[CTRL] US Army Study Criticizes Bush War on Terror
-Caveat Lector- washingtonpost.com Study Published by Army Criticizes War on Terror's Scope By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer Monday, January 12, 2004; Page A12 A scathing new report published by the Army War College broadly criticizes the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism, accusing it of taking a detour into an unnecessary war in Iraq and pursuing an unrealistic quest against terrorism that may lead to U.S. wars with states that pose no serious threat. The report, by Jeffrey Record, a visiting professor at the Air War College at Maxwell Air Force Base in Alabama, warns that as a result of those mistakes, the Army is near the breaking point. It recommends, among other things, scaling back the scope of the global war on terrorism and instead focusing on the narrower threat posed by the al Qaeda terrorist network. [T]he global war on terrorism as currently defined and waged is dangerously indiscriminate and ambitious, and accordingly . . . its parameters should be readjusted, Record writes. Currently, he adds, the anti-terrorism campaign is strategically unfocused, promises more than it can deliver, and threatens to dissipate U.S. military resources in an endless and hopeless search for absolute security. Record, a veteran defense specialist and author of six books on military strategy and related issues, was an aide to then-Sen. Sam Nunn when the Georgia Democrat was chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee. In discussing his political background, Record also noted that in 1999 while on the staff of the Air War College, he published work critical of the Clinton administration. His essay, published by the Army War College's Strategic Studies Institute, carries the standard disclaimer that its views are those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of the Army, the Pentagon or the U.S. government. But retired Army Col. Douglas C. Lovelace Jr., director of the Strategic Studies Institute, whose Web site carries Record's 56-page monograph, hardly distanced himself from it. I think that the substance that Jeff brings out in the article really, really needs to be considered, he said. Publication of the essay was approved by the Army War College's commandant, Maj. Gen. David H. Huntoon Jr., Lovelace said. He said he and Huntoon expected the study to be controversial, but added, He considers it to be under the umbrella of academic freedom. Larry DiRita, the top Pentagon spokesman, said he had not read the Record study. He added: If the conclusion is that we need to be scaling back in the global war on terrorism, it's not likely to be on my reading list anytime soon. Many of Record's arguments, such as the contention that Saddam Hussein's Iraq was deterred and did not present a threat, have been made by critics of the administration. Iraq, he concludes, was a war-of-choice distraction from the war of necessity against al Qaeda. But it is unusual to have such views published by the War College, the Army's premier academic institution. In addition, the essay goes further than many critics in examining the Bush administration's handling of the war on terrorism. Record's core criticism is that the administration is biting off more than it can chew. He likens the scale of U.S. ambitions in the war on terrorism to Adolf Hitler's overreach in World War II. A cardinal rule of strategy is to keep your enemies to a manageable number, he writes. The Germans were defeated in two world wars . . . because their strategic ends outran their available means. He also scoffs at the administration's policy, laid out by Bush in a November speech, of seeking to transform and democratize the Middle East. The potential policy payoff of a democratic and prosperous Middle East, if there is one, almost certainly lies in the very distant future, he writes. The basis on which this democratic domino theory rests has never been explicated. He also casts doubt on whether the U.S. government will maintain its commitment to the war. The political, fiscal, and military sustainability of the GWOT [global war on terrorism] remains to be seen, he states. The essay concludes with several recommendations. Some are fairly noncontroversial, such as increasing the size of the Army and Marine Corps, a position that appears to be gathering support in Congress. But he also says the United States should scale back its ambitions in Iraq, and be prepared to settle for a friendly autocracy there rather than a genuine democracy. To read the full report, go to washingtonpost.com/nation © 2004 The Washington Post Company www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis used politically by different groups with major and minor effects
[CTRL] The Bush Gang
-Caveat Lector- http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/sunday/commentary/la-op-phillips11jan11,1,59 027 The Barreling Bushes Four generations of the dynasty have chased profits through cozy ties with Mideast leaders, spinning webs of conflicts of interest By Kevin Phillips Kevin Phillips' new book, American Dynasty: Aristocracy, Fortune and the Politics of Deceit in the House of Bush, has just been published by Viking Penguin. January 11, 2004 WASHINGTON - Dynasties in American politics are dangerous. We saw it with the Kennedys, we may well see it with the Clintons and we're certainly seeing it with the Bushes. Between now and the November election, it's crucial that Americans come to understand how four generations of the current president's family have embroiled the United States in the Middle East through CIA connections, arms shipments, rogue banks, inherited war policies and personal financial links. As early as 1964, George H.W. Bush, running for the U.S. Senate from Texas, was labeled by incumbent Democrat Ralph Yarborough as a hireling of the sheik of Kuwait, for whom Bush's company drilled offshore oil wells. Over the four decades since then, the ever-reaching Bushes have emerged as the first U.S. political clan to thoroughly entangle themselves with Middle Eastern royal families and oil money. The family even has links to the Bin Ladens - though not to family black sheep Osama bin Laden - going back to the 1970s. How these unusual relationships helped bring about 9/11 and then distorted the U.S. response to Islamic terrorism requires thinking of the Bush family as a dynasty. The two Bush presidencies are inextricably linked by that dynasty. The first family member lured by the Middle East's petroleum wealth was George W. Bush's great-grandfather, George H. Walker, a buccaneer who was president of Wall Street-based W.A. Harriman Co. In the 1920s, Walker and his firm participated in rebuilding the Baku oil fields only a few hundred miles north of current-day Iraq. As senior director of Dresser Industries (now part of Halliburton), Walker's son-in-law Prescott Bush (George W. Bush's grandfather) became involved with the Middle East in the years after World War II. But it was George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, who forged the dynasty's strongest ties to the region. George H.W. Bush was the first CIA director to come from the oil industry. He went on to became the first vice president - and then the first president - to have either an oil or CIA background. This helps to explain his persistent bent toward the Middle East, covert operations and rogue banks like the Abu Dhabi-based Bank of Credit and Commerce International (BCCI), which came to be known by the nickname Bank of Crooks and Criminals International. In each of the government offices he held, he encouraged CIA involvement in Iran, Pakistan, Afghanistan and other Middle Eastern countries, and he pursued policies that helped make the Middle East into the world's primary destination for arms shipments. Taking the CIA helm in January 1976, Bush cemented strong relations with the intelligence services of both Saudi Arabia and the shah of Iran. He worked closely with Kamal Adham, the head of Saudi intelligence, brother-in-law of King Faisal and an early BCCI insider. After leaving the CIA in January 1977, Bush became chairman of the executive committee of First International Bancshares and its British subsidiary, where, according to journalists Peter Truell and Larry Gurwin in their 1992 book False Profits, Bush traveled on the bank's behalf and sometimes marketed to international banks in London, including several Middle Eastern institutions. Once in the White House, first as vice president to Ronald Reagan and later as president, George H.W. Bush was linked to at least two Middle East-centered scandals. It's never been entirely clear what Bush's connection was to the Iran-Contra affair, in which clandestine arms shipments to Iran, some BCCI-financed, helped illegally fund the operations of the anti-Sandinista Contra rebels in Nicaragua. But in 1992, special prosecutor Lawrence E. Walsh asserted that Bush, despite his protestations, had indeed been in the loop on multiple illegal acts. Much clearer was Bush's pivotal role, both as vice president and president, in Iraqgate, the hidden aid provided by the U.S. and its military to Saddam Hussein's Iraq in its high-stakes war with Iran during the 1980s. The U.S. is known to have provided both biological cultures that could have been used for weapons and nuclear know-how to the regime, as well as conventional weapons. As ABC-TV broadcaster Ted Koppel put it in a June 1992 Nightline program after the 1991 Persian Gulf War: It is becoming increasingly clear that George [H.W.] Bush, operating largely behind the scenes through the 1980s, initiated and supported much of the financing, intelligence and military help that built Saddam's Iraq into the aggressive power that the
[CTRL] Mad Cows Jump Over US Moon
-Caveat Lector- The Guardian Culture of indifference leaves America open to BSE Suzanne Goldenberg talks to insiders who warn of failings in a lax inspection regime Monday January 12, 2004 When the first case of mad cow disease was diagnosed in America a caustic joke began the rounds of the vets and food inspectors who monitor safety standards at the meat packing plants. It was no surprise, it went, that a sick animal had been brought to the slaughter, but it was absolutely shocking that the discovery had ever become public. That's the point where something went wrong with the system - that it became public, a manager with nearly 30 years' service in the agriculture department's food safety and inspection service told the Guardian. Among ourselves, we think our inspection system is the lowest in the world. The senior safety source and others with an inside view of the US meat industry questioned by the Guardian describe a culture of indifference towards the threat of BSE. In the slaughterhouses and meat packing plants, vets and food safety inspectors say: · policies favour the beef industry at the expense of consumer safety; · testing for BSE is rare and haphazard, and carried out by people with minimal training in the disorder; · discussion of the disease by regulators was discouraged; · government agencies fail to enforce their own safety standards. Until December 23, when the government officially acknowledged the outbreak of BSE in a herd in Washington state, the regulatory agencies repeatedly overlooked warnings by their own safety inspectors, and the experience of Europe. By the time the outbreak was identified meat from the infected cow had been shipped to seven US states and the Pacific territory of Guam. The authorities have yet to trace more than 70 other cows in the herd, which entered the US from Alberta, Canada, and which presumably were given the livestock feed which is the main vehicle of transmission for BSE. The allegations of bureaucratic short-sightedness, more than 10 years after BSE (bovine spongiform encephalopathy) devastated British beef farming, is all the more astounding because America had advance warning. In May last year Canada announced its own outbreak of the disease. But the vets and inspectors responsible for assuring the safety of America's food supply detected no policy shifts. Rather, they watched their influence dwindle under policies which favoured the self-regulation of the $40bn beef industry. Nor has there been a radical overhaul of safety measures, despite Washington's repeated assurances to domestic consumers and to the 43 countries that have banned its meat products that US beef is safe to eat. The agriculture secretary, Ann Veneman, banned the killing of downer cows (those too weak or sick to amble into the slaughterhouses) for human consumption, and the use of brain, spinal cord and other tissues which are thought to be more likely to carry BSE. She also pledged that the US would double its testing of suspect animals for BSE. But the Guardian's source said he had seen no genuine commitment to a more rigorous safety regime. If you are really serious, you are geared to find a particular disease, he said. You focus, you train, you give all the support that is needed. You have tests. And you are very much more open. He described a regime in which vets became increasingly demoralised at the loss of their regulatory powers. Taboo The agriculture authorities discouraged inspectors from expanding testing procedures at slaughterhouses. Nor were there any clear procedures, a lapse which allowed an inspector to pass the meat of a suspect cow last month without waiting for the test results. That was the cow that had BSE. It was taboo a long time in the food safety inspection service to even talk about BSE, he said. Others engaged in the American food supply chain share his sense of disillusion. Tomorrow the Government Accountability Project, the leading whistleblower organisation in the US, will produce statements by a number of agriculture department inspectors saying that the BSE testing regime is haphazard, and not entirely under the control of government agents. Such revelations are unlikely to be received kindly by the department, which has worked hard to reassure consumers and protect the industry. But they are in line with the fears of activists who have been arguing for years that US food safety is hostage to the powerful lobby of cattle ranchers and meat packers. The Physicians' Committee for Responsible Medicine, a Washington advocacy group, says 11 of Ms Veneman's senior advisers are drawn from the beef and dairy industries. Other critics point out that the industry has given $22m to political parties, mainly the Republicans, since 1990. The committee argues that the advisers' closeness to the industry has blocked the introduction of controls which could have reduced the risk of BSE. They have focused more on protecting industry
Re: [CTRL] PESTICIDE LINK TO MAD COW DISEASE: 450 DEATHS of CALFS..WHY????
-Caveat Lector- Who is mandating this...and why isn't anyone speaking out about reason in this case. I feel badly about the calfs, young animals, probably none of whom are infected...their lives shattered, destroyed...quickly for no real reason. E. Murray. Misplaced concern. Those calves were doomed to slaughter regardless of any threat of Mad Cow. Probably better off killed now then consigned to tiny dark boxes where they are raised for veal. flw www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] SaddamGate - The Story Continues
-Caveat Lector- Saddam's capture: was a deal brokered behind the scenes? When it emerged that the Kurds had captured the Iraqi dictator, the US celebrations evaporated. David Pratt asks whether a secret political trade-off has been engineered For a story that three weeks ago gripped the world's imagination, it has now all but dropped off the radar. Peculiar really, for if one thing might have been expected in the aftermath of Saddam Hussein's capture, it was the endless political and media mileage that the Bush administration would get out of it . After all, for 249 days Saddam's elusiveness had been a symbol of America's ineptitude in Iraq, and, at last, with his capture came the long-awaited chance to return some flak to the Pentagon's critics. It also afforded the opportunity to demonstrate the effectiveness of America's elite covert and intelligence units such as Task Force 20 and Greyfox . And it was a terrific chance for the perfect photo-op showing the American soldier, and Time magazine's Person of the Year, hauling High Value Target Number One out of his filthy spiderhole in the village of al-Dwar. Then along came that story: the one about the Kurds beating the US Army in the race to find Saddam first, and details of Operation Red Dawn suddenly began to evaporate. US Army spokesmen - so effusive in the immediate wake of Saddam's capture - no longer seemed willing to comment, or simply went to ground. But rumours of the crucial Kurdish role persisted, even though it now seems their previously euphoric spokesmen have now, similarly, been afflicted by an inexplicable bout of reticence. It was two weeks ago that the Sunday Herald revealed how a Kurdish special forces unit belonging to the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) had spearheaded and tracked down Saddam, sealing off the al-Dwar farmhouse long before the arrival of the US forces. PUK leader Jalal Talabani had chosen to leak the news and details of the operation's commander, Qusrut Rasul Ali, to the Iranian media long before Saddam 's capture was reported by the mainstream Western press or confirmed by the US military. By the time Western press agencies were running the same story, the entire emphasis had changed however, and the ousted Iraqi president had been captured in a raid by US forces backed by Kurdish fighters. In the intervening few weeks that troublesome Kurdish story has gone around the globe, picked up by newspapers from The Sydney Morning Herald to the US Christian Science Monitor, as well as the Kurdish press. While Washington and the PUK remain schtum, further confirmation that the Kurds were way ahead in Saddam's capture continues to leak out. According to one Israeli source who was in the company of Kurds at a meeting in Athens early on December 14, one of the Kurdish representatives burst into the conference room in tears and demanded an immediate halt to the discussions. Saddam Hussein has been captured, he said, adding that he had received word from Kurdistan - before any television reports. According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, the delegate also confirmed that most of the information leading to the deposed dictator's arrest had come from the Kurds and - as our earlier Sunday Herald report revealed - who had organised their own intelligence network which had been trying to uncover Saddam's tracks for months. The delegate further claimed that six months earlier the Kurds had discovered that Saddam's wife was in the Tikrit area. This intelligence, most likely obtained by Qusrut Rasul Ali and his PUK special forces unit, was transferred to the Americans. The Kurds, however, are said to have never received any follow-up from the coalition forces on this vital tip-off and were furious. Whatever the full extent of their undoubted involvement in providing intelligence or actively participating on the ground in Saddam's capture, the Kurds, and the PUK in particular, would benefit handsomely. Apart from a trifling $25 million bounty, their status would have been substantially boosted in Washington, which may in part explain the recent vociferous Kurdish reassertion of their long-term political ambitions in the new Iraq. For their own part the Kurds have already launched a political arrangement designed to secure their aspirations with respect to autonomy, if not nationalist or separatist aspirations. To show how serious they are, the two main Kurdish groups, the PUK and the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP), have decided to close ranks and set up a joint Kurdish administration, with jobs being divided between the two camps. They have made it clear to the Americans that their leadership has a responsibility to their constituency. Last week Massoud Barzani, leader of the KDP, called for a revision of the power-transfer agreement signed between the US-led coalition and Iraq's interim governing council to recognise Kurdish rights. The November 15 agreement calls for the creation of a national assembly
[CTRL] Conventional Wisdom Was Correct - Neocons and Bush Wrong
-Caveat Lector- The untold remarkable story is how a small bunch of crazed ideologues were able to capture control of American Foreign Policy and bring the nation to war against all the predictions of the Washington Establishment. I guess it is the old story. Once you control the brain of the King, the Kingdom will follow. So much for our 'constitutional republic'. flw washingtonpost.com Foresight Was 20/20 By Jackson Diehl Monday, January 5, 2004; Page A17 The Bush administration has been hammered for failing to anticipate or plan for the many problems of postwar Iraq or to set aside the money to pay for them. Its spokesmen insist, as they did before the war, that there was no way of knowing in advance what challenges might come up and what it might take to meet them. Yet, looking back at what Washington's foreign policy community expected from an intervention in Iraq, it's striking how much of the trouble the U.S. mission now faces was accurately and publicly predicted. On my desk is a pile of more than a dozen studies and pieces of congressional testimony on the likely conditions of postwar Iraq, prepared before the invasion by think tanks of the left, center and right, by task forces of veteran diplomats and area experts, and by freelancing academics. The degree of consensus was remarkable: Iraq's reconstruction would be long and costly, violence was likely and goodwill toward the United States probably wouldn't last for long. Who could have foreseen the Sunni insurgency that is slowly bleeding U.S. forces? Well, for one, Amatzia Baram, a well-known expert on Iraq. In a paper included in a survey published by the Washington Institute for Near East Policy in September 2002, Baram predicted that U.S. soldiers would represent an ideal target for underground Baath cells, al Qaeda terrorists, Shiite fundamentalists. The United States, he concluded, would be on the horns of a dilemma. If it evacuated its military forces soon after toppling Saddam, it would be unable to ensure the new regime's stability. If U.S. troops remained in Iraqi cities, however, they would be in harm's way. Phoebe Marr, another leading specialist on Iraq, also warned of a nationalist backlash. In six months or a year, she told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee 10 days before the war, some opposition [will] surface. She added: This presents us with a dilemma, and we will have to make tradeoffs. To get real political and social change -- a constitutional regime, for example -- will take time. But the longer we stay, the more we risk generating national resentment and opposition. The resistance might not now be so great, of course, if the occupation administration had not dissolved the Iraqi army -- an error that several of the pre-war studies warned against. The army could serve as a guarantor of peace and stability, said one commission chaired by former ambassadors Edward P. Djerejian and Frank G. Wisner. The army ought to be downsized and revamped . . . but this ought to be done gradually and without deliberately humiliating its members, counseled the International Crisis Group. Nor, it turns out, was it so hard to predict how much the war would cost or how many troops might be needed. A Council on Foreign Relations task force report cited a range of 75,000 to 200,000 U.S. soldiers; there are 130,000 there now. Former State Department official James Dobbins stressed in a footnote that this is not a commitment America alone can long sustain. As for costs, most of the independent estimates fell between $100 billion and $200 billion; William D. Nordhaus of Yale published a widely quoted study predicting direct costs of $150 billion to $740 billion over 10 years. So far, the Bush administration has committed to spend more than $160 billion in the first two years. It's not that these predictions weren't heard inside the administration; some were echoed by the State Department's own postwar Iraq project. But the small group of Pentagon civilians who monopolized control over the occupation chose to ignore the expert opinion -- they were more swayed by Iraqi exiles, who insisted the country could be rapidly transformed if only existing institutions, such as the army, were completely dismantled. L. Paul Bremer, who took charge of the Coalition Provisional Authority in June, confessed that until his appointment he had been absorbed by his private-sector career and hadn't read most of the Iraq studies. It's not too late to listen to some of the advice. The most serious problems foreseen by the experts have not yet materialized but may do so this year. One is the drive of the Kurdish leadership to acquire more territory and autonomy than the rest of Iraq can tolerate, which could touch off a civil war or foreign intervention. Another is the danger that an Iraqi provisional government will be created too quickly, causing it to be perceived as a U.S. puppet. Summing up the Washington Institute's collection of papers, Patrick
[CTRL] Flak jackets on for 2004
-Caveat Lector- Mr Bush has one priority for 2004: Get America out of Iraq. Fast. Iraq is breaking up into rebels and collaborators, with a vast heap of innocent bodies turning up each day at the morgues. By Robert Fisk The Independent (UK) - January 2, 2003: Ever since Daniel Pipes - he of the failed American neo-cons - piped up last summer with his plan to install a democratic-minded autocrat (sic) in Iraq, I have been eyeing the Washington crystal ball for further signs of what the designers of this wretched war have in store for the Iraqis whom they liberated for democracy last year. And bingo, not long before Christmas, another of those chilling proposals for New Iraq popped up from the same right-wing cabal. Any predictions for Iraq this year may thus have to be based on the thoughts of Leslie Gelb, a former chairman of the United States Council on Foreign Relations, whose wretched plans for liberated Iraq call for something close to ethnic cleansing. In no less an organ than The New York Times - the same paper which carried a plea last year that Americans should accept that US troops will commit atrocities in Iraq - appeared Mr Gelb's Three State Solution, an astonishing combination of simplicity and ruthlessness. It goes like this. America should create three mini-states in Iraq - Kurds in the north, Sunnis in the centre and Shias in the south - the frontiers of these three entities drawn along ethnic, sectarian lines. The general idea, says Mr Gelb, is to strengthen the Kurds and Shias and weaken the Sunnis. Thus US forces can extricate themselves from the quagmire of the Sunni triangle while the troublesome and domineering Sunnis themselves - with no control over Iraq's northern or southern oil fields - will be in a more moderate frame of mind. True, the chopping up of Iraq might be a messy and dangerous enterprise - tens of thousands of Iraqis, after all, would be thrown out of their homes and pushed across new frontiers - but Washington should, if necessary, impose partition by force. This is the essence of the Gelb plan. Bosnia comes to mind. Or Kosovo. But if it gets us out of Iraq, who's going to complain when we - the famous coalition of the willing - push those recalcitrant, ungrateful Iraqis into the same kind of divide and rule colonial world for which the Americans always used to excoriate the British. It's important not to regard all this as the meandering of Washington think-tanks. Pipes and Gelb and their friends helped to build the foundations of this war, and their ideas are intended to further weaken Iraq as a nation - and thus the Arab world as a whole - while maintaining American military power. Already, the sectarian nature of New Iraq has been established by Washington's proconsul in Baghad, Paul Bremer. His Governing Council is made up of Shias, Sunnis and Kurds in direct proportion to their share of the population. The Shias, who form 60 per cent of the country, expect to take effective power in the Iraqi national elections this year - this, after all, is the only reason why the Shia clergy have not urged their people to join the anti-American insurgency - and the Americans and British understand this all too well. Like so many of those Arab nations created by the French and British amid the wreckage of the Ottoman empire after the First World War, Iraq is to be governed along sectarian lines. So the coming months are not difficult to comprehend. As the insurgency continues - and as President Bush's re-election drama grows nearer - the US administration will be ever more anxious to do two things: to insist that America will stay the course - and to get out as quickly as possible. There will be ever more policemen hired, ever more militias, ever more ex-members of Saddam's old secret service, to act as sandbags between Iraqi guerillas and the Americans. Already - with Iraqi cops taking the most casualties - this is coming about. The Iraqi world is now breaking up into rebels and collaborators, with a vast heap of innocent Iraqi bodies - of children playing beside roadside bombs, children cut down by American gunfire during house raids or protests, busloads of passengers caught in guerilla ambushes, diners blown apart in restaurants - turning up each morning at the Baghdad morgue. Mr Bush, of course, will be looking forward to the Show Trial of the Year to help his election prospects. What, after all, could be more calculated to justify the whole miserable occupation of Iraq than the concrete evidence of Saddam's atrocities? Already, however, this highlight is beginning to look distinctly worrying for the Bush administration, because any fair trial of the old dictator must take into account the massive evidence, much of it still secret in Washington, of the United States' involvement in creating - and supporting - Saddam's regime for the cruellest years of his rule. The shark-like lawyers already vying to defend Saddam are well aware that it was Washington which
[CTRL] PESTICIDE LINK TO MAD COW DISEASE
-Caveat Lector- SOME SUSPECT PESTICIDE LINK TO MAD COW DISEASE http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/SecondOpinion/secondopinion010525.html NICHOLAS REGUSH, ABC NEWS - What if it turns out that the human form of mad cow disease is triggered by environmental factors - and not by infectious beef products - as some ongoing British research at Cambridge University suggests? What if much of the science to date, focusing on contaminated meat, has been overly simplistic or even dead wrong? The immediate implication would be that we would have to rethink everything already done to fight the disease, both in Britain where it began, in Europe, where it has spread, and in other nations, including the United States, where concerns are mounting about its potential to be unleashed. . . The viewpoint held by most scientists is that an infectious agent likely moved from sheep to cows and gained enough strength in its cross-species jump to ravage the nervous system and cause the bovine brain to appear spongy and rife with holes like Swiss cheese. This brain-destroying mad cow infection was further transmitted, according to this interpretation, via the rendering of carcasses, to meat and bone meal in feed. . . But not according to David Brown, a biochemist at Cambridge University, who counters that there is no conclusive proof that [mad cow disease] caused vCJD. Next week at a scientific conference in Quebec City, he'll discuss some of his most recent research, pointing to a possible environmental explanation of both mad cow disease and vCJD. That conference is all about manganese, a heavy metal, that is essential to life and is part of the daily diet - for example, wheat, rice and tea provide the metal - but numerous studies show that environmental overexposure to it can be dangerous to the nervous system. . . David Brown agrees with the conventional view that the key agent in the disease is a protein called a prion. These prions are thought to keep nerve cells stable. The conventional view holds that prions can somehow become malformed and that's when they become infectious and capable of damaging the brain. The malformed prion, then, according to the conventional view, is the infectious and transmissible agent in mad cow disease and vCJD. The infection is neither a virus, nor a bacterium. Brown parts company here with the conventional view, altogether dismissing the notion of an infectious prion. He told me: I have [published] evidence from my cell culture experiments that shows manganese can change the prion into its abnormal [and dangerous] form. This is especially the case when the supply of copper to the cell is low. If David Brown's research is on a correct path, then scientific and public concerns about infection from beef could eventually be dwarfed by concerns about toxic effects in the environment that cause copper levels to decrease and manganese levels to rise. . . Brown's research has given a boost to the controversial theories of Mark Purdey, a farmer turned amateur scientist who has been challenging the conventional view of mad cow disease and vCJD from the start. He has provided detailed reports to the British government's hearings on mad cow disease and has published several peer-reviewed scientific papers on the subject, including data on how manganese in the environment may play a role in both mad cow disease and vCJD. BBC, MARCH 21, 20001 - The Phillips Inquiry into BSE confirmed that the pesticides could make animals more susceptible to the disease. Not for the first time, Mark Purdey had made a connection that the official scientists had missed. Edward Stourton The man from the Ministry had come with an order for the treatment of Warble Fly - a parasite which lays its eggs under the skin of cattle. Like all beef and dairy farmers in the area, Mark Purdey was told he had to use an organophosphate pesticide on his livestock to eradicate the infestation. But he fought the order in court - and he won. When BSE was identified two years later Mark Purdey noticed that the areas where the disease was emerging more or less correlated with those where the organophosphates had been used against Warble Fly. His conclusion that the pesticide caused BSE turned out to be mistaken. But nearly twenty years later the Phillips Inquiry into BSE confirmed that it could make animals more susceptible to the disease. Not for the first time, Mark Purdey had made a connection that the official scientists had missed. . . http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/correspondent/europe/1205915.stm www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is used politically by different groups with major and minor effects spread throughout the spectrum of time and thought. That being
[CTRL] Transfer Tubes
-Caveat Lector- YOUR SON ISN'T DEAD, HE'S JUST IN A TRANSFER TUBE http://www.disinfopedia.org/wiki.phtml?title=Transfer_tubes DISINFOPEDIA - In order to continue to sell an increasingly unpopular Iraqi invasion to the American people, President George W. Bush's administration sweeps the messy parts of war - the grieving families, the flag-draped coffins, the soldiers who have lost limbs - into a far corner of the nation's attic. But today's military doesn't even use the words 'body bags' - a term in common usage during the Vietnam War, when 58,000 Americans died. ... During the 1991 Persian Gulf War, the Pentagon began calling them 'human remains pouches' and it now refers to them as transfer tubes. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] 14,000 US casualties in Iraq to date
-Caveat Lector- 12-29-2003 Saddam in the Slammer, so why are we on Orange? By David H. Hackworth Almost daily we're told that another American soldier has sacrificed life or limb in Iraq. For way too many of us - unless we have a white flag with a blue star in our window - these casualty reports have become as big a yawn as a TV forecast of the weather in Baghdad. Even I - and I deal with that beleaguered land seven days a week - was staggered when a Pentagon source gave me a copy of a Nov. 30 dispatch showing that since George W. Bush unleashed the dogs of war, our armed forces have taken 14,000 casualties in Iraq - about the number of warriors in a line tank division. We have the equivalent of five combat divisions plus support for a total of about 135,000 troops deployed in the Iraqi theater of operations, which means we 've lost the equivalent of a fighting division since March. At least 10 percent of the total number of Joes and Jills available to the theater commander to fight or support the occupation effort have been evacuated back to the USA! Lt. Col. Scott D. Ross of the U.S. military's Transportation Command told me that as of Dec. 23, his outfit had evacuated 3,255 battle-injured casualties and 18,717 non-battle injuries. Of the battle casualties, 473 died and 3,255 were wounded by hostile fire. Following are the major categories of the non-battle evacuations: Orthopedic surgery - 3,907 General surgery - 1,995 Internal medicine - 1,291 Psychiatric - 1,167 Neurology - 1,002 Gynecological - 491 Sources say that most of the gynecological evacuations are pregnancy-related, although the exact figure can't be confirmed - Pentagon pregnancy counts are kept closer to the vest than the number of nuke warheads in the U.S. arsenal. Ross cautioned that his total of 21,972 evacuees could be higher than other reports because in some cases, the same service member may be counted more than once. The Pentagon has never won prizes for the accuracy of its reporting, but I think it's safe to say that so far somewhere between 14,000 and 22,000 soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines have been medically evacuated from Iraq to the USA. So at the end of this turbulent year, we must ask ourselves: Was the price our warriors paid in blood worth the outcome? Are we any safer than before our pre-emptive invasion? Even though Saddam is in the slammer and the fourth-largest army in the world is junkyard scrap, Christmas 2003 was resolutely Orange, and 2004 looks like more of the same. Or worse. Our first New Year's resolution should be to find out if the stated reasons for our pre-emptive strike - Iraq's purported weapons of mass destruction and Saddam 's connection with al-Qaeda - constituted a real threat to our national security. Because, contrary to public opinion, the present administration hasn't yet made the case that Saddam and his sadists aided and abetted al-Qaeda's attacks on 9/11. We also need to know why our $30 billion-a-year intelligence agencies didn't read the tea leaves correctly, as well as what's being done besides upgrading the color code to prevent other similar strikes. Congress should get with the program and lift a page from the U.S. Army handbook on how to learn from a military operation. When an Army-training or actual-combat op is concluded, all the key players assemble for an honest, no-holds-barred critique of everything that's gone down - the good, the bad and the ugly. Some of the participants might walk away black and blue, but everyone learns from the mistakes. Donald Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz and retired Gen. Tommy Franks should be required to report to a congressional committee convened to investigate both the invasion and the planning - or lack of planning - for the occupation of Iraq. This committee must operate without the political skullduggery that occurred during the numerous investigations into the Pearl Harbor catastrophe - when high-level malfeasance that cost thousands of lives and put America's national security in extreme jeopardy was repeatedly covered up for more than 50 years. Our Iraqi casualties deserve nothing less than the unvarnished truth. Only then will their sacrifices not have been in vain. And only then can we all move on with the enlightenment we need to protect and preserve our precious country's future. The address of David Hackworth's home page is Hackworth.com. Sign in for the free weekly Defending America column at his Web site. Send mail to P.O. Box 11179, Greenwich, CT 06831. His newest book is Steel My Soldiers' Hearts. © 2003 David H. Hackworth. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis-
[CTRL] There NEVER Will Be A Real Saddam Public Trial
-Caveat Lector- NO REAL SADDAM TRIAL in 2004: CRUCIAL HISTORY the AMERICANS Now Desperately Want Saddam Quieted About Without the full history-as embarrassing as that record might be to the last five U.S. presidents-the American people cannot judge whether the nation's security will be enhanced or endangered by Bush's decision to put the United States on its own aggressive course of action. Journalist Robert Perry, 23 February 2003 Missing U.S.-Iraq History By Robert Parry | 12.16.03 As a correspondent for the Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s, Robert Parry broke many of the stories now known as the Iran-Contra Affair. His new book is Lost History. With all the hoopla surrounding the capture of Saddam Hussein-caught like a rat, read the Chicago Tribune headline-it is time to take a step back and consider the full story of the Saddam Hussein and his long time relationship with the U.S. government, beginning in 1959, when the CIA put Saddam on its covert operations payroll in a plot to assassinate then Iraqi Prime Minister Gen. Abd al-Karim Qasim. In almost all of the instant histories that filled the news pages and the airwaves after his capture, the relationship between Saddam and successive U.S. presidential administrations has been ignored. National Public Radio, the Washington Post, the New York Times, all ignored the documented fact that for the decade of the '80s, Saddam was a key U.S. ally in the Middle East. What follows is an article by investigative reporter Bob Parry, in which he fills in some of the missing pieces. It originally appeared February 23, 2003, before the war started, on Consortiumnews.com. As a correspondent for the Associated Press and Newsweek in the 1980s, Robert Parry broke many of the stories now known as the Iran-Contra Affair. -Joel Bleifuss Before George W. Bush gives the final order to invade Iraq-a nation that has not threatened the United States-the American people might want a few facts about the real history of U.S.-Iraq relations. Missing chapters from 1980 to the present would be crucial in judging Bush's case for war. But Americans don't have those facts because Bush and his predecessors in the White House have kept this history hidden from the American people. When parts of the story have emerged, administrations of both parties have taken steps to suppress or discredit the disclosures. So instead of knowing the truth, Americans have been fed a steady diet of distortions, simplifications and outright lies. This missing history also is not just about minor details. It goes to the heart of the case against Saddam Hussein, including whether he is an especially aggressive and unpredictable dictator who must be removed from power even at the risk of America's standing in the world and the chance that a war will lead to more terrorism against U.S. targets. For instance, George W. Bush has frequently cited Saddam Hussein's invasions of neighbors, Iran and Kuwait, as justification for the looming U.S. invasion of Iraq. By defeating this threat, we will show other dictators that the path of aggression will lead to their own ruin, Bush declared during a speech in Atlanta on Feb. 20. Leaving aside whether Bush's formulation is Orwellian double-speak-aggression to discourage aggression-there is the historical question of whether Presidents Jimmy Carter, Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush actually encouraged Saddam's aggressions for geopolitical reasons or out of diplomatic incompetence. Carter's 'Green Light'? This intersection of Saddam's wars and U.S. foreign policy dates back at least to 1980 when Iran's radical Islamic government held 52 Americans hostage in Tehran and the sheiks of the oil-rich Persian Gulf feared that Ruhollah Khomeini 's radical breed of Islam might sweep them from power just as it had the Shah of Iran a year earlier. The Iranian government began its expansionist drive by putting pressure on the secular government of Iraq, instigating border clashes and encouraging Iraq's Shiite and Kurdish populations to rise up. Iranian operatives sought to destabilize Saddam's government by assassinating Iraqi leaders. [For details, see An Unnecessary War, Foreign Policy, January/February 2003.] On Aug. 5, 1980, as tensions mounted on the Iran-Iraq border, Saudi rulers welcomed Saddam to Riyadh for the first state visit ever by an Iraqi president to Saudi Arabia. During meetings at the kingdom's ornate palaces, the Saudis feted Saddam whose formidable Soviet-supplied army was viewed as a bulwark against Iran. Saudi leaders also say they urged Saddam to take the fight to Iran's fundamentalist regime, advice that they say included a green light for the invasion from President Carter. Less than two months after Saddam's trip, with Carter still frustrated by his inability to win release of the 52 Americans imprisoned in Iran, Saddam invaded Iran on Sept. 22, 1980. The war would rage for eight years and kill an
[CTRL] Neo-Cons Are Back - Crazier Then Ever!
