No, Stupid, They're Not Iraqi Chemical Weapons!

by Joe Vialls

If so many innocent Iraqi lives were not at stake, this latest New York excuse to try and justify invading Iraq to steal its oil reserves for Wall Street, would just look like a badly-orchestrated and very sick joke. After insulting and intimidating defenceless Iraqi families in their own homes [a favorite CIA trick], the "Inspectors" started searching junk piles, old cellars and just about anything else they could think about.

Then all of a sudden, "Eureka!" As if on cue, the inspectors managed to stumble over some lvery ong and highly suspicious crates covered with a thick layer of mouse droppings and other assorted excreta. Clearly, this then was the latest state-of-the-art disguise used by those "filthy" Iraqi Arabs, to conceal their really dangerous weapons of mass destruction.

Desperate to do the bidding of their increasingly frantic bosses, the inspectors willingly took their own lives into their hands. Shunning all offers of protective clothing mandatory for all UN personnel approaching within 500 yards of a suspected "chemical" or "biological" site, they tore at the boxes and 122-mm rockets with their bare hands, and then stuck their nostrils right into the orifices of the warheads. Such bravery!

What the inspectors had actually stumbled upon were eleven ancient 122-mm artillery rockets, fired by the most common multiple rocket launcher in the Middle East - the 40-launch-tube BM-21 "Katyusha", which was first designed by the Russians in the 1940s. During the Iran-Iraq war, both sides fired tens of thousands of these rockets and it stands to reason that hundred of them will be lying forgotten in various bunkers around the country.

What the "inspectors" forgot to mention, is that you can tell just by looking at the exterior of the warheads, that these rounds are "fragmentation", and cannot possibly be adapted for chemical use. All "chemical" rounds are factory-threaded inside the front and rear of the warhead, to take special screw-in gas-tight seals, once the rockets are loaded with Mustard, or Sarin, or VX or whatever. Think about it. Would you like to be a member of a Katyusha launch crew, if VX gas was gently wafting out of all 40 warheads?

Full story...

A Bizarre and Ominous Message

Make up your own mind about this one, its authenticity and veracity definitely have a large question-mark over them.

An illusion it will be, so large, so vast it will escape their perception.

Those who will see it will be thought of as insane.

We will create separate fronts to prevent them from seeing the connection between us.

We will behave as if we are not connected to keep the illusion alive. Our goal will be accomplished one drop at a time so as to never bring suspicion upon ourselves. This will also prevent them from seeing the changes as they occur.

We will always stand above the relative field of their experience for we know the secrets of the absolute.

We will work together always and will remain bound by blood and secrecy. Death will come to he who speaks.

We will keep their lifespan short and their minds weak while pretending to do the opposite.

We will use our knowledge of science and technology in subtle ways so they will never see what is happening.

We will use soft metals, aging accelerators and sedatives in food and water, also in the air.

Full story...

Train drivers refuse to move supplies for war vs. Iraq

In a courageous stand, a group of rail workers based in Motherwell, Scotland, have refused to drive a freight train loaded with military supplies for the British government’s war against Iraq.

Details remain sketchy as the British press, save for two articles in the Guardian, has all but blacked out news of the boycott. The train drivers union ASLEF has also remained silent on the protest and have refused requests for information.

According to accounts in the Guardian, however, the train—which is owned by the English Welsh and Scottish Railway (EWS)—was due to be moved on January 8. Among EWS’s contracts is the supply route to the huge NATO munitions store at Glen Douglas, on Scotland’s west coast, where missiles and other arms are buried within a hillside.

The drivers’ protest forced EWS and the Ministry of Defence (MoD) to initially delay and ultimately cancel the contested service. As the drivers were the only workers at the Motherwell depot trained to move a freight train over the route, EWS and the MoD were forced to offload the train’s contents into trucks and complete the journey by road.

Full story...

The extreme centre

Tim Luckhurst says that the BBC is exercising thought-control over the extent of legitimate debate

Angus Roxburgh, Europe correspondent of the BBC, has published a book called Preachers of Hate. It analyses the resurgence of populist politics in Continental Europe through interviews with leaders and supporters of parties including France’s National Front, Austria’s Freedom party, Slovakia’s HDZS, the Danish People’s party ...and Silvio Berlusconi’s Forza Italia.

Preachers of Hate deserves to be read. Roxburgh is intelligent and informed. He believes he has identified a new generation of proto-fascists, and that they are responsible for a ‘steady erosion of the ideals of European society’. If such ideals exist, historians may one day conclude that they were more grievously injured by communists like Slobodan Milosevic than by assertive tribunes of the new Right. Great minds at Harvard, Cambridge and Heidelberg may even assert that tolerance of dissent suffered terribly under the sanctimonious political monoculture promoted by T. Blair and his ilk.

