it has relied on tourism to survive. Now not a single one of the hundreds of 
gift shops is open to offer their bizarre mix of nativity scenes alongside T-shirts 
sporting the Israeli army logo. Seven out of 10 residents are unemployed. Average 
income, at about #163;1 a day, is just a quarter of what it was three years ago. The 
capital of Christmas, as the mayor puts it, is in no mood to celebrate.

Copyright Guardian Newspapers Limited

A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives

[CTRL] Look what I just found on iWon.com!

Title: Email this Page
-Caveat Lector-
 













 

  
 This page was forwarded to you from the iWon Web site (http://www.iwon.com)

  
From:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
  
  
URL:
http://apnews1.iwon.com//article/20021223/D7O3MML00.html
  

Message:The bishop said so:  You're on your own.  A<:>E<:>R

iWon.com - We give you news, weather, games, searches... and we give away $10,000 each Weekday, $5,000 each Weekend & up to $25 million on Tax Day!
Copyright 2002 iWon.com. All Rights Reserved. Any republication or redistribution of the content or the Web page is expressly prohibited.

A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=""Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=""ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

[CTRL] Ha'aretz - Article

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=243849contrassID=2
subContrassID=1sbSubContrassID=0

w w w . h a a r e t z d a i l y . c o m


Terrorist funds flow through Israeli banks



As Israel conducts intensive campaigns against the flow of terrorist funds to the
Palestinian Authority from Europe and the United States, it has gradually become clear 
that
the Israeli banking system is full of holes through which money flows for the very same
purposes.

Two weeks ago, Ma'ariv ran an investigative report about former Shin Bet security 
service
official Yossi Ginossar and his web of business relations with the PA. Now, senior 
defense
officials say there is concern that tens of millions of dollars are being transferred 
to the PA -
and used for terrorist purposes - through Israeli banks.

Israeli banks serve as a blind channel, the sources say, meaning there is no 
significant
monitoring of bank transfers. The international division of the IDF's Judge Advocate-
General's office recently completed a comprehensive report on the issue that has been
disseminated to senior officials in the defense establishment. Ha'aretz has also 
acquired a
copy of the report.

The Shin Bet and the prime minister's counter-terrorism staff believe that huge 
amounts of
money are moving through the loopholes in the system. Now Israel is looking for ways to
block those loopholes, with legislation being prepared in the Justice Ministry.

Defense sources said the findings keep them awake at night and that any delay in 
solving
the problem constitutes genuine negligence. According to both the JAG memo and
assessments by other officials, Israeli banks are conducting activities that contravene
international rules aimed at preventing financing for terror groups.

The entire Palestinian banking system is dependent on the Israeli system, having no
currency or central bank of its own. Palestinian banks get money transferred through 
Israeli
banks in two ways: cash delivered by couriers and electronic transfers.

The problem lies in the system of correspondent banks. A correspondent Israeli bank
provides services to the Palestinian bank in fields where the latter does not operate; 
it also
provides services that the Palestinian bank cannot provide, serving as a kind of 
intermediary
through which money from the West can go directly into Palestinian banks. But the 
Israeli
bank does not know whom the Palestinian bank is working for or the purpose of the 
activity.
The problem is compounded because the PA does not have a monitoring apparatus to
prevent money laundering, does not require identification of customers or reports 
regarding
suspicious activity and does not act to prevent terrorist groups. Thus the Israeli 
bank, as a
blind middleman, transfers money from Western banks, which can claim that they are 
not
involved in transferring money to terror groups.

Some steps have been taken internationally to block the transfer of terrorist funding 
and
illegal capital through correspondent banking systems. A Basel convention, which 
includes
all the central banks in the world, set new international standards last year for 
banks to be
fully informed by their correspondent banks about customers using the service. Two 
years
ago, a U.S. Senate committee recommended prohibiting American banks from opening
correspondent bank relationships with suspected foreign banks operating in countries 
that
do not cooperate in the war on money laundering.

The Patriot Act, passed in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terror attacks in the 
U.S.,
allowed American law enforcement agencies to demand clarifications and identifying 
details
from the banks to which they provide such services. Israel, in an effort to line up 
with the
new American and international standards, decided last September that an Israeli bank
providing correspondent services must be familiar with the nature of the foreign bank 
(in
this case, the Palestinian one) receiving the services and must not conduct financial
relations with banking institutions that do not operate according to anti-money 
laundering
rules. However, the new standards only go into effect in September 2003.

Israel is currently considering stopgap measures that could be used until then. The 
problem
is that if the new standards are fully and immediately implemented, they would prevent 
any
transfer of funding from Israeli banks to Palestinian ones - including perfectly legal 
transfers
- since none of the PA banks can currently meet the new international standards.

Meanwhile, the defense establishment is also considering recommending a law that would
require Israeli banks to alert the authorities of any financial transactions involving
Palestinian institutions that could be channels for terrorist funding. The authorities 
would
also have the power to freeze such banking activity if suspicions of terrorist 
financing arose.
The discussions about the language of such a law have already

[CTRL] Terrorist Nation

-Caveat Lector-

http://news.independent.co.uk/world/politics/story.jsp?story=364013dir=508host=3

US troops to join Israelis in Iraq war exercises

By Andrew Gumbel in Los Angeles and Eric Silver in Jerusalem

23 December 2002

American troops will begin joint exercises with Israel this week to help prepare for 
possible
Iraqi missile attacks, the latest signthat military manoeuvres are being stepped up 
across
the Middle East.

After a live-fire exercise in Kuwait over the weekend, about 1,000 US troops are 
expected
to arrive in Israel, bringing with them the latest version of the Patriot missile  
used with
minimal success against Iraqi Scuds during the 1991 Gulf War. The Patriots will be
deployed alongside a new anti-missile system, the Arrow, which was developed by the
Israelis and the Americans.

In contrast to 1991, when the Americans kept their distance from the Israelis to avoid 
Arab
defections from their anti-Saddam coalition, the Bush administration appears to be
cultivating a cosy relationship with the Israeli government. The US troops are 
expected to
stay in Israel throughout any conflict, training Israeli missile deployment crews and 
fighting
alongside them if necessary.

The Americans are also reported to have stationed an Aegis destroyer equipped with
sophisticated radar and shorter-range anti- missile defences in the Mediterranean off 
the
coast of Israel.

In contrast to 1991, when George Bush Snr successfully persuaded Yitzak Shamir, the
Israeli prime minister, not to retaliate under fire, this Bush administration has 
given its tacit
agreement for Israel to strike back if Iraq launches a chemical or biological attack.

The Israeli civilian authorities are already busy preparing for such an eventuality, 
increasing
smallpox vaccinations and helping families to check gas masks and other emergency
equipment.

There was no immediate comment on this visible manifestation of the close US-Israeli
relationship. However, Igor Ivanov, the Russian Foreign Minister, expressed misgivings
about America's apparent determination to fight a war, come what may.

Mr Ivanov said he saw no justification for war and said the United States, with the 
other
members of the UN Security Council, should focus on ensuring that Iraq has no weapons 
of
mass destruction.

We should work to reach this goal, he said. If anyone else wants to follow some 
other
aims, that is outside the sphere of [Russia's] interests.