-Caveat Lector- Wednesday 31 December 2003 telegraph.co.uk Hawks tell Bush how to win war on terror By David Rennie in Washington (Filed: 31/12/2003) President George W Bush was sent a public manifesto yesterday by Washington's hawks, demanding regime change in Syria and Iran and a Cuba-style military blockade of North Korea backed by planning for a pre-emptive strike on its nuclear sites. The manifesto, presented as a manual for victory in the war on terror, also calls for Saudi Arabia and France to be treated not as allies but as rivals and possibly enemies. The manifesto is contained in a new book by Richard Perle, a Pentagon adviser and intellectual guru of the hardline neo-conservative movement, and David Frum, a former Bush speechwriter. They give warning of a faltering of the will to win in Washington. In the battle for the president's ear, the manifesto represents an attempt by hawks to break out of the post-Iraq doldrums and strike back at what they see as a campaign of hostile leaking by their foes in such centres of caution as the State Department or in the military top brass. Their publication, An End to Evil: How to Win the War on Terror, coincided with the latest broadside from the hawks' enemy number one, Colin Powell, the secretary of state. Though on leave recovering from a prostate cancer operation, Mr Powell summoned reporters to his bedside to hail encouraging signs of a new attitude in Iran and call for the United States to keep open the prospect of dialogue with the Teheran authorities. Such talk is anathema to hawks like Mr Perle and Mr Frum who urge Washington to shun the mullahs and work for their overthrow in concert with Iranian dissidents. It may be assumed that their instincts at least are shared by hawks inside the government, whose twin power bases are the Pentagon's civilian leadership and the office of the vice-president, Dick Cheney. Such officials prevailed over invading Afghanistan and Iraq, but have been seen as on the back foot since the autumn as their post-war visions of building a secular, free-market Iraq were scaled back in favour of compromise and a swift handover of power next June. The book demands that any talks with North Korea require the complete and immediate abandonment of its nuclear programme. As North Korea will probably refuse such terms, the book urges a Cuba-style military blockade and overt preparations for war, including the rapid pullback of US forces from the inter-Korean border so that they move out of range of North Korean artillery. Such steps, with luck, will prompt China to oust its nominal ally, Kim Jong-il, and install a saner regime in North Korea, the authors write. The authoritarian rule of Syria's leader, Bashar Assad, should also be ended, encouraged by shutting oil supplies from Iraq, seizing arms he buys from Iran, and raids into Syria to hunt terrorists. The authors urge Mr Bush to tell the truth about Saudi Arabia. Wealthy Saudis, some of them royal princes, fund al-Qa'eda, they write. The Saudi government backs terror-tainted Islamic organisations as part of a larger campaign to spread its extremist version of Islam throughout the Muslim world and into Europe and North America. The book calls for tough action against France and its dreams of offsetting US power. We should force European governments to choose between Paris and Washington, it states. Britain's independence from Europe should be preserved, perhaps with open access for British arms to American defence markets. © Copyright of Telegraph Group Limited 2003. Terms Conditions of reading. Commercial information. Privacy Policy. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Revealed: How MI6 Sold the Iraq War
-Caveat Lector- Revealed: How MI6 Sold the Iraq War By Nicholas Rufford 12/28/03: (The Times - London):THE Secret Intelligence Service has run an operation to gain public support for sanctions and the use of military force in Iraq. The government yesterday confirmed that MI6 had organised Operation Mass Appeal, a campaign to plant stories in the media about Saddam Hussein's weapons of mass destruction. The revelation will create embarrassing questions for Tony Blair in the run-up to the publication of the report by Lord Hutton into the circumstances surrounding the death of Dr David Kelly, the government weapons expert. A senior official admitted that MI6 had been at the heart of a campaign launched in the late 1990s to spread information about Saddam's development of nerve agents and other weapons, but denied that it had planted misinformation. There were things about Saddam's regime and his weapons that the public needed to know, said the official. The admission followed claims by Scott Ritter, who led 14 inspection missions in Iraq, that MI6 had recruited him in 1997 to help with the propaganda effort. He described meetings where the senior officer and at least two other MI6 staff had discussed ways to manipulate intelligence material. The aim was to convince the public that Iraq was a far greater threat than it actually was, Ritter said last week. He said there was evidence that MI6 continued to use similar propaganda tactics up to the invasion of Iraq earlier this year. Stories ran in the media about secret underground facilities in Iraq and ongoing programmes (to produce weapons of mass destruction), said Ritter. They were sourced to western intelligence and all of them were garbage. Kelly, himself a former United Nations weapons inspector and colleague of Ritter, might also have been used by MI6 to pass information to the media. Kelly was a known and government-approved conduit with the media, said Ritter. Hutton's report is expected to deliver a verdict next month on whether intelligence was misused in order to promote the case for going to war. Hutton heard evidence that Kelly was authorised by the Foreign Office to speak to journalists on Iraq. Kelly was in close touch with the Rockingham cell, a group of weapons experts that received MI6 intelligence. Blair justified his backing for sanctions and for the invasion of Iraq on the grounds that intelligence reports showed Saddam was working to acquire chemical, biological and nuclear weapons. The use of MI6 as a back channel for promoting the government's policies on Iraq was never discovered during the Hutton inquiry and is likely to cause considerable disquiet among MPs. A key figure in Operation Mass Appeal was Sir Derek Plumbly, then director of the Middle East department at the Foreign Office and now Britain's ambassador to Egypt. Plumbly worked closely with MI6 to help to promote Britain's Middle East policy. The campaign was judged to be having a successful effect on public opinion. MI6 passed on intelligence that Iraq was hiding weapons of mass destruction and rebuilding its arsenal. Poland, India and South Africa were initially chosen as targets for the campaign because they were non-aligned UN countries not supporting the British and US position on sanctions. At the time, in 1997, Poland was also a member of the UN security council. Ritter was a willing accomplice to the alleged propaganda effort when first approached by MI6's station chief in New York. He obtained approval to co-operate from Richard Butler, then executive chairman of the UN Special Commission on Iraq Disarmament. Ritter met MI6 to discuss Operation Mass Appeal at a lunch in London in June 1998 at which two men and a woman from MI6 were present. The Sunday Times is prevented by the Official Secrets Act from publishing their names. Ritter had previously met the MI6 officer at Vauxhall Cross, the service's London headquarters. He asked Ritter for information on Iraq that could be planted in newspapers in India, Poland and South Africa from where it would feed back to Britain and America. Ritter opposed the Iraq war but this is the first time that he has named members of British intelligence as being involved in a propaganda campaign. He said he had decided to name names because he was frustrated at an official cover-up and the misuse of intelligence. What MI6 was determined to do by the selective use of intelligence was to give the impression that Saddam still had WMDs or was making them and thereby legitimise sanctions and military action against Iraq, he said. Recent reports suggest America has all but abandoned hopes of finding weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and that David Kay, head of the Iraq Survey Group, has resigned earlier than expected, frustrated that his resources have been diverted to tracking down insurgents. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing
[CTRL] No Christmas cheer in caged-in Bethlehem
-Caveat Lector- w w w . h a a r e t z d a i l y . c o m Last update - 02:48 25/12/2003 No Christmas cheer in caged-in Bethlehem By Arnon Regular and Amos Harel Bethlehem, encircled by its occupation army, woke up to another bleak Christmas Eve. It's a little better than last year, but only just, said Hanna Nasser, the mayor of Jesus' birthplace. Pilgrims come for a few hours and leave, and there's no holiday spirit. The town is under closure and its north is paralyzed, because of the building of the separation fence, he said. Nasser said 1,200 pilgrims spent last night in Bethlehem, compared to 50,000 for every day of the holidays in 2000, when they packed hotels newly built for the Millennium. Around 15,000 tourists are expected to visit Bethlehem between the present Catholic Christmas and the Armenian festival on January 18, he said. Five months ago IDF troops retreated from the city and the PA assumed security authority. But army roadblocks still cage in Bethlehem's 140,000 residents and adjacent villages. The massive barrier going up along the northern part have left the residents with little hope of deliverance from isolation and impoverishment. All this has also kept away all but a few of the most intrepid pilgrims. There was little sign of Christmas cheer except for the forlorn bulbs dangling on a towering tree outside the Church of the Nativity. Bleak shop windows were filled with neglected displays of lively wooden Christmas carvings. There has been no work here for three years because there are no tourists, said Caroline Mickel, standing with arms folded outside her family souvenir shop. A few small tour groups arrived but slipped quickly inside the Church of the Nativity for Mass without looking in the shops. The government said it had relaxed military blockades in the West Bank to make it easier for Christian Palestinians and foreigners to reach Bethlehem. For the first time since the intifada began, fir trees appeared in a few places and some restaurants were half full. The Bethlehem hotel, accommodating mainly journalists and PA officials, reached 50 percent occupancy yesterday - something of a Christmas miracle. Around 10,000 people gathered in Manger Square to watch the traditional pre-Mass procession of clergymen led by Michel Sabbah, the Roman Catholic Patriarch in the Holy Land, plus a a fife-and-drum scouts band. However, most of the spectators turned out to be unarmed Palestinian security and plainclothes men, scores of journalists and impecunious locals, rather than the cheery foreign pilgrims who once poured into Bethlehem and swelled the town's coffers. People used to spend the whole year in anticipation of Christmas. Now Christmas is like any other day, taxi driver Naef Al-Moadi said of the gloomy mood. But despite its severe economic crisis and 30 percent unemployment, there are signs that Bethlehem may be starting to recover a little from the intifada. The Israeli closure on the city does make it difficult for residents to move, and only five or six pilgrim buses arrive per day, but life seems to be continuing. We are both suffering from a tourism crisis but Israel could at least allow Arab Christians from the West Bank, Gaza, and inside the Green Line to come and help Bethlehem revive, said Arda Bamia, who is in charge of marketing tourism in the PA. The shops at Manger Square, starved of customers, were draped in protest banners saying Stop the Wall, Don't turn Bethlehem into a Ghetto and The Holy Land Doesn't Need Walls, but Bridges. Alongside hung a huge portrait of Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. About 50 Palestinians added to the somber atmosphere in Manger Square with a sit-down protest to demand the return of their relatives Israel expelled in May 2002, as part of a deal to end the IDF siege on Church of the Nativity. The IDF believes a few thousand tourists will visit Bethlehem in the next few days. A senior officer told Haaretz foreign tourists and Christians from Israel and the West Bank will be allowed in, and that both sides have an interest in keeping order during the festivities. He said the PA was preserving public order and preventing shooting toward Israeli territory. Israeli and Palestinian officers meet in Bethlehem weekly to coordinate protection for the tourists who come for Christmas. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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
[CTRL] The Saddam Scam
-Caveat Lector- SADDAM DRUGGED, CAPTURE STAGED, U.S. TRICKS WORLD OPINION ONE MORE TIME MID-EAST REALITIES - MER - www.MiddleEast.Org - Washington - 23 December 2003: Will there really be a serious trial of Saddam Hussein? Not likely. Only a carefully choreographed 'show trial' is likely, if even that. The Americans have to figure out some way to prevent the former Iraqi President from putting on a real defense during which he would obviously want to tell all he knows from the past that would tend to either exonorate him and/or implicate others, including the U.S., in his past acts.The Americans, and those now put in charge in Iraq by them, have to come up with some way to either keep Saddam drugged-up or hushed-up throughout the 'legal' proceedings.No real international trial, that's for sure -- they definitely will not allow that. Some kind of rigid controlled 'show trial' in Iraq with a big 'off button' every time Saddam or his lawyers try to talk about no-no things is what is likely now, if even that.In this context this analysis by Yvonne Ridley, recently let go by Al-Jazeera for unknown reasons, and now again working with Gordon Thomas and the group they call Globe-Intel in Ireland, is of special interest and significance. And not just about the upcoming 'show trial'; also about how Saddam's capture was really itself so carefully choreographed by the Americans for the T.V. cameras. SADDAM'S EXILE IN QATAR by Yvonne Ridley* Saddam Hussein will be detained for life in a Qatar prison after his showcase trial. Intense behind-the-scenes negotiations, brokered by Britain, will see the former dictator jailed in the tiny Gulf state for security reasons. He was offered exile in Qatar before the outbreak of the war in Iraq, but rejected the offer made by Arab leaders looking for a peaceful solution. Globe-Intel can also reveal how Saddam was: BETRAYED by those closest to him. POISONED by food laced with dope. HANDED over to a leading Kurdish group. HELD hostage until a deal was cut with the US. DRUGGED by his Kurdish captors. Exile is the only solution because if he remains in Iraq there are pockets of loyal supporters who will try and break him out. Wherever he is held, he will be regarded as a rallying point and target, because of course there are those who will try and assassinate him. However his exile will not be like the one Saudi gave Idi Amin, revealed a senior military intelligence source referring to the late Ugandan dictator. There will be no luxury lifestyle for Saddam. He will be held in a prison in Qatar for the rest of his life. There is still a possibility of an international trial because Iraq has no legal system or government in place. Exile is the only option which should satisfy most parties. The Qataris have been consulted very closely, their co-operation is extremely important in this, and they are in a position to hold him in secure surroundings where other countries in the region are not, he added. A senior Qatari source confirmed that talks have already taken place at the highest level, but denied the Iraqi leader was now in the Gulf peninsula where the US Central Command has its war headquarters. An official denial was issued earlier this week from the state's capital in Doha that Saddam was already being held here. This was reinforced by Captain Bruce Frame from US Central Command in Florida who said: For security reasons we cannot identify where he is at the moment. Muwafaq al-Rubaiye, a member of Iraq's Governing Council, told an Arab satellite station: There is no truth to this news. Saddam is still in Iraq. Saddam will be put on trial in Baghdad in an Iraqi court that will be fair. US commander in Iraq, Lt Gen Ricardo Sanchez, has also declined to comment on Saddam's whereabouts. He's being held at an undisclosed location where we've made all the provisions to ensure his health is maintained, we keep him safe and we make sure we are getting from him the information that will be necessary for us to continue the mission we've been assigned here, Sanchez said. He is being accorded all the rights of a prisoner of war. We are going to treat him humanely we are going to treat him according to the Geneva Conventions, but his status has yet to be determined, he added. However, speculation increased last night that Saddam is being held in one of the US battle group carriers in the region, again for security reasons. The occupying forces in Iraq have come under increasing resistance attacks since US President George W Bush declared the war at an end on May 1. Holding the ousted Iraqi leader onboard a war ship would prevent a rallying point for those pockets of Ba'athists still loyal to Saddam. White House officials, including the US President, were jubilant last Saturday when Saddam, eight months on the run, was finally captured in a spider hole near his birthplace Tikrit. However, Globe-Intel has learned his capture may not have been all that the
[CTRL] Rumsfeld Visited Baghdad in 1984 to Reassure Saddam After Kurd Gassing
-Caveat Lector- washingtonpost.com Rumsfeld Visited Baghdad in 1984 to Reassure Iraqis, Documents Show Trip Followed Criticism Of Chemical Arms' Use By Dana Priest Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, December 19, 2003; Page A42 Donald H. Rumsfeld went to Baghdad in March 1984 with instructions to deliver a private message about weapons of mass destruction: that the United States' public criticism of Iraq for using chemical weapons would not derail Washington's attempts to forge a better relationship, according to newly declassified documents. Rumsfeld, then President Ronald Reagan's special Middle East envoy, was urged to tell Iraqi Foreign Minister Tariq Aziz that the U.S. statement on chemical weapons, or CW, was made strictly out of our strong opposition to the use of lethal and incapacitating CW, wherever it occurs, according to a cable to Rumsfeld from then-Secretary of State George P. Shultz. The statement, the cable said, was not intended to imply a shift in policy, and the U.S. desire to improve bilateral relations, at a pace of Iraq's choosing, remained undiminished. This message bears reinforcing during your discussions. The documents, obtained under the Freedom of Information Act by the nonprofit National Security Archive, provide new, behind-the-scenes details of U.S. efforts to court Iraq as an ally even as it used chemical weapons in its war with Iran. An earlier trip by Rumsfeld to Baghdad, in December 1983, has been widely reported as having helped persuade Iraq to resume diplomatic ties with the United States. An explicit purpose of Rumsfeld's return trip in March 1984, the once-secret documents reveal for the first time, was to ease the strain created by a U.S. condemnation of chemical weapons. The documents do not show what Rumsfeld said in his meetings with Aziz, only what he was instructed to say. It would be highly unusual for a presidential envoy to have ignored direct instructions from Shultz. When details of Rumsfeld's December trip came to light last year, the defense secretary told CNN that he had cautioned Saddam Hussein about the use of chemical weapons, an account that was at odds with the declassified State Department notes of his 90-minute meeting, which did not mention such a caution. Later, a Pentagon spokesman said Rumsfeld raised the issue not with Hussein, but with Aziz. Pentagon spokesman Larry Di Rita said yesterday that the secretary said what he said, and I would go with that. He has a recollection of how that meeting went, and I can't imagine that some additional cable is going to change how he recalls the meeting. I don't think it has to be inconsistent, Di Rita said. You could make a strong condemnation of the use of chemical weapons, or any kind of lethal agents, and then say, with that in mind, 'Here's another set of issues' to be discussed. Last year, the Bush administration cited its belief that Iraq had and would use weapons of mass destruction -- including chemical, biological and nuclear devices -- as the principal reason for going to war. But throughout 1980s, while Iraq was fighting a prolonged war with Iran, the United States saw Hussein's government as an important ally and bulwark against the militant Shiite extremism seen in the 1979 revolution in Iran. Washington worried that the Iranian example threatened to destabilize friendly monarchies in Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Jordan. Publicly, the United States maintained neutrality during the eight-year Iran-Iraq war, which began in 1980. Privately, however, the administrations of Reagan and George H.W. Bush sold military goods to Iraq, including poisonous chemicals and deadly biological agents, worked to stop the flow of weapons to Iran, and undertook discreet diplomatic initiatives, such as the two Rumsfeld trips to Baghdad, to improve relations with Hussein. Tom Blanton, executive director of the National Security Archives, a Washington-based research center, said the secret support for Hussein offers a lesson for U.S. foreign relations in the post-Sept. 11 world. The dark corners of diplomacy deserve some scrutiny, and people working in places like Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Pakistan and Uzbekistan deserve this kind of scrutiny, too, because the relations we're having with dictators today will produce Saddams tomorrow. Shultz, in his instructions to Rumsfeld, underscored the confusion that the conflicting U.S. signals were creating for Iraq. Iraqi officials have professed to be at a loss to explain our actions as measured against our stated objectives, he wrote. As with our CW statement, their temptation is to give up rational analysis and retreat to the line that U.S. policies are basically anti-Arab and hostage to the desires of Israel. The declassified documents also show the hope of another senior diplomat, the British ambassador to Iraq, in working constructively with Hussein. Shortly after Hussein became deputy to the president in 1969, then-British Ambassador H.G. Balfour Paul
[CTRL] Americans Flew Saddam Out of Iraq In April
-Caveat Lector- Iraqi Comdr. Says He Saw US Fly Saddam Out Of Baghdad By Bill Dash 12-15-3 Note - Since the officer could not see the occupants, we cannot know for certain who was inside. It is possible this was a group of Saddam's top officers and officials who had made deals - sold out - to the US and were being extracted as part of that deal. -ed Film will soon be made public of an Iraqi Army officer describing how he saw a US Air Force transport fly Saddam Hussein out of Baghdad. The explosive eyewitness testimony was shot by independent filmmaker Patrick Dillon, who recently returned from a risky one-man odyssey in Iraq. In the film, the officer, who told Dillon that he commanded a special combat unit during the battle for Baghdad airport and whose identity is temporarily being withheld, explains in detail how he watched as the Iraqi dictator and members of his inner circle were evacuated from Iraq's capital by what he emphatically insists were United States Air Force cargo planes. Presently, the only copies of the film (which I have not yet seen) are in New York City. People who have viewed it describe it to me as compelling. Dillon told me by phone that, prior to the final assault on the capital by American ground forces, the officer had been entrusted with the near impossible job of ensuring that one of Baghdad airport's runways would remain operational no matter what. In civilian life, the officer is reportedly a highly trained civil engineer specializing in airport operations. He states he was selected to command this hazardous mission in part because of his expertise in concrete surface construction. He goes on to report that there was a ferocious battle at the airport, with losses on both sides far worse than the mainstream news services acknowledge. He deviates even further from officially sanctioned accounts, by unequivocally stating that the battle for control of the airport actually lasted several days longer than commonly believed, dragging on through April 8th and culminating around dawn on the morning of the 9th. Most news sources cite April 4th as the day when the airport fell. But many conventional accounts also acknowledge, if only in passing, uncertainty as to exactly when the airport was fully subdued,frequently offering the 5th and the 6th as other possibilities. Virtually everyone agrees on April 9th as the day that the battle for the entire city officially ended. In any event, the officer adamantly maintains that his combat/construction brigade, despite heavy casualties, managed to hold off US troops and preserve a useable length of runway right through the night of April the 8th. Then early on the morning of April 9th, as the remnants of his unit were close to being overrun, a general cease-fire was unexpectedly declared for 6 AM. Shortly after it went into effect, and in broad daylight, the officer claims a motorcade of 10 Mercedes stretch limos suddenly barreled onto the airfield, carrying Saddam and his entourage. Almost simultaneously, a flight of what the officer asserts were four USAF Hercules transports swooped down and landed on the lone stretch of intact runway. All four C-130s dropped their rear loading ramps and the limos drove up into the cargo bays of the waiting planes, which then took off. The officer insists he has no idea where Saddam or any of the other members of his party may have gone. Dillon says his film lends major support to what many have believed for years: that Saddam was little more than an american tool, a stage-managed evildoer, just one in a long line of useful villains bought and paid for by the United States in order to better manipulate international politics and commerce. The gutsy New York based filmmaker, who risked his life amid the chaos of postwar Iraq, says that much of the Iraqi populace believes Saddam is not dead and they worry he could still exact revenge from afar. While many Iraqi civilians initially welcomed American forces, Dillon told me most Iraqis, having now had a bitter taste of American occupation, feel enraged with the US and its soldiers. Dillon said living conditions in Iraq are horrible and that little of significance is being done to relieve the situation. Based on what he saw during his travels, Dillon told me he's convinced the war and its sweeping devastation of the Iraqi nation is in reality a mind boggling charade. Rather than liberating Iraq, its actual purpose is to corral Iraq's huge oil reserves and to serve as a pretext for channeling tens of billions in largesse to favored American corporations like Haliburton and Bechtel. As an example, Dillon pointed to how US air strikes systematically obliterated every last Iraqi telecommunications facility from one end of the country to the other, a measure he maintains vastly exceeded all practical military necessity. Then, without even the pretense of a competitive bid, Washington gifted WorldCom, the near bankrupt US telecom giant responsible for the
[CTRL] A year of stunning growth in government
-Caveat Lector- Christian Science Monitor December 08, 2003 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1208/p01s02-uspo.html The most irresponsible year ever US spending surges to historic level Vote on gargantuan bill in Congress caps a year of stunning growth in government. By Gail Russell Chaddock | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor WASHINGTON - President Bush and the Republican-led Congress are spending money at a rate not seen since World War II - and America's expanding war on terrorism isn't the main reason. Spending for national security, it is true, has surged due to the military effort in Iraq and stepped-up homeland security. But judging by a bill that Congress is taking up Monday, the lasting fiscal legacy of the Bush administration will also include a historic rise in domestic spending that could affect everything from consumer interest rates to a fiscal landscape that could force epic tax increases in future. The spending growth is punctuated this week by a single vote in the House that wraps in all the spending leftovers - not all the money for troops, not the big Medicare expansion - and totals $820 billion. That's as big as the annual economic output of Sweden and Spain combined. Behind the shift are several factors, notably the Republican Party's changing strategy and the lapsing of self-imposed fiscal restraints in Congress since Mr. Bush took office. The Republican party is simply not interested in small government now, says Brian Riedl, a budget analyst at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. They're worse than the Democrats they replaced. The upshot: Federal spending per household is above $20,000 this year - a level not seen since World War II caused military spending to surge. This time, military spending is again a big factor, but accounts for less than half of recent increases, the Heritage Foundation says. It's not just all those pork projects crammed into the end-of-year spending package that worries conservatives. Many concede that pet projects are the price of getting out of Washington, no matter which party has control. More broadly, what troubles many conservatives - and could open a rift within the Republican Party - is Mr. Bush's apparent abandonment of small government as a party mantra. The 'price' of GOP power? But long-time GOP conservatives are also beginning to say publicly that big government may also be the price for any party that aspires to hold onto its majority. Stung by electoral losses in 1996 and 1998, Republican leaders dropped talk of abolishing the Department of Education and cutting government. It turned out the American people did not want a major reduction of government, writes Rep. John Boehner (R) of Ohio in a position paper released last week titled: Are Republicans the Party of Big Government? While Republicans would like to see government shrink, new political realities, including 9/11 and the multitude of stakeholders in government after years of liberal control mean that Republicans often have to settle for simply slowing its growth, writes Mr. Boehner, an architect of the GOP takeover of the House in 1994. Republicans have accepted such realities as the burdens of majority governance. Much of the $2.2 trillion that Washington is expected to spend in fiscal year 2004 is for mandatory spending on Social Security and Medicare. But so-called discretionary spending has also increased some 22 percent during the Bush presidency, from $734 billion in 2002 to $873 billion in 2004. The Concord Coalition, a bipartisan watchdog, calls this the most irresponsible year ever. The House may approve the spending bill Monday. In the Senate passage is also expected but the vote could be delayed, perhaps into the new year, by Democratic maneuvering. While critics decry billions of dollars of small pork projects, the bulk of domestic spending is for major programs. Exhibit A is the expansion of Medicare to include prescription drugs, which President Bush is expected to sign into law Monday. Sold as a $400 billion reform, the real costs could soar past $2 trillion in the second decade, as 76 million baby boomers begin to retire into the system. Conservatives say it's a formula for massive deficits and tax increases in the years to come. Then, there's the $180 billion farm bill, passed just in time for 2002 elections, when farm states determined control of the Senate. It buried out of sight any thought of rolling back the federal system of farm support, which conservatives once pledged to abolish. The president's signature No Child Left Behind Act increased education spending by 33 to 68 percent, depending on how you calculate the numbers. While lauding the Bush administration's annual tax cuts, conservatives worry that what will determine taxes in the long run is what Washington spends. Crunching Bush's numbers The extent of the spending increase depends on how you cut the numbers. The president laid down a marker of
[CTRL] Democratic Hopefuls Play Down Gun Control
-Caveat Lector- washingtonpost.com Democratic Hopefuls Play Down Gun Control By Jim VandeHei Washington Post Staff Writer Sunday, October 26, 2003; Page A01 MANCHESTER, N.H. -- Democratic presidential candidates are distancing themselves from tough gun control, reversing a decade of rhetoric and advocacy by the Democratic Party in favor of federal regulation of firearms. Most Democratic White House hopefuls rarely highlight gun control in their campaigns, and none of the candidates who routinely poll near the top is calling for the licensing of new handgun owners, a central theme of then-Vice President Al Gore's winning primary campaign in 2000. Howard Dean, the early front-runner this year, proudly tells audiences that the National Rifle Association endorsed him as governor of Vermont. As president, Dean said he would leave most gun laws to the states. The federal government, Dean said in an interview here, should not inflict regulations on states such as Montana and Vermont, where gun crime is not a big problem. New York and California can have as much gun control as they want, but those states -- and not the federal government -- should make that determination, he said. Rep. Richard A. Gephardt, a longtime gun control advocate, is careful to highlight his support for law-abiding gun owners. The Missouri Democrat said he is not interested in giving the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives more authority to investigate gun crimes, a top priority for the gun control activist. They have enough, he said in an interview. As a result, Democratic strategists and several of the candidates themselves predict the debate over gun laws in this campaign will be less divisive. Democrats might fight for narrow proposals to make guns safer and more difficult for children and criminals to obtain, they said, yet voters are likely to hear as much about enforcing existing gun laws as creating new ones -- a position Republicans and the NRA have pushed for years. What you are seeing . . . is a sea change from the 1990s, when President Bill Clinton and Gore championed several major gun laws -- and paid a big political price for it, said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the NRA. It's very important for us as Democrats to understand that where I come from guns are about a lot more than guns themselves, said Sen. John Edwards (N.C.), one of nine Democrats seeking the presidency. They are about independence. For a lot of people who work hard for a living, one of the few things they feel they have any control over is whether they can buy a gun and hunt. They don't want people messing with that, which I understand. The change holds true in Congress, too. Many Democrats are playing down gun issues there, and several, including Senate Minority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (S.D.), are co-sponsoring a bill to shield gun manufacturers from lawsuits, a top NRA priority for the 108th Congress. In the 2002 congressional races, 94 percent of NRA-endorsed candidates won. In the presidential race, several candidates said the gun issue contributed to Gore's defeat in 2000 and could backfire on the party again next year if Democrats do not quickly lose their anti-gun image . Indeed, the Democrats' shift away from gun control is rooted more in politics than in a belief that gun laws do not help prevent crime and death, several Democrats said privately. It started after the 1994 elections, when Democrats lost control of the House and watched such veterans as then-Speaker Thomas S. Foley (Wash.) get ousted after the Democratic-controlled House passed legislation making it illegal to manufacture, transfer or possess 19 semiautomatic firearms. The bill, which Clinton signed into law, does not apply to the sale or possession of weapons legally held before the ban took effect. Surveys showed that the gun issue played a huge if not decisive role in ending the Democrats' decades-long rule of the House that year. Still, many Democrats continued to target guns as a key contributor to violence and death, a belief reinforced for many by the 1999 Columbine shootings. Gore was among those leading the charge for new restrictions. In the 2000 presidential primaries, Gore and former senator Bill Bradley (N.J.) engaged in what sounded to some like a bidding war for who would clamp down the hardest on handguns. Gore tried to distance himself from the gun issue in the waning months of his campaign against George W. Bush, but it was too late. A key turning point in the debate over federal laws regulating guns came on election night, when Gore lost West Virginia, Arkansas and even his home state of Tennessee. Many of today's candidates blame the gun issue, in part, for Gore's defeat in those states and others. Gephardt said there's no doubt it hurt Gore. As the candidates survey the map for 2004, they find that most competitive states are home to thousands of hunters and other gun owners -- states such as Ohio, Pennsylvania and
[CTRL] Hi Tech Intell Failure in Iraq
-Caveat Lector- washingtonpost.com Intelligence Problems In Iraq Are Detailed By Thomas E. Ricks Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, October 25, 2003; Page A01 The U.S. military intelligence gathering operation in Iraq is being undercut by a series of problems in using technology, training intelligence specialists and managing them in the field, according to an internal Army evaluation. A report published this week by the Center for Army Lessons Learned at Fort Leavenworth, Kan., uses unusually blunt language to identify the intelligence problems and to recommend solutions. In discussing the training of intelligence specialists, for example, it states that commanders reported that younger officers and soldiers were unprepared for their assignments, did not understand the targeting process and possessed very little to no analytical skills. In a related assessment, the report also states that reserve troops specializing in civil affairs and psychological operations sent earlier this year to Afghanistan received marginally effective training before their deployment. The poor quality of mission preparation was inexcusable given that the operation was over a year and a half old, it concludes. The Army critique of U.S. intelligence efforts in Iraq is especially noteworthy, because the Bush administration and senior military commanders have maintained for months that more U.S. troops are not needed in Iraq, and that what is needed, instead, is better intelligence. The report discloses, for example, that the intelligence teams already operating in Iraq have been far less productive than the Army expected them to be. The 69 tactical human intelligence teams operating in the country at the time of the study, at the beginning of the summer, should have been producing at least 120 reports a day, but instead were delivering an average total of 30, it states. It attributes that apparent underperformance to the lack of guidance and focus from the intelligence office overseeing the teams' work. The report also says that some key intelligence machinery has been misused in Iraq, which raises questions about the high-tech solutions that some at the Pentagon are advocating to improve the U.S. military's performance in Iraq. Most notably, it is critical of how unmanned aircraft have been used in recent months. At one point, it notes that one such unmanned aerial vehicle, or UAV, was assigned to find buried aircraft. Also, a major UAV system, the Hunter, was kept idle for 30 days because it had not been assigned an operational frequency on which to operate. Managers of UAV operations were overwhelmed with tasks and were lucky to have their aircraft in the right place at the right time, the report says. UAVs fly so slowly, it adds, that they could not get to where they were needed. So, while the planes were employed to try to locate Iraqi fighters attacking U.S. military convoys, the daily mortar and rocket attacks on bases and convoys became virtually undetectable to the UAVs, the report says. In another technological issue, the report says that a network that was supposed to link intelligence teams and convey time-sensitive information among them -- as well as permit them to tap into an evolving database -- worked so poorly that it was nonexistent. The report recommended that, among other things, the teams be provided with satellite telephones -- gear that most news reporters working in Iraq and Afghanistan possess as a matter of course. Intelligence gathering in both those countries has also been hampered by problems with interpreters, the report notes. Not only was there a lack of competent interpreters throughout the theater, it says, but those available were not used to their full capability. Poorly trained soldiers would speak to their interpreters, for example, rather than maintain eye contact with the people being questioned. Also interpreters were wasted on errands such as being sent with troops to buy chicken and soft drinks, the report says. Danielle Pletka, vice president for foreign and defense policy studies at the American Enterprise Institute, said the findings about intelligence problems are consistent with the some of the shortcomings she observed during a recent trip to Iraq. The fundamental thing you see as an outsider is that there is no mechanism to tell the good guys from the bad guys, whether it's in the towns or on the borders, Pletka said. She said she was surprised that the U.S. military has not developed a national database that could be used quickly by field units to identify former Baathists and others detained in raids. That lack, combined with a reluctance to rely on Iraqis for that judgment, means that detention decisions frequently are made arbitrarily, from lack of knowledge, she said. In an unusual sidelight, the report also notes an instance in which some surveillance technologies appear to be working too well. The sensors being used by conventional Army units are so
[CTRL] Shocking Dishonoring Of Our Soldiers
-Caveat Lector- Hiding or Honoring the Fallen? Saturday, October 25, 2003; Page A22 I was outraged by the Oct. 21 Federal Page story Curtains Ordered for Media Coverage of Returning Coffins. Forbidding the media to cover the return of soldiers who died for this country is abominable. Throughout human history and especially our American history, we have honored the fallen soldier. We cannot give these men and women enough respect and honor in life or death. The media should be allowed to record for posterity the return to American soil of the remains of all who fought and died for their beloved country. And to read that our commander in chief, President Bush, has not attended any memorials or funerals of fallen soldiers is equally frightful. High-level civilian leaders should be required to attend the funerals of service members, as ultimately it is they who put the soldiers in harm's way. If they attend these funerals, perhaps some understanding of the true cost of war will slow the next decision to go to another killing field. GLEN D. SKIRVIN Stafford © 2003 The Washington Post Company www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Guantanamo guards embrace Islam
-Caveat Lector- Aljazeera Tuesday 14 October 2003, 9:46 Makka Time, 6:46 GMT Guantanamo guards embrace Islam Could contact with prisoners be having an effect? A number of the US troops guarding the 660 suspected al-Qaida and Taliban detainees in Guantanamo Bay have converted to Islam, according to an Algerian mediator. Hasan Aribi, who chairs his country's committee on the Guantanamo question, has negotiated the release of 18 detainees from the heavily-guarded detention camp at the eastern tip of Cuba. He claimed that the freed detainees told him that some of their American guards had converted to Islam as a result of daily interaction with Muslim prisoners for the past two years. The US military refused to comment when contacted by Aljazeera.net on Tuesday. Release of prisoner Aribi made his claims at a seminar in Egypt recently which was covered by Islam Online. Speaking to the Cairo seminar, he said his negotiations, held in Washington before the Iraq war, resulted in the release of eight Algerians and ten other detainees. They told me that the American guards were very sympathetic with them to the extent of buying the detainees' needs (with) their pocket money, Aribi said. Aribi appealed to other Arab governments to act immediately for the release of their citizens, held without charges in Guantanamo. He said 90% of those held had no relation whatsoever with al-Qaida or Taliban. They were working with humanitarian relief agencies and were only arrested as part of an American campaign against possible suspects. The detainees are being held outside US legal jurisdiction A New York representative of the Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) said he had also heard reports of US guards converting to Islam in Guantanamo. Arrests No comment was immediately available from the camp. US military officials have imposed stricter reporting limits since the arrests of a Muslim army chaplain and two interpreters. The arrests involved civilian interpreter Ahmad Mihalba, a naturalised US citizen from Egypt, allegedly found with classified documents from Guantanamo and Air Force Airman Ahmad al-Halabi, an interpreter accused of espionage for allegedly sending classified information about the camp to an unspecified enemy. Army Capt James Yee, a Muslim chaplain, has been charged with disobeying orders. He is accused of leaving the base with a layout of the prison block. All three say they are innocent. Red Cross speaks out The International Committee of the Red Cross has complained on Friday that the camp denies prisoners basic rights and is leading to mental health problems among them. We've witnessed growing anxiety and a rather serious deterioration in the psychological health of the detainees, linked very much, we believe, to their ongoing uncertainty, said Amanda Williamson of the ICRC's office in Washington. The public protest is highly unusual for the ICRC, which traditionally raises concerns about such conditions privately. Home | Arab World News | Global News | Economy | Culture | Special Reports | Science and Technology About Aljazeera | Polling | Feedback | Contact Us | Site Guide © 2003 Aljazeera.Net Copyright and Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, Disclaimer www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] MYSTERY BLOOD CLOTS KILL TROOPS