But let us leave the ultimate evisceration of Third Way claptrap to those who will enjoy the benefits of hindsight. My question relates to the mindset that constricts Roxburgh’s musings and that of many of his BBC colleagues. Britain’s state broadcaster is exercising thought-control over the extent of legitimate debate. The BBC has contributed to a narrowing of the once broad plain of tolerated opinion. It has forgotten that, in a confident democracy, extremism in the defence of liberty should not be deemed a vice. Read Roxburgh and the work of other BBC stars like Andrew Marr, Fergal Keane, Jeremy Paxman and Gavin Esler. The allegation will not feel as contentious as it reasonably should.

Full story...

The Mossad Role in the JFK Assassination Conspiracy

Ten years ago, in 1992, a new suspect was added to the list. Former Rep. Paul Findley (R-Ill.) made the little-noticed but intriguing comment in the March 1992 issue of The Washington Report on Middle East Affairs that “it is interesting but not surprising to note that in all the words written about the assassination of John F. Kennedy, Israel’s intelligence agency, the Mossad, has never been mentioned, despite the obvious fact Mossad complicity is as plausible as any of the other theories.”

What Findley did not know was at that very time I was in the process of preparing a volume contending that the Mossad role alongside the CIA in the JFK assassination, was, in fact, the big secret—the “missing link”—that explained the entirety of the JFK conspiracy.

The Mossad role is what I have also called “the secret picture on the other side of the jigsaw puzzle” of the JFK assassination conspiracy. My book summarizing this theory is entitled Final Judgment.

What I find quite remarkable is that while many Israelis today believe that Israeli intelligence played a part in the assassination of Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, many of Israel’s friends in America have reacted quite hysterically to my contention that the Mossad played a role in the assassination of America’s president.

In addition, although there are many who believe that the CIA had a hand in the JFK assassination, quite a few of those same people are fearful of mentioning the likelihood of a Mossad role.

Full story...

The great survivor

Venezuela is a beacon for the rest of us, despite what you will hear in the western media the man is a hero of his people. It shows you that when the ordinary people unite against the greedy capitalists there really is very little they can do about it. Now we have populist left-wing leaders in Brazil and Ecuador as well, is it me or is that pretty spectacular for a region that has had its share of military coups and death squads.

The extraordinary and unprecedented events in Venezuela in recent weeks that have sent the world oil price soaring (though controlled this week by an Opec decision to permit a small increase in production) appear to be concluding with President Hugo Chavez ever more firmly in the saddle.

When the conservative opposition to his radical government embarked on a nationwide and open-ended strike at the beginning of December, accompanied by the almost daily mobilisation of its supporters in the streets of Caracas and other major towns, the purpose was to bring about the president's downfall, through resignation or military coup d'etat. Yet although this strategy has done immense damage to the economy, almost bringing the all-important oil industry to a halt, Chavez has never shown the slightest sign of giving in.

Since the new year, he has been fighting back with vigour, leaving a divided and leaderless opposition - who never expected their strike to last beyond Christmas - with an uncertain future. Chavez is a popular and democratically elected president, and he is firmly backed by the armed forces. A former army officer himself, he has an intimate knowledge of the institution, and he is well aware that the opposition's attempt to cripple the nationalised oil industry - the icon of the country's nationalists - has not been popular with the soldiers.

Full story...

Direct action may become a necessity

by Seumas Milne

If anyone could sell George Bush's planned war of aggression against Iraq, surely it should be Tony Blair, a politician whose career has been built on his ability to smoothtalk his way out of a crisis. He has been straining every nerve to do just that for the past week. The latest sales drive began with the prime minister's attempt to link the alleged ricin find above a north London chemist's shop with "weapons of mass destruction". And it culminated on Monday with his imaginative effort to construct a link between "rogue states" such as Iraq and Islamist terrorism.

But all the signs are that his spin offensive simply isn't working. Such tales may find more of an echo in the United States, where half the population believes Saddam Hussein was responsible for the September 11 attacks, according to some polls. But in Britain - and even more so in the rest of the world - most people are now convinced that the opposite is the case: that the best way to boost support for al-Qaida and Islamist attacks on western targets is precisely to launch an Anglo-American crusade to invade and occupy Arab, Muslim Iraq.

Full story...

False witnesses

by Tim Llewellyn

Since the creation of Israel in 1948, its supporters have been highly successful in ensuring that Israel's version of its and its neighbours' histories has been accepted as received truth. Dents have been made, notably by Israel's own historians as they have had greater access to official documents, in the Zionist myths. But they have usually been hammered out with alacrity, both by Israel and our domestic broadcasters.

Whenever Israel has been exposed as an aggressor - in Lebanon in 1978 and 1982, or during the first intifada of the late 1980s - its media doldrums have been temporary. The efforts of its spin doctors, the US government and media, in conjunction with a weak Arab communications operation, have usually combined to make Israel's broad version of events prevail.

These continue to give the impression of a struggle between equal forces: a beleaguered and misunderstood Israel, occasionally forced into excessive measures to clamp down on "terror", versus hordes of recalcitrant Palestinians careless of "western" values and endemically suicidal for obscure religious reasons. "Equivalence" is at the heart of Britain's misreporting of the crisis.