Asked specifically about the prospect of a war, Mr Ivanov said: On what basis, and 
what is
the aim?

The Iraqis launched a volley of propaganda aimed at widening the rift between the Bush
administration and the international community, particularly the United Nations weapons
inspectors now in Iraq.

Saddam Hussein's top scientific adviser, General Amer al-Saadi, accused the United 
States
of interfering with the UN inspections process and insisted that his government had no
weapons of mass destruction to hide.

Seizing on complaints by Hans Blix, the chief UN weapons inspector, that the American 
and
British intelligence services had failed to pass on information about the whereabouts 
of
possible chemical and biological weapons facilities, General Saadi said he would have 
no
problem inviting the CIA to stand alongside UN inspectors and guide them in their work 

the implication being that the Americans knew nothing because there was nothing to 
know.

Why don't they let the specialised organs of the United Nations get on with their 
task? Why
interfere in this rude fashion? he said.

Similar sentiments were expressed in the newspaper Babil, run by President Saddam's son
Uday, which said in a front-page editorial: Everybody knows that if they [the 
Americans]
had concrete information, they would have put it on television all around the world 
before
giving it to the inspection teams.

* Downing Street has called for more co-ordinated terror alerts after warnings that the
public are being scared by suggestions that Britain is on the brink of an attack.

Number 10 wants to see coordinated alerts from Whitehall departments after a series of
warnings suggesting that sooner or later a terrorist would get through and that an 
attack
was so imminent the public should build a system of national resilience.

24 December 2002 14:58


Search this site:




 Printable Story











Legal | Contact us | Using our Content | Advertise in print |



Subscribe to the print edition | Sign up for our free daily news update

© 2002 Independent Digital (UK) Ltd

A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being

[CTRL] Mercury News | 12/23/2002 | California considers releasing prisoners to cut budgets

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.bayarea.com/mld/mercurynews/4802703.htm

Posted on Mon, Dec. 23, 2002

California considers releasing prisoners to cut budgets

SACRAMENTO (AP) - Proposals to release some nonviolent and elderly prisoners early have
emerged in California and other states confronting massive budget shortfalls.

Kentucky Gov. Paul Patton enraged prosecutors by recently allowing hundreds of 
low-level
felons to leave jails and prisons early as part of a plan to fill a corrections 
shortfall. And
proposals to release some inmates early, pare down parole periods or reject the return 
of
criminals nabbed in other states have emerged in Washington, Connecticut, Oregon,
Nevada and Oklahoma.

California is facing a nearly $35 billion budget deficit, and leading Democratic 
lawmakers
are suggesting chopping some sentences to shave state costs.

Gov. Gray Davis announced last week that the state is facing a $34.8 billion budget 
deficit
over the next 18 months. The Democratic governor will submit his plan to deal with the
deficit in January, and despite his longtime tough-on-crime stances and hesitancy to 
parole
prisoners, aides said he has not ruled out any proposals to cut costs.

Davis has long been friendly to law enforcement, including the influential prison 
guards
union that donated lavishly to his re-election campaign, and a preliminary list of 
cuts he
proposed largely spared prisons from the chopping block.

The proposals are stirring up a long-running debate in California over incarceration 
of low-
level criminals and the controversial Three Strikes Law. During the boom times of the
1990s, California passed several anti-crime laws, and the state's prison population has
since swelled to more than 160,000.

Of those prisoners, 61 percent are considered nonviolent offenders, said Margot Bach, a
spokeswoman for the Department of Corrections. Some 670 prisoners are between 65 and
69 years old while about 500 are older than 70, she said.

Prisoner advocates said the state already is locking up too many people rather than
spending money on rehabilitation, education and job programs that prevent crime.

``We blame the state's overuse of incarceration for the state's budget problems to 
begin
with. Basically it has been a waste of money,'' said Millard Murphy, a law professor 
who
runs the prisons clinic at University of California, Davis, law school.

But Lawrence Brown, executive director of the California District Attorneys 
Association, said
the state ``should not seek to remedy budgetary woes by endangering the safety of our
communities.''

``Courts have sentenced these inmates to state prison, and it would be highly improper 
for
these inmates to receive a Christmas gift by way of early release,'' Brown said.

Legislative Analyst Elizabeth Hill, the top financial adviser to the Legislature, has 
suggested
shortening the prison stays of some elderly and nonviolent prisoners -- excluding drug
offenders and those with ``Three Strikes'' -- among potential solutions to the state's
budget woes.

Hill estimates her proposals would save the state hundreds of millions of dollars.

The top state senator and the assembly's public safety chairman each have endorsed
studying such proposals. Senate President Pro Tem John Burton has suggested sending
prisoners over age 70 home with electronic monitoring bracelets or releasing some 
inmates
10 to 30 days early.

``We're not talking about letting Charlie Manson walk the streets,'' Burton said.

Republican Assemblyman John Campbell, of Irvine, called such proposals ``the least
attractive spending reductions that I can imagine.''

``It basically interferes with the process that took place when they were tried, and 
that's
not something that we would do lightly at all,'' said Campbell, the Assembly GOP's 
pointman
on the budget.

But he didn't flatly rule out supporting such a measure, saying ``as someone who 
believes
that we should not be raising taxes, there is no spending reduction that we won't
entertain.''

--







© 2001 mercurynews and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.



http://www.bayarea.com

A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A

[CTRL] A washingtonpost.com article from: alamaine@uffdaonline.net

-Caveat Lector-

You have been sent this message from [EMAIL PROTECTED] as a courtesy of the 
Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com

 Nothing like a little speculation to foster a self-fulfilling prophecy ... A:E:R

 To view the entire article, go to 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A34403-2002Dec24.html

 Sharon Says Iraq May Be Hiding Weapons in Syria





  JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Ariel Sharon said on
Tuesday that Israel suspected that Iraq has been transferring
chemical and biological weapons to Israel's arch-foe Syria to
hide them from U.N. inspectors.

  Sharon, in an interview with Israel's Channel Two
television, said his comments were based on unconfirmed
information and he gave no evidence to support the allegation.

  What we believe, and I say that we have not yet confirmed
it conclusively, is that weapons he wants to hide -- chemical
and biological weapons -- have indeed been sent to Syria,
Sharon said.

  He said Israel was trying to verify the information.

  U.N. weapons inspectors returned to Iraq last month after a
four-year hiatus to resume a hunt for alleged weapons of mass
destruction, amid threats by the United States to disarm Iraq
by force if it does not obey U.N. resolutions.

  Iraq says its nuclear, chemical and biological weapons
programs have already been destroyed.

  Israel has stepped up preparations for possible Iraqi
missile attacks should the United States go to war against
Iraq. Baghdad fired 39 Scud missiles at Israel in the 1991 Gulf
War, causing one death and extensive damage in residential
areas.

  Israel and Syria have been in an official state of war for
decades.

  Syria, which took part in the 1991 Gulf War that drove Iraq
from Kuwait, has since rebuilt ties with Baghdad after decades
of rivalry. Nonetheless, to some surprise, Damascus cast its
U.N. Security Council vote last month in favor of resolution
1441, which demands that Iraq disarm or face a possible war.