-Caveat Lector- MYSTERY BLOOD CLOTS KILL TROOPS http://www.military.com UPI - Unexplained blood clots are among the reasons a number of U.S. soldiers in Operation Iraqi Freedom have died from sudden illnesses, an investigation by United Press International has found. In addition to NBC News Correspondent David Bloom, who died in April of a blood clot in his lung after collapsing south of Baghdad, the Pentagon has told families that blood clots caused two soldiers to collapse and die. At least eight other soldiers have also collapsed and died from what the military has described as non-combat-related causes. . . . A disturbing parallel has also surfaced: soldiers becoming ill or dying from similar ailments in the United States. In some cases, the soldiers, their families and civilian doctors blame vaccines given to them by the military, particularly the anthrax or smallpox shots. Some of the soldiers who died suddenly had complained about symptoms suffered by Bloom -- including pain in the legs that could indicate problems with blood clots. . . . I would say that that number of cases among young healthy troops would seem to be unusual, Dr. Jeffrey Sartin, an infectious diseases doctor at the Gundersen Clinic in La Crosse, Wis., said about blood clot deaths. Sartin, a former Air Force doctor, last spring treated a soldier who might have died from anthrax or smallpox side effects. http://www.military.com/Content/Printer_Friendly_Version/1,11491,,00.html?st r_filename=FL%5Fmystery%5F100703passfile=FL%5Fmystery%5F100703page_url=%2F NewsContent%2F1%2C13319%2CFL%5Fmystery%5F100703%2C00%2Ehtml www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Worldwide Hatred for America
-Caveat Lector- October 06, 2003 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/1006/p09s01-coop.html American carefree tourists, beware By Doug Bandow JAKARTA, INDONESIA - 'It's dangerous here for Americans, said my cab driver. No question. A few blocks away sat the J.W. Marriott, its facade broken and blackened. Windows were blown out; mutilated blinds swayed in the wind. Wrecked autos sat as silent sentinnels in the hotel driveway. I noticed Westerners were almost entirely absent from Jakarta's streets. The Indonesians I visited worried about my safety. People hate Americans, said one. Osama bin Laden posters still sell in some Islamic neighborhoods and rumors circulated that the CIA arranged the Marriott bombing. To fear being murdered for one's nationality is humbling. The mere fact that Americans are resented doesn't prove that they or their government is wrong. But the fact that such sentiments pervade friendly and hostile nations alike should cause serious reflection. Common was the they hate us because we are beautiful American thesis, expressed in the aftermath of Sept. 11. And, no doubt, some people, particularly Islamists and other traditionalists, do resent a culture that they see as licentious and degrading. But people typically don't kill because they dislike Disneyland, MTV, or liberal democracy. Independent pollster John Zogby found that Muslims and Arabs like many of the attributes of Western culture. They like American products and freedoms. What they don't like are policies of the US government. It is such policies - long centered on Iraq, Israel, and Saudi Arabia - that have helped spark a hatred strong enough to kill. Unfortunately, this anger has been inflamed by the Iraq war, further encouraging terrorism and endangering Americans. Mr. Zogby found that positive ratings toward the US have collapsed with the war. During the Iraq war, the owner of Jakarta's McDonald's franchises let it be known that he was a Muslim. It was one city where I did not jog, even though I've run everywhere from Pyongyang, North Korea, to Pristina, Kosovo. Security precautions were ubiquitous. At the Sheraton, guards examined every car at driveway checkpoints. They used an electronic wand to check guests and luggage. Arriving vehicles were inspected at an upscale mall, and my bag was searched at the Hard Rock Cafe. Even as the Indonesian terrorist Hambali, thought to be involved in the bombings of both the Marriott and in Bali, was arrested, the American and Australian governments warned their citizens to avoid any Western-owned hotel in Jakarta. Hambali's group, Jemaah Islamiah, remains a potent threat. This violent response to US policies should surprise no one. Terrorism around the world typically represents a vicious battle front in an ongoing political struggle. For instance, the killers of Americans at the World Trade Center, Australians in Bali, and Westerners in Jakarta are acting in response to a perceived crusade against Islam. None of this justifies terrorism, but we must understand its context. Were America's only critics Islamic tribalists, they could more easily be ignored. But antagonism toward the US is increasingly evident even among friendly peoples and states. In my recent personal encounters alone: a British conservative MP privately bemoaned American support for Israel's Ariel Sharon; a Thai intellectual criticized US arrogance; a Kuwaiti government official worried that restrictive immigration policy is losing the US friends; a Portuguese tour guide rued US unilateralism; an Australian wondered how a superpower could act so frightened of a decrepit Middle Eastern dictatorship; a German journalist denounced an administration so determined on war without allied support - but then so insistent on postwar aid. The list could go on. Such criticism resonates, given popular ignorance about American foreign policies. For instance, many fervent Christian supporters of Israel seem blissfully unaware that more than 3 million Palestinians live under Israeli control in the Gaza Strip and West Bank. There are obvious reasons to back Israel, but peace is unlikely to come as long as Palestinians live in conditions that neither Israelis nor Americans would accept. Criticism, however, doesn't mean Washington shouldn't act when it believes itself to be right and its action to be necessary. It doesn't mean the US should flee unpopularity when great principles and interests are at stake. But US policy often puts Americans at greater risk. And, although Americans don't deserve to be put in danger, they must realize they are hated for far more than their beauty. . Doug Bandow is a senior fellow at the Cato Institute. Full HTML version of this story which may include photos, graphics, and related links www.csmonitor.com | Copyright © 2003 The Christian Science Monitor. All rights reserved. For permission to
[CTRL] Dying to Kill Us
-Caveat Lector- September 22, 2003 OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR Dying to Kill Us By ROBERT A. PAPE CHICAGO - Suicide terrorism has been on the rise around the world for two decades, but there is great confusion as to why. Since many such attacks - including, of course, those of Sept. 11, 2001 - have been perpetrated by Muslim terrorists professing religious motives, it might seem obvious that Islamic fundamentalism is the central cause. This presumption has fueled the belief that future 9/11's can be avoided only by a wholesale transformation of Muslim societies, which in turn was a core reason for broad public support of the invasion of Iraq. However, this presumed connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism is wrongheaded, and it may be encouraging domestic and foreign policies that are likely to worsen America's situation. I have spent a year compiling a database of every suicide bombing and attack around the globe from 1980 to 2001 - 188 in all. It includes any attack in which at least one terrorist killed himself or herself while attempting to kill others, although I excluded attacks authorized by a national government, such as those by North Korea against the South. The data show that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any religion for that matter. In fact, the leading instigator of suicide attacks is the Tamil Tigers in Sri Lanka, a Marxist-Leninist group whose members are from Hindu families but who are adamantly opposed to religion (they have have committed 75 of the 188 incidents). Rather, what nearly all suicide terrorist campaigns have in common is a specific secular and strategic goal: to compel liberal democracies to withdraw military forces from territory that the terrorists consider to be their homeland. Religion is rarely the root cause, although it is often used as a tool by terrorist organizations in recruiting and in other efforts in service of the broader strategic objective. Three general patterns in the data support my conclusions. First, nearly all suicide terrorist attacks occur as part of organized campaigns, not as isolated or random incidents. Of the 188 separate attacks in the period I studied, 179 could have their roots traced to large, coherent political or military campaigns. Second, liberal democracies are uniquely vulnerable to suicide terrorists. The United States, France, India, Israel, Russia, Sri Lanka and Turkey have been the targets of almost every suicide attack of the past two decades, and each country has been a democracy at the time of the incidents. Third, suicide terrorist campaigns are directed toward a strategic objective. From Lebanon to Israel to Sri Lanka to Kashmir to Chechnya, the sponsors of every campaign have been terrorist groups trying to establish or maintain political self-determination by compelling a democratic power to withdraw from the territories they claim. Even Al Qaeda fits this pattern: although Saudi Arabia is not under American military occupation per se, the initial major objective of Osama bin Laden was the expulsion of American troops from the Persian Gulf. Most worrisome, my research shows that the raw number of suicide attacks is climbing at an alarming rate, even while the rates of other types of terrorism actually declined. The worldwide annual total of terrorist incidents has fallen almost in half; there were 348 attacks in 2001 as opposed to 666 incidents in 1987. Yet the number of attacks in which the terrorists intend to kill themselves along with their victims has grown from an average of 3 per year in the 1980's, to 10 per year in the 1990's, to more than 25 in both 2000 and 2001. And in terms of casualties, suicide attacks are far and way the most efficient form of terrorism. From 1980 to 2001, suicide attacks accounted for only 3 percent of terrorist incidents, but caused almost half of total deaths due to terrorism - even if one excludes as an aberration the unusually large number of fatalities on 9/11. How should democracies respond? In the past, they have tended to react with heavy military offensives, only to find that this tends to incite more attacks and to stir public sympathy for the terrorists without hampering their networks (this has clearly been the case in the West Bank and Chechnya). In their frustration, some terrorized countries have then changed tacks, making concessions to political causes supported by terrorists. Yet this doesn't work either: one likely reason suicide terrorism has been rising so rapidly in recent years is that terrorist groups have learned that the strategy pays off. Suicide terrorists were thought to compel American and French military forces to abandon Lebanon in 1983, Israeli forces to leave most of Lebanon in 1985, Israeli forces to quit the Gaza Strip and the West Bank in 1994 and 1995, and the Turkish government to grant measures of autonomy to the Kurds in the late 1990's. In all but the case of Turkey, the
[CTRL] Righteous Israeli Pilots Say No To Murder
-Caveat Lector- Friday, September 19, 2003 Elul 22, 5763 Israel Time: 01:58 (GMT+3) Reserve pilots to refuse liquidations By Lily Galili A group of reserve pilots in the Israel Air Force is planning to publicly announce their refusal to participate in attempts to assassinate senior wanted men in the Palestinian Authority. The group has been discussing the initiative for more than three months and members say that they have been badly torn. According to sources in the movement of soldiers who refuse to serve in the territories, the group is in the process of collecting the last signatures and is waiting for the right moment to issue its announcement. The various refusal movements view the pilots' planned declaration as a big boost for their cause, due to the special status enjoyed by pilots in Israeli society, and hope that it will shake up Israelis in a way that ordinary refusals have not. Though one pilot joined the refusal movement at the start of the intifada, and though there were a few incidents during the Lebanon War of pilots refusing to bomb specific targets, a declaration by an organized group of pilots would be something new. The pilots initially considered joining one of the existing refusal movements, such as Courage to Refuse - the group of soldiers and officers who signed a declaration of refusal to serve in the territories more than 18 months ago. However, they eventually decided to form an independent group. Since Courage to Refuse was founded, with 50 members, more than 500 soldiers have signed its letter of refusal. However, the group has failed in its goal of provoking a public discourse over the continued occupation of the territories and Israel Defense Forces actions there. It is now hoping that the pilots' declaration will succeed where it has failed. discourse over the continued occupation of the territories and Israel Defense Forces actions there. It is now hoping that the pilots' declaration will succeed where it has failed. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] RepubliKrats DemiKans March Us Off The Fiscal Cliff
-Caveat Lector- http://www.latimes.com/news/politics/la-na-budget17sep17,1,6085724.story?coll=la -home-headlines Federal Budget Disaster Seen, but Won't Be Heard By Janet Hook Times Staff Writer September 17, 2003 WASHINGTON - Something remarkable will happen here today. A senior congressional figure will declare the federal budget, in effect, a disaster area - and official Washington will probably react with a shrug. Even though the government is on track to run a record deficit in excess of $500 billion next year, neither President Bush nor congressional leaders have proposed doing anything to balance the budget anytime soon. Their strategy: to wait for a vigorous economy to do the job for them. That makes David M. Walker, head of the General Accounting Office, Congress' investigative arm, a rare Cassandra. He is giving a speech today warning that the nation's long-term fiscal outlook is seriously out of whack. And he challenges the assumption that economic recovery will solve the problem painlessly. We need a wake-up call, Walker said in an interview. We need to come to terms with reality: The gap is too great to grow our way out of the problem. Tough choices will be required. His is a lonely voice on Capitol Hill, where deficit-expanding initiatives are growing like crabgrass, unchecked amid new budget demands for the war on terrorism and the reconstruction of Iraq. Bush and lawmakers from both parties continue to press for a $400-billion, 10-year expansion of Medicare to provide prescription drug benefits. House Republicans are pushing yet another round of tax cuts - this time for big business, at a cost of more than $100 billion over 10 years. And even as Bush asks for $87 billion more for military and reconstruction efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan, there seems to be little appetite in Congress for offsetting cuts in domestic spending. This is truly a Lyndon Johnson guns-and-butter fiscal policy, said Daniel J. Mitchell, a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Democrats - both in Congress and on the presidential campaign trail - have tried to spotlight the deficit as an emblem of the failure of Bush's fiscal policy. It has given new impetus to Democratic proposals to repeal all or part of the 2001 tax cut. Some congressional Democrats are considering a proposal to help cover Iraq costs by raising taxes on the wealthiest taxpayers. The deficit is an easy-to-understand symbol that things are being mismanaged, said David Sirota, spokesman for the Center for American Progress, a liberal research group. It should reopen the entire debate on whether we should continue cutting taxes for the wealthy. But the Democratic Party is deeply divided over whether or how far to raise taxes. And with their own big spending plans for Medicare, education and other domestic priorities, Democrats also lack a clear program for getting the budget back into balance. Missing from the presidential field is an H. Ross Perot, whose 1992 maverick campaign made budget balancing the cornerstone of his challenge to the Washington establishment. Nobody is prepared to make any trade-offs, said Robert Bixby, executive director of the Concord Coalition, a budget watchdog group. No one is prepared to give up anything important to them to bring the budget under control. The deficit has cast an increasingly long shadow over Congress with each upward revision. In August, the Congressional Budget Office said the deficit in 2004 would reach $480 billion - and that did not include the cost of the conflict in Iraq or pending legislation to expand Medicare. Now, in light of its Iraq budget request, the administration projects that next year's deficit will reach at least $525 billion. It seems certain that Congress will approve at least the $87 billion Bush has requested. The bigger question is whether that will boost the deficit so high that lawmakers will reassess other parts of the budget or change their legislative ways. Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (R-Maine), who voted against Bush's tax cut last spring because she was concerned about the deficit, said she thought the budget was putting new pressure on lawmakers to propose offsetting spending cuts when they propose increases - as she plans to when she pushes for more child-care funding in a welfare bill soon to come before the Senate. The deficit is now back on everyone's radar screen, Snowe said. On the spending side, we have to make some choices. But Snowe herself demonstrates why it will be so hard to reverse the current trend. Even though she says she is an adamant foe of deficits, Snowe still wants to go ahead with the $400-billion Medicare drug benefit. Medicare is an exception and it should be, she said. Bush and other politicians argue that running a deficit is justified at a time of military conflict abroad and economic downturn at home. His administration's stated goal has been to cut the deficit in half in five years. Rather than
[CTRL] Big Lie or Big Mistake?
-Caveat Lector- washingtonpost.com Hussein Link to 9/11 Lingers in Many Minds By Dana Milbank and Claudia Deane Washington Post Staff Writers Saturday, September 6, 2003; Page A01 Nearing the second anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, seven in 10 Americans continue to believe that Iraq's Saddam Hussein had a role in the attacks, even though the Bush administration and congressional investigators say they have no evidence of this. Sixty-nine percent of Americans said they thought it at least likely that Hussein was involved in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to the latest Washington Post poll. That impression, which exists despite the fact that the hijackers were mostly Saudi nationals acting for al Qaeda, is broadly shared by Democrats, Republicans and independents. The main reason for the endurance of the apparently groundless belief, experts in public opinion say, is a deep and enduring distrust of Hussein that makes him a likely suspect in anything related to Middle East violence. It's very easy to picture Saddam as a demon, said John Mueller, a political scientist at Ohio State University and an expert on public opinion and war. You get a general fuzz going around: People know they don't like al Qaeda, they are horrified by September 11th, they know this guy is a bad guy, and it's not hard to put those things together. Although that belief came without prompting from Washington, Democrats and some independent experts say Bush exploited the apparent misconception by implying a link between Hussein and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the months before the war with Iraq. The notion was reinforced by these hints, the discussions that they had about possible links with al Qaeda terrorists, said Andrew Kohut, a pollster who leads the nonpartisan Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. The poll's findings are significant because they help to explain why the public continues to support operations in Iraq despite the setbacks and bloodshed there. Americans have more tolerance for war when it is provoked by an attack, particularly one by an all-purpose villain such as Hussein. That's why attitudes about the decision to go to war are holding up, Kohut said. Bush's opponents say he encouraged this misconception by linking al Qaeda to Hussein in almost every speech on Iraq. Indeed, administration officials began to hint about a Sept. 11-Hussein link soon after the attacks. In late 2001, Vice President Cheney said it was pretty well confirmed that attack mastermind Mohamed Atta met with a senior Iraqi intelligence official. Speaking on NBC's Meet the Press, Cheney was referring to a meeting that Czech officials said took place in Prague in April 2000. That allegation was the most direct connection between Iraq and the Sept. 11 attacks. But this summer's congressional report on the attacks states, The CIA has been unable to establish that [Atta] left the United States or entered Europe in April under his true name or any known alias. Bush, in his speeches, did not say directly that Hussein was culpable in the Sept. 11 attacks. But he frequently juxtaposed Iraq and al Qaeda in ways that hinted at a link. In a March speech about Iraq's weapons of terror, Bush said: If the world fails to confront the threat posed by the Iraqi regime, refusing to use force, even as a last resort, free nations would assume immense and unacceptable risks. The attacks of September the 11th, 2001, showed what the enemies of America did with four airplanes. We will not wait to see what terrorists or terrorist states could do with weapons of mass destruction. Then, in declaring the end of major combat in Iraq on May 1, Bush linked Iraq and the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks: The battle of Iraq is one victory in a war on terror that began on September the 11, 2001 -- and still goes on. That terrible morning, 19 evil men -- the shock troops of a hateful ideology -- gave America and the civilized world a glimpse of their ambitions. Moments later, Bush added: The liberation of Iraq is a crucial advance in the campaign against terror. We've removed an ally of al Qaeda, and cut off a source of terrorist funding. And this much is certain: No terrorist network will gain weapons of mass destruction from the Iraqi regime, because the regime is no more. In these 19 months that changed the world, our actions have been focused and deliberate and proportionate to the offense. We have not forgotten the victims of September the 11th -- the last phone calls, the cold murder of children, the searches in the rubble. With those attacks, the terrorists and their supporters declared war on the United States. And war is what they got. A number of nongovernment officials close to the Bush administration have made the link more directly. Richard N. Perle, who until recently was chairman of the Pentagon's Defense Policy Board, long argued that there was Iraqi involvement, calling the evidence
[CTRL] This war on terrorism is bogus
-Caveat Lector- This war on terrorism is bogus The 9/11 attacks gave the US an ideal pretext to use force to secure its global domination Michael Meacher Saturday September 6, 2003 The Guardian Massive attention has now been given - and rightly so - to the reasons why Britain went to war against Iraq. But far too little attention has focused on why the US went to war, and that throws light on British motives too. The conventional explanation is that after the Twin Towers were hit, retaliation against al-Qaida bases in Afghanistan was a natural first step in launching a global war against terrorism. Then, because Saddam Hussein was alleged by the US and UK governments to retain weapons of mass destruction, the war could be extended to Iraq as well. However this theory does not fit all the facts. The truth may be a great deal murkier. We now know that a blueprint for the creation of a global Pax Americana was drawn up for Dick Cheney (now vice-president), Donald Rumsfeld (defence secretary), Paul Wolfowitz (Rumsfeld's deputy), Jeb Bush (George Bush's younger brother) and Lewis Libby (Cheney's chief of staff). The document, entitled Rebuilding America's Defences, was written in September 2000 by the neoconservative think tank, Project for the New American Century (PNAC). The plan shows Bush's cabinet intended to take military control of the Gulf region whether or not Saddam Hussein was in power. It says while the unresolved conflict with Iraq provides the immediate justification, the need for a substantial American force presence in the Gulf transcends the issue of the regime of Saddam Hussein. The PNAC blueprint supports an earlier document attributed to Wolfowitz and Libby which said the US must discourage advanced industrial nations from challenging our leadership or even aspiring to a larger regional or global role. It refers to key allies such as the UK as the most effective and efficient means of exercising American global leadership. It describes peacekeeping missions as demanding American political leadership rather than that of the UN. It says even should Saddam pass from the scene, US bases in Saudi Arabia and Kuwait will remain permanently... as Iran may well prove as large a threat to US interests as Iraq has. It spotlights China for regime change, saying it is time to increase the presence of American forces in SE Asia. The document also calls for the creation of US space forces to dominate space, and the total control of cyberspace to prevent enemies using the internet against the US. It also hints that the US may consider developing biological weapons that can target specific genotypes [and] may transform biological warfare from the realm of terror to a politically useful tool. Finally - written a year before 9/11 - it pinpoints North Korea, Syria and Iran as dangerous regimes, and says their existence justifies the creation of a worldwide command and control system. This is a blueprint for US world domination. But before it is dismissed as an agenda for rightwing fantasists, it is clear it provides a much better explanation of what actually happened before, during and after 9/11 than the global war on terrorism thesis. This can be seen in several ways. First, it is clear the US authorities did little or nothing to pre-empt the events of 9/11. It is known that at least 11 countries provided advance warning to the US of the 9/11 attacks. Two senior Mossad experts were sent to Washington in August 2001 to alert the CIA and FBI to a cell of 200 terrorists said to be preparing a big operation (Daily Telegraph, September 16 2001). The list they provided included the names of four of the 9/11 hijackers, none of whom was arrested. It had been known as early as 1996 that there were plans to hit Washington targets with aeroplanes. Then in 1999 a US national intelligence council report noted that al-Qaida suicide bombers could crash-land an aircraft packed with high explosives into the Pentagon, the headquarters of the CIA, or the White House. Fifteen of the 9/11 hijackers obtained their visas in Saudi Arabia. Michael Springman, the former head of the American visa bureau in Jeddah, has stated that since 1987 the CIA had been illicitly issuing visas to unqualified applicants from the Middle East and bringing them to the US for training in terrorism for the Afghan war in collaboration with Bin Laden (BBC, November 6 2001). It seems this operation continued after the Afghan war for other purposes. It is also reported that five of the hijackers received training at secure US military installations in the 1990s (Newsweek, September 15 2001). Instructive leads prior to 9/11 were not followed up. French Moroccan flight student Zacarias Moussaoui (now thought to be the 20th hijacker) was arrested in August 2001 after an instructor reported he showed a suspicious interest in learning how to steer large airliners. When US agents learned from French intelligence he had radical Islamist ties, they
[CTRL] More Govt Anti Drug Propaganda Exposed
-Caveat Lector- washingtonpost.com Results Retracted On Ecstasy Study By Rick Weiss Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, September 6, 2003; Page A03 Scientists at Johns Hopkins University who last year published a frightening and controversial report suggesting that a single evening's use of the illicit drug ecstasy could cause permanent brain damage and Parkinson's disease are retracting their research in its entirety, saying the drug they used in their experiments was not ecstasy after all. The retraction, to be published in next Friday's issue of the journal Science, has reignited a smoldering and sometimes angry debate over the risks and benefits of the drug, also known as MDMA. The drug is popular at all-night raves and other venues for its ability to reduce inhibitions and induce expansive feelings of open-heartedness. But some studies have indicated that the drug can at least temporarily damage neurons that use the mood-altering brain chemical serotonin. Some users also have spiked fevers, which rarely have proven fatal. Last year's research, involving monkeys and baboons, purported to show that three modest doses of ecstasy -- the amount a person might take in a one-night rave -- could cause serious damage to another part of the brain: neurons that use the brain chemical dopamine. Two of 10 animals died quickly after their second or third dose of the drug, and two others were too sick to take the third dose. Six weeks later, dopamine levels in the surviving animals were still down 65 percent. That led Hopkins team leader George Ricaurte and his colleagues to conclude that users were playing Russian roulette with their brains. Advocates of ecstasy's therapeutic potential, including a number of scientists and doctors who believe it may be useful in treating post-traumatic stress disorder or other psychiatric conditions, criticized the study. They noted that the drug was given in higher doses than people commonly take and was administered by injection, not by mouth. They wondered why large numbers of users were not dying or growing deathly ill from the drug, as the animals did, and why no previous link had been made between ecstasy and Parkinson's despite decades of use and a large number of studies. The answer to at least some of those questions became clear with the retraction, which is being released by Science on Sunday evening but was obtained independently by The Washington Post. Because of a mislabeling of vials, the scientists wrote, all but one of the animals were injected not with ecstasy but with methamphetamine, or speed -- a drug known to damage the dopamine system. The researchers said they discovered the mistake when follow-up tests gave conflicting results, and they offered evidence that the tubes were mislabeled by the supplier, identified by sources as Research Triangle Institute of North Carolina. A spokesman for the company said last night that he did not know whether the company had erred. The error has renewed charges that government-funded scientists, and Ricaurte in particular, have been biased in their assessment of ecstasy's risks and potential benefits. Rick Doblin, president of Multidisciplinary Association for Psychedelic Studies, a Sarasota, Fla.-based group that funds studies on therapeutic uses of mind-altering drugs and is seeking permission to conduct human tests of MDMA, said the evidence of serotonin system damage is weak. The largest and best-controlled study of the effect of MDMA on serotonin showed no long-term effects in former users and minimal to no effects in current users, he said. Una McCann, one of the Hopkins scientists, said she regretted the role the false results may have played in a debate going on last year in Congress and within the Drug Enforcement Administration over how to deal with ecstasy abuse. I feel personally terrible, she said. You spend a lot of time trying to get things right, not only for the congressional record but for other scientists around the country who are basing new hypotheses on your work and are writing grant proposals to study this. But she and Ricaurte emphasized last night that the retraction had not changed their feelings about the danger of taking ecstasy. I still wouldn't recommend it to anybody, McCann said. © 2003 The Washington Post Company www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis 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,
[CTRL] Alaskan Law Enforcement Dazed, Confused, Suffering Denial
-Caveat Lector- Alaska Appeals Court Legalizes Simple Marijuana Possession, Law Enforcement Dazed and Confused, Suffering Denial Alaska citizens have the right to possess less than four ounces of marijuana in their home for personal use. -- Alaska Court of Appeals, Noy v. State, August 29, 2003 The Alaska Court of Appeals ruled August 29 that Alaska residents may possess up to four ounces of marijuana in their own homes without any criminal or civil penalty. The ruling, which cites a 1975 Alaska Supreme Court finding that the Alaska constitution's privacy provisions protect the personal possession and use of marijuana in the home, once again makes Alaska the only state in the country with legal marijuana in the home. (After the 1975 Ravin v. Alaska decision, the Alaska legislature eventually removed criminal penalties for possession of less than four ounces, but a 1990 voter initiative cheerlead by then drug czar William Bennett recriminalized simple pot possession. It has taken until now for the appeals courts to rule on a case that challenged the constitutionality of the 1990 vote.) While sources in the Alaska Attorney General's office told DRCNet the state would appeal the ruling, as of last Friday the Court of Appeals' decision is the law of the land. But Alaska law enforcement, starting with the attorney general's office, doesn't seem to get it. Law enforcement spokesmen asked by DRCNet how they were reacting to the decision responded with a mixture of confusion and determination to keep on arresting domestic pot smokers and possessors. For police in Anchorage, the state's largest city, it's business as usual. We are still enforcing the law the way we were before this, said Anchorage Police Department public affairs officer Ron McGee. As far as that goes, there has been no change, he told DRCNet. And it's still illegal under federal law, he added. Greg Wilkinson, spokesman for the Alaska Bureau of Alcohol and Drug Enforcement, told DRCNet bureau representatives were meeting with other state law enforcement officials this week to try to figure out how to respond. We are approaching this from two angles, he said. One feeling is that is will be business as usual. The other was that it will not. Busting personal users in their homes is not a high priority, he said, adding that the bureau's focus was on large-scale commercial operations, but that agents who encountered personal marijuana may still act. The feeling is that we may end up just confiscating the marijuana now, he said. He could not explain on what basis police would seize people's legal property. And Alaska Chief Assistant Attorney General Dean Guaneli was reading from the same script. When police come into a home, whether on a domestic violence call or something else, and see marijuana, we are not in a position to tell them to turn their back on it, he told DRCNet. We are telling the police it is not legal to possess. We will continue to do as we have done, we will file charges and leave it up to the courts. When Guaneli was asked his position squared with the Court of Appeals' unanimous and unequivocal ruling -- Alaska citizens have the right to possess less than four ounces of marijuana in their home for personal use -- he in turn asked, What does that mean? If tomorrow a new medical study showed marijuana has the same addictive properties for long-term users as cocaine or heroin, does that mean the state is prevented from prosecuting those cases? We've think if we have the chance to go into court, we can show that the reasons for making marijuana possession a crime are important enough to override our constitutional right to privacy, Guaneli argued. It is not quite right to say this ruling makes it completely legal. If we can go in right, we can get the court to change this. Unsurprisingly, Fairbanks defense attorney Bill Satterberg, who successfully argued the ground-breaking case as well as other related cases (http://www.drcnet.org/wol/295.shtml#alaskaruling), begged to differ with Guaneli's interpretation of the ruling. Is the possession of less than four ounces of marijuana in your own home legal in Alaska? he asked. The answer is, under state law, yes; under federal law, no, he told DRCNet. We are moving into an area where a state constitution grants greater freedom than the US Constitution. As a practical matter, Satterberg added, federal prosecutions for simple marijuana possession are highly unusual. But if state and local law enforcement is going to argue that it can make marijuana possession arrests because of federal law, they could be in for some tough sledding, he suggested. If state law enforcement officers attempt to override state constitutional guarantees to prosecute federal laws, they will be treading on dangerous ground, Satterberg said. The police need to get some good legal advice. These officers are sworn to uphold the law, and what I'm hearing them say is they're not going to. If the police are saying
Re: [CTRL] The God-Hater Test
-Caveat Lector- I failed the test. flw www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Letter from Iraq
-Caveat Lector- Dear all, The intense heat has turned my black jeans white with the salt of my sweat. The crowds surge and push and crush me as I wind my way through. The violent sun beats my head, dizzying me. I try to steady myself. I take a deep breath but smell nothing but dirty socks and sweat. The heat seems to radiate from the ground up as well as from the sky down. I am soaked with perspiration. My eyes are blurred, my vision is skewed. I have the distinct sense of being at one of the huge outdoor rock concerts I used to frequent a decade ago, the rowdy summertime punk extravaganzas. I sense the same razor-sharp twitchiness of young sexually frustrated men. There is the same excitement as the angry, young headline act comes up to perform. There is the same lousy public address system and sea of blankets spread out. I even start thinking that I'm getting too old for this shit. But this is about as far from a rock concert as you can get. This is a Friday prayer sermon in the city of Kufa by a young Islamic fundamentalist cleric named Muqtada al-Sadr. I've been spending a lot of time speaking with Shiite clerics in the new Iraq. I tell, you can't avoid it. With Saddam Hussein gone, they're stock has really risen. Sixty percent of Iraq's population are Shiites. Under Saddam Hussein they were oppressed, marginalized and brutalized. He came down particularly hard on Shiites in the south, who rose up against them following the 1991 Gulf War. Many clerics led that revolt, and like pop stars in the U.S., Shiite clerics' likenesses are wheatpasted onto walls around all sections of Baghdad. There are Shiite clerics who run newspapers. Clerics who run charities. Clerics who run mosques, clinics and schools. There are very devout clerics who are nevertheless tolerant. There are very cynical clerics who who feign devotion to gain power. There are even radical reformist clerics who oppose Islamic traditions and argue for a strict separation of mosque and state. Muqtada al-Sadr is definitely not one of them. During that speech in Kufa, he said a lot of angry things against the American occupation. He vowed to create his own army, naming it after the Imam Mahdi, the 9th century Shiite saint who disappeared from the Earth and whose return will herald a new age. Later, we land an interview with the intense, brooding young Mullah. He turns his eyes away from women and never smiles. He's deadly serious and a little frightening. He wears the black turban of the seyed, or the descendant of the prophet. In his dinghy office in a narrow alleyway in Najaf, he speaks out against America, the west and the U.S.-installed governing council. He says the governing council has no legitimacy, that the Iraqi people gave no input whatsoever to its creation. I start nodding in agreement. It's strange, even though I disagree with his very existence, even though he scares the hell out of me, even though he would probably have me murdered or deported if he ever took control of Iraq, I think he's got a point. The Iraqi governing council has no legitimacy, international or domestically. It is a complete and utter puppet of America, with no power whatsoever except, quite pathetically, to make or unmake holidays. On the other hand, I've met many of the Governing Council members. They're decent people, smart people, motivated and committed to their country. Many -- like Muwafak al-Rubayee or Abdel-Aziz Hakim -- aren't even pro-American, or weren't until they got picked to be on the council. How can I agree with Sadr and agree with them at the same time? I feel like my mind is twisting and turning, and I have no idea what to make of Iraq any more. The longer I'm here it seems the more convuluted my judgment becomes, the more complicated the prisms through which I view Iraq and the Middle East. All of a sudden I see Rym Brahimi, of CNN. She walks into Sadr's office with her team. She laughs when she sees me, but quickly hushes herself. I had just spoken to her a few evenings ago by the swimming pool at al Hamra. Moqtada seems not at all amused. But I'm suddenly more interested in chatting with my old graduate school classmate Rym than finishing my interview with this creepy guy. I start thinking of Manhattan and 24-hour Korean delis and the good life, how I miss my friends, how I miss my folks, how through the haze of heat and diesel exhaust and the roar of tanks, nothing here makes any sense to me any more. What's so interesting about Iraq is the enormous complexity of what has happened here, what the U.S. invasion meant. I think we're all grappling to find a vocabulary to describe it. Critics of U.S. foreign policy argue that it was a belligerent, bullying act by a chauvinistic superpower based on lies. I think they're absolutely right. Advocates of U.S. foreign policy argue that it was an act of liberation, freeing an ossified totalitarian society. I think they're absolutely right, too. I think the problem is that we're struggling
[CTRL] Big Expensive Secrets
-Caveat Lector- Classified Spending On the Rise Report: Defense to Get $23.2 Billion By Dan Morgan Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, August 27, 2003; Page A23 Black, or classified, programs requested in President Bush's 2004 defense budget are at the highest level since 1988, according to a report prepared by the independent Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments. The center concluded that classified spending next fiscal year will reach about $23.2 billion of the Pentagon's total request for procurement and research funding. When adjusted for inflation, that is the largest dollar figure since the peak reached during President Ronald Reagan's defense buildup 16 years ago. The amount in 1988 was $19.7 billion, or $26.7 billion if adjusted for inflation, according to the center. It's puzzling. It sets the mind to wondering where the money's going and what sort of politically controversial things the administration is doing because they're not telling anybody, said John E. Pike, director of GlobalSecurity.org, a research group in Alexandria that has been critical of the administration's defense priorities. Pike said part of the surge in the classified budget probably can be explained by increases for the Central Intelligence Agency's covert action programs, which are central to the war on terrorism. Traditionally, Pike said, much of the funding for the CIA is hidden in Air Force weapons procurement accounts. But unlike the 1980s, when it was widely known that the black budget was going to the development of stealth aircraft such as the B-2 bomber and F-117 fighter, the uses of the classified accounts today are far murkier, Pike said. The Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments is a Washington research group that analyzes many aspects of the defense budget. Steven Kosiak, who prepared the report on classified spending, said he reached his conclusions by comparing sums requested for open, or nonclassified, programs with the total Defense Department request for fiscal 2004. Some black spending in the Pentagon budget is designated for code-named programs such as the Army's Tractor Rose and the Navy's Retract Larch. But sources said some names may be accounting fictions that do not stand for actual programs. Other classified spending is accounted for under such bland headings as special activities. Officials at the Pentagon and in Congress declined to comment on the center's report, which was compiled earlier this summer. Key congressional defense committees will meet in the next several weeks to resolve differences over the 2004 Pentagon spending plan, including those involving classified programs. According to the Kosiak analysis, the Air Force's classified weapons procurement budget has jumped from $7 billion in 2001 to almost $11 billion as requested for 2004. In dollar terms, total classified spending in the Pentagon budget request has almost doubled since the mid-1990s, according to tables provided by Kosiak. Kosiak said in his report that performance in the classified programs has been mixed. He noted that highly successful weapons systems such as the F-117 and the B-2 were initially developed within the classified budget. But so was the Navy's A-12 medium attack plane, which was canceled in 1991 after a series of technical problems and cost increases. After it was canceled, manufacturers complained that secrecy in the program kept them from acquiring critical data needed to head off some of the problems. Restrictions placed on access to classified funding have meant that the Defense Department and Congress typically exercise less oversight over classified programs than unclassified ones, Kosiak wrote. In the case of the new defense budget, it is anybody's guess where most of the classified money is going, Pike said. But he said it is a good bet that some of it is going to programs that the administration is known to strongly favor, such as missile defense and the development of hypersonic planes that can fly beyond Earth's atmosphere. This is an administration that likes to play I've got a secret, he said. The growth of the classified budget appears to be part of a larger pattern of this administration being secretive. © 2003 The Washington Post Company www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis 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.
[CTRL] Why I Refuse to be a Juror in Federal Court
-Caveat Lector- 8/22/03 The Honorable Rufus G. King III Chief Judge Superior Court of the District of Columbia Moultrie Courthouse 500 Indiana Ave., NW, Room 3500 Washington, DC 20001 Re: Jury Summons, August 25, 2003, JIN # 559075 Dear Judge King: I write you from a different corner of the world of law than the one you oversee for the District of Columbia: the community of advocates striving to change laws and policies. For the past ten years, I have worked as founder and executive director of StopTheDrugWar.org: the Drug Reform Coordination Network (DRCNet), an organization which calls for an end to prohibition and the so-called war on drugs. It is with sadness for our country, but hope for its future, that I write to inform you that conscience does not permit me to appear for jury service as your court has directed. US drug policy is in a state of moral and humanitarian crisis, shaming us before history: Half a million nonviolent drug offenders clog our prisons and jails. Mandatory minimum sentences and inflexible sentencing guidelines condemn numerous low-level offenders to years or decades behind bars, often based solely on the word of compensated, confidential informants. Profiling and other racial or economic disparities assault the dignity and safety of our poor and minorities and deny them equal justice. Overall, criminalization has become a reflexive, default reaction to social problems, as opposed to its more limited, proper role as a last resort after other methods have failed. As a result, more than two million people are imprisoned in the United States, the highest incarceration rate of any nation. The external consequences of the drug laws wreak a devastating toll on large segments of our society and on other countries: Prohibition creates a lucrative black market that soaks our inner cities in violence and disorder, and lures young people into lives of crime. Laws criminalizing syringe possession, and the overall milieu of underground drug use and sales, encourage needle sharing and increase the spread of HIV and Hepatitis C. Our drug war in the Andes fuels a continuing civil war in Colombia, with prohibition-generated illicit drug profits enabling its escalation. Thousands of Americans die from drug overdoses or poisonings by adulterants every year, most of their deaths preventable through the quality-controlled market that would exist if drugs were legal. Physicians' justifiable fear of running afoul of law enforcers causes large numbers of Americans to go un- or under-treated for intractable chronic pain. And frustration over the failure of the drug war, together with the lack of dialogue on prohibition, distorts the policymaking process, leading to ever more intrusive governmental interventions and ever greater dilution of the core American values of freedom, privacy and fairness. Drug policies have significantly driven a deep corrosion of the ethics and principles underlying our system of justice: Police officers routinely violate constitutional rights to make drug busts, often committing perjury to secure convictions; or resort to trickery and manipulation to cause individuals to give up their rights, enabled by an intricate web of legalistic court rulings stretching the letter of the law while betraying its spirit. Manipulation of evidence and process is standard procedure. Many prosecutors, though thankfully not all, treat their position as a stepping stone to elected office, subjugating their oaths to seek justice to a political calculus based instead on individual career advancement. Corruption and misconduct among enforcers and within agencies is widespread. And all these problems, while not officially sanctioned, are in practice largely tolerated: criminal prosecution for police abuse is the exception, and disbarment for prosecutorial misconduct is almost unheard of. Meanwhile, false or unfair convictions occur with unacknowledged frequency, with persons thus victimized often spending years in prison while seeking exoneration. Jurors in the United States cannot therefore confidently rely on the information we are provided for deciding criminal cases. We cannot know if we have been told the whole truth of a case as in the trials of Ed Rosenthal and Bryan Epis, whom California jurors convicted without knowing they were medical marijuana providers. We cannot trust the testimony of witnesses for the state to be truthful and balanced; for example, Andrew Chambers, a super-snitch used by the US Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) for numerous prosecutions, even after a court found him to be a repeat perjurer. We are not permitted knowledge of the possible consequences a defendant may face if we vote to convict and in a society that hands out decades-long punishments as a routine matter, and which fails to provide adequate safety or medical care to our incarcerated, we cannot have faith that a judge will be able, even if willing, to pronounce a
[CTRL] Police State Update: The war on civil liberties road show
-Caveat Lector- Liberty Action of the Week: August 26,2003 The war on civil liberties road show by Mary Lou Seymour The Justice Department says its traveling road show to tout the benefits of the Patriot Act is intended to combat misunderstandings the public has about the sweeping legislation passed almost unanimously by a terrified Congress in the wake of 9-11. Unfortunately for our would be rulers in the dismal swamp of Washington DC, the public wasn't as universally cowed by 9-11 and ready to exchange liberty for security as Congress was. After a slow start, the movement to form Bill of Rights Defense Committees and pass community resolutions condemning the act as an infringement of civil liberties and even, in some cases, setting fines for those who don't promptly notify the city manager if federal law enforcement authorities contact them seeking help in an investigation, interrogation or arrest under the provisions of the act (Communities shun Patriot Act) caught fire and swept through the country. Not only did the civil libertarians and more alert members of the public react strongly to Patriot I, after the initial shock of 9-11 wore off, but when in February 2003 news of the Son of the Patriot Act, the Domestic Security Enhancement Act of 2003, leaked out (War on civil liberties heats up), within days columnists were calling DESA a Total police state takeover and noting that this time, unlike the rush to pass Patriot I, there was a Chilly response to Patriot II. Patriot II then dropped out of the news, presumably in the hope the public would forget all about it in the patriotic fervor surrounding the invasion (whoops, liberation) of Iraq. But throughout America, activists continued quietly lobbying their communities to pass those darn community resolutions, until as of this writing, the ACLU lists more than 150 communities in 28 states, including three state-wide resolutions, representing approximately 17.4 million people who oppose the USA PATRIOT Act. And then the occupation of Iraq started going sour and Congress began chipping away at the more onerous segments of Patriot I such as last month's lopsided U.S. House vote forbidding Justice from spending funds to use the act's controversial 'sneak and peak' provision that authorizes federal agents to conduct secret searches of homes and businesses. (Ashcroft's Campaign to Shore Up the Patriot Act) This wasn't supposed to happen, of course. The public and Congress were supposed to not only meekly go along with Patriot I, but accept even more onerous legislation, such as Patriot II. In July, Ashcroft himself, speaking in Anchorage, Alaska (where the state legislature had just passed resolutions protesting the national anti-terrorism law) told federal and local officials the USA Patriot Act should be expanded, not softened. (Toughen Patriot Act, Ashcroft says) So, in desperation, Ashcroft has set off on a whirlwind tour of 18 cities in 10 days, promoting the USA PATRIOT Act and preparing the public for a sequel. (Highly Watchable) Brother John's traveling patriot salvation show, as Elaine Cassel of Civil Liberties Watch dubs the publicity tour, is designed to convince law enforcement officials that preserving security is essential to preserving freedom, as the Patriot Act campaign web site Preserving Life and Liberty puts it. Oh yeah, they even have a web site. That's for us peons, who won't get to hear what Brother John tells the law enforcement officials in their private meetings. Supposedly,as part of the campaign, all 94 U.S. attorneys around the country are being encouraged to hold town hall-style events to discuss the Patriot Act and its role in preventing terror (Ashcroft begins Patriot Act tour), but so far, Attorney General Ashcroft has chosen to avoid speaking to the American people. Instead he prefers to confine his speaking to hand- picked audiences, thus creating the illusion of agreement and consensus. (Attorney General Ducks Demonstrators on Visit to Iowa's Heartland) Demonstrators have been forced to demonstrate outside the hotel where he spoke in Des Moines, or outside the newly built Constitution Hall in Philadelphia, another city where officials have passed a resolution condemning the anti-terror act. (Ashcroft says Patriot Act Effective) So far, demonstrations have pulled around 100 people. Of course, it's kinda hard to oprganize a demonstration when it isn't even public knowledge which cities are on the tour list, or where in that city the private meeting might be held. In researching this column, I checked numerous sources, and could only find vague references to 18 cities, including Washington, Detroit, Philadelphia, Milwaukee, Des Moines, or Ashcroft's tour began in Philadelphia and continued to Ohio yesterday, then to Michigan and Iowa, with other stops planned in coming weeks. But not only is Ashcroft plugging the Patriot Act, he's also setting the stage for the next step in the war on civil liberties ... the
[CTRL] The Real Wesley Clark
-Caveat Lector- THE WESLEY CLARK MYTH NOW THAT establishment favorite Edwards is fading in the Democratic primaries, there is increasing talk in similar circles of launching a campaign for General Wesley Clark, some of it so absurd that it compares Clark to Eisenhower. But the Clark boosters better do a bit more homework. For example, this from a piece by Lowell Ponte [Clark] was named Commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, III Corps, at sweltering Fort Hood southwest of Waco, Texas. On a late winter day in 1993, Texas Governor Ann Richards suddenly called the base, later meeting with Clark's Number Two to discuss an urgent matter. Crazies at a Waco compound had killed Federal agents. If newly-sworn-in President Bill Clinton signed a waiver setting aside the Posse Comitatus Act, which generally prohibits the military from using its arms against American citizens within our borders, could Fort Hood supply tanks and other equipment? Clinton did. Wesley Clark's command at Fort Hood lent 17 pieces of armor and 15 active service personnel under his command to the Waco Branch Davidian operation. It is absolute fact that the military equipment used by the government at Waco came from Fort Hood and Clark's command. The only issue debated by experts is whether Clark was at Waco in person to help direct the assault against the church compound in a scene remarkably similar to the incineration of villagers in a church by the British in Mel Gibson's movie The Patriot. What happened at Waco was the death, mostly by fire, of at least 82 men, women and children, including two babies who died after being fire aborted from the dying bodies of their pregnant mothers. Planning for this final assault involved a meeting between Clinton Attorney General Janet Reno and two military officers who developed the tactical plan used but who have never been identified. Some evidence and analysis suggests that Wesley Clark was one of these two who devised what happened at Waco. Ponte also reports that when Russians landed and took over one provincial airport in the region, General Clark commanded British forces to attack the Russians. British General Sir Mike Jackson reportedly refused, saying: 'I'm not going to start the Third World War for you!' And this from military writer Col. David Hackworth: Known by those who've served with him as the 'Ultimate Perfumed Prince,' he's far more comfortable in a drawing room discussing political theories than hunkering down in the trenches where bullets fly and soldiers die. Clark, by the report of some who have worked with him, is an egocentric, marginally qualified officer of questionable judgment who made his way to the top with the help of fellow Rhodes Scholar Bill Clinton. MORE ON CLARK http://www.counterpunch.org/clark.html COUNTERPUNCH - The poster child for everything that is wrong with the GO (general officer) corps, exclaims one colonel, who has had occasion to observe Clark in action, citing, among other examples, his command of the 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood from 1992 to 1994. While Clark's official Pentagon biography proclaims his triumph in transitioning the Division into a rapidly deployable force this officer describes the 1st Horse Division as easily the worst division I have ever seen in 25 years of doing this stuff. Such strong reactions are common. A major in the 3rd Brigade of the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson, Colorado when Clark was in command there in the early 1980s described him as a man who regards each and every one of his subordinates as a potential threat to his career. While he regards his junior officers with watchful suspicion, he customarily accords the lower ranks little more than arrogant contempt. A veteran of Clark's tenure at Fort Hood recalls the general's massive tantrum because the privates and sergeants and wives in the crowded (canteen) checkout lines didn't jump out of the way fast enough to let him through. . . Observers agree that Clark has always displayed an obsessive concern with the perquisites and appurtenances of rank. Ever since he acceded to the Nato command post, the entourage with which he travels has accordingly grown to gargantuan proportions to the point where even civilians are beginning to comment. A Senate aide recalls his appearances to testify, prior to which aides scurry about the room adjusting lights, polishing his chair, testing the microphone etc prior to the precisely timed and choreographed moment when the Supreme Allied Commander Europe makes his entrance. We are state of the art pomposity and arrogance up here, remarks the aide. So when a witness displays those traits so egregiously that even the senators notice, you know we're in trouble. His NATO subordinates call him, not with affection, the Supreme Being. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please!
[CTRL] America Brings Freedom to Iraqis
-Caveat Lector- Porn, Drugs, Weapons Hit Baghdad Streets 2 hours, 1 minute ago By ANDREW ENGLAND, Associated Press Writer BAGHDAD, Iraq - A Quranic verse plastered on a monument to freedom carries a simple message - God will send a plague on those who deal in drugs and spread corruption. Across the busy highway from the monument, built in 1958 after the overthrow of the monarchy, traders have set up gambling tables and are openly selling pornography, fake ID cards and looted goods - including laboratory microscopes, industrial fuse boxes and pills stolen from psychiatric hospitals. Now we have freedom and democracy, said a 34-year-old trader selling pornographic DVDs with titles such as The Dirty Family and The Young Wife, and photocopied postcards of couples in various sexual positions. We could not sell them when Saddam was here. This is Baghdad four months after U.S. troops took over the sprawling city of 5 million - jobless, insecure, and in many cases taking freedom and democracy as license to do pretty much what you want and get away with it. The trader, a father of two young daughters, was too embarrassed to give his name. Pornography is strictly forbidden by Islam. It's too bad, but there's no job for me, he said. Formerly a government civil engineer earning about $150 a month, he said he lost the job the day before the March 20 U.S. invasion. His streetside sales are now netting him about $1,500 a month. As he speaks, young men gather around, some appearing drunk or high. Gunfire erupts in the background. Hardly anyone appears to notice. Abas Fadah pushes through the small crowd offering tranquilizers and other drugs looted from mental hospitals, by friends. At another sidewalk stall, a small television is screening a DVD of bare-chested Shiite Muslim men beating themselves at a religious ceremony. That too is evidence of Iraq (news - web sites)'s new freedom; Public displays of Shiite ritual were suppressed when Saddam and his Sunni minority ran the country. All types of weapons, ammunition and drugs are also available in the street market in Bab al-Sharqi, or Eastern Gate - a dangerous area in central Baghdad where few women dare to venture, the traders say. A day earlier arms peddlers accidentally fired a pistol, killing an 8-year-old boy, they say. This is democracy, but what kind of democracy? said Hamed Hameed, yards from where minutes earlier armed youths had been fighting over prostitutes down a dirty, narrow street. It's worse because there are thieves, corrupt people who are looting in the streets. Young people carry guns who drink and shoot in the streets. Hameed, who runs a warehouse, complained that Iraq's fledgling new police force does little to intervene and the 36,000 U.S. troops in the city don't know what's happening on the ground because they don't understand the language. The police are there but they are afraid. They hear shooting and they are scared to come. During Saddam's regime they used to take bribes. Now if they see a person being killed in front of them, they will do nothing, Hameed said, occasionally glancing warily over his shoulder. I wish I was living in a desert rather than Baghdad. On Friday, U.S. troops in Humvees fitted with loudspeakers rode around announcing in Arabic that street sales of alcohol would be banned beginning Monday. Some 12,000 police are back on Baghdad's hot, dusty streets, as well as 1,850 traffic cops - a small but conspicuous presence in blue uniforms as they struggle to handle traffic on the city's jammed streets. But still, few drivers observe road laws as vehicles ride up curbs or take short cuts by hurtling down highways the wrong way. Many blame much of the indiscipline on Saddam's October amnesty, which released murderers, rapists and thieves from prison as the United States ratcheted up its case for invading Iraq. It was not good. It was intended by Saddam to make more problems in the country, said Ali Habib, a 47-year-old parking lot worker. Without supervision, the new police will keep taking bribes, said Habib. The people could be controlled by power; without power, nobody can control them. His silver hair neatly combed, his beard trimmed, he sipped sweet, black tea at a cafe in the middle-class Inner Karadah neighborhood as U.S. armored vehicles sped down the next street. Then, men around the table said they'd heard that a bank a few blocks away was being robbed. The new freedoms also mean satellite telephones and TV for those who can afford them. Iraq as never had a mobile phone network, and satellite dishes were banned. Now, Baghdad's flat-roofed houses are dotted with dishes imported from Syria, Jordan and Kuwait. These provide much of the pornography sold in markets. Sheikh Muayiad Ibrahim al-Adhami, an Islamic preacher, said banditry and the trade in pornography, drugs and alcohol were the natural result of a people being released from years of oppressive rule. They express the
[CTRL] Tourture in Israel is routine
-Caveat Lector- Homepage Search site News Updates Monday, August 18, 2003 Av 20, 5763 Israel Time: 04:02 (GMT+3) `Tourture in Israel has again become routine' By Moshe Reinfeld A report released yesterday by the Public Committee Against Torture claims that the use of torture in the interrogation of Palestinian suspects has increased significantly over the past two years. Hundreds of Palestinians were subject to Shin Bet security service interrogations defined as torture, inhumane or humiliating during each of the first six months of the year, compared to dozens in September 2001, the human rights group said. The abuse of Palestinian suspects has worsened and can justifiably be termed torture under criteria established by international law, according to the report. Moreover, such use of torture in interrogation violates a ruling reached by Israel's High Court in 1999. Torture in Israel has once again become routine, the report's writers conclude. They charge that Israeli authorities such as the High Court and attorney general, which are supposed to monitor the Shin Bet and guarantee that its interrogation procedures conform with the law, have failed to discharge such responsibility. Rather than supervising the Shin Bet, these authorities have simply rubber stamped the security service's decisions. In past months, the High Court rejected all 124 petitions submitted by the committee demanding that Palestinian suspects be allowed to confer with their attorneys, the report notes. Also, the report's writers claim, the State Prosecutor's Office entrusts a Shin Bet official to review complaints lodged by Palestinian detainees; therefore, it is no surprise that no Shin Bet interrogator has been found guilty of torturing a suspect without cause. The rights group accuses the Shin Bet of using a variety of violent interrogation methods, including hitting, slapping and kicking suspects; stepping on handcuffs; forcing the suspect to bend in a painful position; and shaking suspects. Other illegal measures taken against suspects include sleep deprivation, threats and humiliation, exposure to extreme cold or heat and isolation in inhumane confinement. Of the 48 detainees who gave statements to the committee's lawyers during the first four months of the year, 58% claimed they had been victimized by direct violence; 52% complained of sleep deprivation; and 90% said their hands had been tied behind their backs for prolonged periods. The report denounces what it regards as a moral decline in Israel and consistent violation of democratic norms, calling on the government to comply fully with international laws prohibiting torture and inhumane treatment of suspects. A spokesman for Israel's courts last night rejected the report's findings. After a petition demanding the right to confer with counsel is filed, High Court judges require Shin Bet officials to furnish detailed reasons justifying their decision to deny a suspect's request to confer with an attorney, the spokesman said, adding that the prevention of a right to counsel does not mean that interrogators use torture. © Copyright 2003 Haaretz. All rights reserved www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] CIA Gave Warning. (Warning Ignored)
-Caveat Lector- http://www.boston.com/dailyglobe2/222/nation/ BOSTON GLOBE - Bryan Bender CIA warned administration of postwar guerrilla peril In February, the CIA gave a formal briefing to the National Security Council, including Defense Secretary Donald H.Rumsfeld, Vice President Dick Cheney, and President Bush himself: A quick military victory in Iraq will likely be followed by armed resistance from remnants of the Ba'ath Party and Fedayeen Saddam irregulars. The administration seemed unmoved. In the weeks leading up to the Iraq war, top Bush administration officials made glowing predictions that Iraqis would welcome US troops with open arms, while behind the scenes they did little to prepare for a guerrilla war. My belief is we will, in fact, be greeted as liberators, Cheney said on NBC's Meet the Press on March 16. I've talked with a lot of Iraqis in the last several months myself, had them to the White House. I imagine they will be welcomed, Deputy Defense Secretary Paul D. Wolfowitz, a key architect of the White House's Iraq strategy, said in an interview April 3, two weeks into the war, with CBS's 60 Minutes II. I think there's every reason to think that huge numbers of the Iraqi population are going to welcome these people ... provided we don't overstay our welcome, provided we mean what we say about handing things back over to the Iraqis, Wolfowitz said. www.ctrl.org 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Kabul - That Wild and Crazy Party Town
-Caveat Lector- Afghanistan gets its first party town Sunday, August 3rd, 2003 Email to Friend | Printer Friendly Version The Guardian - The old man in a turban stared in disbelief at the row of Land Cruisers parked in a smart Kabul street, their drivers waiting for the partygoers in the house where Madonna blared out. The imported alcohol and scandalous dancing, men and women together, could not be seen from the street, but Afghans have a pretty good idea about what happens on the foreigners' weekend party circuit and lurid imagination fills in the gaps. Plenty of Afghans are going to the parties too, or throwing their own, and it's a far cry from the Taliban days when fun was banned and you could be jailed for watching a smuggled Bollywood video. But with the fundamentalists long gone and thousands of well-heeled foreign aid workers and ex-pat Afghans moved in, Kabul has been transformed from dusty backwater to wild party town - for those with the cash to enjoy it. Jack Straw pointed out the change on his stopover in Kabul last month, excitedly remarking on how many new businesses he'd seen on his drive from the airport to the foreign ministry. With trouble in the Middle East, Afghanistan looks like the success story the foreign secretary and other international visitors have been praying for. But away from the boom times in the capital, under the protection of an international peacekeeping force, is another Afghanistan where private armies still rule. The growing gap between capital and country was starkly underlined this week in a report by Human Rights Watch, who bluntly said US-backed gunmen have hijacked the country outside Kabul and created a climate of fear. Straw didn't see this, and sure enough Kabul is doing very nicely. Centre of this glittering new world is the exclusive suburb of Wazir Akbar Khan, once home to senior al-Qaeda men and almost untouched by years of fighting that left much of the city scarred. Roomy houses with big leafy gardens are seeing a London-style property price boom and it's also home to the hottest restaurant of the moment, the Lau Thai, run by enterprising Thais with branches in East Timor and Kosovo. The restaurant has been such a success, replacing last year's favourite B's Place, that the family is planning to set up next in Baghdad. But if its tables are fully booked there's Italian, Chinese, Indian or German to choose from or a steak and a few beers at the Mustapha Hotel's new bar, the first to open in two decades. The days when the choice was just kebab or greasy pilau seem long ago. Later the international set head out to party in the expensive mansions they have taken out on long leases, jamming streets with cars and blasting out music until late. Afghans are so shocked that frequent warning memos have to be sent out by the UN begging party goers to tone down the wild behaviour. Afghan parties may be tamer, but plenty of Kabulis are joining in the fun. Every Friday an exodus heads out of town on picnics, banned by the Taliban and merchants and landlords are prospering. Mercedes cars are proliferating on Kabul 's potholed streets and tawdry Pakistani-style mansions covered with marble and fake Roman pillars are going up, along with a giant five-star hotel owned by the powerful defence minister, Marshall Fahim. Aid workers complain about corruption, some government departments are said to have 11-year-old schoolchildren and hosts of ghost workers on the payroll, but after years of puritanism and economic stagnation, cash is swilling around town and everybody wants to enjoy it while the chance lasts. Internet cafes have sprouted up, mobile phones are everywhere, and pirated DVDs that would have given the Taliban apoplexy are on sale. If you can ignore the beggars and grinding poverty all around, it's fun, frenetic, and a little paranoid with fears that the party could come to a premature end with a car bomb or a grenade tossed over a wall. And it's a different world to the other Afghanistan, the one which starts just over an hour's drive to the southeast. Rape, robbery and murder are common in the Pushtun lands near Kabul where US troops are still based, according to researchers for the Human Rights Watch report, Killing You is Very Easy For Us. Spokesman Brad Adams said: Human rights abuses in Afghanistan are being committed by gunmen and warlords who were propelled into power by the United States and its coalition partners after the Taliban fell in 2001. These men and others have essentially hijacked the country outside Kabul. With less than a year to go before national elections, Afghanistan's human rights situation appears to be worsening. The group's findings made depressing reading for anyone who believes Afghanistan is on the road to recovery. Kidnap for ransom, house breaking, rape and extortion of shopkeepers and drivers on the roads are widespread. Villagers live in fear of gunmen. Girls are generally too scared to go to school
[CTRL] Massive US Job Bleed to China
-Caveat Lector- THE CHRISTIAN SCIENCE MONITOR from the August 05, 2003 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0805/p01s02-usec.html Booming China trade rankles US Trade deficit with China, now running at $120 billion a year, surpasses the total US trade gap of six years ago. By Ron Scherer | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitor KANNAPOLIS, N.C. - She was the weaver; he was the loom-fixer. For the past 20 years of their marriage, Delores and Robert Gambrell strode the heart-of-pine floors at Pillowtex's Plant 16. The noise from the looms forced the couple to communicate in a sign language. They even had their own signal for I love you. Those days are over for now - the victim of a flood of imports from China. The nation's third-largest textile company, where the Gambrells worked, closed its doors last week. For the moment, that means the end of sheets and towels with the household names of Cannon and Fieldcrest. The trend reaches far beyond the textile industry or Kannapolis - a community whose name means city of looms but which is shedding 5,000 Pillowtex jobs. Manufacturing businesses from electronics to furniture and fishing lures are closing their doors or moving production to China. The rapid erosion of well-paying jobs has wide implications for the economy. Consider that the US trade deficit with China is now running at an annual rate of $120 billion - a record single-country amount that is larger than America's entire trade deficit only six years ago. This will become the dominant economic policy issue in the US [over] the next five years, says Don Straszheim of Straszheim Global Advisors in Santa Monica, Calif. Indeed, China's export push is already becoming a front-burner issue in Washington. Congress has asked everyone from think-tank experts to Federal Reserve Chairman Alan Greenspan for answers to the problem. Three members of the president's cabinet on a cross-country jaunt to promote the Bush economic plan have gotten an earful from angry businesspeople trying to compete with Chinese imports made by workers getting 50 cents an hour. The loss of jobs to imports is almost certain to be a recurring theme in the Presidential campaign next fall and beyond. The numbers are eye-opening. Chinese exports soared 22 percent last year. And it's not just low-cost towels. Exports of computer and telecom products are growing 60 percent annually. While American firms have struggled, Chinese companies reported profits rose in the first quarter by 56 percent from the previous year. To some, this may seem like a replay to the 1980s, when the US trade deficit with Japan swelled to about $50 billion a year. It seemed as if Japanese automakers and semiconductor companies would devastate the US economy. The atmosphere today reminds me of the 1980s, says Clayton Yeutter, who was the United States Trade Representative back then. Everyone worried about the Japanese being 10 feet tall, and all of that turned out to be inaccurate, recalls Mr. Yeutter, now of counsel at Hogan Hartson, a Washington law firm. Back then one of the major complaints was about the Japanese yen, which many felt was kept unreasonably low to benefit the big exporters. Today, business is complaining about the value of the Chinese yuan, which is pegged to the US dollar. It is hugely undervalued, says Frank Vargo, of the National Association of Manufacturers. It could be as much as 40 percent undervalued, and that is a major reason for the trade deficit. The argument has been picked up quickly by members of Congress. Last week, Rep. Donald Manzullo (R) of Illinois, chairman of the House Small Business Committee, was among 14 cosigners of a letter to the administration encouraging stronger action. Last week, Treasury Secretary John Snow said it was a critical issue that he intended to discuss with the Chinese during a planned trip this fall. Yeutter says a floating yuan would make China, now a corn exporter, a net importer of corn and soybeans. Mr. Manzullo says his district is among those feeling the heat from China. Unemployment in Rockford, Ill., is now 11.3 percent. Machine tool manufacturers, tool and die companies, and bolt and screw manufacturers are all struggling. One of those who has testified at the end of June before Congress is businessman Jay Bender of Falcon Plastics Inc. in Brookings, S.D. In an interview, he recounts how one of his customers, a manufacturer of fishing lures, has decided to move its production from the US to China. This would allow the company to cut its manufacturing costs by half. It asked him to bid on molds to make the plastic bait. He bid $25,000 per mold. That was a competitive price, he says. Instead, the company found a Chinese source for $3,000 a piece. I can't even buy raw materials for that, he says. There are two possibilities: Either they are subsidized by the government or they gave away the molds to get the manufacturing business, says the businessman, who has to lay off 30
Re: [CTRL] We Already Know the Administration Was Lying
-Caveat Lector- If Saddam Hussein's administration did not have WMD, then what did he use against the Kurds in northern Iraq, when he dropped chemical weapons to murder thousands of his own people? L L Milnes You are parroting propaganda. Poison gas is NOT considered a WMD. That propaganda term was manufactured by the neocons in the early 1990's when they began their Middle East takeover campaign. Only nuclear weapons are considered mass murder weapons. Poison gas is mostly a psychological weapon - a very inefficient military weapon. Modern high tech explosives (as used by the US) are much more efficient killers of soldiers and civilians. BTW, even cursory research shows Saddam's poison gas program was encouraged and facilitated by the US during the Iraq/Iran war when the US adopted Saddam as its proxy to fight the Ayatollahs. flw www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] We Already Know ... [CTRL] Gassed Kurds
-Caveat Lector- Lyn: The point of my message was not whether or not Saddam gassed the Kurds. The Iranians gassed, the Iraqis gassed, the Kurds were victims. You ignored the point that the US helped Saddam manufacture his poison. The US was responsible for the deaths of 100,000/s of Shiites and Kurds when it formented an uprising against Saddam in 1991 after the Gulf War - then had second thoughts about permitting the Shiites from taking power, afraid they would ally themselves with the Iranian Shiites. The US permitted Saddam to use his heliocopters after we had established a 'no fly zone' to butcher the Shiites and Kurds. Now we cry crocodile tears The WMD BS is agiprop invented by the neo-cons. flw www.ctrl.org 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Israel Passes New Racist Apartheid Marriage Laws
-Caveat Lector- New Law for Israeli-Palestinian Couples Thursday July 31, 2003 4:39 PM By GAVIN RABINOWITZ Associated Press Writer JERUSALEM (AP) - Israel's parliament on Thursday passed a new law that would force Palestinians who marry Israelis to live separate lives or move out of Israel despite charges from human rights groups and Israeli Arabs that the law is racist. The law would prevent Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza Strip who marry Israeli Arabs from obtaining residency permits in Israel. The vote was 53 in favor, 25 against and one abstention, a spokeswoman for the parliament said. ``We see this law as the implementation of the transfer policy by the state of Israel,'' said Jafar Savah from Mossawa, an advocacy center for Israeli Arabs, referring to a plan by far right groups to transfer Israeli Arabs to other Arab countries. Savah said the law was an attempt to legalize unofficial policy that has been in effect since September 2000 when violence broke out and warned that the law would damage relations between Israel and its Arab minority. Both local and international human rights groups have condemned the law as racist. ``This is a racist law that decides who can live here according to racist criteria,'' said Yael Stein from the Israeli rights group B'tselem. Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have sent letters to the parliament protesting the law and urging lawmakers not to pass it, a statement from Human Rights Watch said. Israel's government contends that such a law is necessary for security reasons, citing instances where Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza have exploited their residency permits, granting them freedom of movement in Israel, to carry out terror attacks. ``This law comes to address a security issue,'' Cabinet Minister Gideon Ezra told Israel Radio. ``Since September 2000 we have seen a significant connection, in terror attacks, between Arabs from the West Bank and Gaza and Israeli Arabs,'' Ezra said. Israel and the Palestinians have been locked in a bloody conflict for 33 months, though a cease-fire declared by the Palestinians on June 29 has significantly reduced violence. The law, which passed its first reading on June 18, would force newly married couples to choose between living in the Palestinian areas or living separately and would be in effect for a year when the parliament must renew it. It is not uncommon for members of Israel's 1 million strong Arab community to marry residents of the Palestinian areas, and this was one of the only ways a Palestinian could be eligible for an Israeli residency permit. Ezra told the radio that since 1993 over 100,000 Palestinians have obtained Israeli permits in this manner. ``It has grown out of control,'' he said. Stein from B'tselem said there have been only 20 cases from these 100,000 people who have been involved in terror. ``I am not taking these attacks lightly but this is an extreme solution to a marginal phenomenon,'' Stein said. Ezra turned aside charges that the law was racist, saying ``I agree that anyone who kills Jews just because they are Jewish is a racist.'' Rights groups accused Israel of trying to rush the bill through parliament before it goes into recess on August 3. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] no comparing Jewish blood to Palestinian blood
-Caveat Lector- ISRAEL'S FOPPISH SELF-RIGHTEOUSNESS SHULAMIT ALONI, HAARETZ - Since the start of the intifada, more than 800 Israelis, mostly civilians, have been killed by Palestinians. We, justifiably, call it murder. Some were killed by suicide bombers and the rest with other instruments of death. At the same time, more than 2,200 Palestinians have been killed by Israelis - some as armed suspects, and almost all from soldiers' fire. We don't call these casualties murdered. But perhaps these deaths should also be referred to as murders. . . Of course, there's no comparing Jewish blood to Palestinian blood. Palestinians, after all, use the terrible weapon of suicide; while on our side, everything is aesthetic and elegant: Bombs fall out of the sky and the pilot goes home safely; the tanks fire flechettes; and our skilled snipers always hit their target. Of course, nobody ever asks which target. We fight the enemy and a large number of the murders are acts of war. Of course they - the Palestinians - aren't fighting an enemy; they are fighting an enlightened occupation that has wanted to give them sovereignty for the last 36 years, but has found it difficult to do so because they are living on land that was ours 1,900 years ago and we want it only for ourselves. Or maybe we are a greedy occupier, looting their land (at least as far as they are concerned), uprooting, and demolishing, and expelling, and breaking into their homes. And still, we aren't an enemy; and still, we think it's an enlightened occupation; and our chief of staff is doing everything he can to sear into the consciousness of the occupied that they should love the occupier who holds them prisoners in their homes until they are hungry, until they are completely humiliated - and all for the sake of getting them to finally understand who are the masters of the land and who are the servants. Everything I've written here is known by everyone, but forbidden to state aloud because it is not patriotic. After all, everything we are doing is so our enemies won't bring another Holocaust down upon us. That's how it is explained to us - over and over again. And how can our enemies bring down another Holocaust upon us? That, apparently, must not be asked. After all, we have peace with Egypt and Jordan, and Iraq is no threat, and Iran is the entire world's problem. So, who are we afraid of? The Palestinians? Isn't that a bad joke? But we aren't allowed to say that because our Jewish paranoia is very serious, and the public relations people of the army and the greedy of the Greater Land of Israel know how to manipulate it very nicely. . . Our foppish self-righteousness; the utter insensitivity of the JAG who is concerned with chasing after draft dodgers but finds it difficult to prosecute murderers because there are so many; we, apparently are allowed everything, for we are the ultimate victims, even when we are the occupiers and we have the power. Enough! The occupation is too expensive, too demanding, too destructive. Let the political prisoners go - the old and the new. Give a chance to an end to the murders and the building of calm; and in its wake, give peace a chance. It would be worthwhile for once to try the power of generosity and goodwill and sincerity. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] US studies Israeli abuse of Palestinians to learn how to treat Iraqis
-Caveat Lector- U.S. ARMY OFFICERS GO TO ISRAEL TO LEARN HOW TO TREAT IRAQIS LIKE PALESTINIANS http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=323102contrassID=2su bContrassID=1sbSubContrassID=0listSrc=Y AMOS HAREL, HAARETZ, ISRAEL - An American military delegation recently visited Israel to hear first hand from IDF officers about army tactics in the territories. The Americans were interested how the IDF responded to guerrilla warfare that evolved in the territories because of the similarity to what they are now encountering in Iraq. There is growing concern in the U.S. administration and military about the growing number of attacks on American troops in Iraq. Since President Bush declared in May that the war was over, around 50 soldiers have been killed. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Israel Targeting Children?