A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

[CTRL] Check out this Village Voice article

-Caveat Lector-

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -
Village Voice
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

http://www.villagevoice.com/issues/0252/carr.php
On Edge
Design for Living
by C. Carr
Could The World Trade Center Become The World Cultural Center?

A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

[CTRL] A washingtonpost.com article from: alamaine@uffdaonline.net

-Caveat Lector-

You have been sent this message from [EMAIL PROTECTED] as a courtesy of the 
Washington Post - http://www.washingtonpost.com



 To view the entire article, go to 
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A31589-2002Dec23.html

 In U.S., Terrorism's Peril Undiminished

 By Barton Gellman Late last year, in secret, the Bush administration erected a 
provisional defense against nuclear terrorism in the nation's capital.

 It was called Ring Around Washington, and it aimed to detect a nuclear or 
radiological bomb before the weapon could be used. Still under development, according 
to three knowledgeable sources, the system was pressed into service in a large-scale 
operational trial. Scientists placed a grid of radiation sensors in the District and 
at major points of approach by river and road. Vehicles patrolled with mobile sensors. 
And an elite combat unit from the Joint Special Operations Command, already trained to 
render harmless a nuclear weapon or its components, moved to heightened alert at a 
staging area near the capital.

 Ring Around Washington has since been shut down, the sources said.  Under some 
conditions, which The Washington Post will not describe, the neutron and gamma ray 
detectors failed to identify dangerous radiation signatures. In other conditions they 
raised false alarms over low-grade medical waste and the ordinary background emissions 
of stone monuments. The Energy Department's national laboratories learned a lot about 
how to operate a distributed network of sensors, one official said, but not enough to 
keep it in place.

 U.S. exposure to ruinous attack, more than 15 months into the war with al Qaeda, 
remains unbounded. The global campaign launched by President Bush has destroyed Osama 
bin Laden's Afghan sanctuary, drained his financial resources, scattered his foot 
soldiers and killed or captured some of his most dangerous lieutenants. But there is 
nothing in al Qaeda's former arsenal -- nothing it was capable of doing on Sept. 11, 
2001 -- that the president's advisers are prepared to say is now beyond the enemy's 
reach.

 The threat of bin Laden's network -- which the White House considers to number 
perhaps three dozen men at its vital core -- continues in important ways to outpace 
the national response. Working-level and senior participants in the conflict, many of 
them interviewed at length, displayed a striking fatalism even when describing their 
common belief that the United States will eventually prevail. Nearly all of them, when 
pressed, said they would measure their success by the frequency, not the absence, of 
mass-casualty attacks against the American homeland.

 They're not 10  feet tall, they're not supermen, and in a lot of cases they're very 
primitive, said retired Army Gen. Wayne A. Downing, who was President Bush's deputy 
national security adviser for counterterrorism until July 8, referring to al Qaeda. 
But they are probably more capable than before.

 One Bush appointee, working full-time in counterterrorism, pointed to Director of 
Central Intelligence George J. Tenet's testimony as recently as two months ago that 
we were vulnerable to suicidal terrorist attacks and we remain vulnerable to them 
today. The official said: With untold billions spent -- money, personnel and blood 
-- how can we claim any kind of success if we're just as vulnerable as before? It just 
doesn't balance. It can't balance.

 The elements of the U.S. security deficit, as another current official termed it 
recently, are varied. In their own fields of responsibility, across a wide range of 
government functions, nearly all of those interviewed acknowledged laboring under 
threats for which they have no present answer. In some cases they described the 
challenge as unavoidable. In others they said they had lost opportunities to respond. 
In still others, implicitly and explicitly, the officials raised questions about the 
president's choices in the war on terrorism.

  Thirteen of 20 men that The Post could identify on the government's classified 
roster of high value targets remain unaccounted for. Bush's overriding objective, a 
high-ranking official at the heart of the effort said Friday, is to capture or kill 
the small cadre of leaders he sees as uniquely responsible for al Qaeda's potent 
threat. We want to get that inner core more than anything, the official said, 
describing their number as roughly 30. The Post identified the 20 (see box) from 
interviews and a set of notes made by a participant in the hunt. Called HVTs in the 
argot of government, the 13 men believed at large include four of the five  in the 
uppermost tier. National security adviser Condoleezza Rice, in a brief interview for 
this report, said we are hunting down systematically members of terrorist networks, 
but that said, this is not just a numbers game.

  Some of those involved in the hunt said the government lost many and perhaps most 
of its best chances

[CTRL] An article from WorkingForChange.com

2002-12-24 Thread Eu Phorian

-Caveat Lector-

Eu Phorian thought you would be interested in this  article from WorkingForChange.com 
- the resource center for people with progressive values.



You're a mean one, Mr. Bush
By Molly Ivins

http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=14281





* Speak out on urgent issues, read and listen to thought-provoking columnists and 
radio commentary. Visit http://www.workingforchange.com

* Get a FREE pint of Ben  Jerry's ice cream EACH MONTH for 1 YEAR when you sign up 
for Working Assets Long Distance.
Turn your everyday phone calls into donations for the non-profits you care about. It 
won't cost you extra, and may even cost you LESS!

Learn more:
http://www.workingassets.com/moreinfo


2002 WorkingForChange.com

A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

[CTRL] TOMPAINE.com - 'Twas A Fright At The White House

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.tompaine.com/feature.cfm/ID/6939?CFID=4264285CFTOKEN=25024862

'Twas A Fright At The White House
A Christmas Poem

Michael Ryan has written, directed and produced films, television, and theater, 
published
several books of
humor and satire, and worked as a Washington and foreign correspondent and editor for
major magazines.

AUDIO: Click here to listen
To download RealPlayer for free, Click Here.

Sharon Basco produced this piece.

Twas the night before Christmas,
And all through the White House,
New ideas were aborning
Like ticks on a mouse.

Rich folks taxes were shriveling,
Like grapes in the sun;
Civil liberties vanished
Until there were none.

Dubya was tucked in
For a night in the sack;
Next morning hed get a
Fat check from a PAC.

Unemployment might run out,
But what did he care?
CEOs would snatch options
Out of thin air.

Halliburton would prosper,
Dick Cheney had said;
Visions of dividends
Danced in his head.

When what before Georges eyes did arise
But a vision that made him distrust his eyes.
Before him were people in trouble, in need:
Aged, homeless, single moms, with children to feed.

We dont need a tax break, they shouted in chorus
We just need a White House that does something for us.
They pointed their fingers, they wailed in despair;
Who are you? said George W. Why are you there?

Were the people, they answered. Its your job to lead us.
Care for people, find new jobs we can work at to feed us.
George was startled, he said: Dont you know Im compassionate?
But theres just so much wealth, and its my job to ration it.

The folks in the vision all pointed their fingers
at George; in his mind, the image still lingers.
Out with Dubya and Cheney, they chanted away;
Down with Rove, Ari Fleisher, and of course, Tom DeLay.

Give us a Senate that has no Trent Lott.
This is democracy -- perhaps you forgot.
Bush awoke in a swelter; his forehead was feverish;
This wasnt his white-bread world, Beaver Cleaverish.

There were people out there that he had no idea of:
Poor and black, gay and female: not the class, all of were of.
He sprung from his bed and began to take notes.
Oh my God, thought the President, They might have votes.