-Caveat Lector- Monday July 28, 2003 The Guardian 'I can't imagine anyone who considers himself a human being can do this' On Friday a four-year-old Palestinian boy was shot dead by a soldier - the most recent child victim of the Israeli army. Chris McGreal investigates a shocking series of deaths Nine-year-old Abdul Rahman Jadallah's promise to the corpse of the shy little girl who lived up the street was, in all probability, kept for him by an Israeli bullet. The boy - Rahman to his family - barely knew Haneen Suliaman in life. But whenever there was a killing in the dense Palestinian towns of southern Gaza he would race to the morgue to join the throng around the mutilated victim. Then he would tag along with the surging, angry funerals of those felled by rarely seen soldiers hovering far above in helicopters or cocooned behind the thick concrete of their pillboxes. Haneen, who was eight years old, had been shot twice in the head by an Israeli soldier as she walked down the street in Khan Yunis refugee camp with her mother, Lila Abu Selmi. Almost every day here the Israelis shoot at random, so when you hear it you get inside as quickly as possible, says Mrs Selmi. Haneen went to the grocery store to buy some crisps. When the shooting started, I came out to find her. She was coming down the street and ran to me and hugged me, crying, 'Mother, mother'. Two bullets hit her in the head, one straight after the other. She was still in my arms and she died. Later that day, the crowds pushed into the morgue at the local hospital to see the young girl on the slab, partly in homage, partly to vent their anger. Rahman pressed his way to the front so he could touch Haneen. Then he went home and told his mother, Haniya Abed Atallah, that he too wanted to die. Rahman went to the morgue and kissed Haneen. He came home and told us he had promised the dead girl he would die too. I made him apologise to his father, Mrs Atallah says. Weeks passed and another Israeli bullet shattered the life of another young Palestinian girl. Huda Darwish was sitting at her school desk when a cluster of shots ripped through the top of a tree outside her classroom and buried themselves in the wall. But one ricocheted off the window frame, smashed through the glass and lodged in the 12-year-old girl's brain. Huda's teacher, Said Sinwar, was standing in front of the blackboard. It was a normal lesson when suddenly there was this shooting without any warning. The children were terrified and trying to run. I was shouting at them to get under their desks. Suddenly the bullet hit the little girl and she slumped to the floor with a sigh, not even screaming, he says. Sinwar dragged Huda from under her desk and ran with her across the road to the hospital, itself scarred by Israeli bullets. After weeks in hospital, she has started breathing for herself again, through a windpipe cut into her throat. She has regained use of her arms and legs, but will be blind for the rest of her life. Rahman was in another class at the same school. The next day, lessons were cancelled and the boy defied his mother to tag along at the funeral of a slain Palestinian fighter. The burial evolved into the ritual protest of children marching to the security fence that separates Gaza's dense and beggared Khan Yunis refugee camp from the spacious religious exclusivity of the neighbouring Jewish settlement. As Rahman hung a Palestinian flag on the fence, a bullet caught him under his left eye. He died on the spot. It looks as if the soldiers saw him put the flag on the fence and they shot him, says Rahman's brother, 19-year-old Ijaram. There were many kids next to him, next to the fence. But he was the only one carrying the flag. Why else would they have shot him? Britain's chief rabbi, Jonathan Sacks, recently praised the Israeli military as the most humanitarian in the world because it claims to risk its soldiers' lives to avoid killing innocent Palestinians. It is a belief echoed by most Israelis, who revere the army as an institution of national salvation. Yet among the most shocking aspects of the past three years of intifada that has no shortage of horrors - not least the teenage suicide bombers revelling in mass murder - has been the killing of children by the Israeli army. The numbers are staggering; one in five Palestinian dead is a child. The Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) says at least 408 Palestinian children have been killed since the beginning of the intifada in September 2000. Nearly half were killed in the Gaza strip, and most of those died in two refugee camps in the south, Khan Yunis and Rafah. The PCHR says they were victims of indiscriminate shooting, excessive force, a shoot-to-kill policy and the deliberate targeting of children. And children continue to die, even after the ceasefire declared by Hamas and other groups at the end of June. On Friday, a soldier at a West Bank checkpoint shot dead a four-year-old boy, Ghassan
[CTRL] Huge Liability Trap for US in Iraq
-Caveat Lector- FINANCIAL TIMES A legal minefield for Iraq's occupiers By David Scheffer Published: July 23 2003 20:50 | Last Updated: July 23 2003 20:50 The deaths of Uday and Qusay Hussein will provide a welcome morale-boost for the Anglo-US forces in Iraq. It has become all too clear in recent weeks, as casualties have mounted and budgets escalated, that America and Britain gravely underestimated the task awaiting them in post-war Iraq. What the occupying powers may not yet fully appreciate, however, is the extent of their long-term liability under international law. Because they rejected a United Nations-supervised administration of post-Hussein Iraq, the US and Britain needlessly shoulder most of the legal responsibility for the success or failure of the administration and reconstruction of Iraq. No wonder other nations and groupings, such as India, Pakistan and Nato, have rejected Washington's appeal for troops. Why risk the liabilities of a military occupation under current conditions, especially when a simple Security Council mandate could trump occupation law, with all its attendant burdens? In an awkwardly crafted resolution in May, authored by Washington and London, the Security Council designated the two victorious nations as the occupying powers. This title carries all the responsibilities, constraints and liabilities that arise under occupation law, codified in the fourth Geneva Convention of 1949 and other instruments. The UN assumed an advisory role but left the legal responsibility squarely with the US and Britain and reminded other nations of their obligations if they deployed troops in Iraq. In the last half-century no country requiring such radical transformation has been placed under military occupation law instead of a UN mandate or trusteeship. No conquering military power has volunteered formally to embrace occupation law so boldly and with such enormous risk. And never in recent times has an occupation occurred that was so predictable for so long and yet so poorly planned for. Occupation law was never intended to encourage invasion and occupation for the purpose of transforming a society, however noble that aim. The narrow purpose is to constrain an occupying military power and thus discourage aggression and permanent occupation. The humanitarian needs of the civilian population take priority and usually require the occupying power to act decisively for that purpose. But Iraq - under Saddam Hussein, a tyranny built on atrocities - requires radical political and economic transformation in the aftermath of Operation Iraqi Freedom, a worthy goal now sought by the occupying powers. Yet their performance to date raises serious risks of liability under occupation law, which could lead to civil and criminal actions (even against military and civilian officials) by Iraqi citizens. The liability trap deepens every day, dug by the failure of the occupying powers to plan for and take immediate action to prevent looting of critical facilities and cultural sites, to deploy enough soldiers to maintain security and to establish effective law enforcement on the streets with well-trained police. The occupying powers also risk liability in other ways: by their refusal to permit entry of international weapons inspectors or of humanitarian supplies from the UN and other relief organisations in the early stages of the occupation; by their failure rapidly to restore and maintain water, sewerage and electricity services; by having created unemployment on a massive scale; and by their controversial plans for the management of Iraq's oil industry. Occupation law imposes high performance standards on an occupying military power and liability can arise quickly. This is particularly so in cases where an occupation and its many responsibilities were readily foreseeable - as is the case in Iraq, whose invasion was planned for a long time. The challenges of humanitarian occupations by benevolent military forces seeking to transform devastated societies cannot be met within the confines of occupation law. Indeed, in recent years the UN has developed much experience in overcoming that law's outdated norms and directly promoting democracy and economic development in war-torn nations. The US and Britain could gain legal and practical advantage - as well as more international support - if the Security Council adopted a resolution to establish a comprehensive UN mandate over the civilian and military administration of Iraq. Its terms could be modelled on the other cases in which the UN has been called on to help transform a nation. Speculation that a new resolution may be forthcoming is encouraging, provided it establishes a new legal framework for all coalition forces. With a fresh UN mandate, the burden and risks of occupation law would be greatly reduced for the occupying powers. Their main responsibilities would be defined by the Security Council rather than by a body of law that is ill-suited to the
[CTRL] 1000's Of Cases of Mad Cow Unreported in US
-Caveat Lector- Date: Wed 23 Jul 2003 From: ProMED-mail [EMAIL PROTECTED] Source: Zwire.co, United Press International (via COMTEX), Tue 22 Jul 2003 [edited] http://www.zwire.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=9882702BRD=1713PAG=740dept_id= 226965rfi=6 USA: Concern that CJD Screening May Miss Thousands of Cases --- [The original version of this report frequently confuses variant CJD (associated with transmission of the BSE agent to humans), with the sporadic, iatrogenic, and genetic forms of CJD. I have edited the text to eliminate some of this confusion. There are precise diagnostic criteria for variant CJD, which can be viewed at the UK Department of Health website: http://www.doh.gov.uk/cjd/cjd_stat.htm. The UK Department of Health website maintains the only comprehensive source of comparative data on the incidence of the various forms of CJD in any population. The UK Department of Health monthly reports are reproduced in ProMED-mail close to the beginning of each month (see references below). - Mod.CP] The federal government's monitoring system for cases of Creutzfeldt-Jakob disease (CJD), a fatal human brain illness, could be missing tens of thousands of victims, scientists and consumer advocates have told United Press International. Variant CJD [abbreviated as CJD (new var.) or vCJD in ProMED-mail] can be [contracted] by eating beef [from cattle] with mad cow disease (bovine spongiform encephalopathy - abbreviated as BSE), but the critics assert that, without a better tracking system, it might be impossible to determine whether any [cases of sporadic CJD] are [cases of vCJD] or to obtain an accurate picture of the prevalence of the disorder in the United States. Beginning in the late 1990s, more than 100 people contracted vCJD in the United Kingdom and several European countries after eating beef infected with BSE. [The mode of transmission of the BSE agent to humans has not been established conclusively, but is presumed on circumstantial grounds to be a consequence of consumption of contaminated meat. - Mod.CP] No case of [BSE] has ever been detected in U.S. cattle, and the monitoring system of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has never detected a case of vCJD . Nevertheless, critics say, the CDC's system [may] miss many cases of the disease, which currently is not treatable and is always fatal. The first symptoms of CJD typically include memory loss and difficulty keeping balance and walking. As the disease destroys the brain, patients rapidly progress in a matter of months to difficulty with movement, an inability to talk and swallow and, finally, death. Spontaneously-occurring or sporadic CJD is a rare disorder. Only about 300 cases appear nationwide each year, but several studies have suggested that the disorder might be more common than thought and that as many as tens of thousands of cases might be going unrecognized. Clusters of [sporadic] CJD have been reported in various areas of the United States -- Pennsylvania in 1993, Florida in 1994, Oregon in 1996, New York in 1999-2000, and Texas in 1996. In addition, several people in New Jersey developed CJD in recent years, including a 56-year-old woman who died on 31 May 2003. Although in some instances, a [BSE] link was suspected, all of the cases ultimately were classified as sporadic CJD. People who develop CJD [presumably as a result of] eating BSE-contaminated beef have been thought to develop the specific form of the disorder called variant CJD. But new research, released in December 2002 [see ProMED-mail post archived as: CJD (new var.) - UK: update 2003 (03) 20030204.0299], [suggests] that the [BSE] pathogen [may] cause both sporadic CJD and the variant form. Now people are beginning to realize that because something looks like sporadic CJD they can't necessarily conclude that it is not linked to [BSE], said Laura Manuelidis, section chief of surgery in the neuropathology department at Yale University, who conducted a 1989 study that found 13 percent of Alzheimer's patients actually had CJD. Several studies, including the Manuelidis study, have found that autopsies reveal 3 to 13 percent of patients diagnosed with Alzheimer's or dementia actually suffered from CJD. Those numbers might sound low, but there are 4 million Alzheimer's cases and hundreds of thousands of dementia cases in the United States. A small percentage of those cases could add up to 120 000 or more CJD victims going undetected and not included in official statistics. Experiences in [the UK] and Switzerland -- both countries that discovered mad cow disease in their cattle -- have heightened concerns about the possibility that some cases of sporadic CJD are due to consuming mad-cow-tainted beef. Both countries have reported increases in sporadic CJD since BSE was first detected in British herds in 1986. Switzerland discovered in 2002 that its CJD rate was twice that of any other country in the
Re: [CTRL] Rense and Savage...a combo
-Caveat Lector- Funny, Rense is no more an anti-semite than you are Dorothy and Savage is Jewish. Bill. Bill, don't you undestand that if you criticize Israel - You ARE an anti-semite. Aren't you considered an 'anti-anglite' if you criticize England? An 'anti-Italianite' if you criticize Italy? 'An anti-Germanite' if you criticize Germany? How about all the recent 'anti-Gaulites' that recently came out of the closet. BTW, what do you call an anti-Arab? Is it an anti-Semantical Semite? Or perhaps a racist anti-Arab would simply be called a Lukudite. flw www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Ron Paul Speech - Neo-conned
-Caveat Lector- Note: Ron Paul is my Congressman. He is a man of rare honesty and integrity. If only there were 300 more like him in Congress. As one who has been stuck with Henry Hyde since forever I can say that you are indeed lucky! Bill. Yes indeedee. He is the only Congressperson I contribute $$ to. I guess Hyde is just as bad as Bernie Sanders, another phony socialists. flw www.ctrl.org 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] NYTimes.com Article: Charles P. Kindleberger, 92, Global Economist...
-Caveat Lector- My, my, I'll bet the Republicans are relieved to see him go. Prudy Prudy: The Repubs are no more in favor of free markets then the Dems. Same statist manipulators - just different beneficiaries of their manipulation (and in many cases the same corporate beneficiaries). The main difference is that the Repubs are proud to deliver corporate welfare while the Dems. hang their head slightly while doing so. flw www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] WHERE'S RICHARD PERLE?
-Caveat Lector- WHERE'S RICHARD PERLE? http://www.arabia.com/newsfeed/article/english/0,14183,405688,00.html WILLIAM HUGHS, PALESTINE CHRONICLE - Perhaps we should take a break on looking for Saddam Hussein, Usama bin Laden, William Slots Bennett, or, even James J. Whitey Bulger. For me, the key question today is: Where is Richard Perle? Before the launching of Iraq War No. 2, in March 20, 2003, Perle, America's Iago, regularly appeared on TV and cable TV programs, on radio, and in the print media, too. He repeated, ad infinitum, ad nauseam, why it was so absolutely critical for the U.S. to immediately invade Iraq. America was at risk, he said, with that ubiquitous smirk on his mug. There wasn't a moment to lose. Saddam has WMD, he told us, and he also hates America and poses a dire threat to our security? The shifty Perle, the Mother of all Neocons, also predicted, like former Defense Department official, Ken Adelman, that a U.S. invasion of Iraq would be a cakewalk! It will be easy, he boasted. We would also be exporting democracy to the Iraqi people, who will welcome us with open arms as liberators, he claimed over and over again in similar words. Cakewalk! Easy! Exporting Democracy! Liberators! Sure! Now, Perle is among the missing! The man with the sinister-looking scowl hasn't showed up on the Talking Head circuits since about the time the U.S. occupation of Iraq began going sour. Could he be hiding out in his beloved Israel, in a safe house provided by Benjamin Netanyahu, a/k/a Bend-the-Truth Yahoo? Or, are the War Hawks, Rep. Tom Lantos (D-CA) and Sen. Joseph Lieberman (D-CT), telling him to keep a low profile by working temporarily as an extra on a Hollywood movie? Who knows? www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] BANKRUPT PARANOIA MAGAZINE!
-Caveat Lector- Hey, flw, good suggestion! Mail any copies of that rag, PARANOIA, right to the FBI! If we work together, we can get that magazine off the stands and into the trash cans where it belongs! Best, T. Casey Brennan Aha! I see that PARANOIA mag. has gotten to you too! No doubt that nefarious instrument of evil is plotting against you, whispering against you, LAUGHING AT YOU. flw www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Letter from the Sunni Triangle -- June 20, 2003
-Caveat Lector- Dear All, The grassy fields sway as the American helicopters patrol the green, bountiful bluffs and floodplains of the Tigris River. I'm with my translator, Tahseen, the same one who worked for me during the war. He made a small fortune working for me during those months. I urged him to save the money for a rainy day. Instead, the crazy kid went out and bought a zippy, candy-red Audi that I'm driving now along the country roads. The windows are down and the radio alternates between catchy Arab pop tunes and American rap and RB songs. Thank goodness for Radio Sawa, the new U.S.-run AM music station. We vie for the road with long, noisy columns of American military hardware and rickety tractors. The night before, U.S. forces patrolling the area were ambushed by a group of proverbial bad guys. The rocket-propelled grenades they launched barely scratched the Americans' M-1 tank. But the Americans responded with full force. Soldiers lit up the night with flares and radioed three Bradley fighting vehicles and an Apache helicopter for backup. Then the story gets messy. According to the Pentagon, the Americans killed as many as 27 bad guys in a successful counterattack against the terrorists or Saddam loyalists or Ba'ath Party holdouts or whatever they were. But amid the lush gardens, fields and orchards, the soldiers were only able to recover seven corpses. According to the villagers in Elher, the Americans killed two strangers who had snuck here from another town and five innocent civilians: a father, three sons and a cousin who were in the wrong place at the wrong time. I have doubts about the villagers' story. I suspect they're just covering for their relatives. Frankly, most of the people in this area are Sunni Arab supporters of Saddam Hussein. This is the infamous Sunni Triangle, stretching from west Baghdad to Ramadi and north, some say to Tikrit, but I think all the way up to Mosul. I've clocked a quite a bit of quality time in the towns and cities of the desert flatlands, marshes and river valleys here. It's the part of Iraq where locals cried as the Americans tore down the statutes of Saddam. It's where people spraypaint, Down to USA. Live Saddam! on walls. It's where people give outsiders dirty looks and threaten them with violence. I call it Saddamistan. Americans have been getting hurt at a rate almost every day here. One night in Fallujah, they blew up a power station with a rocket-propelled grenade, injuring two Americans. The other day they shot up a convoy of American trucks, turning one into a twisted heap of metal. The other night they wounded a soldier and killed someone in the ambulance trying to get him to a hospital. The bad guys are getting better. And recently Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz conceded that the U.S. was fighting a guerrilla war in central Iraq. The soldiers, out on patrol or manning checkpoints, say they're getting fired at constantly at night. Americans are confused by the particularly Middle Eastern brand of hospitality. During the day they're all friendly and your buddies, said one soldier at a checkpoint near Balad. At night they're firing at you. The attacks have gotten so frequent that sometimes the soldiers don't even report incidents to the higher-ups unless someone gets hurt. They don't have very good aim, said one soldier stationed in Tikrit. In towns like Saddam's birthplace of Oja, the locals readily admit taking part in ambushes against Americans. Some even whine that not all their operations get onto al Jazeera or al Arabia, the Arab-language news networks Iraqis can now watch freely thanks to the post-Saddam lifting of restrictions on satellites. I arrive at the wake for the five villagers. It is a lovely affair. Three tents are pitched next to the house to protect mourners from the furious mid-day sun. The men wear the traditional blanched white headdresses and robes of the country 's Sunni Arab minority. The women cook and weep in their black Abayas. Servants serve cold water and cigarettes. I ask one of the relatives point-blank whether the five men were involved in the attack on the Americans. No, he replies, impossible. Weren't your relatives opposed to the U.S. occupation? No, he replies, they welcomed the Americans. This is getting ridiculous What would it take, I ask in a trick question, for your people to take up arms against the Americans? Why, a fatwa or religious edict from our spiritual leader, he said. And who might that be? His answer stuns me: Mohammad Baqer al-Hakim. I'm speechless. I know Hakim's folks, inside and out. I've been following his Iranian-backed organization for over a year. I've spied on its troops. I've had candid discussions with its intellectuals and soldies. It was among the top three organizations fighting Saddam for the last few decades. Now, there may come a day when Hakim orders his flock to violently fight the American occupation. But for now, Hakim and his little brother,
Re: [CTRL] BANKRUPT PARANOIA MAGAZINE!
-Caveat Lector- What are your problems with Paranoia? I think it's a good and often great magazine and only wish it came out more often. Please describe your gripes if you can. A year ago I came into possesion of the Spring 02 issue. After I placed it in my magazine rack, I could 'feel' it probing my mind... telling me lies, laughing at me... I mailed it to the FBI. flw www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Why most Americans are unable to perceive and protest America's slide into fascism
-Caveat Lector- One of the first things the Nazis did was to murder every socialist they could find. When leftists talk about socialism today they mean DEMOCRATIC SOCIALISM, with workers (including managers) having democratic control (one-person-one-vote, not one-dollar-one-vote as in the U.S. today) over the businesses they work in and over the economy and government as a whole. It is not possible to achieve socialism without establishing an authoritarian state since the pervasive state involvement in all areas of a citizen's life ncessary to implement socialism requires a degree of control only attainable through an authoritarian state. The one essential difference between Communism and Nazism was that the Nazis learned from the mistakes Lenin made in the 1920's. Rather then replace the nation's former, pre Revolutionary elite with a new (untrained) party elite, the Nazis simply co-opted the old elite by making membership in the Nazi party mandatory in order to keep one's position of power. Thus the Nazis had the advantage of permitting the country to continue to function efficiently after seizing power yet make the Party paramount in all areas of life. Eventually the old elite would be replaced by a new highly educated and efficient Party elite. flw www.ctrl.org 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Ex-Army boss: Pentagon won't admit reality in Iraq
-Caveat Lector- USA TODAY Posted 6/2/2003 11:06 PM Updated 6/3/2003 12:17 AM Ex-Army boss: Pentagon won't admit reality in Iraq By Dave Moniz, USA TODAY WASHINGTON - The former civilian head of the Army said Monday it is time for the Pentagon to admit that the military is in for a long occupation of Iraq that will require a major commitment of American troops. Former Army secretary Thomas White said in an interview that senior Defense officials are unwilling to come to grips with the scale of the postwar U.S. obligation in Iraq. The Pentagon has about 150,000 troops in Iraq and recently announced that the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's stay there has been extended indefinitely. This is not what they were selling (before the war), White said, describing how senior Defense officials downplayed the need for a large occupation force. It's almost a question of people not wanting to 'fess up to the notion that we will be there a long time and they might have to set up a rotation and sustain it for the long term. The interview was White's first since leaving the Pentagon in May after a series of public feuds with Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld led to his firing. Rumsfeld and Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz criticized the Army's chief of staff, Gen. Eric Shinseki, after Shinseki told Congress in February that the occupation could require several hundred thousand troops. Wolfowitz called Shinseki's estimate wildly off the mark. Rumsfeld was furious with White when the Army secretary agreed with Shinseki. Last month, Rumsfeld said the United States would remain in Iraq as long as it takes. But the Defense chief was not specific about the size of the force. The Pentagon declined to respond to White's comments, but a senior official said it was too early to draw conclusions about the size or length of the U.S. troops' commitment in Iraq. White said it is reasonable to assume the Pentagon will need more than 100,000 U.S. troops in Iraq to provide stability for at least the next year. Pentagon officials envisioned having about 100,000 troops there immediately after the war, but they hoped that number would be quickly drawn down. © Copyright 2003 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] GAO: 350,000 Gulf War Vets Exposed to Poisons
-Caveat Lector- washingtonpost.com GAO Triples Estimates of Gulf War Fallout By Spencer S. Hsu Washington Post Staff Writer Tuesday, June 3, 2003; Page A21 Congressional researchers recommended yesterday that Congress ask the Pentagon to triple the number of U.S. troops presumed to be exposed to chemical fallout from the demolition of an Iraqi weapons depot in March 1991 to 350,000, or roughly half of U.S. forces that served in the Persian Gulf War. The recommendation by the General Accounting Office, Congress's audit arm, came after analysts concluded that the Defense Department's narrower estimates were based on flawed science. The analysts said the military arbitrarily underestimated the height of plumes produced by demolition of a sarin gas stockpile at Khamisiyah, lacked accurate data about the weather and relied on simulations in a Utah desert that did not correlate to conditions in Iraq. The GAO report was prepared for the House Government Reform subcommittee on national security, emerging threats and international relations and for Sen. Robert C. Byrd Jr. (D-W.Va.). The panel heard testimony yesterday about the science of toxic plume modeling. Subcommittee Chairman Christopher Shays (R-Conn.) said he believed the recommendation would be taken up by an advisory task force scheduled to meet July 16. The Pentagon had not seen the report and had no immediate comment, said Anna Johnson-Winegar, deputy assistant secretary of defense for chemical and biological defense. The Pentagon has increased estimates before of the number of soldiers presumed exposed from Khamisiyah from zero to 400 in 1996 and 100,000 in 1997. © 2003 The Washington Post Company www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] BSE RISK, CHICKEN BREASTS
-Caveat Lector- BSE RISK, CHICKEN BREASTS - UK EX NETHERLANDS (03) ** A ProMED-mail post http://www.promedmail.org ProMED-mail is a program of the International Society for Infectious Diseases http://www.isid.org Date: Fri, 23 May 2003 From: Julian Wei-Tze Tang [EMAIL PROTECTED] Chicken meat injected with water and animal proteins from the Netherlands -- Sometime ago you ran a short thread on the injection of chicken meat or tumbling of chicken meat with water and other animal proteins to enhance the weight to increase profit margins, from Dutch producers of chicken meat. There was the risk that these other proteins were not necessarily chicken protein, but could also have included pork and beef proteins, which was alarming if true, as this meant that chicken could also be a source of BSE. In the UK we have a program called Panorama which is an investigative journalism magazine program. Last night (22 May 2003), their investigations revealed that some of these companies did use water with dissolved non-chicken hydrolysed animal proteins to enhance the weight of these products (thus enhancing their profits). These investigations were probably been carried out sometime last year (perhaps around the time of your previous thread on this) and only broadcast this week. When they traced these protein additives back to a company in Germany, secret filming during interviews with the director of this company revealed that some of these animal protein additives had been specially treated. This special process had enabled the DNA in these animal proteins to be reduced to a single base-pair, so as to make the protein animal source unidentifiable by PCR testing techniques that are used to detect other animal contaminating proteins in foods. This special process was obviously a company secret, and Panorama went on to show that such proteins had been used by some major chicken producers in The Netherlands (and elsewhere they hinted, in foods other than chicken, e.g. ham enhanced with beef protein). My question is: Would such extreme procedures applied to these other animal proteins actually be sufficiently extreme to destroy prion proteins? Without the details, perhaps we will never know. Perhaps we should alert our Food Standards Agencies or similar watchdogs to be on renewed lookout for such hydrolysed protein-enhanced meat products entering our countries. I can supply more details if readers are interested, though these details are freely available on the website for this Panorama program, which has further results from their investigation. -- Julian W. Tang, MA PhD MRCP Virology, Department of Virology Windeyer Building, University College London Hospitals London W1T 4JF, England, UK Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED] www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Russia concerned over Israel's nuclear weapons program
-Caveat Lector- Haaretz News Updates Monday, June 02, 2003 Sivan 2, 5763 Israel Time: 05:07 (GMT+3) Russia concerned over Israel's nuclear weapons program By Aluf Benn Russia recently expressed concern over Israel's nuclear program and demanded that this be placed on the agenda of international organizations concerned with preventing nuclear proliferation. Speaking at a meeting of the Nuclear Suppliers Group in Pusan, South Korea 10 days ago, the Russians presented a report on the nuclear weapons allegedly in Israel's possession and demanded that this matter be addressed. Experts say that Russia raised the issue in an attempt to rebuff American pressure to cease its own nuclear dealings with Iran. The Russian claim is that Israel represents a greater nuclear threat to the Middle East than does Iran. The Nuclear Suppliers Group, which comprises 40 industrialized nations, works to prevent the leakage of nuclear technology to states suspected of trying to develop nuclear arms. Its rules also limit trade in dual-use technologies, which can be used for either civilian or military purposes. Israel, which is not a signatory to the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT), has been subjected to these restrictions for years. As a result, there is a long list of products that Israel has trouble purchasing on international markets. John Bolton, America's undersecretary of state for arms control and international security affairs, will come to Israel next week to discuss America's efforts to halt Iran's nuclear program. © Copyright 2003 Haaretz. All rights reserved www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Coalition of Willing Stiffing US on Troop Relief
-Caveat Lector- Relief for U.S. troops lacking By Tom Squitieri, USA TODAY WASHINGTON - The Pentagon's search for troops from other nations to replace U.S. soldiers in the force that is stabilizing postwar Iraq has fallen short of expectations, and U.S. officials face the prospect of keeping more U.S. forces in Iraq than they had hoped, diplomats and military officials say. A U.S. military police officer keeps an eye a crowd in Baghdad while other MPs arrest Iraqis who fired guns in the air. By Victor Caivano, AP Despite efforts to prod other nations to send troops - and a United Nations resolution on May 22 that cleared the way for countries to begin contributing soldiers to the postwar effort - the United States and Britain have gotten promises of just 13,000 troops from two dozen countries, according to diplomats for the affected countries. The first significant arrivals could come in July. That's much fewer than the tens of thousands of troops U.S. planners want. There are about 150,000 U.S. troops and 15,000 British troops in Iraq, along with a smattering of soldiers from other nations. Pentagon officials had hoped to begin substituting troops from other countries for some U.S. troops as early as next month, when they had expected to send home most of the Army's 3rd Infantry Division, which will now stay on. Getting help from foreign troops is important for reasons beyond sending home battle-weary U.S. forces. The Bush administration would like to put a more multinational face on the occupation of Iraq by visibly involving a broader group of nations. Foreign help also could cut U.S. costs at a time when U.S. planners are facing an open-ended military mission in Afghanistan plus other operations in the war against terrorism. In a speech Tuesday to the Council on Foreign Relations, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said 39 nations have contributed to the stabilization force or provided other assistance. But the Pentagon will not specify which nations are contributing troops, or how many have been promised. In his speech, Rumsfeld also said many U.S. troops will be required for as long as it takes to create a secure atmosphere in Iraq. The United Sates is getting enthusiastic help from Poland. Polish officials said they are determined to take a lead role in the military security of Iraq as well as demonstrate to the United States and other NATO nations that it can be a good ally. In Warsaw, 15 nations took part last week in talks on the force for Iraq. Polish officials said they received commitments from enough nations to fill out a 7,000-strong force for a sector of Iraq they will command. Several countries the United States was hoping would send large numbers of troops now say they can contribute small groups for a short period of time. For example, Denmark says it was asked for 5,000 troops but will send 380. Other nations that have participated in peacekeeping missions elsewhere have declined to send troops because public opinion in their countries heavily opposed the U.S. invasion and continues to oppose postwar U.S.-British control. There are other snags: NATO is preparing a force of 5,500 troops for peacekeeping duties in Afghanistan. That is drawing European troops who might have helped in Iraq. Worse-than-expected postwar lawlessness and violence in Iraq have forced U.S. planners to keep more troops there, and have increased the anxiety of some nations about committing their forces. Some nations have few soldiers to send or a lack of money to pay for any significant deployment. Britain's 15,000 troops still in Iraq are down from 45,000 during the war, and Britain has said it will continue to reduce the size of its force. British Defense Minister Geoffrey Hoon said in an interview that a long occupation would severely strain Britain's small military. It is fair to say we are stretched, Hoon said. © Copyright 2003 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substanceânot soap-boxingâplease! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'âwith its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright fraudsâis 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:]
[CTRL] Shocking 20 Billion $$$ Corporate Welfare Givaway
-Caveat Lector- Boeing deal comes at taxpayers' expense May 29, 2003 BY ROBERT NOVAK SUN-TIMES COLUMNIST No sooner did Congress adjourn last Friday for its Memorial Day recess than the Pentagon declared victory for the Boeing Co. over U.S. taxpayers. Against advice from federal budget officials and its own outside advisers, the Defense Department boosted Boeing's ailing commercial aircraft business with a sweetheart Air Force leasing deal. That dramatically demonstrated political power in Washington. Pressure from the speaker of the House, the president pro tem of the Senate and lawmakers from 17 states where the big defense contractor operates rolled over opposition from the Office of Management and Budget. While the ultimate decision was made by President Bush, the political balance weighed heavily for Boeing. ''President Eisenhower must be speaking out in his grave about the military-industrial complex that he warned about,'' Sen. John McCain told me. McCain's was the only congressional voice to speak out when the deal was announced. Bailing out Boeing is a classic case of the public interest subordinated to protect a politically well-connected contractor. The General Accounting Office estimates $20 billion to $30 billion in government costs for leasing 100 Boeing 767 tankers for six years, costing $12.2 billion to $22.4 billion more than simply modernizing existing KC-135E tankers. Actually, the OMB reports the current fleet is in good shape, and the Air Force says there is no need to start replacing the KC-135Es before 2012. OMB Director Mitchell Daniels could see that this proposal was in Boeing's but not the nation's interest. Just before last Christmas, he thought the deal was sidetracked. When the Defense Department's leasing committee postponed further consideration, a Pentagon official told me: ''It was decided that no deal was to be made.'' I concluded in a Dec. 19 column: ''The deal is dead.'' Ominously, however, no announcement was made. Democratic Rep. Norman Dicks of Washington state, who has carried Boeing's water in Congress for more than 26 years, predicted after my column that the deal would be saved. Senate President Pro Tem Ted Stevens, Appropriations Committee chairman, hectored Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in an open hearing. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert applied the heat behind the scenes. Daniels did reduce the cost to the taxpayers, but could not block the deal. Concern for Boeing by Hastert, who represents a northern Illinois district, is a major benefit of the company's world headquarters moving from Seattle to Chicago. Boeing further strengthened itself by hiring Rudy F. deLeon, a senior Defense Department official in both the Clinton and George W. Bush administrations, as chief lobbyist. Boeing had a passionate advocate in Secretary of the Air Force James Roche, who has worked on both the military and industrial sides of the complex. The drive toward a Boeing deal hit a bump two months ago when the Pentagon asked the opinion of the Institute for Defense Analyses. Instead of the expected whitewash, the IDA appraisal (from a panel that included retired officers) was negative. McCain's efforts to obtain the report were rebuffed. This column also was unable to get it. The defense authorization act passed by the Senate last Thursday night ordered an analysis of alternatives to the Boeing lease. That senatorial intent was ignored by the Pentagon the next day when it announced the deal. So delighted are Boeing's congressional cheerleaders that they admit the leasing deal was not driven by Air Force needs. Democratic Sen. Maria Cantwell of Washington state exulted that it ''will deliver a sustained boost for Boeing's production lines and its workers at a time when they need it most.'' When McCain asked Boeing whether it had offered a leasing deal to Continental Airlines and been turned down, he was told this was ''proprietary'' information. Boeing did not have a response to this column. John McCain cannot reverse this deal, but he can make life miserable for James Roche. McCain said Friday that Secretary Roche contradicted Air Force studies and was ''relentless in exaggerating aerial tanker shortfalls and problems in order to win approval of the lease.'' Roche, nominated to shift over as secretary of the Army to push Rumsfeld's modernization, must confront McCain in confirmation hearings that will explore what has been done for the Boeing Co. Copyright 2003, Digital Chicago Inc. www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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
[CTRL] Top Bush Hawk Admits Iraqi WMD Lies for War
-Caveat Lector- INDEPENDENT NEWS HEADLINES WMD just a convenient excuse for war, admits Wolfowitz By David Usborne 30 May 2003 The Bush administration focused on alleged weapons of mass destruction as the primary justification for toppling Saddam Hussein by force because it was politically convenient, a top-level official at the Pentagon has acknowledged. The extraordinary admission, which is bound to stir the controversy in Washington and London about the murky motivations for war, comes in an interview with Paul Wolfowitz, the Deputy Defence Secretary, in the July issue of the magazine Vanity Fair. Mr Wolfowitz also discloses that there was one justification that was almost unnoticed but huge. That was the prospect of the United States being able to withdraw all of its forces from Saudi Arabia once the threat of Saddam had been removed. Since the taking of Baghdad, Washington has said that it is taking its troops out of the kingdom. Just lifting that burden from the Saudis is itself going to the door towards making progress elsewhere in achieving Middle East peace, Mr Wolfowitz argued. The presence of the US military in Saudi Arabia has been one of the main grievances of al-Qa'ida and other terrorist groups. For bureaucratic reasons we settled on one issue, weapons of mass destruction, because it was the one reason everyone could agree on, Mr Wolfowitz tells the magazine, apparently alluding to the inter-departmental squabbling that occurred in Washington in the run-up to the war. The comments suggest that, even for the US administration, the logic that was presented for going to war may have been an empty shell. They come to light, moreover, just two days after Mr Wolfowitz's immediate boss, Donald Rumsfeld, the Defence Secretary, conceded for the first time that the arms might never be found. The failure even now to find a single example of the weapons that London and Washington said were inside Iraq only makes the embarrassment more acute. Voices are increasingly being raised in the US - as well as in Britain - demanding an explanation for why nothing has been found. Most striking is the fact that these latest remarks come from Mr Wolfowitz, recognised widely as the leader of the hawks' camp in Washington most responsible for urging President George Bush to use military might in Iraq. The magazine article reveals that Mr Wolfowitz was even pushing Mr Bush to attack Iraq immediately after the 11 September attacks in the US, instead of invading Afghanistan. There have long been suspicions that Mr Wolfowitz has essentially been running a shadow administration out of his Pentagon office, ensuring that the right-wing views of himself and his followers find their way into the practice of American foreign policy. He is best known as the author of the policy of first-strike pre-emption in world affairs that was adopted by Mr Bush shortly after the al-Qa'ida attacks. In asserting that weapons of mass destruction gave a rationale for attacking Iraq that was acceptable to everyone, Mr Wolfowitz was presumably referring in particular to the US Secretary of State, Colin Powell. He was the last senior member of the administration to agree to the push earlier this year to persuade the rest of the world that removing Saddam by force was the only remaining viable option. The conversion of Mr Powell was on full view in the UN Security Council in February when he made a forceful presentation of evidence that allegedly proved that Saddam was concealing weapons of mass destruction. The Secretary of State even brandished a vial of white powder, intimating that it was anthrax and that Saddam had plenty of it. Critics of the administration and of the war will now want to know how convinced the Americans really were that the weapons existed in Iraq to the extent that was publicly stated. Questions are also multiplying as to the quality of the intelligence provided to the White House. Was it simply faulty - given that nothing has been found in Iraq - or was it influenced by the White House's fixation on the weapons issue? Or were the intelligence agencies telling the White House what it wanted to hear? This week, Sam Nunn, a former senator, urged Congress to investigate whether the argument for war in Iraq was based on distorted intelligence. He raised the possibility that Mr Bush's policy against Saddam had influenced the intelligence that indicated Baghdad had weapons of mass destruction. This week, the CIA and the other American intelligence agencies have promised to conduct internal reviews of the quality of the material they supplied the administration on what was going on in Iraq. The heat on the White House was only made fiercer by Mr Rumsfeld's admission that nothing may now be found in Iraq to back up those earlier claims, if only because the Iraqis may have got rid of any evidence before the conflict. It is also possible that they decided that they would destroy them prior to a conflict, the Defence
[CTRL] WHY DO WE HAVE THE WAR ON SOME DRUGS, ANYWAY?
-Caveat Lector- WHY DO WE HAVE THE WAR ON SOME DRUGS, ANYWAY? SAM SMITH - The angry American reaction to Canada's move towards sanity on drug laws raises a question that is seldom asked, let alone studied by academics or the media. Given that the drug war has been a demonstrable failure why does it continue to be so strongly supported by the American political and legal establishment? One reason that few want to touch is corruption, in both the moral and legal sense, which is to say the corruption that comes from political pressure - with its rewards and punishments - and the corruption that comes from hard cash. For example, the Drug Policy Alliance notes that the war on drugs includes a $9 billion prison economy, not to mention more billions in homeless shelters, healthcare, chemical dependency and psychiatric treatment, etc. Each one of these industries - as well as the employment of cops, judges, probation officers, etc - would be severely hurt should America decide to give up its war on drugs. This doesn't justify the madness but it is important to remember that we have created a multi-billion dollar economy based on our failed drug policies. Notes DPA, the beneficiaries of the drug war include: Prison architects and contractors, corrections personnel, policy makers and academics, and the thousands of corporate vendors who peddle their wares at the annual trade-show of the American Corrections Association - hawking everything from toothbrushes and socks to barbed-wire fences and shackles. And multi-national corporations that win tax subsidies, incentives and abatements from local governments -- robbing the public coffers and depriving communities of the kind of quality education, roads, health care and infrastructure that provide genuine incentives for legitimate business. The sale of tax-exempt bonds to underwrite prison construction is now estimated at $2.3 billion annually. . . Corporations that appear to be far removed from the business of punishment are intimately involved in the expansion of the prison industrial complex. Prison construction bonds are one of the many sources of profitable investment for leading financiers such as Merrill Lynch. MCI charges prisoners and their families outrageous prices for the precious telephone calls which are often the only contact inmates have with the free world. Many corporations whose products we consume on a daily basis have learned that prison labor power can be as profitable as third world labor power exploited by U.S.-based global corporations. Both relegate formerly unionized workers to joblessness, many of which wind up in prison. Some of the companies that use prison labor are IBM, Motorola, Compaq, Texas Instruments, Honeywell, Microsoft, and Boeing. But it is not only the hi-tech industries that reap the profits of prison labor. Nordstrom department stores sell jeans that are marketed as 'Prison Blues,' as well as t-shirts and jackets made in Oregon prisons. Far more serious, however, is the role that illegal corruption plays. If one is to believe the media and scholars, it would appear that the drug industry - by UN estimate a $400 billion global business - is the only commercial sector in the country that doesn't buy politicians. In other words, the drug trade is the only honest trade when it comes to politics. Of course this is nonsense, but try to find the news story that even raises the possibility that some, if not many, of our politicians are beneficiaries of the drug trade either directly or through well laundered sources. To be sure, there are periodic reports of cops on the take, but any suggestion of political involvement is absent. Further, the collateral beneficiaries of the drug trade - of which money-laundering banks would be a prime example - are exempt from examination as well, unless their misdoings occurred in some foreign land like Mexico or Colombia. To cover such a story is exceedingly difficult and rarely rewarding. When the Review tried to report some of the connections between Bill Clinton and the Arkansas drug trade we discovered that even many journalists just didn't want to hear about it. It was so much easier to describe the story as just about sex, one of the biggest media myths of the 20th century. Mike Rupert, a detective turned writer, gives one example of the stories begging to be covered with the same energy as, say, the misdeeds of Jason Blair. In an interview, he was asked, Who benefits most from an addicted inner-city population? Rupert's reply: It's not just who benefits most; it's how many people can benefit on how many different ends of the spectrum. We published a story in my newsletter, From The Wilderness, by Catherine Austin Fitts, a former Assistant Secretary of Housing [and Urban Development]. She produced a map in 1996, August of 1996 - that's the same month that the Gary Webb story broke in the San Jose Mercury News. It was a map that showed the pattern of single family foreclosures or
[CTRL] US 'faces future of chronic deficits'
-Caveat Lector- THE FINANCIAL TIMES US 'faces future of chronic deficits' By Peronet Despeignes in Washington Published: May 28 2003 21:57 | Last Updated: May 29 2003 1:16 The Bush administration has shelved a report commissioned by the Treasury that shows the US currently faces a future of chronic federal budget deficits totalling at least $44,200bn in current US dollars. The study, the most comprehensive assessment of how the US government is at risk of being overwhelmed by the baby boom generation's future healthcare and retirement costs, was commissioned by then-Treasury secretary Paul O'Neill. But the Bush administration chose to keep the findings out of the annual budget report for fiscal year 2004, published in February, as the White House campaigned for a tax-cut package that critics claim will expand future deficits. The study asserts that sharp tax increases, massive spending cuts or a painful mix of both are unavoidable if the US is to meet benefit promises to future generations. It estimates that closing the gap would require the equivalent of an immediate and permanent 66 per cent across-the-board income tax increase. The study was being circulated as an independent working paper among Washington think-tanks as President George W. Bush on Wednesday signed into law a 10-year, $350bn tax-cut package he welcomed as a victory for hard-working Americans and the economy. The analysis was spearheaded by Kent Smetters, then-Treasury deputy assistant secretary for economic policy, and Jagdessh Gokhale, then a consultant to the Treasury. Mr Gokhale, now an economist for the Cleveland Federal Reserve, said: When we were conducting the study, my impression was that it was slated to appear [in the Budget]. At some point, the momentum builds and you think everything is a go, and then the decision came down that we weren't part of the prospective budget. Mr O'Neill, who was fired last December, refused to comment. The study's analysis of future deficits dwarfs previous estimates of the financial challenge facing Washington. It is roughly equivalent to 10 times the publicly held national debt, four years of US economic output or more than 94 per cent of all US household assets. Alan Greenspan, Federal Reserve chairman, last week bemoaned what he called Washington's deafening silence about the future crunch. US tax-cuts President Bush signed into law a $350bn tax-cut package on Wednesday saying:``We can say loud and clear to the American people: You got more of your own money to spend so that this economy can get a good wind behind it. Read more of the FT's news and analysis of the tax-cut debate. Go there The estimates reflect the extent to which the annual deficit, the national debt and other widely reported, backward-looking data are becoming archaic and misleading as measures of the government's solvency. Mr Smetters, now a University of Pennsylvania finance professor, said tax cuts were only a fraction of the imbalance, and that the bigger problem is the whole [budget] language we're using. Laurence Kotlikoff, an expert on long-term budget accounting, alleged in a recent Boston Globe editorial that the Bush administration suppressed the research to ease passage of the tax-cut plan. An administration official said the study was designed as a thought-piece for internal discussion - one among many left every year on the cutting-room floor - and noted the budget's extensive discussion of projected, 75-year Social Security and Medicare shortfalls. . www.ctrl.org DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing propagandic screeds are unwelcomed. Substance—not soap-boxing—please! These are sordid matters and 'conspiracy theory'—with its many half-truths, mis- directions and outright frauds—is 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://www.mail-archive.com/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://www.mail-archive.com/[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] Iraq puts Jews in Bush's corner
-Caveat Lector- The Washington Times www.washingtontimes.com Wars against terrorism, Iraq put Jews in Bush's corner Donald Lambro THE WASHINGTON TIMES Published April 6, 2003 There has been a significant shift of support for President Bush among Jews in the United States as a result of the war against terrorism and Saddam Hussein's regime in Iraq, pollsters and Jewish leaders say. Jews have long been one of the Democratic Party's most loyal political constituencies. But the growing likelihood that the war in Iraq will eliminate one of Israel's regional enemies, perhaps leading to positive changes in the Middle East, has helped Republicans make inroads into the Jewish vote, a leading Jewish clergyman says. I think there are more Jews who would be willing to vote for President Bush now and in the year 2004. I think that is a concern and a challenge to the Democratic Party, said Rabbi Yechiel Eckstein, founder of the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, a pro-Israel group that seeks to promote closer cooperation between Christians and Jews. Mr. Eckstein said he is neither a Republican nor a Democrat. I am a rabbi, and this project is our ministry. We don't know how much, but there is a shift among Jews who are supporting Bush and his battle against terrorism. You would have to be blind not to see that. Republicans are making an effort to bring the Jewish community into its tent, and the Democratic Party is trying to stop the hemorrhaging, he said. The latest evidence of this political shift was on view last week when hundreds of Jewish, and evangelical Christian leaders and supporters gathered in the District for a two-day conference called Stand for Israel, a project of Mr. Eckstein's organization. The event, which is to be an annual meeting, was co-chaired by Republican strategist Ralph Reed, who has been a close political adviser to the White House. Participants cheered speakers, including Attorney General John Ashcroft, Rep. Tom Lantos, California Democrat, and House Majority Leader Tom DeLay, Texas Republican, who one by one lauded Mr. Bush's campaign against terrorism, especially his drive to dismantle and disarm the Iraqi regime. Mr. Reed was reluctant to discuss the broader, long-term political implications of the war while U.S. soldiers are fighting and dying in a campaign to topple the Iraqi regime, but he acknowledges that it has led to political changes in the way Jews view the president. His conduct of the war against terrorism has caused a lot of voters to take a second look, and that includes Jewish voters, Mr. Reed said. A survey of 1,216 Jewish voters taken in October by the Tarrance Group, a Republican polling company, found that Mr. Bush has made significant inroads with this heavily Democratic group, something that could have an impact on the next two election cycles. A clear majority of Jews (81 percent) see Bush as a strong supporter of Israel, and 46 percent say they would be more likely to vote for him based on the way he has been handling the war on terrorism, the polling company reported at the time. Ed Goeas, who conducted the poll, said Friday that it was done in the midst of the [midterm] election, when you would expect a lot of political polarization, but we found none. There is no reason to believe that this support has deteriorated. In fact, it has increased. Ronald Reagan received 38 percent of the Jewish vote in 1980 against President Carter, the high-water mark for a Republican presidential candidate. More recent national polls show that while at least two-thirds of Americans back Mr. Bush on the war, Jewish support has been higher. Notably, a Quinnipiac University survey in New York City, where voters are far more liberal, found that Jewish voters are supporting the war 56 percent to 35 percent. Without a doubt, we are seeing a majority shift [among Jews] in the political landscape of this country, said Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia, the only Republican Jewish member of the House. He credited the war on terrorism for the shift. The war we are fighting in Iraq is the same war that Israel is fighting internally, he said. In my travels across the country, I hear Jews telling me, 'I find myself agreeing with the Republicans more than the Democrats.' Democratic officials did not respond yesterday to requests for responses to the assertions of Jewish leaders such as Mr. Eckstein, though one Democratic strategist, who did not want to be identified, said, We've seen some evidence that Bush is getting more support from Jewish voters since the war began. Copyright © 2003 News World Communications, Inc. All rights reserved.
[CTRL] Post-War War Begins
-Caveat Lector- U.S. Plan For Iraq's Future Is Challenged Pentagon Control, Secrecy Questioned By Karen DeYoung and Dan Morgan Washington Post Staff Writers Sunday, April 6, 2003; Page A21 As it anticipates imminent victory in Iraq, the Bush administration is facing questions, criticism and the threatened rejection of significant parts of its plan for rebuilding the country and establishing a new, representative Iraqi government. The concerns begin with the secrecy that has surrounded the planning process and the lack of publicly released details. What is known is that President Bush, for reasons he has not made clear, has given the Department of Defense primary control over all postwar aid and reconstruction, a role that has sparked discomfort across a broad, bipartisan spectrum in Congress and among other governments. While it has announced plans to quickly establish an interim authority of Iraqis on the ground, the administration has not said what that authority's responsibilities will be or how its members will be chosen. Many say it should not be created before all Iraqis untainted with association with President Saddam Hussein are free to participate, and some question whether any U.S.-created authority will be considered legitimate in the eyes of Iraqis or the rest of the world. So far, the administration has responded largely with pledges to include others in the reconstruction effort and to ensure the eventual establishment of a truly representative government. But with U.S. troops entering Baghdad, there have been moves at home and abroad to push postwar plans in directions that the administration has indicated it will strongly resist. Congress has already rewritten the emergency request for $2.5 billion in reconstruction assistance that Bush submitted last month, with the Senate barring the money from use by the Pentagon. The House has insisted that it go through the traditional State Department aid agencies. The secretary of state is the appropriate manager of foreign assistance, and is so designated by law, said Rep. Jim Kolbe (R-Ariz), a House Appropriations Committee member, expressing a view widely held across party lines. Prominent lawmakers said they expect the changes to survive a House-Senate conference this week. But the White House has mounted a strong effort to reverse them, including calls by Vice President Cheney late last week to the top GOP leadership. Secretary of State Colin L. Powell has not commented on the financial arrangements, but there has been a series of disputes with the Defense Department over the makeup of the postwar team. Officials at the State Department are also concerned that the early establishment of an Iraqi authority will give too much initial power to Pentagon-preferred exile leaders at the expense of potential leaders within the country. British Prime Minister Tony Blair, Bush's chief ally in invading Iraq without the U.N. Security Council's approval, has pushed for a much stronger U.N. role in the postwar process than the president envisions. British and U.S. officials said that when the two leaders meet tomorrow in Belfast, Blair plans to remind the president of their joint pledge to seek U.N. endorsement of postwar reconstruction and political plans. At the United Nations, senior officials said there is virtually no chance that the Security Council will endorse a Pentagon-run reconstruction effort or a U.S.-installed Iraqi authority. Without new council resolutions, the European Union said last week that it will not participate in the postwar effort. The administration responded on Friday with reassurances that its goal is a free, disarmed and democratic Iraq. To achieve these goals, White House national security adviser Condoleezza Rice said, we will work with Iraqis, our coalition partners and international organizations to rebuild Iraq. We will leave Iraq completely in the hands of Iraqis as quickly as possible. Reconstruction The foundation of the administration's postwar plan for Iraq is the Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Aid, a Pentagon-based agency established by National Security Directive 24, a document Bush signed several months ago. Its head, chosen by Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld, is retired Army Lt. Gen. Jay M. Garner. He plans to install American civilian advisers at the top of Iraqi government ministries and agencies. Garner reports to Rumsfeld through Army Gen. Tommy R. Franks, the head of the U.S. Central Command. Although the State Department's Agency for International Development and disaster relief organizations will handle much of the actual humanitarian and reconstruction work, the plan calls for them to answer to Garner, who will control their funding. Despite repeated requests for more information and for a meeting with Garner, Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman Richard G. Lugar (R-Ind.) said he and his staff have received only inconclusive and not very comprehensive views on
[CTRL] Time Running Out For Bush's Economy
-Caveat Lector- THE WASHINGTON POST For Bush, Time to Mend Economy Is Running Out By Dana Milbank Washington Post Staff Writer Saturday, April 5, 2003; Page A01 The Labor Department's report yesterday that the U.S. economy shed 108,000 jobs in March underscored an emerging threat to President Bush's reelection prospects: He is running out of time to restore jobs and economic growth. The job losses in March, more than double the number analysts had expected, mean nearly 2.1 million jobs have been lost since Bush took office. Though the unemployment rate held steady at 5.8 percent in March, the private sector has lost more than 2.6 million jobs during Bush's term -- a drop that has been offset only by increased government hiring. For Bush, this is not a short-term problem. He enjoys broad popularity as a war leader, and victory in Iraq would likely give him another boost. But, as happened to President George H.W. Bush in 1992, such support can diminish fast in a sluggish economy. Although the election is 19 months away, it can take a long time to restore growth and jobs. Administration economists, and many outside of government, had hoped that a quick victory in Iraq would give a boost to the stock market and to consumer confidence, reigniting the economy. Some still expect this scenario. But increasingly, they are describing the economic problems as broader and more difficult to solve, regardless of how soon the war ends. The problem is not with the concern about the Iraq war. The problem is the underlying weakness with the economy, Treasury Secretary John W. Snow said in Orlando on Thursday. Asked about the possibility of a return to recession, he said that we need to guard against it because of a clear weakness. As a general rule, administration officials and private economists say, the economy needs to be growing by more than 3 percent -- and possibly well above -- for jobs to be added. Economists and political strategists also assume that such growth must be firmly in place by the second quarter of an election year for voters to feel the effects by Election Day. And, Bush aides say, because it takes nine months for the full benefit of a new economic stimulus plan to be felt, policymakers have little time to spare. The rule of thumb is second-quarter GDP [gross domestic product] growth in the presidential election year has to be above 3 percent, said Kenneth M. Duberstein, who was a chief of staff to President Ronald Reagan. That's why everything this year is driven toward next year's second-quarter GDP. If Bush's $726 billion tax cut is enacted in June, it will come just in time for the all-important 2004 second quarter. Given where the economy is and where it looks like the economy is going to be in the near future, our instructions are to get this growing as soon as possible, a senior administration official said yesterday. Some believe the time has passed to influence the 2004 economy. If you're talking about boosting the economy in a year, it's too late for that, said the Urban Institute's Rudolph G. Penner, director of the Congressional Budget Office during the Reagan administration. By historical measures, it takes two quarters of growth of about 3 percent to produce a large increase in jobs. That means Bush would need the economy to be humming by the fourth quarter of this year. There is still a chance that could happen. The firm Macroeconomic Advisers wrote in a report last week that it expects 4.4 percent growth in the second half of this year because a favorable outcome in Iraq . . . will be followed by improvements in business, investor and consumer confidence. But that notion is much disputed. I have no evidence that the start or finish of the war with Iraq has anything to do with the economy, said John H. Makin, a conservative economist with the American Enterprise Institute. As a result, Makin said, there really is some urgency for this White House. The cost of the war in Iraq has led to an effort to halve Bush's $726 billion tax cut, but even if he gets all of it, Makin said, it will inject only about $70 billion into the economy. Deduct from that cutbacks in state and local government spending, and the stimulus to the economy will be well below half one percent of the gross domestic product. That's not a magical elixir, and people aren't in a mood to spend it, anyway, he said. Some say Bush should restructure his tax cut to drop the dividend tax elimination, which accounts for half of the package but provides a negligible economic boost in the short term. Rather than shoehorning the dividend plan in, they should be trying to shoehorn in the most amount of economic stimulus, said Bill Dudley, chief U.S. economist for Goldman Sachs. Still, Dudley said, I don't see any sign that they're changing their approach. The policies don't change even when circumstances change, and the economy is a good bit weaker than many people thought three or six months ago. Although the