I hope its not true; what else could be horrider?
They might even win the election in Florida.
And he worried away through the rest of the night
About power for the people, and to Bush a good fright.


Click here to subscribe to our free e-mail dispatch and get the latest on what's new at
TomPaine.com before everyone else! You can unsubscribe at any time and we will never
distribute your information to any other entity.



Published: Dec 23 2002

A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

[CTRL] Who's Next?, Some Priest Sex Less Serious, Frist/drug companies

2002-12-24 Thread Smart News

-Caveat Lector-
"When the provision was inserted into the bill last month, just before final votes in the House and Senate, no one stepped forward to claim authorship. Critics denounced the provision as a giveaway to Eli Lilly Co. and other drug manufacturers. The bill passed Congress with the controversial language and was signed into law by President Bush. Frist, an ally of the pharmaceutical industry, had written nearly identical language in a separate bill on vaccines."

the latest issue of SMART is at
http://members.aol.com/smartnews/Sample-Issue-48.htm
has info on clergy abuse, ritual abuse, mind control, nonlethals, experimentation and so on - to subscribe free via e-mail, please write me offlist at [EMAIL PROTECTED]

this may be heavy for survivors

from L Moss Sharman After One Cardinal Resigns, Catholics Ask: Who's Next? Other Bishops Under Scrutiny for Handling Sex Abuse Cases By Pamela Ferdinand and Alan Cooperman "But attention also is shifting to the powerful cardinals of Los Angeles and New York and to bishops in other cities, such as Phoenix and Toledo." "More than three-quarters of the 1,209 adults in the nationwide poll, and 69 percent of the Catholics, said they disapproved of the church's handling of sexual abuse. Half of all the respondents - and more than a third of the Catholics -- said the church "cannot be trusted" to handle the issue properly in the future." http://www.washingtonpost.com/

N.H. Bishop: Some Priest Sex Less Serious 11/23/02 Concord, N.H. (AP) - "Questioned under oath about the church abuse scandal, New Hampshire's bishop suggested that it is less serious for a priest to have sex with someone from outside the parish than with a parishioner. In depositions this fall, Bishop John B. McCormack said he knew the Rev. Roland Cote had had sex with a teen-age boy but noted that the boy was not a parishioner. "You know, one is an activity where you have a trusted relationship with a parishioner. The other is an activity where you're away from the parish and you're off on your own,"' McCormack said in depositions obtained by ...AP... "I'm very concerned about that; he was a young person. But it's quite different from being with a parishioner." http://www.guardian.co.uk/uslatest/story/0,1282,-2268335,00.html

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-lilly22dec22,0,7466807.
story?coll=3Dla%2Dheadlines%2Dnation=20
Frist's Ties to Drug Firm Face Test in New Senate - Likely next GOP leader must decide whether to honor a deal brokered by his predecessor. By Nick Anderson Times Staff Writer December 22 2002

WASHINGTON -- The expected Senate majority leader in the new Congress, Sen.
Bill Frist of Tennessee, will immediately face a controversy left over from
the last legislative session in which he played a prominent role. At issue
is a provision of the new homeland security law that limits liability for
makers of vaccine additives that some parents allege caused autism in their
children. When the provision was inserted into the bill last month, just
before final votes in the House and Senate, no one stepped forward to claim
authorship. Critics denounced the provision as a giveaway to Eli Lilly
Co. and other drug manufacturers. The bill passed Congress with the
controversial language and was signed into law by President Bush. Frist, an ally of the pharmaceutical industry, had written nearly identical language in a separate bill on vaccines. While he disavowed any
responsibility for inserting the language into the homeland security bill, Frist twice spoke strongly in favor of the provision during a Senate debate on whether to kill it.
A HREF=""www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease! These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
A HREF=""Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
A HREF=""ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

[CTRL] FW: [turnwind] HANDS OFF VENEZUELA! sign on letter

2002-12-24 Thread Franc Tireur

-Caveat Lector-

FYI...

-Original Message-
From: james jordan [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED]]
Sent: Monday, December 23, 2002 1:51 PM
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED];
[EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]; [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject: [turnwind] HANDS OFF VENEZUELA! sign on letter

HANDS OFF VENEZUELA!
An appeal to the international Labour Movement

The situation in Venezuela is reaching a critical
point. The
reactionary forces, backed by conservative big
business and the US embassy, are
mobilising all their forces to overthrow the legally
elected government
of Hugo Chavez by extra-parliamentary means.

The mass media have put in circulation the lie that
this is a general
strike supported by the workers of Venezuela against
an unpopular
government. There is absolutely no truth in this. In
reality what we are
seeing is a campaign of organised sabotage designed to
destabilise the
country and prepare the way for a right wing coup
d'etat.

The bosses have organised what amounts to a lock-out
with the support
of certain right wing trade union leaders. This is
already the fourth
time this year that they have attempted to destabilise
the country by
these means. It is similar to the lorry drivers'
strike that the CIA
organised to bring down the legally elected government
of Salvador Allende
in Chile. These machinations led to the bloody
dictatorship of
Pinochet. Now the same people want to repeat the
experience in Venezuela.

THEY MUST NOT BE ALLOWED TO SUCCEED!

The last time they moved in this way (last April) it
led to a coup in
which reactionary businessmen linked up with right
wing army officers to
arrest the President. They talked a lot about
democracy but
immediately came out in their true colours, with plans
to suspend the
Constitution and introduce a dictatorship of the rich.

The role of the USA in all this was quite clear. This
great democracy
- as always - refused to condemn the coup. The CIA has
played, and is
playing, an active role in this conspiracy, as it has
in every other
coup in Latin America: Chile, Argentina, Uruguay, and
so on.

The attempted coup last April was defeated by a
spontaneous mass
movement of millions of workers, unemployed, peasants,
soldiers and poor
people. Now once more the masses are confronting the
counterrevolutionary
forces in the streets of Venezuela.

If the people of Venezuela were allowed to fight the
counterrevolution
on their own, they would easily defeat it. This was
shown last April.
But behind the counterrevolution stands the might of
the USA and its
allies in Latin America. These are intervening
shamelessly in the internal
affairs of Venezuela, encouraging and financing the
counterrevolutionary forces.

The revolutionary process opened by the election of
Hugo Chavez has
aroused the workers, peasants and poor people of
Venezuela and given them
new hope for a better future. The government has
carried through a
series of progressive reforms to improve the
conditions of the masses.

The people now understand that Venezuela is an
immensely rich country
with huge reserves of oil, but that the wealth of the
nation is being
plundered by foreign imperialists and a handful of
wealthy local
oligarchs who serve the interests of imperialism. They
want to carry the
revolution forward and put an end to this scandalous
exploitation once and
for all. This is the only crime of the people of
Venezuela, for which
the imperialists are determined to make them pay.

If the Venezuelan revolution goes down to defeat, it
will be a severe
blow against the cause of millions of poor people
throughout Latin
America who are fighting for their rights.

THE INTERNATIONAL LABOUR MOVEMENT MUST BE MOBILIZED IN
THEIR SUPPORT.

The aim of the counterrevolutionary strike is to
strangle the
economy, paralysing the vital oil industry and the
movement of essential
supplies. They have already succeeded in causing food
and petrol shortages.
The intention is to cause such chaos that it will
bring about a split
in the tops of the armed forces and a coup by right
wing army officers -
as in Chile.

Not satisfied with seizing the oil of Iraq, the USA
also wants to get
its hands on Venezuelan oil. There is constant
pressure from Washington
and its corrupt allies in the region to force a
regime change.

This shameless and insolent bullying must cease! Let
the international
labour movement take a firm stand against imperialism!

The people of Venezuela must not feel alone in their
hour of need. Let
the world working class raise its voice in their
support!

We appeal to you to raise this matter urgently in your
trade union and
Labour Party branch. Send messages of support to
Venezuela and protest
to the US embassy about its continued interference in
the internal
political affairs of Venezuela. Send letters to the
press and to the
British government, demanding that it does not support
US aggression against
Venezuela.

The youth must add its voice to the protest. Every
youth and student
organisation must

[CTRL] Bush labels Santa an enemy combatant and includes the North Pole in the axis of evil

2002-12-24 Thread goldi316

-Caveat Lector-

A holiday satire...

Bush labels Santa an enemy combatant and includes the North Pole in
the axis of evil

By Bev Conover
Online Journal Editor  Publisher

December 19, 2002Having drawn the ire of George W. Bush, Santa Claus
could find himself and his reindeers shot down by a JDAM missile as they
enter United States' airspace on Christmas Eve.

It isn't what Santa has done that has earned him a place at the top of
the Bush administration Kill List, knocking Saddam Hussein out of
first place and dropping Osama bin Laden to third, but what he has
refused to do, according to White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer.

Handing out advance copies of an address to the nation's children that
Bush may have to make Christmas Day, should the worst come to pass
before Santa finishes his Christmas Eve rounds, Fleischer said Santa had
rejected Bush's appeals that he help ward off war by assassinating
Saddam and grabbing scientists as he made his way through Iraq. The
president [sic] also asked him to eliminate any al Qaeda terrorists he
encountered, including Osama bin Laden, Fleischer said. But he
obstinately refused.

Reached at his North Pole headquarters, Santa said, Doggone right I
refused. And that Fleischer isn't telling you half of what that Bush
fella and his henchmen, Cheney, Rumsfeld and Ashcroft,
demandeddemanded, not askedthat I do.

Asked to elaborate, Santa said, They also demanded that I eliminate
Castro, [Venezuelan President] Chavez and Yasser Arafat, and said they
might add a few more names to the list before I take off.

Such as?

That fella who runs North Korea was one name they mentioned. They also
were toying, if you will forgive that word, with having me make gone
with the fellas who run China, Iran and Saudi Arabia. And they aren't
too happy about the way the elections went in Brazil and Ecuador. Plus,
if that Putin fella looks like he might get out of hand, they talked
about putting him on the list, Santa said.

Santa said these demands on him were made in a series of phone calls
over the past few weeks. Young Bush called me every doggone day. Same
for Cheney, that Dr. Strangelove Rumsfeld and the other one with the
messiah complex, Ashcroft. I even got a call from that gap-toothed woman
. . . what's-her-name?

Condoleeza Rice?

That's the one, Santa responded. I told them allrepeatedlyI wanted
no part of their insanity. First of all, Santa Claus brings joy to the
world. He doesn't murder and kidnap. Secondly, he doesn't go to
countries that don't celebrate Christmas in a religious or secular
fashion.

Asked how they planned to have him carry out their nefarious deeds,
Santa snorted, They wanted to arm my sleigh with missilesprobably
nukesbombs and M2 machine guns. He added with a disgusted chuckle,
That's not all, they were going to arm me with an MP-5N Heckler and
Koch 9mm Submachine Gun, extra ammo and grenades. Can you see me
climbing down and up chimneys with all that stuff hung on me?

Santa noted he has been at this too longcenturiesto be intimidated by
what he called the thugs that have taken over your country.

Asked if he might do the American people and the world a favor by
spiriting them off to some remote place where they could do no harm, he
replied, I told you I am not into kidnapping, even though in all my
years no other despot or group of despots has ever asked, much less
demanded, that I carry out criminal acts. Not one and history is filled
with despots, adding, Sorry, while the world has my sympathy, you
Americans let yourselves get into this mess and you will have to figure
out how to get out of ithopefully, before much more damage is done.

Told this morning of Santa's comments, Fleischer called him evil and
incorrigible and said, Since he travels west from the North Pole, he
has until midnight, eastern time, Christmas Eve, when he enters US
airspace, to redeem himself by having carried out the president's [sic]
wishes or face the consequences. As of now, the president [sic] has
rightly declared him to be an enemy combatant and the North Pole to be a
part of the 'axis of evil.'

Asked where that left Mrs. Claus and the elves, Fleischer replied,
There is no doubt in the president's [sic] mind [sic] that they all are
terrorists and may be harboring weapons of mass destruction in North
Pole underground bunkers. If Claus himself doesn't give the president
[sic] some indication by 6 a.m., eastern time, Dec. 24 that he intends
to cooperate, troops will be dispatched to the North Pole to secure
Claus' compound. Then, should it pass that Claus is eliminated, Mrs.
Claus and the elves will be declared 'enemy combatants' and moved to an
undisclosed location.

Reached again late this afternoon, Santa responded to Fleischer's
remarks with a ho, ho, ho. He said, For such little people, they talk
big, don't they? Little do they know that Santa travels so fast that not
even if they flung every missile in their arsenal could they do him
harm. It's a shame,

Re: [CTRL] Israelis Execute 11 year old Palestinian Girl Terrorist

2002-12-24 Thread flw

-Caveat Lector-

 Morals? Both sides have committed evil atrocious acts. Again I state ( I
 know it's hard for this one to get through)- there is no moral high
ground
 to be had from any side here.

You are being coy and equivicating.By equating the acts of the oppressor
with the oppressed - the occupied with the occupier, you ARE expressing
a moral opinion - a bad moral opinion. Merely throwing up your hands
and saying 'a pox on both your houses' condones the basic evil of a
brutal occupation and the illegal annexation of another people's land
and heritage.

 Maybe there is a rule that 2 people can't post information from the same
 article. I must have missed it. Mea culpa.

But of course you did not simply 'post information.' Rather you posted
an editorial attacking my post as somehow improper because I only
quoted that part of the article reporting the murder of the 11 year old
girl by Israeli soldiers. Obviously I have no debate with one reading,
commenting upon or posting the entire article since I intentionally
cited the specific article reference.
flw

A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

[CTRL] Top Arab TV network to hit US market

2002-12-24 Thread flw

-Caveat Lector-

December 26, 2002 edition -
http://www.csmonitor.com/2002/1226/p01s04-wome.html

Top Arab TV network to hit US market
By Cameron W. Barr | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor
DOHA, QATAR - Coming to a screen near you: Al Jazeera in English.

The Arabic-language news network, notorious for broadcasting the statements
of Osama bin Laden and his Al Qaeda colleagues, plans to open an
English-language website in early 2003 and begin distributing
English-language news programming by satellite and cable late next year.