[CTRL] Israelis Shoot American Terrorist Peace Activist
-Caveat Lector- Apr 5, 9:06 PM EST U.S. Peace Activist Shot in West Bank JERUSALEM (AP) -- An American peace activist volunteering as a human shield in the West Bank was seriously wounded on Saturday when Israeli troops allegedly opened fire on him. Brian Avery, 24, from Albuquerque, N.M., heard shots fired and came out of his apartment building in Jenin to investigate just as an armored personnel carrier rounded a corner, said Tobias Karlsson, a fellow activist from Sweden. Avery and Karlsson are members of the International Solidarity Movement, which uses nonviolent methods to protest the Israeli occupation. Members of the group often insert themselves between Palestinians and Israeli soldiers to try to stop Israeli military operations. We had our hands up and we were wearing vests that clearly identified us as international workers when they began firing, Karlsson said. Brian was shot in the face, and it looks like he was hit by a heavy caliber bullet because of the extent of the wound. Avery was taken to a Jenin hospital but will be transferred to an Israeli hospital. Karlsson said he was semiconscious when taken in the ambulance. The army said homemade firebombs were reportedly being thrown at troops and it returned fire at gunmen in the area, although it was not aware of hitting anyone. An officer said that Palestinians were also shooting, and it was unclear whose bullet hit Avery. The U.S. State Department said it was looking into the report. The U.S. Embassy in Tel Aviv and our Jerusalem consulate are now following up to find out what happened as well as confirm the identity and determine the welfare of the individual, State Department spokesman Lou Fintor said in a statement in Washington. Karlsson said he, Avery and a Palestinian medical worker not with the group were approached slowly by the troops and stood with their hands up for about 10 minutes. There was no communication with the soldiers, who Karlsson says fired unprovoked. Karlsson did not see gunmen in the area, and said few Palestinians were on the streets Saturday because of a curfew Israeli troops were enforcing. Maria Santelli, an organizer with the New Mexico Solidarity Network, said Avery, whose birthday is Thursday, was an easygoing man known around Albuquerque for his community work, which included volunteering at a grocery cooperative. Santelli said Avery had written home, saying he wanted to carry on the work of Rachel Corrie, another American member of the group was killed on March 16 while trying to stop an Israeli military bulldozer in the Gaza Strip. She fell in front of the machine, which ran over her and then backed up, witnesses said. He just wrote about Rachel Corrie, Santelli said. He was just letting people know back home what happened and that people were standing in her name and continuing her work. Israeli officials say a bulldozer incident that killed the 23-year-old college student was an accident and that the driver didn't see her. The driver is back on the job, the army said Saturday. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] Why We Will Win The War And Lose The Peace
-Caveat Lector- NY TIMES April 4, 2003 Arab Media Portray War as Killing Field By SUSAN SACHS CAIRO, April 3 - It was a picture of Arab grief and rage. A teenage boy glared from the rubble of a bombed building as a veiled woman wept over the body of a relative. In fact, it was two pictures: one from the American-led war in Iraq and the other from the Palestinian territories, blended into one image this week on the Web site of the popular Saudi daily newspaper Al Watan. The meaning would be clear to any Arab reader: what is happening in Iraq is part of one continuous brutal assault by America and its allies on defenseless Arabs, wherever they are. As the Iraq war moved into its third week, the media in the region have increasingly fused images and enemies from this and other conflicts into a single bloodstained tableau. The Israeli flag is superimposed on the American flag. The Crusades and the 13th-century Mongul sack of Baghdad, recalled as barbarian attacks on Arab civilization, are used as synonyms for the American-led invasion of Iraq. Horrific vignettes of the helpless - armless children, crushed babies, stunned mothers - cascade into Arab living rooms from the front pages of newspapers and television screens. For Arab leaders and Arab moderates, supported by Washington, the war has become a political crisis of street protests, militant calls for holy war and bitter public criticism of their ties to the United States. They had hoped for a short war with a minimum of inflammatory pictures of Iraqi civilian casualties. Instead, the daily message to the public from much of the media is that American troops are callous killers, that only resistance to the United States can redeem Arab pride and that the Iraqis are fighting a pan-Arab battle for self-respect. The media are playing a very dangerous game in this conflict, said Abdel Moneim Said, director of the Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. When you see the vocabulary and the images used, it is actually bringing everybody to the worst nightmare - the clash of civilizations. Sensationalism has not gripped all media. Some mainline government-owned newspapers like the staid Al Ahram in Egypt and two of the privately owned international Arabic papers based in London, Al Hayat and Asharq Al Awsat, have reported the war in neutral language. They show bandaged victims in Iraqi hospitals but not the gory pictures of ripped bodies that fill the pages of their competitors. Government control of the media is not the issue in any case, since nearly all newspapers in the Arab world, including those with the most savage coverage of the American invasion, publish at the pleasure of the governments. In most countries, the government appoints all newspaper editors, including the so-called opposition press. Even a privately owned paper like Al Watan in Saudi Arabia must toe the government line in reporting on domestic politics and personalities. The biggest influence on much of the media coverage has come from the satellite news channel Al Jazeera, which started broadcasting from Qatar in 1996. It made its name with on-the-spot coverage of the Palestinian uprising that gave viewers an unblinking look at bloody and broken bodies. Many governments, aware that Al Jazeera is widely considered by Arab audiences to be credible, have allowed their own stations to run Jazeera footage of the war to demonstrate their own anti-war credentials. (On Wednesday, Al Jazeera announced that it was suspending its reporting from Iraq after the Iraqi government barred two of its correspondents in Baghdad.) The rage against the United States is fed by this steady diet of close-up color photographs and television footage of dead and wounded Iraqis, described as victims of American bombs. In recent days, more and more Arabic newspapers have run headlines bluntly accusing soldiers of deliberately killing civilians. Even for those accustomed to seeing such images from Arab coverage of the Palestinian-Israeli conflict, the daily barrage of war coverage in newspapers and on hourly television reports has left many Arabs beside themselves with anger. He is `Shaytan,' that Bush, shouted Ali Hammouda, a newsstand operator in Cairo, using the Arabic word for Satan and pointing to a color photograph in one of his newspapers. The image, published in many Arabic papers, showed the bodies of a stick-thin woman and a baby, said to be victims of American shelling in central Iraq. They were lying in an open wooden coffin, the baby's green pacifier still in its mouth. Your Bush says he is coming to make them free, but look at this lady, Mr. Hammouda exclaimed. Is she free? What did she do? What did her baby do? Fahmi Howeidy, a prominent Islamist writer in Cairo, says the reactions are not necessarily pro-Saddam. Of course we think Saddam Hussein will not continue in power, but if he resists for weeks, at least he will defend his image as a hero who could
[CTRL] Bush Warned by Israel Lobby
-Caveat Lector- House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) cited concern that the United States is undercutting Israel. (File Photo/Ken Lambert -- AP) Bush Meets Resistance on Mideast Plan Key Hill Allies Call for Greater Commitment to Israel's Concerns About Road Map By Jim VandeHei Washington Post Staff Writer Friday, April 4, 2003; Page A18 President Bush's latest bid for a Middle East peace deal is running into unexpected resistance from key allies in Congress. Republicans and Democrats are pressing the White House to adopt a more staunchly pro-Israel stance, even if it feeds the perception the United States is too closely aligned with Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's government. In a rare public split with the Bush administration over foreign policy, and at a critical moment in international relations, GOP congressional leaders are calling on the president and Secretary of State Colin L. Powell to temper their support for a long-awaited Middle East peace plan designed to implement Bush's call in June for the creation of a Palestinian state within three years. Israel has objected to certain parts of the plan, known as the road map, which was drafted last year by the so-called quartet -- the United States, the European Union, Russia and the United Nations. The plan envisions a three-stage process that would create Palestinian institutions, establish provisional borders for a state by the end of this year and reach a final agreement with defined borders in 2005. Completed in December, the road map's release was delayed at Sharon's request until after the January Israeli elections, and again until the Palestinian legislature confirmed a new prime minister. That confirmation is to occur by the end of this month, and the imminent release of the plan has brought stepped-up concern. Republicans and Democrats say they worry that the administration is undercutting Israel by embracing the plan. There are many members of Congress concerned about this road map, House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-Tex.) said in an interview yesterday. Sharon's government, and many in Congress, object to the non-negotiable nature of the document and to its demand that Israel and the Palestinian take parallel steps to move toward peace. Israel's position is that the Palestinians must prove they have stopped all terrorism, and activities that Israel believes promote terrorist activities, before it is required to take any steps, including the withdrawal of troops and stopping the expansion of settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. In speeches this week and a letter scheduled for delivery later this month, GOP and Democratic congressional leaders -- who are competing for Jewish voters and donors -- make clear they will oppose any peace deal that does not first require the Palestinians to change their government and end all terrorist activities before imposing significant requirements on Israel. Several key Republicans said Bush has privately assured them that he agrees with them. But they expressed concern that Powell and British Prime Minister Tony Blair might manage to soften his resolve. There is a fairly healthy debate, even in this administration, about how you get to a place of true peace, said House Majority Whip Roy Blunt (R-Mo.). Although Bush pledged his personal commitment to the road map in a March 14 speech, he said he welcomed additional contributions to the plan. That raised concern among other quartet members that he was open to Israeli suggestions for changing the document. Congressional opponents of the plan saw this as confirmation that Bush's commitment was not total. DeLay rewrote a speech he delivered Wednesday night to warn against treating the Palestinian Authority as a trustworthy negotiating partner, an aide said. Negotiating with these men . . . is folly, and any agreement arrived at through such empty negotiations would amount to a covenant with death, DeLay told a fervently pro-Israel crowd at a conference of Jews and Christians in Washington. Experience and common sense lead to one conclusion about America's proper role in the Middle East: We are absolutely right to stand with Israel, and our opponents are absolutely wrong. DeLay said it was absurd for the State Department this week to report that Israel has a poor human rights record. The newly released annual document criticized Israel and the Palestinians for abuses over the past year. Several Republican and Democratic leaders plan to send Bush a letter this month signed by dozens of members, imploring him to adopt a position more clearly backing the Sharon government. There are concerns about Bush's recent comments, said House Minority Whip Steny H. Hoyer (D-Md.), an outspoken supporter of the war in Iraq and co-author of the letter. We think this is not the direction he ought to go. Blunt, a key Bush ally, is the highest-ranking Republican to sign the letter, which was first reported by CQ Today, a Capitol Hill publication. This would
[CTRL] Iraq Will Cost The US Taxpayer Big Bucks
-Caveat Lector- http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-war-iraqdebt4apr04010421,1,3763 271.story?coll=la%2Dheadlines%2Dworld%2Dmanual WAR WITH IRAQ Iraq Debts Could Add Up to Trouble By Warren Vieth Times Staff Writer April 4, 2003 WASHINGTON -- To hear some Bush administration officials tell it, the reconstruction of Iraq will largely pay for itself, thanks to a postwar gusher of petroleum revenue. The one thing that is certain is Iraq is a wealthy nation, White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said. A look at the national balance sheet tells a different story. Iraq will emerge from the war a financial shambles, many economists say, with a debt load bigger than that of Argentina, a cash flow crunch rivaling those of Third World countries, a mountain of unresolved compensation claims, a shaky currency, high unemployment, galloping inflation and a crumbling infrastructure expected to sustain more damage before the shooting stops. And the more oil Iraq produces to pump up its earnings, the more likely it becomes that prices will fall, leaving it no better off than before. Clearly, it's a basket case, said Dean Baker, co-director of the liberal Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. Once you start talking about it, you see what an impossible situation it is. I don't think the Bush administration is anxious to have that conversation. Bathsheba Crocker, director of the Post-War Reconstruction Project at the centrist Center for Strategic International Studies, said Iraq's oil money is not the panacea many Bush officials seem to think it is. It's unreasonable to think that oil is going to finance all of the needs of the country, Crocker said. All told, there's just not enough money to go around. Baker and Crocker are among a small but vocal contingent of nongovernment economists and foreign policy analysts who say it is time for the United States to stop pretending that life in Iraq after the war will resemble something out of The Beverly Hillbillies. The reality, they say, will look more like Chapter 11. In their view, the only satisfactory solution is an international aid and debt relief program as ambitious as the Marshall Plan that helped Europe recover from the ravages of World War II. Unless debt and reparations are dealt with properly, Iraq is basically bankrupt, said Rubar Sandi, an Iraqi American investment banker who is pressing administration officials to embrace a major debt relief initiative. I know they might not like what I'm saying, said Sandi, whose Washington-based Corporate Bank Business Group has investments in several developing countries. But I am a businessman, and it's simple mathematics. Although the debt write-offs would be spread far and wide, some of the biggest hits would be taken by countries such as Russia and France, which supplied Saddam Hussein with military gear and other goods before the 1991 Persian Gulf War and have been staunch opponents of the current conflict. Even then, experts say, Iraq's oil revenue probably would fall short of what is needed to pay for postwar reconstruction, and much of the immediate shortfall would wind up being financed by U.S. Treasury bonds. So far, the administration seems not to have noticed. Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz told Congress last week that Iraq would be able to pick up much of the tab for postwar rebuilding. We're dealing with a country that can really finance its own reconstruction relatively soon, he said. Office of Management and Budget Director Mitchell Daniels Jr. asserted that oil and gas revenue and confiscated Iraqi assets would provide abundant resources for reconstruction. Some members of Congress agree. I don't think it makes sense to ask U.S. taxpayers to pay the full cost of rebuilding Iraq when the Iraqi state has plenty of resources to do so itself, said Sen. Byron L. Dorgan (D-N.D.), who introduced a resolution Thursday calling for the use of oil proceeds to finance the rebuilding effort. However, Bush administration officials have declined to make specific estimates of the long-term costs of rebuilding Iraq. Without question, Iraq possesses assets any country would covet. It sits atop the world's second-biggest pool of proven oil reserves, some 112 billion barrels, as well as huge deposits of natural gas and petroleum yet to be discovered. But wealth in the ground does not necessarily translate into money in the bank, at least not immediately. Iraq's oil infrastructure has deteriorated badly during Hussein's reign, and most experts say it would take up to two years and $5 billion to restore production to its pre-Gulf War level. Estimates of Iraq's potential oil earnings during the first year or two after the war range from about $15 billion to $20 billion, depending on price and production assumptions. From that income, at least $11 billion would be needed initially for
[CTRL] Another conservative myth bites the dust
-Caveat Lector- American Newsreel Another conservative myth bites the dust By DOUG THOMPSON Apr 2, 2003, 06:00 One constant exists in the Internet universe: Pick on something near and dear to conservatives and they will flood your email box with nasty messages, calling you a traitor or unpatriotic or anti-American or all of the above. Case in point: a recent item about journalistic joke Geraldo Rivera and his equally-laughable employer: FoxNews. No, the right-wingers didn't jump to Geraldo's defense. They remember his tenure at MSNBC where his vitriolic defense of Bill Clinton stopped just short of kissing the former President' s ass in prime time. No, they got upset over criticism of Fox News. Not surprising. Right-wingers love Fox. They consider it their news channel because the so-called news network cheerleads for anything Republican or conservative. You can't expect anything less from the news channel run by former Richard Nixon political flack Roger Ailes. A favorite mantra of conservatives is that the media is, for the most part, run by left-wingers who hate America. This is why they flock to right-wing demagogues like Rush Linmbaugh, Sean Hannity and other conservative talk show hosts who believe news is only fair when presented with a decidedly partisan point of view. Right-wing talk radio thrives because conservatives will follow their own into the jaws of Hell as long as he or she spouts the party line. Limbaugh touts himself as the top-rated radio talk show in America, which is true, but when you look beyond the numbers you find that talk radio audiences represent a really small part of the total population out there. Most talk radio shows run during the daytime when real people are at work and audiences consist primarily of listeners who are retired, unemployed or goofing off when they should be working. An Arbitron study of Limbaugh's audience found it was mostly over 60, mostly male and mostly retired or unemployed. Fox News currently ranks number one among cable news channels but being number one on cable is like being the top bowler in a town with one alley and one league. Cable TV news audiences represent less than one-fourth of the television viewership and, despite a temporary bump from Iraqi war coverage, cable news ratings have been in a free fall for the last 18 months. Fox News has a loyal viewer base that is highly partisan and feels the channel represents their views, says TV researcher Scott Adamson. The average Fox viewer is a 63-year-old white Republican conservative male whose religion tends to be fundamentalist Christian. Conservatives tell me that Rush Limbaugh and FoxNews are so popular because they reach mainstream America and are popular with the real majority. But a closer look at ratings show some interesting facts. For example, the St. Louis Post-Disptach is considered one of the most liberal newspapers in America and Rush Limbaugh's talk show is the most popular syndicated show on KMOX-radio in that Mississippi River city. Yet ratings reports and circulation figures show more people in St. Louis read the Post-Dispatch than listen to Rush Limbaugh or watch FoxNews Channel. In fact, Access Hollywood, a mindless entertainment news show, has higher ratings in St. Louis than Fox News and Rush Limbaugh combined. Go to any city with a newspaper that conservatives consider leftist or too liberal and you will find the same thing. But don't bother presenting these arguments to any of your conservative friends. I learned long ago that facts, like truth, are too often wasted on partisans. Facts get in the way of causes and screw up perceptions and no partisan wants their jaundiced view of the world messed up by the truth. © Copyright 2003 American Newsreel 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A To subscribe to Conspiracy Theory Research List[CTRL] send email: SUBSCRIBE CTRL [to:] [EMAIL PROTECTED] To UNsubscribe to
[CTRL] Baghdad's defences belie death toll fears
-Caveat Lector- FINANCIAL TIMES Baghdad's defences belie death toll fears By Paul Eedle in Baghdad Published: April 1 2003 17:28 | Last Updated: April 1 2003 17:28 The defences of Baghdad do not look much: sandbagged emplacements outside government offices, trenches in parks and palm groves, ditches of blazing oil belching out smoke intended to interfere with the US and British laser-guided bombs. Six-lane motorways ideal for fast-moving armour snake right into the city. But if Iraqis fight as hard in Baghdad as they have fought in much smaller towns in the south such as Umm Qasr and Nasiriya, the Americans and British risk causing large civilian casualties and taking heavy losses themselves if and when they attack the capital. The city of 5m is spread across an area of some 15 miles square, either side of the snaking Tigris river. It takes half an hour to drive from a suburb on the outskirts to the centre. Street after street of single and two-storey dun-coloured houses with walled gardens provide ideal cover for irregular forces to harass attacking armour. Yet every time a young man in a leather jacket slips out of a doorway to fire a rocket-propelled grenade at the soft spot of a passing Abrams tank, the invaders would risk killing civilians if they shoot back. The irregulars are already in place. At street corners, outside empty shops, in slit trenches and sandbagged positions by the side of the road, knots of men in a mixture of different uniforms and civilian clothes and armed with Kalashnikov assault rifles wait for the attack. Local people say the ruling Ba'ath party, which has branches in every neighbourhood, has promised arms and ammunition to anyone willing to fight. Regular forces are also prominent, most obviously on guard outside government compounds. No armour or artillery is on view, but could easily be out of sight behind the walls of the state complexes, or could be pulled into the city from positions in the countryside before the allied forces arrive. Baghdad is now so heavily militarised that invading forces will find it difficult to distinguish the civilian from the military, although there are many obvious government sites separate from the main residential areas. On the west bank of the Tigris, opposite the old centre, an area two miles long and two miles wide is almost entirely walled off as government compounds. Those include a presidential compound where missiles have already battered a palace with a turquoise dome; a ziggaurat-shaped office block and several nondescript buildings overlooking the river; the windowless rectangle of the Council of Ministers building; a ministry's modernistic tower block with a floodlit statue of Mr Hussein firing a hunting rifle. Any or all of these complexes may have bunkers and tunnels underneath. In the middle of the area, the Rasheed Hotel (motto: More Than A Hotel) has its own helicopter landing pad with lights and a control tower. However, residents say Mr Hussein commanded the 1991 Gulf War from a nondescript villa in one of the inner suburbs. This time it also has to be imagined that the Iraqi military and security forces, with months to prepare, have long since dispersed their command centres and arsenals throughout Baghdad. It is possible that the attacking forces will avoid a full-frontal assault and concentrate on hit-and-run raids against senior figures, as the British are reported to be doing in the southern city of Basra. However, it will be almost impossible to fight any kind of action in Baghdad without putting civilians in the line of fire, and without exposing the invading troops to guerrilla attack. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] Sex Rules For The House Gym
-Caveat Lector- SAFE SEX FOR CONGRESSMEMBERS: A GUIDE http://www.hillnews.com/news/040203/guide.aspx HILL NEWS - An explicit guide to safe sex in the House gym that vividly describes sex acts illegal in 14 states is causing discomfort among some lawmakers. At least one piece of advice deals with the use of drugs that are illegal under federal and state laws. Almost anything you want to do, you can probably do safely. Be creative, and have a healthy, safer sex life, the how-to pamphlet says. Entitled Good Sex is Safer Sex, the publication was paid for by the D.C. Department of Human Services and sponsored by the Whitman-Walker Clinic Inc. It was brought to The Hill's attention by an outraged lawmaker who sought to remain anonymous. I was downstairs in the House gym using the phone, and during a break I just grabbed something to read, the lawmaker said. And I learned not to use a condom twice, among other things, the offended representative said. . . Many lawmakers were unaware of the pamphlet. But when they heard about it, nearly all who were contacted were united in their opprobrium. . . Among the tamer examples, readers are advised not to share vibrators or other sex toys. . . . The pamphlet includes explicit illustrations of the proper methods for putting on a condom and engaging in oral sex. The guide also contains a section addressing alcohol and drugs. If you shoot drugs or steroids, it advises, never share your works (syringe, cookers, cotton, etc.). If you have to share your works, squirt bleach through the needle and syringe three times, then squirt water through it three times before you use it. Rep. Michael Oxley (R-Ohio), who chairs the informal House gym committee, was unaware that the pamphlet is available in the facility until a reporter brought it to his attention. After briefly glancing at the guide, he declined to say whether it was appropriate material for the House gym. It's probably none of your business anyway, Oxley said. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] Quote of the Day
-Caveat Lector- It just crushes morale. - Corporal Jonathan Kibler complains about the shortage of cigarettes on the front line. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] HALF OF SENATE, THIRD OF HOUSE SHOWS UP FOR AIPAC
-Caveat Lector- HALF OF SENATE, THIRD OF HOUSE SHOWS UP FOR ISRAELI LOBBY MEETINGS http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63578-2003Mar31.html DANA MILBANK, WASHINGTON POST - This week's meeting in Washington of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has put a spotlight on the Bush administration's delicate dance with Israel and the Jewish state's friends over the attack on Iraq. Officially, Israel is not one of the 49 countries the administration has identified as members of the Coalition of the Willing. Officially, AIPAC had no position on the merits of a war against Iraq before it started. Officially, Iraq is not the subject of the pro-Israel lobby's three-day meeting here. Now, for the unofficial part: As delegates to the AIPAC meeting were heading to town, the group put a headline on its Web site proclaiming: Israeli Weapons Utilized By Coalition Forces Against Iraq. The item featured a photograph of a drone with the caption saying the Israeli-made Hunter Unmanned Aerial Vehicle is being used by U.S. soldiers in Iraq. At an AIPAC session on Sunday night, Israeli Foreign Minister Silvan Shalom proclaimed in a speech praising Secretary of State Colin L. Powell: We have followed with great admiration your efforts to mobilize the international community to disarm Iraq and bring democracy and peace to the region, to the Middle East and to the rest of the world. Just imagine, Mr. Secretary, how much easier it would have been if Israel had been a member of the Security Council. A parade of top Bush administration officials -- Powell, national security adviser Condoleezza Rice, political director Kenneth Mehlman, Undersecretary of State John R. Bolton and Assistant Secretary of State William Burns -- appeared before the AIPAC audience. The officials won sustained cheers for their jabs at European opponents of war in Iraq, and their tough remarks aimed at two perennial foes of Israel, Syria and Iran. The AIPAC meeting -- attended by about 5,000 people, including half the Senate and a third of the House -- was planned long before it became clear it would coincide with hostilities in Iraq. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] Pentagon To Run Iraqi Colonial Appointments
-Caveat Lector- KAREN DEYOUNG AND PETER SLEVIN, WASHINGTON POST http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A63223-2003Mar31.html - Secretary of Defense Donald H. Rumsfeld has rejected a team of officials proposed by the State Department to help run postwar Iraq in what sources described as an effort to ensure the Pentagon controls every aspect of reconstructing the country and forming a new government. While vetoing the group of eight current and former State Department officials, including several ambassadors to Arab states, the Pentagon's top civilian leadership has planned prominent roles in the postwar administration for former CIA director R. James Woolsey and others who have long supported the idea of replacing Iraq's government, according to sources close to the issue. The dispute is over who will occupy what are designed as de facto cabinet ministries under retired Gen. Jay M. Garner, the Pentagon-named head of a new Office of Reconstruction and Humanitarian Assistance, until the country can be fully handed over to Iraqis. By interagency agreement, portfolios such as education and trade were to be filled by the State Department, with the Pentagon choosing the civilian advisers for other departments. Sources said that Walter Slocum, who served as undersecretary of defense during the Clinton administration, has been penciled in for the Iraqi defense ministry. Slocum declined to comment last night. The Pentagon had listed Woolsey for the Iraqi information ministry, sources said, until the White House suggested he might be inappropriate because of his CIA background and close association with one faction of the incohesive Iraqi opposition. Sources said that he is still in consideration for a variety of jobs. Asked yesterday whether he is joining Garner's team,Woolsey said he felt such information should come from the government rather than from him. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] Iraq: The Public Divides
-Caveat Lector- THE INDEPENDENT Deeply divided US agrees on only one issue - support for the troops By Andrew Gumbel, in Los Angeles 02 April 2003 In the eyes of the American public, the conflict in the Middle East is going in one of two radically different ways. For those who were broadly supportive of the war to start with, the military campaign is making excellent, if not trouble-free, progress. Civilian casualties have, as promised, been kept to a minimum. Saddam Hussein may well be dead, and the rest of the Iraqi leadership is, they believe, severely weakened and growing weaker by the day. A very different interpretation is circulating among opponents of the war. As they see it, American and British troops have made a disastrous series of miscalculations and are now struggling on the battlefield as they await reinforcements. Warplanes and troops are engaging in an immoral slaughter of innocents and risk unleashing a humanitarian disaster in Iraq's cities. Not only is the Iraqi leadership not capitulating, but President Saddam is being turned into a hero for his stance against the most powerful military force. America is thus experiencing a truly bizarre split. People in the anti-war camp often say they do not know a single person in favour of the Iraq campaign, and refuse to believe opinion polls showing support for the conflict holding steady at about 70 per cent. Pro-war Americans can't make quite the same claim - almost every one of their rallies, after all, has been met by a protest - but they too believe they represent the true feelings of their fellow countrymen. Under these circumstances, determining the prevailing mood is next to impossible. One prominent political pollster, Mark Baldassare of the Public Policy Institute of California, said opinions were very much fluid and influenced by the events du jour. Another poll, by a group called Pipa/Knowledge Networks, broke down the 70 per cent pro-war figure and discovered that only 40 per cent of Americans are firmly behind the war; 20 per cent are firmly against, and the rest - in common with the mainstream media and the Democrats - are inclined to rally round President George Bush for the time being. It does not help that much public opinion is marked by ignorance and confusion. Almost half of the country believes Saddam was responsible for 11 September, which he was not. Broadly speaking, opposition to the war tends to increase with greater education levels, although that is not uniformly true. War supporters tend to get their news from television, especially the Fox News cable channel, a shameless cheerleader for Mr Bush's agenda, and tend to believe what they are told by the Pentagon. Opponents are more likely to surf the internet for foreign newspaper reports and alternative news sites, discounting what the government says as empty propaganda. If the two sides agree on anything, it is the troops. In contrast to the Vietnam War, when returning soldiers were sometimes spat on, this generation's peace movement says the best way to support the troops is to bring them home. Although most military families are either pro-war or keep their doubts to themselves, a new group called Military Families Speak Out has sprung up, representing about 300 families. I support the warrior, not the war, one of its founders, Charley Richardson, who has a son aged 25 in the marines, said. In some ways, life is going on as normal. Though attendance at cinemas has dropped, people are going to sports games, to parties and big Broadway shows. Anxiety is nevertheless on the rise, especially in states where severe budget deficits are leading to draconian cuts in education, public health and other services. With the war, and the budget cuts, and the recession, this is just the worst time imaginable in many of our lives, said Alan Friedenberg, a school principal in southern California. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ctrl/A
[CTRL] War On Freedom Update
-Caveat Lector- Liberty Action of the Week for April 1,2003 War on Freedom on its many fronts by Mary Lou Seymour War, war, and rumors of war. There's Bush's War of Aggression against Iraq (and who knows who else in the future), the War on Civil Liberties at home, and the War on Medical Marijuana patients. The governmentt line is always we're doing this for your safety, to protect you from 'the enemy' (terrorists, third world countries with WMD, drug dealers), we're doing this for your OWN GOOD and if you don't agree you're unpatriotic and un American and probably an enemy sympathizer (or drug user) or a 'useful idiot' being used by the forces of evil. But take away the propaganda and patriotic trappings, look behind the flag waving and you'll see that all of these wars have a common thread: the state using its power and might to crush individual rights, and consolidate its own power at the expense of freedom. All of these wars are different fronts in the War on Freedom. When the governmentt goes to war abroad, of course, the stakes get higher (citizens and their sons and daughters are actually going to be openly killed, not just imprisoned or deprived of medicine); and to appease those who find it hard to believe that the Mongol hordes (communist hordes, Islamic hordes) are really much of a threat as long as we mind our own business, they'll throw in the we're doing this to liberate Poland (Iraq, South Vietnam, South Korea) and spread democracy meme. Every aggressive imperialist state has used this exact same justification, throughout history. Some in the freedom movement just don't get the connection between our government's actions at home and abroad. Some of us have lost good friends over differences of opinion on Bush's War of Aggression (Lost Friend). Not only is it an individual tragedy to lose a friend, but to lose a fellow freedom fighter, well, there aren't that many of us to begin with and we can't afford to lose a single foot soldier. I can't offer any words of wisdom on how to not alienate friends and fellow freedom fighters, except this ... if you find yourself talking to a brick wall when you're doing outreach on ANY issue, back off that issue and try another. That's simply good organizing. But never forget the common thread that runs through all these issues and other issues that ultimately affect our freedom as individuals, and realize that anything you can do to educate people of that commonality will pay off in the long run. Get into the habit of framing every issue in the context of the non-aggression principle, the cornerstone of the culture of freedom. Maybe today they are too blind to see, but maybe tomorrow, or the next day or hell, even a year from now they'll suddenly remember what YOU said, and see the light. The strength of the NAP is that most people understand it, and AGREE with it (at least the people we're trying to reach), and once they grasp the concept of seeing EVERY issue in light of the NAP, well, you've got a convert for the cause of individual freedom. I've talked about the War of Aggression abroad for several columns, and last week we talked about the War on Civil Liberties on the home front. This week, let's revisit the War on Medical Marijuana Patients. This is an excellent issue from several perspectives. Who, after all, (except the terminally fascist) can be against sick and dying people obtaining the medicine they need? And the WoMM is also a war on states' rights: even though 8 states have passed medical marijuana laws, the feds are still prosecuting folks under federal law, in direct defiance of the state legislatures, and preventing jurors from hearing evidence concerning why medical marijuana is used. Several U.S. Representatives (Representatives Sam Farr, Lynn Woolsey and Dana Rohrabacher) are seeking to end this unjust use of government power to crush individual (and states') rights by introducing FEDERAL legislation to protect states' rights to medical marijuana and to remove the gag that the federal government is placing on medical marijuana defendants in court. The Marijuana Policy Project has an easy to use action plan to select a pre-written letter to fax to your U.S. representative, urging him or her to cosponsor the Patients' and Providers' Truth in Trials Act, which would not only ensure that defendants could introduce evidence about the medical nature of their marijuana-related activity, but would also keep them from being sent to federal prison if it is determined that they were acting in compliance with state medical marijuana laws. You can choose between several pre written letters: *Prevent others from suffering Ed Rosenthal's fate *The federal government's war on medical marijuana is immoral *No justice in Justice Department's medical marijuana trials *Protect those who truly need medical marijuana *Help change a bad federal policy *I am troubled by the treatment of the sick and dying Or write your own, and, with a
[CTRL] War Within a War: Rising fears Iraq could become haven for Al Qaida-type groups
-Caveat Lector- HARETZ (Israel) Tuesday, April 01, 2003 Adar2 28, 5763 Israel Time: 04:57 (GMT+3) Analysis / Rising fears Iraq could become haven for Al Qaida-type groups By Zvi Bar'el The report that 4,000 suicide volunteers are in Iraq is more exotic than a strategic threat at this stage, but it is raising fears of an Afghanistan-style scenario. According to Turkish and Jordanian military sources, Iraq could attract every organization and fragment group that has not found a military operating field since Afghanistan. Iraq may turn into the next focus of Al-Qaida activity, said a senior Jordanian source. Now there is a dangerous combination of radical Islamic rulings calling for jihad, a state in which every citizen carries arms, the lack of ability to distinguish between an innocent civilian and an activist in an organization, and an abundance of American targets. Iraq's long and unsecured borders enable entrance from nearly every direction - Syria, Iran, Jordan and Turkey - and every village or township has plenty of weapons and explosive charges for volunteers to stock up on. The result is already evident: When coalition soldiers have difficulty setting traffic regulations for civilians, roadblocks turn into points of unrest, food distribution becomes a dangerous military operation, and every civilian vehicle is a suspicious object. In fact, a war within a war is developing in Iraq: one involves heavy weapons, planes and missiles against the Iraqi regime's targets, while the other involves an ongoing war to secure the fighting forces and logistic divisions from sporadic attacks. A threat even greater than outside volunteers, however, is being posed by Iraqi civilians - this includes military men dressed in civil clothing and tribesmen who received arms and money from Iraqi army commanders to act against the coalition forces. Tribal heads have turned into a regular fighting force and are assigned combat missions, the Jordanian source said. They cannot beat an army, but they can harass it and detain it. More important, they are forcing the American and British forces to allocate large forces for guard and protection duty. According to reports before the war, American intelligence men tried to persuade these tribal leaders to start a civil uprising, but it appears the attempt failed. This double campaign is delaying implementation of the civil aid program that not only was supposed to transfer food, medicine and water to the population, but also was supposed to build a bridge of confidence between the coalition forces and the population. The longer the civil aid plan is delayed due to the lack of security on the main routes and the inability to reach population centers, the harder it will be for coalition forces to mobilize civil aid for the war. Iraqi propaganda is taking advantage of the struggle for the public's heart. Yesterday it presented foreign correspondents with Iraqi women enlisting as warriors in the country's cities where they received lavish meals at their positions. Iraq says there is enough food to last five or six months, while international aid organizations estimate food supplies will last only four or five weeks. The problem is not merely food distribution and humanitarian aid administration. Apparently in those townships and villages conquered, or partly dominated, by the coalition forces, the local authorities have been eliminated and there is no one overseeing public safety. Gangs of robbers and looters have been formed, and in some places, there have been reports of deadly score settling. The coalition forces lack the knowledge, ability and suitable personnel to cope with these developments. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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
[CTRL] War Analysis From Israel
-Caveat Lector- Tuesday, April 01, 2003 Adar2 28, 5763 Israel Time: 05:03 (GMT+3) A bushel of mistakes By Yoel Marcus No one knows if Saddam really has all those look-alikes they say he has, but it's a shame Bush doesn't have one. Maybe he could do a better job of running the war, with a lot fewer mistakes than the original Bush. Because what we are looking at now is certainly a bushel of them. Mistake No. 1: While the war against al-Qaeda in Afghanistan enjoyed international support, Bush has not been able to prove that Saddam and global terror are linked. Suspicions that he is settling a family feud has cost him the support of the world and triggered mass demonstrations. The editor of the French magazine Le Nouvel Observateur wrote this week that Bush has managed to turn a despised dictator into the heroic successor of Salah a-Din. Mistake No. 2: The United States went to war without adequate intelligence. The campaign started off with 60 Tomahawks aimed at a certain building where Saddam was supposedly staying, but he walked out of there alive, well and speechifying. On top of that, there is still no information on the whereabouts of his chemical and biological weapons, which means that for the moment, the United States has yet to get its hands on the corpus delicti touted as the main excuse for going to war. U.S. intelligence also failed to predict the suicide bombings, and it was wrong in its assessment that the Iraqis would greet the Americans with glee and showers of rice, not to mention the Iraqi army turning its guns on Saddam. That hasn't happened yet. Mistake No. 3: Preparations for the war went on for half a year. With battle plans, maps crisscrossed with arrows, and attack routes shouted from every hilltop, Saddam had plenty of time to ready things on his end. One of the things he did was brainwash his troops that the target is not his regime but the Iraqi homeland. For the American soldiers, the fighting spirit of the Iraqis has come as a surprise. On TV they said this wasn't the sort of combat they were trained for. Mistake No. 4: In Afghanistan, there was a fighting opposition and an alternative regime waiting in the wings. No such opposition has been cultivated to take over when Saddam is gone. The only ones who have the power to move in are the Shi'ites, taking their cue from Iran. Israeli military intelligence wasn't joking during the Gulf War when it said a live but weakened Saddam was preferable to Shi'ites running the show from Iran to Lebanon. Mistake No. 5: U.S. Defense Secretary Rumsfeld pooh-poohed Iraqi military strength. At first he wanted a surgical operation deploying 50,000 U.S. troops, tops. In the Gulf War, America's goal was liberating occupied Kuwait, and all the Arab countries were on its side. The current war is not a surgical operation but a large-scale occupation. There's a fatal difference between liberation and occupation. In 1967, we thought we'd liberated the territories and all of a sudden we found ourselves occupiers with the whole world down our throats. America has underestimated Iraqi endurance. When it became clear that Turkey was not about to let U.S. troops pass through its territory to open a northern front, why wasn't the offensive postponed for a few days rather than leaving the troops vulnerable to attack and far from supply lines? Now another 200,000 troops are being rushed in. Mistakes like that around here would end in a commission of inquiry. Mistake No. 6: The U.S. administration was wrong to add the goal of inaugurating a democratic regime in Iraq to its primary objective of wiping out terror. In doing so, it is biting off more than it can chew. As President Mubarak once explained to an American news broadcaster, the type of government in this part of the world - a blend of democracy and dictatorship with a dummy parliament and a secret police - is the perfect cocktail for political stability. If Jordan and Egypt were democracies in the Western sense of the word, the peace treaties with Israel would have been null and void long ago. Democracies grow. They aren't parachuted in by a Tomahawk. Mistake No. 7: Bush did not manage to win global sanction for the war on Iraq. The amount of resistance put up by the Iraqis has been a shocker for the army, and the hostility of the world media has been a shocker for the powers that be in Washington. U.S. troops were prepared for a snap war, but it's going to be a longer haul than expected. Sooner or later, victory will come. The people of Iraq do not love Saddam, and the soldiers of Iraq will not want to die to save his skin. He will disappear. But Bush's America, after its break with the world, will not be what it was. And why is that worrying? Because those same mistakes - the smugness and the bullying - could be repeated when they start on us. A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational exchange list. Proselytizing