Since it began broadcasting in 1996, Al Jazeera has brought unprecedented
Arabic-language journalistic scrutiny to the regimes of the Middle East.
Now its executives and journalists say they want to provide English
speakers in the US and elsewhere with more accurate and informed reporting
about the world's most turbulent region.

Headquartered in this small, wealthy Persian Gulf kingdom, Al Jazeera has
won American praise for raising media standards in the Arab world, where
virtually all news outlets operate under some form of government control.
In efforts to address the Arab world directly, Secretary of State Colin
Powell and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld have granted the channel
interviews since Sept. 11, 2001. In mid-December, during a visit to Doha,
Mr. Rumsfeld scheduled another interview with the channel, but pulled out
following a testy exchange with an Al Jazeera reporter at a press
conference.

Al Jazeera, says Kenton Keith, a former US ambassador to Qatar, no more
than other news organizations, has a slant. Its slant happens to be one
most Americans are not comfortable with But the fact is that Al Jazeera
has revolutionized media in the Middle East.

For the long-range importance of press freedom in the Middle East and the
advantages that will ultimately have for the West, you have to be a
supporter of Al Jazeera, even if you have to hold your nose sometimes.

Oddly enough, Al Jazeera's journalists face severe restrictions in several
Middle East countries that are considered allies of the US. Saudi Arabia,
one of the US government's leading partners in the region, has never
allowed Al Jazeera to open an office; Bahrain, where the US Navy's Fifth
Fleet is based, has banned the network's journalists from visiting.

Two other US allies - Jordan and Kuwait - have shut down Al Jazeera bureaus
this year. They hate Al Jazeera, says chief editor Ibrahim Hilal,
because they hate transparency.

One explanation for the reluctance of these American allies to allow Al
Jazeera to function is that these regimes are defensive about media
coverage of their links to the US. At a time when many Arabs disparage the
US government's unstinting support for Israel and its moves against Iraq,
having America as a friend is delicate business.

It's a misleading connecting of the dots, counters a Western official
here who spoke on condition of anonymity. Al Jazeera has gone after
everyone, irrespective of their politics.

Syria - a country the US accuses of sponsoring terrorism - also has refused
to let the network open an office, and Libya withdrew its ambassador from
Qatar in last year out of pique with Al Jazeera, a step several Arab
governments have taken at one time or another.

On the other hand, Egypt, a leading US partner, allows Al Jazeera to
operate with relative freedom.

With the exception of Qatar - whose emir, Sheikh Hamad bin Khalifa
al-Thani, provided $150 million to bankroll the network from 1996 to 2001 -
Al Jazeera does indeed practice a take-no-prisoners brand of journalism.
Although Al Jazeera denies going soft on Qatar, many observers in the
region says the network treats the country and its leader with kid gloves.

In America, we have excellent relations with US officials, says Mr.
Hilal, a mild-mannered Egyptian who runs the news operations. The problem
sometimes is that regimes in the region try to convince Americans not to
help Al Jazeera.

Managing Director Mohamed Jasem al-Ali says Al Jazeera in Arabic has
135,000 subscribers in the US; the network hopes many more Americans will
access the English-language services. The expansion - which will include
the launch of an Arabic documentary channel next spring - is partly a
matter of economic necessity.

Mr. Ali says Sheikh Hamad is no longer funding Al Jazeera, so the company
must find new sources of revenue. Although the channel is widely watched in
the Middle East, popularity doesn't necessarily translate into profits.
Traditionally in the region, says al-Ali, advertising goes to channels
that have good relations with the government, something Al Jazeera rarely
enjoys.

Al Jazeera operated without a government subsidy last year, says Ali, but
he cannot say for certain that the channel will be able to pay its own way
this year. But opportunity - such as it is in the news business - is
presenting itself.

Just as CNN made its name during the 1991 Gulf war, Al Jazeera is gearing
up for extensive

[CTRL] Israeli Army continues `human shield' policy

2002-12-24 Thread flw

-Caveat Lector-

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=244727contrassI
D=2subContrassID=1sbSubContrassID=0listSrc=Y
IDF continues `human shield' policy, rights groups
claim

By Moshe Reinfeld

Human rights groups have told the High Court of Justice that the army is
continuing to use civilians as human shields in the territories, despite a
court order prohibiting its usage.

Yesterday, the rights groups responded to arguments raised by the IDF
regarding the total prohibition of the use of the neighbor practice, in
which the army uses neighbors of a wanted suspect as a human shield to get
the wanted suspect to hand himself over to the army.

The groups' response to the army included an affidavit from Ziyad Ziyad, an
UNWRA clerk, who said he was forced by the army at gunpoint to search for
his brother Mohammed, a Tubas man who was wanted by the security forces.

In another affidavit, Dr. Abed Nasser Dararma, a 40-year-old from Nablus,
said he was arrested a month ago by the army while traveling in an
ambulance on route from Qalqiliya to Nablus. The soldiers blindfolded him
and then marched him in front of them as they broke into three buildings.

Miriam Anab, 65, and Fadi Ashair, 21, neighbors in the same building in El
Bireh, said Ashair was used as a human shield while soldiers broke into
the building. A 42-year-old taxi driver, Nabhan Najar, from Yatma, near
Nablus, said he was stopped by the army six weeks ago at 2 A.M. and forced
to hand inspect items the soldiers suspected were bombs.

The use of human shields, said attorney Marwan Dalal of Adallah, is a
blatant violation of the Geneva Convention, noting that the International
Criminal Court in the Hague has convicted a Bosnian prison camp commander
for the use of civilians as human shields.

Three weeks ago, the army told the court it had given orders against the
use of Palestinians as human shields, although civilians can be used to
help - when there is no risk to the helper and the helper agrees to
the service. The army argued the Geneva Convention allows the use of such
helpers to warn civilians of an expected attack.


© Copyright 2002 Ha`aretz. All rights reserved

A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

Re: [CTRL] Israelis Execute 11 year old Palestinian Girl Terrorist

2002-12-24 Thread thew

-Caveat Lector-

on 12/24/02 10:02 PM, flw at [EMAIL PROTECTED] wrote:

 -Caveat Lector-

 Morals? Both sides have committed evil atrocious acts. Again I state ( I
 know it's hard for this one to get through)- there is no moral high
 ground
 to be had from any side here.

 You are being coy and equivicating.By equating the acts of the oppressor
 with the oppressed - the occupied with the occupier, you ARE expressing
 a moral opinion - a bad moral opinion. Merely throwing up your hands
 and saying 'a pox on both your houses' condones the basic evil of a
 brutal occupation and the illegal annexation of another people's land
 and heritage.



No. I condemn any brutal oppression.
I also condemn murder and terrorism.

See no equivocating. Nothing coy.


As to illegal - I'm not so sure. It was British land to give.
Other land was lost and gained in war. Are you going to disclaim all lands
won by conquest? That's ok with me, as long as we do it across the board. I
won't really miss Texas, and if they become Mexicans they can't send us any
more Presidents.

We bought Manhattan, but the rest of you motherfukkas might think about
packing your bags.





 Maybe there is a rule that 2 people can't post information from the same
 article. I must have missed it. Mea culpa.

 But of course you did not simply 'post information.' Rather you posted
 an editorial attacking my post as somehow improper because I only
 quoted that part of the article reporting the murder of the 11 year old
 girl by Israeli soldiers. Obviously I have no debate with one reading,
 commenting upon or posting the entire article since I intentionally
 cited the specific article reference.
 flw



Improper? I repeat - the word I used was brilliant

I reread my initial post again, to be sure - can you show me my editorial
attack? My claims of unfair? Improper?


-- -  --- - --- ---
Complete liberty of contradicting our opinion is the very condition which
justifies us in assuming its truth.


John Stuart Mill




NEURONAUTIC INSTITUTE on-line: http://home.earthlink.net/~thew

A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A
DECLARATION  DISCLAIMER
==
CTRL is a discussion  informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic
screeds are unwelcomed. Substancenot soap-boxingplease!  These are
sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'with its many half-truths, mis-
directions and outright fraudsis used politically by different groups with
major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought.
That being said, CTRLgives no endorsement to the validity of posts, and
always suggests to readers; be wary of what you read. CTRL gives no
credence to Holocaust denial and nazi's need not apply.

Let us please be civil and as always, Caveat Lector.

Archives Available at:
http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html
 A HREF=http://peach.ease.lsoft.com/archives/ctrl.html;Archives of
[EMAIL PROTECTED]/A

http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/
 A HREF=http:[EMAIL PROTECTED]/;ctrl/A

To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

To UNsubscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email:
SIGNOFF CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED]

Om

[CTRL] ANSIR - A holiday disinfo gift cooked up in the bowels of the FBI?

2002-12-24 Thread goldi316

-Caveat Lector-

A holiday disinfo gift cooked up in the bowels of the FBI?

December 19, 2002
[From the Editor's Desk - Online Journal
http://onlinejournal.com/Editor_sDesk/editor_sdesk.html]

In his article [included below] FBI Warns Corporate Leaders Of Possible
Attacks By Antiwar Activists, Bill Berkowitz reports that the FBI's
Awareness of National Security Issues and Response (ANSIR) program sent
an email advisory on Dec. 4 to thousands of corporate security
professionals, warning that 'a loose network of antiwar groups'
opposed 'to possible U.S. military action against Iraq, are advocating
explicit and direct attack upon the war machine.'

The advisory claims, according to Berkowitz, that the week of Dec. 1521
(this week) has been set aside as a 'week of action against
warmongering.' That an Internet posting by a group calling itself
'Every Day a Circle Day' has 'called for attacks on the headquarter
facilities and other assets of oil companies and defense contractors,
singling out Boeing and Lockheed Martin,' claims the FBI e-mail. It also
points out that 'Department of Defense (DoD) assets also represent
potential targets for attack.'

Shades of the '60s. Or to paraphrase Yogi Berra, is it déjà vu all over
again? Remember COINTELPRO? And you thought that was no more, eh?

Totally intrigued by this latest FBI goody, how could I not go hunting
for this mysterious Every Day a Circle Day group? I ran the name through
Google and up popped a link to Infoshop News. Toward the bottom of the
page, I found (and do click the below link to read the whole madnesspay
attention to the name change from Every Day a Circle Day to Circle Day
Cell, shoddy workand the comments of skeptics who deem this is the
handiwork of Big Brother):

CALL FOR DEC. 21 WORLDWIDE WEEK OF ACTION AGAINST WARMONGERING
http://www.infoshop.org/inews/stories.php?story=02/10/19/8397714

Posted by Every Day A Circle Day on Wednesday, Oct. 19, 2002, at 4:53
a.m. PDT

December 21st is the date of winter solstice, the day of the most
darkness, a legendary time of revolution and change. This is a call for
actions that will begin on Dec 15th and culminate on the 21stunder
cover of full darkness and with the full force of our spirits.

This is a call for an explicit and direct attack upon the war machine.
This call is soliciting damages. This is a call for resistance, not
merely demonstration or advocacy, or scripted acts of civil
disobedience where all the participants politely go to jail.

This is what we pay the FBI for? Really, fellas, this is as crummy as
the noisy phone taps you used in the '60s and '70s. I'll wager, though,
that you have those corporate wusses shaking in their boots.


What's The ANSIR?
FBI Warns Corporate Leaders Of Possible Attacks By Antiwar Activists

Bill Berkowitz is a long time political observer and columnist.


At a time when the peace movement appears to be gaining traction, it is
troubling to read the latest e-mail advisory from the FBI's Awareness of
National Security Issues and Response (ANSIR) program. A December 4
communication, sent to thousands of corporate security professionals,
warns that a loose network of antiwar groups opposed to possible U.S.
military action against Iraq, are advocating 'explicit and direct attack
upon the war machine.'

According to the advisory, the week of December 15-21 has been set aside
as a week of action against warmongering. An Internet posting by a
group calling itself Every Day a Circle Day has called for attacks on
the headquarter facilities and other assets of oil companies and defense
contractors, singling out Boeing and Lockheed Martin, claims the FBI
e-mail. It also points out that Department of Defense (DoD) assets also
represent potential targets for attack.

Other possible targets, says the e-mail, could include major media
companies by 'sanitizing' newspaper vending machines, jamming or
hijacking radio and television signals, or attacking broadcast towers
and damaging equipment.

Does the FBI know more about upcoming activities of the antiwar movement
than the antiwar movement itself? Or is its recent communiqué a blatant
attempt to scare the public, smear the antiwar movement and discourage
antiwar protests?

Jason Mark, the Communication's Director at Global Exchange, the Bay
Area-based international human rights group, said neither he nor his
colleagues had heard of Every Day a Circle Day. He did, however, think
that the timing of the ANSIR advisory was suspicious.

Clearly this is a time when the antiwar movement is reaching more and
more people, and we believe we are beginning to affect the debate over
going to war with Iraq, said Mark. The administration is obviously
concerned that support for war is eroding with recent polls showing that
four out of 10 Americans are against a war with Iraq.

Global Exchange is one of more than 100 peace, social justice and
religious organizations that have joined together to form United For
Peace, a new nationwide

[CTRL] [Fwd: America's First Anti-Globalization Protest - The Boston Tea Party

2002-12-24 Thread goldi316

-Caveat Lector-

Pour yourself a cup and have a read!  This is a bit long, but HIGHLY
educational about a pivotal event in our country's founding, and how it
relates to our current situation.  Despite the fact that I was top of my
grammar school graduating class in American History (and was awarded a medal
from the Daughters of the American Revolution for Excellence in US History),
and despite the fact that this period was my favorite overall, I KNOW the
version of the Tea Party I was taught was nowhere near this.  This is a
first-person account, perhaps the only one on record.

Amazing, but it seems we are again at the same crossroads.


 America's First Anti-Globalization Protest
 The Boston Tea Party

 By Thom Hartmann

 I shall therefore conclude with a proposal that your watchmen be
 instructed, as they go on their rounds, to call out every night, half-
 past twelve, Beware of the East India Company.

 -Pamphlet signed by Rusticus, 1773

 Now that Bush administration Treasury Secretary and former Alcoa CEO
 Paul O'Neill has publicly called for the complete elimination of all
 corporate income taxes (and the elimination of Social Security), many
 people are wondering if history is repeating itself in a way that may
 be particularly dangerous for democracy.