[CTRL] No 'Best-Case' Scenario
-Caveat Lector- International Perspective, by Marshall Auerback No 'Best-Case' Scenario: What Are The Alternatives? March 31, 2003 Now that the phoney war is over and the shooting has commenced in earnest, some of the pre-war fog has lifted, even as new uncertainties are being created on the ground. Prior to the commencement of actual hostilities in Iraq, little attention was focussed on the law of unintended consequences invariably arising from the day to day conduct of the war itself. Much of the debate focussed on what kind of a regime would follow and how the country's considerable resources, particularly oil, would be deployed. Implicit was the belief that once formidable American firepower was focussed on the job at hand, Saddam's Ba'athist regime would crumble quickly. Hence, it was felt that there was little point in hypothesising about the day to day ups and downs of the war, even if one expressed concern about the attendant costs. But the coalition troops now have a fight on their hands. It is becoming increasingly clear that the cries to get on with it - said in hope that much of the building uncertainty would be quickly lifted with the onset of war - has created a host of new unpredictable problems not yet discounted. What we can say about the war thus far is as follows: a best-case scenario (on which the market's initial hopes were placed) can now be safely dismissed as unrealistic. The range of post-war scenarios now looks set to take on a less congenial hue, from least bad outcome to disaster. It is important to consider a new spectrum of potential outcomes, the concomitant implications for the markets, and place these in the context of a war occurring amidst a world economy still characterised by mounting external imbalances in the US, and ongoing sluggish growth in Japan and the eurozone. First the good news: thus far, no use of chemical weapons, the oil wells remain largely intact, the casualty count has remained relatively low despite the massive use of firepower, and the battle has thus far been largely contained within the borders of Iraq. Now for the bad news: a war lasting days (the initial basis for the recent surge in global equities), rather than weeks or months is looking far less likely. In contrast to the first Gulf war, the US has clearly not opted for an incremental approach, but a higher risk dash to Baghdad, which only makes sense in the event of a prompt, decisive victory. Time is not on the side of the coalition forces in terms of winning the important battle for public opinion, which was tenuous even before the start of hostilities. There has been no damage to the oil fields, but the oil market remains very tight as evidenced by the recent move into backwardation. The commander of the UK forces in the Persian Gulf, Brian Burridge, acknowledges that the Rumaila oil field is in terrible condition and suggests that it may take at least 3 months before Iraq can start exporting again. Crude prices are therefore likely to trend higher. Despite news of the Basra uprising, there is no real evidence that the Iraqis (or, indeed, much of the Arab world) view the US/UK forces as liberators. Another obvious point of conflict are the squabbles already emerging over post-Saddam Iraq. Not just who is going to control the country - the US or the United Nations - but who is going to pick up the tab and who is going to get the contracts for rebuilding the country. Such disputes, if not quickly resolved, leave open the disturbing prospect of the victors being viewed as an illegitimate occupying power which may remain subject to persistent insurgency and guerrilla warfare. Iraq itself could fracture, notably in the north, where the Turks are now beginning to intervene in Kurdistan, against the express wishes of their American allies; the possibility of the conflict extending beyond Iraq's borders needs to be considered by the markets. The oil fields of Kirkuk are but one clear flashpoint which opens up the possibility of a widening war. As the Economist magazine noted in this week 's edition, The Americans have managed to persuade the Kurds to promise to refrain from making a lunge towards the oilfields at Kirkuk (just outside their enclave), and to agree to place their 60,000 peshmergas, or guerrillas, under American command. But the Turks still fear that the Kurds will seek to break away from Baghdad once Mr Hussein falls, and they believe that, by wading in, they can prevent this happening. They also claim that their presence will keep Iraqi Kurdish refugees (and Turkish Kurdish separatists) from flooding into Turkey. Kirkuk retains significant importance for the Kurds, as they have long viewed this major oil producing area as a potential cash cow enabling them to finance a de facto (if not de jure) Kurdistan in Northern Iraq. The Turks and Iranians clearly covet the oil fields for precisely the opposite reason: to keep the resource for themselves and suppress any
[CTRL] RICE TO GIVE SECRET TALK TO ISRAEL LOBBYISTS
-Caveat Lector- CONDOLEEZZA RICE TO GIVE SECRET TALK TO ISRAEL LOBBYISTS HOWARD WITT, CHICAGO TRIBUNE - When Condoleezza Rice, the president's national security adviser, gives a speech Monday to roughly 4,000 members of an influential pro-Israel lobbying group, her remarks will be closed to the media and the public, the White House said Thursday. The decision, termed routine by the White House, is causing particular discomfort for the lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which has been battling the perception among some political commentators that Jewish groups unduly influenced the Bush administration's decision to wage war against Iraq. Some of the harshest commentaries, viewed as blatantly anti-Semitic by Jewish groups, allege that prominent Jews within the administration conspired to persuade the president to target Iraq because of the threat Saddam Hussein poses to Israel. . . But American Israel Public Affairs Committee officials say privately that they are concerned that a closed-door briefing in the midst of the Iraq war by the president's national security adviser may only add fuel to the conspiracy theories. http://new.blackvoices.com/news/bv-crice030328,0,5730941.story?coll=bv%2Dne w s%2Dblack%2Dheadlines 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] US Media - Tame Little Pussycats
-Caveat Lector- FINANCIAL TIMES A gulf in the war of words By Jurek Martin Published: March 28 2003 17:35 | Last Updated: March 28 2003 17:35 It may have been a figment of the imagination - I was listening to the radio last Saturday not watching TV - but I thought I heard General Tommy Franks, the US commander in the war on Iraq, take an unusually deep breath before responding to a question in Qatar. A British TV reporter had asked him about the blitz of Baghdad. This is not a word, describing indiscriminate bombing, which US journalists, steeped in Pentagon jargon about precisely targeted missiles, would ever use. It is pejorative, associated with Hitler, and, by extension, Saddam Hussein, not with a US military intent on decapitating the regime in the capital while sparing, to the maximum extent possible, its ordinary citizens. But its use seemed to me just one illustration of the measurable gulf that exists between US and foreign coverage of the war. This reflects not merely that it is US forces who are bearing the brunt of the battle, thereby warranting support, and providing reporters with remarkable facilities to portray it. It is also a commentary of cultural differences in the practise of journalism that long predate this conflict. It may seem odd to assert this in an age when fabulous reporting on Watergate brought down one president and polemicism in the media contributed to the impeachment of another, but I think mainstream US journalism has become too respectful of authority, too inclined to take what government says at face value. There is nothing in this country, for example, which remotely compares with BBC Radio's Today programme, a mandatory pit stop for all in power or seeking it, in spite of its famously, even infamously, aggressive but knowledgeable interviewing. Offended officials boycott it from time to time, but always come back for more because it can set the agenda for days to come. Jeremy Paxman, of BBC TV's Newsnight, also takes no prisoners. It is hard to imagine him signing off, as I have heard Wolf Blitzer do on CNN, with words such as god bless you, Mr secretary. The concluding Paxman sneer often translates into a virtual gedoutahere, ya bum. It is not as if the US media is craven in comparison. I am addicted to the comprehensive New York Times coverage and analysis of the war, at home and abroad. And I know something of the challenges, having been the FT's foreign editor during the first Gulf war. But I also know from experience that a collective judgment sometimes seems to descend on even the best and independent-minded news organisations, and it is susceptible to influence by those in authority. It may therefore be wondered why the Times, and many others, significantly underplayed the extent of domestic anti-war sentiment before the war started. Now US soldiers are in combat, it is perhaps understandable that protests get shorter news shrift but the lesson of Vietnam is surely that they will not go away. Suspicion may also attach to the fistful of polls that purport to show, predictably, a surge in support for the military and commander-in-chief. Many have been conducted on the smallest of statistical samples and with the narrowest range of questions; and I remain puzzled by the fact that I have never met anybody who has been polled on anything other than commercial products. It naturally suits the Bush administration to play the patriot card to demean and discredit any opposition, sometimes ruthlessly and vindictively. When Tom Daschle, dared to criticise the president for bungled diplomacy, a perfectly defensible position, all the usual attack dogs, from the Fox network to Rush Limbaugh, were summoned to accuse the Senate minority leader of un-Americanism. Similarly, when Natalie Maines, marvellous lead singer of the Dixie Chicks, stepped out of line, the group's music was suddenly dropped from country music stations owned by the nation's biggest radio mogul. He happens to be not only an old Texas intimate of the president but has much to gain from ongoing government deliberations about media ownership. Little has been heard from Daschle and Ms Maines of late. In general, the administration can hardly complain about the coverage the war is getting at home. Embedding reporters with military units in the field has increased admiration for the troops, even, some might say, turned the media itself into a weapon of war. The downside risk is that the initial rapid advance, now meeting stiffer opposition, may have encouraged the public to expect a short and relatively cost-free war. Still, as my colleague Lionel Barber wrote earlier this week, the flood of pictures of soldiers in action has diminished the importance of reporters in Baghdad and elsewhere not directly subject to military control. Also US media have been generally reluctant to show photos and footage of dead and captured GIs, sometimes at the administration's explicit request, in sharp contrast to
[CTRL] The Point of No Return
-Caveat Lector- THE WASHINGTON TIMES The Point of No Return Analysis:Iraq war matter of life and death By DALAL SAOUD UNITED PRESS INTERNATIONAL BEIRUT, Lebanon, March 29 (UPI) -- The coalition forces and Iraqi President Saddam Hussein have reached the point of no return and their only option now is to pursue the war to the bitter end. Hopes of a swift victory in Iraq where Saddam would be quickly defeated and coalition forces greeted with rice and flowers rapidly dissipated. Surprisingly, Iraqis showed tough resistance from the very first day of the war. Even the most optimistic view from the Arab side expected no such resistance from Iraqis until the coalition forces neared Baghdad. Now, there will be no retreat from either side, commented a well-informed Palestinian official in Beirut to United Press International. It's a life or death matter. No only for Saddam, but for Bush too. The official, who asked not to be identified, said the United States was expecting a clean war. According to the Palestinian source, the Americans even informed Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak that the war to remove Saddam would take only 72 hours. Mubarak therefore supported the war, said the source. He even blamed the Iraqi leadership for not cooperating enough with the U.N., thus opening the door to the allied invasion. Mubarak miscalculated, said the Palestinian, as did the Jordanians, whom he accuses of being the source of information guiding the U.S. to target special positions in Baghdad, a reference to the initial strike on Baghdad which was meant to get Saddam and other top Iraqi leaders. Jordanians are worried that if the war lasts a long time and Saddam remains, he can incite problems in Jordan where authorities are barely able to control the people's frustration there, said the Palestinian militant. But Iraqi resistance to the allied assault was not the only surprise. In their pre-war planning, the U.S. seems to have trusted and relied on information provided by the Iraqi opposition as well as some Arab intelligence services. I was surprised that the Americans really believed and trusted the Iraqi opposition which has no proper foothold inside Iraq, the Palestinian official said. They even failed to take into account how the Shiites in southern Iraq would react. He specifically referred to a series of Fatwahs (religious edicts) and appeals by top Shiite Ulemas (religious leaders) in the holy cities of Najaf and Karbala who asked the population not to cooperate with U.S. forces. Such appeals, which have stopped short of calling for Jihad (armed struggle) against the coalition forces, were issued months before the war started. The big question is why the Iraqi Shiites did not turn against Saddam once the U.S.-British forces started their attack? It's mainly due to their bitter experience in 1991 when the U.S.-led coalition let them down, the official said. It is not only the Ulemas' appeals, but also fear of revenge from Saddam. Moreover, he said, the Iraqi Shiite opposition groups realized after the U.S.-sponsored conferences in London and Irbil that they would play no major role in forming a new post-Saddam government. Instead, they feared, the country could well be under U.S. military rule for a year or more. Accordingly, they have decided not to take part in the battle, said the Palestinian. They will simply await Saddam's overthrow, he said. High casualties and material damage inflicted by U.S.-British bombardment in Shiite-dominated areas of Basra, Najaf and Karbala could instead come back to bite the coalition. Iraqis are now watching how the U.S. and British armies are killing their sons in Baghdad and southern Iraq, the official said. They forgot for the time being about Saddam's ruthless regime and decided to face the occupying forces. Their national sentiments simply took over. Even an Iraqi opponent in Beirut, who has long-awaited Saddam's ouster with the help of the United States, seems to have shifted his stance. Outraged by the killings in Karbala, he said: We will not forget or forgive them such killings. On the other hand, Saddam seemed to have prepared well for battle. For two years, he was expecting the U.S. to launch the war. He succeeded in convincing his people that their long suffering by the U.N.-imposed embargo came from Washington itself. Contrary to his foolish Kuwait adventure in 1991 that could not be justified even by his own people, this time Saddam succeeded in portraying the battle to be against Iraq and its natural resources --- not his regime. With millions of Iraqis carrying weapons and hatred growing apparently not against Saddam but the coalition, the U.S. and British forces could reach Baghdad or even enter it, but they would find it hard to control Iraq. In addition to fears of the terrible possibility of chaos and street fighting, they would find themselves
[CTRL] Quote of the Day
-Caveat Lector- The sad thing is that America has fallen into the trap set by Bin Laden. Dr Dalil Boubakeur (Rector of the Paris Mosque) 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] Bush WORSE then Clinton
-Caveat Lector- That famous lie under oath didn't really happen either, but then the question should never have been asked. Whether or not what happened by any definition is not anyone's business. The only thing that was proven by the persecution of Clinton was that Republicans are a crude, vindictive crowd with a fixation about other people's sex lives. They forgive their own sins with great generosity. Just think back to how difficult a time they had to get someone who could be Speaker. No one had ever heard of Dennis Hastert, until Gingrich, Livingston, and Hyde had all been outed. Must be only one member of the Republican Congressionals who has not cheated on his wife. I only wish Dubya would get a mistress and forget about ,killing as many Moslems as possible to avenge the failed Crusades. Prudy The Clinton apologist are as clueless as the Bush apologists. Both men are devious, deceitful personalities - the difference perhaps is that Bush is determined to commit mass murder and destroy most of our constitutional liberties while Clinton was content committing less murder and attacking some of our constitutional liberties. What the Clinton apologists can't seem to get is that the President and Chief Law Enforcement Officer DID commit perjury - in regards to his obligated testimony relating to a sex discrimination civil rights suit. What make's Clinton's behavior so wonderfully ironic is that the reason Clinton had to answer under oath deposition questions about his sex life was because of federal legislation HE SPONSORED making a party in a sexual harrassment / civil rights suit's entire sex life open to pre trial discovery. Hoisted by his own petard I guess the saying goes. Just remember - what the Democrats say about the Republicans is very true AND what the Republicans say about the Dems is also very true. Demicans and Republicrats - both totally corrupt institutions. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] Pro War Neo-Con Perle Helped China Get ICBM Technology From Clinton
-Caveat Lector- PERLE INVOLVED IN CLINTON SCANDAL STEPHEN LABATON, NY TIMES - http://www.nytimes.com/2003/03/29/business/29PERL.html While he led an influential Pentagon advisory board, Richard N. Perle advised a major American satellite maker, Loral Space and Communications, as it faced government accusations that it improperly transferred rocket technology to China, administration officials said today. Officials at the State Department said that the senior official considering how to resolve the rocket matter, Assistant Secretary Lincoln P.Bloomfield Jr., was contacted by Mr. Perle once or twice in the second half of 2001 on behalf of the company. . . The case against Loral, which originated in 1997 with a Pentagon finding that Loral and Hughes Electronics had improperly turned over technical information to the Chinese, was settled in January 2002. Loral, without admitting or denying that it had violated the law, agreed to pay a $20 million penalty, the largest settlement of a technology transfer case at the time. The government accused Loral of providing Chinese officials with confidential materials from an American panel that investigated the February 1996 crash of a Loral satellite, which was built for Intelsat, the international consortium, and was launched by a Chinese Long March rocket. The inquiry into Loral and other companies resulted in restrictions that have prevented the industry from seeking new business with China. The Loral matter is the second instance in which Mr. Perle was doing business on behalf of an American company encountering government difficulties over ties to China. Mr. Perle had been retained by Global Crossing, the communications giant, to overcome Defense Department opposition to its proposal to be sold to a venture led by Hutchison Whampoa, the conglomerate controlled by the Hong Kong billionaire Li Ka-shing. . . 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] War Problems
-Caveat Lector- American Newsreel What price war? By DOUG THOMPSON Mar 28, 2003, 06:03 New polls show 70 percent of Americans support the war with Iraq but that support is, as pollsters like to say, a mile wide and an inch deep. That means it wouldn't take much to turn public opinion in this country against the war and send George W. Bush's political future into the crapper. American optimism, strong when the war began last week, dropped dramatically in recent days. Pollster John Zogby points to a squishy middle that could fluctuate, depending on what happens on the ground. To make matters worse, even if America wins the war in Iraq, it faces increasing hostility and hatred in the Middle East. Zogby says Arab hatred of the U.S. is at an all time high. Last month, Andrew Kohut, director of the Pew Research Center, warned that the clear unpopularity in the Middle East of an Iraq war can only further fuel hostilities - almost no matter how well such a war goes. War, General George S. Patton once said, breeds war. Now that America has crossed the line between defensive action and pre-emptive strikes, who's next? It takes little imagination to dream up other scenarios that might call for pre-emptive military action, says Thomas Donnelly, a military analyst at the American Enterprise Institute, a Washington think tank that has led the charge for war against Iraq. Even after Mr. Hussein is gone, other tyrannies, such as North Korea and Iran, will continue to threaten world peace, said Max Boot, a scholar at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. And Bush makes it clear he has no qualms about striking first. As a matter of common sense and self-defense, America will act against ... emerging threats before they are fully formed, the president said last year. But while Bush may see America's military role as more proactive in the coming years, it is not yet clear if the public supports such a policy. The same polls that show 70 percent of Americans supporting the war also shows growing uneasiness with aggressive moves against other countries. Antiwar voices in this country are at their strongest level since Vietnam and appear to be growing. Anti-American sentiment abroad remains high. Bush's risky strategy threatens far more than just his political future. © Copyright 2003 by American Newsreel 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] War increases Arab hatred of America
-Caveat Lector- Updated: Mar 28th, 2003 - 07:33:05 America at War --- - War increases Arab hatred of America By LANCE GAY Scripps Howard News Service Mar 28, 2003, 07:20 The Arab view of the United States could hardly be bleaker. Arabs protest war Dislike of America is turning into hatred, reports U.S. pollster John Zogby, who has been monitoring views in six Middle East countries. Meantime, Arab newspapers this week are filled with pictures of hospitalized civilians and stories that claim the real goal of the United States is to capture the region's oil. The views on the United States are the lowest I've ever seen, said Zogby, himself an Arab-American, who conducted a poll of Middle East sentiment earlier this month in Morocco, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates. The war is having an impact on the region, he said. He said the polls are showing that from 79 percent to 94 percent of the people who live in the Middle East believe the war is going to result in less democracy. British and American commanders are loudly condemning the way some Arab organizations are covering the war. Air Marshal Brian Burridge, commander of the British forces in Iraq, lashed out Thursday at what he has seen on the Arab satellite TV network al-Jazeera, which has broadcast Iraqi interviews of American prisoners of war and pictures of Americans. Thursday, the network broadcast pictures of wounded people from a missile explosion in Baghdad, asking, is this the freedom promised to the Iraqi people? The Pentagon said an investigation has failed to find any coalition bomb fired that could have caused the damage. That type of reporting is neither balanced, nor should anybody take any pride in it. Take it from me, Burridge said. But Al-Jazeera's coverage reflects what is being said in other newspapers throughout the Islamic world. Newspapers Thursday were filled with pictures of Iraqi children fleeing the Baghdad market and pictures of Iraqis in hospital beds. Syria's al-Thawrah newspaper this week urged the Arab world to rise up against the U.S-led war and transform the whole of Iraq into a grave for the aggressors. Al-Khalij, a leading newspaper in the United Arab Emirates, said the U.S. intervention signaled a wider war in the Middle East. The Mongols of this century will not be content with Iraq when they swallow it up, the newspaper said. Meanwhile, in a Cairo newspaper, former Egyptian minister of war Amin Huweidi compared George Bush's policies to those of Adolf Hitler. Bruce Kuniholm, a professor of public policy and history at Duke University, said that while many of Iraq's neighbors don't like Saddam Hussein, they also resent the presence of U.S. troops on Arab lands. He said the Bush administration's arguments about the need to control Iraq's weapons of mass destruction aren't getting through to most of those in the Middle East, who suspect that the United States is at war with Iraq only for the country's oil reserves and to expand U.S. control over Arab lands. I think the United States is going to take a pretty big hit on this, Kuniholm said. There's a relatively simplistic structure on the (Arab) streets when looking at the United States. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] Confession of the Day
-Caveat Lector- The enemy we're fighting is different from the one we'd war-gamed against. - Lieutenant General William S Wallace of V Corps, quoted in the New York Times. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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 1982 Israeli war has modern echoes for US in Iraq
-Caveat Lector- from the March 27, 2003 edition - http://www.csmonitor.com/2003/0327/p13s01-woiq.html A 1982 Israeli war has modern echoes for US in Iraq By Nicholas Blanford | Special to The Christian Science Monitor BEIRUT, LEBANON - The parallels between the US-led invasion of Iraq and Israel's invasion of Lebanon 21 years ago are striking - and ominous. Both involved modern armies invading initially through Shiite Muslim-dominated areas. Both armies also expected no opposition from local Shiites: US war planners hope for a warm reception from Iraqi Shiites grateful for an end of repression by Saddam Hussein's Sunni Muslim elite; Israel believed the Shiites of south Lebanon would be happy to see the back of Palestinian guerrillas whose presence had made life intolerable. Indeed, the Lebanese Shiites initially showered the invading Israeli troops with rose petals and rice. But the Israelis miscalculated about the Shiites, and the rice and rose petals soon turned into bombs and bullets. Has the US made the same mistake about the Shiites of Iraq? Beware the Shiites! wrote Israeli journalist and peace activist Uri Avnery recently, predicting that US problems in Iraq will begin once the fighting is over. He gave an example of two trips he paid to south Lebanon in 1982. During the first visit, four days after the Israeli invasion, he recounted being greeted with great joy by Shiite villagers. A few months later, Mr. Avnery returned to Lebanon and found Israeli troops now wearing bulletproof vests and helmets, many on the verge of panic. What had happened? The Shiites received the Israeli soldiers as liberators. When they realized that they had come to stay as occupiers, they started to kill them, he wrote. The opposition to coalition forces in southern Iraq is being waged by units of Fedayeen Saddam, a paramilitary force deployed from areas further north. But there are reports of civilians joining the Fedayeen, enraged at the invasion of their homeland and the bombing of their cities. In an easily missed report, CNN's Ryan Chilcote, embedded with the 101st Airborne Division, spoke of the reaction of local Shiites as the troops passed through their towns. In the first town, Mr. Chilcote reported, the US soldiers were quite literally applauded. But in the next town, the reaction was markedly different. It was eerie, he said. The villagers stared unsmiling at the passing American troops. It had all the ingredients of an ambush, Chilcote said, and had the US commanders really worried. To add to the potential difficulties facing the coalition forces, Shiite religious authorities in Iraq's southern city of Najaf on Tuesday called on the Iraqi people to defend their country, honor, and religion by expelling the unbelievers from the land of Islam. Mohammed Baqr al-Hakim, the head of the Iran-supported Supreme Council for the Islamic Revolution in Iraq (SCIRI), the largest Shiite opposition group, warned on Tuesday that his followers are ready to take up arms should coalition troops become an occupation force. The Badr Brigades, SCIRI's 15,000-strong military wing deployed in Iran, with some units in northern Iraq, have so far stayed out of the fighting. The American troops will face a very strong resistance in just a couple of months. They will have to leave the cities and move into the desert, says Abu Ali, a veteran of Lebanon's Hizbullah organization who fought Israeli troops from 1982. I know the Iraqi people, he said, having spent his childhood in Najaf in southern Iraq, and I think the Americans will face the same resistance the Israelis faced in Lebanon, even harsher. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] Bush's Secret Plan
-Caveat Lector- If there is any truth to this, then I have no doubt that the wrath of the world and most, if not all, people in the US would come down on Bush like never before. He would be kicked out faster than you could say, Cheney did business with Saddam. Bad, bad PR. And their PR machine is spinning faster and faster. Even I doubt they'd be *this* foolish. Bush isn't suicidal. I am sad to say that apparently the Bush Gang has surreptitiously printed up several million Iraq 'mini-deeds' and will be handing them out before the 2004 Presidential election. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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] Saudi Youth Now Hate America
-Caveat Lector- THE WASHINGTON POST By Carol Morello Washington Post Staff Writer Thursday, March 27, 2003; Page A32 RIYADH, Saudi Arabia, March 26 -- The young sons of Selwa Hazzaa consider it a mark of shame that they were born in the United States, a country whose military they now see nightly on television waging battle in neighboring Iraq. Yuck! says the 11-year-old at every mention of America. The 12-year-old expresses even more contempt. I hate the States, he told his mother, who spent most of her childhood in the United States. I wish I weren't from there. I don't want to go to college there. Hazzaa has told them it is fine to hate President Bush, but not everything American. Still, she returned home one day to find her older son throwing his favorite U.S.-made snack food into the trash bin. I am so afraid that I am breeding a future terrorist, said Hazzaa, a prominent eye surgeon in Riyadh. Now I can control him, but what about 10 years from now? Throughout the Arab world, a new generation of young people is growing up and coming of age at a time of rampant anti-American sentiment. The mounting anger at the U.S.-led war against Iraq is particularly striking in Saudi Arabia, where until a few years ago U.S. ideals and products were widely admired. Much of the Saudi upper and professional class was educated in the United States, including many of the government technocrats, and many Saudis maintain warm friendships they forged abroad. But some of these families are now deciding not to send their children to study in the United States. Tofoul Marzouki, 21, had planned to pursue a master's degree in the United States. Now she is looking at schools in Canada. I have nothing against the people; it's the government, said Marzouki, who ordered a Domino's pizza the other night that her cousin refused to touch because it was made by a U.S. company. Visiting America or going there to study is out of the question. I'm so angry at the government, I wouldn't feel comfortable there. Saudis trace the negative sentiment to the hostilities between Israelis and Palestinians that broke out in September 2000. In markets, classrooms and private homes, Saudis have seen endless television images of Israelis using U.S.-supplied weaponry against Palestinians. Even children anguish over the Palestinian cause and wonder why the United States provides guns to Israel. The anger deepened in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon. Visa restrictions tightened and many Saudi students studying in the United States returned home with tales of Muslims being harassed and stereotyped as terrorists. Many in Saudi Arabia, the birthplace of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden and 15 of the 19 hijackers who carried out the attacks, say Americans have tied all Saudis -- and their religion -- to terrorism. A critical mass of suspicion and hostility coalesced when the U.S. campaign against Iraq culminated in an invasion. Today, it is all but impossible to find anyone here who does not oppose the war in Iraq. In an Arab American Institute opinion poll conducted in early March by Zogby International, 97 percent of Saudis questioned said they had an unfavorable opinion of the United States, up from 87 percent a year ago. I think that underestimates it, said Awardh Badhi, a political scientist with the King Faisal Center for Research and Islamic Studies. It is more like 98 or 99 percent. The anger is boiling, to what end we do not know because it is all underground. Many middle-aged, educated Saudis say they are worried about the implications of the mutual alienation. Despite policy and cultural differences, Saudi-U.S. relations have been fortified over the years by a Saudi upper class that studied in the United States and appreciates its freedoms. Many young people say they have become politicized at a far earlier age than their parents, and their first political memories are of an America that throws its weight around at the expense of Arab interests. It tells you how the future feels, said Thurayaa Arrayed, a consultant with the Arabian-American Oil Co. (Aramco), who studied in the United States and sent three of her four children to study at Ivy League colleges. It's fine for people like us who grew up seeing Americans as friends, allies, people you look up to and a system that seems ideal. It feels now like it's all gone down the drain. On the surface, Saudi Arabia has been quiet while the rest of the Arab world has taken its anger to the streets. All public demonstrations here are prohibited. Privately, however, Saudis are intently focused on the war's progress. So many Saudis are glued to their television sets that merchants report business is suffering. Saudis are signaling their displeasure discreetly. Mobile phones ring with text messages of crude jokes about President Bush and prayers for God to destroy the U.S. military. People interviewed here said that at their prayers
[CTRL] Assad predicts defeat for US and Britain
-Caveat Lector- Assad predicts defeat for invasion force Mood of militancy grows as chief cleric calls on Muslims to launch suicide attacks Jonathan Steele in Damascus Friday March 28, 2003 The Guardian Syria's President Bashar al-Assad yesterday became the first Arab leader, other than Saddam Hussein himself, to express the hope in public that the US and British forces invading Iraq would be defeated. In a front-page interview with Lebanon's as-Safir newspaper, he said they might be able to occupy Iraq but would not succeed in controlling it. For sure, the United States is a superpower that can occupy a relatively small country ... The United States and Britain will not be able to control all of Iraq. There will be much tougher resistance, he said. If the American-British designs succeed - and we hope they do not succeed and we doubt that they will - there will be Arab popular resistance, and this has begun, he added. Syria has been leading the Arab world in sharp attacks on what President Assad has repeatedly called flagrant aggression. His latest remarks, which are the most radical so far, are a sign of the increasing militancy of the public mood, not only in the Arab street but also among decision-makers. Daily TV pictures of dead and wounded civilians have angered people across the Middle East while the unexpected level of Iraqi resistance has given many a sense of pride and solidarity. Hundreds of Iraqi exiles in Syria and Jordan have signed up to go home to fight, including many who oppose President Saddam but feel a patriotic need to rally to the country's defence. Religious leaders are also speaking out. While Iraqi Shia leaders called for opposition to the invasion earlier this week, Syria's senior cleric added his voice yesterday. Martyrs Sheikh Ahmad Kiftaro, the Grand Mufti of Syria, called on all Muslims to resist the US and British invasion and sacrifice their lives as martyrs, if necessary. It was the duty of all Muslims to resist the US and British forces, he said. All Muslims have to use all possible means of defeating the enemy, including martyrdom operations against the invading warriors. The mufti usually pronounces at Friday prayers but in the special statement issued by his office yesterday he also called on Muslims to boycott British and American goods. His radical statement has surprised western diplomats here, where he is con sidered a moderate and venerable figure. The British embassy was seeking urgent clarification yesterday on whether in addition to calling for resistance inside Iraq he meant to encourage suicide bombers to attack US and British targets in Syria and elsewhere. In Syria all protest demonstrations require government support and the capital has seen almost daily marches and sit-ins since the US and Britain launched their attack on Iraq. US and British flags have been burnt and protesters have tried to break through police lines to march on the American and British embassies. Close to 100,000 people took to the streets and government employees and university and school students were given time off to parade through Damascus on Tuesday in the largest protest in the Arab world since the war began. Some marchers carried banners denouncing the Egyptian and Jordanian heads of state with the slogans Death to Mubarak and Death to Abdullah. Egypt has protested to Syria over the rally. Resistance It is only three months since President Assad was received in London on a visit which included tea with the Queen and was praised by President George Bush for voting for UN security council resolution 1441, which warned Iraq of serious consequences if it did not comply with UN weapons inspectors. Syria is the only Arab member on the council. Now Syria is leading the diplomatic resistance to the invasion, describing Arab governments which have supported it as traitors. Its foreign minister, Farouk al-Shara, drafted the resolution at the Arab League meeting in Cairo on Monday which called for an immediate and unconditional withdrawal of US and British forces from Iraq and urged Arab states not to give logistical or other back-up to military action against it. The call was adopted by 15 foreign ministers. Only Kuwait expressed reservations. Syria's radical stance and its hope that the US gets bogged down in Iraq stem from anxiety that Syria may be next in line for US pressure if the Bush administration topples President Saddam. Asked whether he believed Syria would be next on Washington's target list, the President Assad answered: The possibility is always there. As long as Israel exists, the threat is there. But he insisted that worry does not translate into fear. The real war will start after they remove Saddam Hussein, Adnan Omran, Syria's information minister, told the Guardian yesterday. There will be more resistance, assassinations, kidnappings, bombs here and there. It's not Afghanistan. It'll be harder. It's Iraq. The sooner the Americans and
[CTRL] Twilight of the US Empire?
-Caveat Lector- THE GUARDIAN Bush fiddles with economy while Baghdad burns Could a faltering dollar and global rebellion against its values presage the decline, and eventual fall, of the American empire, asks Mark Tran Wednesday March 26, 2003 The war in Iraq is not going as smoothly as the Bush administration would like and the conflict is looking less and less like a walkover by the day. Yet there can be little doubt that the US, backed by Britain, its loyal junior ally, will eventually prevail. The conflict will bring the US little glory, pitting the world's most powerful military machine against a dilapidated army, but when American and British troops enter Baghdad, the US will surely cement its status as a hyperpower. But does the US colossus have feet of clay? It takes a brave soul to argue that America, the world's largest economy and by far its most potent military power, is about to go into decline, when it is widely perceived as a hyperpower. But Independent Strategy, a financial research company for institutional investors, has made the case in a paper that is making the rounds of big investment banks such as Goldman Sachs. Independent Strategy believes that the US shows many symptoms of an empire that is cresting. First, it sees deepening mistrust of the US and predicts a rise in terrorism in reaction to US unilateralism. That is certainly the case with the Bush administration, which has made a habit of tearing up international treaties from Kyoto to the anti-ballistic missile treaty. Iraq is the culmination of the Bush administration's unilateralist streak, as the White House plunges into an unpopular war in disregard of the UN security council. Second, Independent Strategy sees trouble ahead for US economic policy. It notes that Mr Bush has boosted discretionary government spending more than at any time since the Vietnam war. Inheriting big budgetary surpluses from the Clinton administration, the Bush White House is heading for record deficits. True, budget deficits were probably unavoidable as a 10-year economic expansion ran out of steam. But Mr Bush is not helping matters with a $726bn (£462bn) tax cut that, even though reduced by the senate to $350bn, benefits mostly the rich and a war that will add at least $74bn to the books, and probably considerably more. Third, what was known as the Washington consensus - free market economics and deregulation - has broken down. As Bob McKee, chief economist with Independent Strategy, notes, a populist reaction has taken hold in Latin America, while in Asia, Malaysia has gone its own way economically. Moreover, South Korea and Taiwan never really bought into supply side reform. Empires work best when they project power through the successful export of a social model or ideology, argues Independent Strategy. The rot started when the US failed to project its economic ideology and social model globally. Japan and Europe have long rejected both, at least implicitly, as inimical to their culture and alien to their social contract. Independent Strategy sees the weakening dollar as the fourth strand in the decline of empire. The dollar will go on down because the good empire has the same faultlines as many other empires: unsustainable living standards at the core depend on flows of wealth from the periphery, says Independent Strategy in terms that would not be out of a place in a Marxist textbook. The US no longer earns the return needed to sustain these flows. The costs of war and unilateralism will increase the thirst for capital, but reduce the return earned by it. In plain English, America relies on the rest of the world to finance its deficits. The rest of the world was happy to do so when the US economy was strong and returns were high, but investors will put their cash elsewhere if America looks weak economically. America borrows hundreds of millions of dollars from the rest of the world each day to cover its savings gap and, under George Bush, US dependence on foreign capital is set to increase. The decline of empire thesis is not exactly new. Paul Kennedy, the British historian, wrote the best-selling The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers back in 1988, where he coined the phrase imperial overstretch. It was a great read, but then the US embarked on a record-breaking expansion that lasted 10 years and saw Wall Street shoot up to over 11,000 points. But that great economic expansion turned out not to be so great after all, culminating in a wave of financial misreporting and outright fraud at Enron and WorldCom. The twilight of empires can last a long time, but judging from his reckless unilateralism and his economic vandalism, George Bush seems to be determined to do his level best to hasten that decline. · Mark Tran is business editor of Guardian Unlimited Guardian Unlimited © Guardian Newspapers Limited 2003 A HREF=http://www.ctrl.org/;www.ctrl.org/A DECLARATION DISCLAIMER == CTRL is a discussion informational
Re: [CTRL] 'See men shredded, then say you don't back war'
-Caveat Lector- Perhaps when the Clinton Gang gassed and burned alive over 40 children at Waco their families should have asked Saddam to invade the US to put an end to such atrocities and hold the war criminals in the US govt accountable. 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://archive.jab.org/[EMAIL PROTECTED]/ A HREF=http://archive.jab.org/[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