 Conventional wisdom has it that the 1773 Tea Act - a tax law passed
 in London that led to the Boston Tea Party - was simply an increase
 in the taxes on tea paid by American colonists. In reality, however,
 the Tea Act gave the world's largest transnational corporation - The
 East India Company - full and unlimited access to the American tea
 trade, and exempted the Company from having to pay taxes to Britain
 on tea exported to the American colonies. It even gave the Company a
 tax refund on millions of pounds of tea they were unable to sell and
 holding in inventory.

 The primary purpose of the Tea Act was to increase the profitability
 of the East India Company to its stockholders (which included the
 King and the wealthy elite that kept him secure in power), and to
 help the Company drive its colonial small-business competitors out of
 business. Because the Company no longer had to pay high taxes to
 England and held a monopoly on the tea it sold in the American
 colonies, it was able to lower its tea prices to undercut the prices
 of the local importers and the mom-and-pop tea merchants and tea
 houses in every town in America.

 This infuriated the independence-minded American colonists, who were
 wholly unappreciative of their colonies being used as a profit center
 for the world's largest multinational corporation, The East India
 Company. They resented their small businesses still having to pay the
 higher, pre-Tea Act taxes without having any say or vote in the
 matter. (Thus, the cry of no taxation without representation!) Even
 in the official British version of the history, the 1773 Tea Act was
 a legislative maneuver by the British ministry of Lord North to make
 English tea marketable in America with a goal of helping the East
 India Company quickly sell 17 million pounds of tea stored in
 England

 America's first entrepreneurs' protest

 This economics-driven view of American History piqued my curiosity
 when I first discovered it. So when I came upon an original first
 edition of one of this nation's earliest history books, I made a
 sizeable investment to buy it to read the thoughts of somebody who
 had actually been alive and participated in the Boston Tea Party and
 subsequent American Revolution. I purchased from an antiquarian book
 seller an original copy of Retrospect of the Boston Tea Party with a
 Memoir of George R.T. Hewes, a Survivor of the Little Band of
 Patriots Who Drowned the Tea in Boston Harbor in 1773, published in
 New York by S. S. Bliss in 1834.

 Because the identities of the Boston Tea Party participants were
 hidden (other than Samuel Adams) and all were sworn to secrecy for
 the next fifty years, this account (published 61 years later) is
 singularly rare and important, as it's the only actual first-person
 account of the event by a participant that exists, so far as I can
 find. And turning its brittle, age-colored pages and looking at
 printing on unevenly-sized sheets, typeset by hand and printed on a
 small hand press almost two hundred years ago, was both fascinating
 and exciting. Even more interesting was the perspective of the
 anonymous (by a citizen of New York) author and of Hewes, whom the
 author extensively interviewed for the book.

 Although Hewes' name is today largely lost in history, he was
 apparently well known in colonial times and during the 19th century.
 Esther Forbes' classic 1942 biography of Paul Revere, which depended
 heavily on Paul Revere's many volumes of papers and numerous late
 18th and early 19th century sources, mentions Hewes repeatedly
 throughout her book. For example, when young Paul Revere went off to
 join the British army in the spring of 1756, he took

[CTRL] Many Tools of Big Brother Are Up and Running, The New York Times

2002-12-24 Thread Steve Wingate

-Caveat Lector-

--- Forwarded message follows ---
To: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
From:   H.F.C. Buma [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Subject:IUFO: Many Tools of Big Brother Are Up and Running, The New 
York
Times
Date sent:  Mon, 23 Dec 2002 18:46:30 +0100
Send reply to:  [EMAIL PROTECTED]

December 23, 2002
Associated Press
Charlie Moss, a highway operations technician, monitors traffic flow in
Hanover, Md. Such bits of oversight are already ubiquitous.

Many Tools of Big Brother Are Up and Running

By JOHN MARKOFF and JOHN SCHWARTZ

380b84.jpgn the Pentagon research effort to detect terrorism by
electronically monitoring the civilian population, the most remarkable
detail may be this: Most of the pieces of the system are already in place.

Because of the inroads the Internet and other digital network technologies
have made into everyday life over the last decade, it is increasingly
possible to amass Big Brother-like surveillance powers through Little
Brother means. The basic components include everyday digital technologies
like e-mail, online shopping and travel booking, A.T.M. systems, cellphone
networks, electronic toll-collection systems and credit-card payment terminals.

In essence, the Pentagon's main job would be to spin strands of software
technology that would weave these sources of data into a vast electronic
dragnet.

Technologists say the types of computerized data sifting and pattern
matching that might flag suspicious activities to government agencies and
coordinate their surveillance are not much different from programs already
in use by private companies. Such programs spot unusual credit card
activity, for example, or let people at multiple locations collaborate on a
project.

The civilian population, in other words, has willingly embraced the
technical prerequisites for a national surveillance system that Pentagon
planners are calling
http://www.nytimes.com/redirect/marketwatch/redirect.ctx?MW=http://custom.marketwatch.com/custom/nyt-com/html-companyprofile.aspsymb=TOT.WSTotal
Information Awareness. The development has a certain historical resonance
because it was the Pentagon's research agency that in the 1960's financed
the technology that led directly to the modern Internet. Now the same
agency  the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agenccy, or Darpa  is
relying on commercial technology that has evolved ffrom the network it
pioneered.

The first generation of the Internet  called the Arpanet   consisted of
electronic mail and file transfer software that connected people to people.
The second generation connected people to databases and other information
via the World Wide Web. Now a new generation of software connects computers
directly to computers.

Nicole Bengiveno/NYT; Laura Pedrick for NYT
 From cellphone conversations to tollbooth collections systems, a great
deal of apparently innocuous information could reveal patterns when
filtered through software. The idea of creating a vast electronic dragnet
is one some consider outlandishly futuristic, though others say it is
attainable.

Associated Press
The Portland International Jetport captured this now-famous image of two
Sept. 11 hijackers on their way to Boston to catch American Airlines Flight
11.

And that is the key to the Total Information Awareness project, which is
overseen by John M. Poindexter, the former national security adviser under
President Ronald Reagan. Dr. Poindexter was convicted in 1990 of a felony
for his role in the Iran-contra affair, but that conviction was overturned
by a federal appeals court because he had been granted immunity for his
testimony before Congress about the case.

Although Dr. Poindexter's system has come under widespread criticism from
Congress and civil liberties groups, a prototype is already in place and
has been used in tests by military intelligence organizations.

Total Information Awareness could link for the first time such different
electronic sources as video feeds from airport surveillance cameras, credit
card transactions, airline reservations and telephone calling records. The
data would be filtered through software that would constantly look for
suspicious patterns of behavior.

The idea is for law enforcement or intelligence agencies to be alerted
immediately to patterns in otherwise unremarkable sets of data that might
indicate threats, allowing rapid reviews by human analysts. For example, a
cluster of foreign visitors who all took flying lessons in separate parts
of the country might not attract attention. Nor would it necessarily raise
red flags if all those people reserved airline tickets for the same day.
But a system that could detect both sets of actions might raise suspicions.

Some computer scientists wonder whether the system can work. This wouldn't
have been possible without the modern Internet, and even now it's a
daunting task, said Dorothy Denning, a professor in the Department of

[CTRL] Who Really Killed Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.?