The fact of Palestinian resistance against a foreign occupying power is rarely emphasised. TV news viewers would have been unaware that last month Israeli soldiers killed 75 Palestinians, 14 of them children under 18. Then, two suicide bombers attacked Tel Aviv - the first such attack for six weeks. It was only when it had this "peg" that the BBC reported the rate of Palestinian casualties. Thus, suicide bombs are made to appear as the beginning of a new "cycle of violence", rather than an outcome of the occupation.

Full story...

Gulf buildup leaves US with few options

There is no way Washington can keep big forces in the Gulf if United Nations arms inspections in Iraq take more than six months, analysts say.

It would have to use the forces, remove them or halt the buildup.

Naval task groups could bob in waters within striking distance of Iraq for months. But planners would face problems of how to rotate more than 100,000 ground troops, keep them in training and keep their morale high enough for combat.

A spokesman for the International Atomic Energy Agency said yesterday that UN resolutions provided timelines of "somewhere between six and 12 months" for inspections.

This raised the possibility that any United States-led strike against Iraq - widely seen as coming late next month or in early March - could be delayed.

Full story...

Tesla's Electromagnetic Pyramids

by Joe Vialls

In late 1968 a small group of men gathered in a rambling old house situated a few miles outside the German city of Munich. The weak afternoon sunlight was starting to fade as they sat down at the polished oak conference table, and despite a roaring log fire in the ornate fireplace there was a noticable chill in the air. These men were of no particular religion, nor were they politicians, bankers, bureaucrats or mainstream military personnel. To use their own self-effacing term they were "no-persons", just a group of intelligent men from all over the world deeply concerned about the looming probability of global thermonuclear war. The American Department of State, the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office, and the Russian Kremlin were brimming over with megalomaniacs quite capable of destroying all life on the planet in their blind quest for power, unless they could be persuaded not to do so.

Global thermonuclear war was not the only problem. Since the end of the First World War and the

subsequent formation of the League of Nations, the same megalomaniacs had frequently expressed their determination to implement a "New Order", bureaucratic code for a one world government. If left to run unchecked, within a single century the megalomaniacs would remove national borders entirely, destroy delightfully diverse national cultures developed over thousands of years, and replace them in-toto with hordes of multicultural drones willing to slave for endless hours in "worker's paradises" for the exclusive benefit of a tiny but immensely powerful global elite. The first successful phase of the New Order exercise was at that very moment in full swing, less than a thousand miles away in the worker's paradise known as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

Faced with a completely unacceptable Orwellian future, the Munich Group had two objectives: stop the megalomaniacs from destroying all life on the planet with thermonuclear weapons, and at the same time protect the myriad national cultures existing around the world from extinction. The critical question facing its members was how to achieve these awesome objectives with strictly limited resources.

The politicians and mainstream military controlled more than 90% of the conventional and nuclear weapons so their use was not an option. Besides, if the Munich Group resorted to such methods they would risk triggering a global thermonuclear exchange, the very event they were determined to prevent. Many years later this and other groups would supplement their arsenals with micronized atomic weapons for use against specific targets, but the primary weapon system under discussion at the 1968 Munich meeting was quite different, and well beyond the comprehension of any professor of classical or quantum physics.

Full story...

Israel to kill in U.S., allied nations

Israel is embarking upon a more aggressive approach to the war on terror that will include staging targeted killings in the United States and other friendly countries, former Israeli intelligence officials told United Press International.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon has forbidden the practice until now, these sources said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The Israeli statements were confirmed by more than a half dozen former and currently serving U.S. foreign policy and intelligence officials in interviews with United Press International.

But an official at the Israeli Embassy in Washington told UPI: "That is rubbish. It is completely untrue. Israel and the United States have such a close and co-operative intelligence relationship, especially in the field of counter-terrorism, that the assertion is ludicrous."

With the appointment of Meir Dagan, the new director of Israel's Mossad secret intelligence service, Sharon is preparing "a huge budget" increase for the spy agency as part of "a tougher stance in fighting global jihad (or holy war)," one Israeli official said.

Since Sharon became Israeli prime minister, Tel Aviv has mainly limited its practice of targeted killings to the West Bank and Gaza because "no one wanted such operations on their territory," a former Israeli intelligence official said.

Full story...

The United States of America has gone mad

by John Le Carré

America has entered one of its periods of historical madness, but this is the worst I can remember: worse than McCarthyism, worse than the Bay of Pigs and in the long term potentially more disastrous than the Vietnam War.

The reaction to 9/11 is beyond anything Osama bin Laden could have hoped for in his nastiest dreams. As in McCarthy times, the freedoms that have made America the envy of the world are being systematically eroded. The combination of compliant US media and vested corporate interests is once more ensuring that a debate that should be ringing out in every town square is confined to the loftier columns of the East Coast press.

The imminent war was planned years before bin Laden struck, but it was he who made it possible. Without bin Laden, the Bush junta would still be trying to explain such tricky matters as how it came to be elected in the first place; Enron; its shameless favouring of the already-too-rich; its reckless disregard for the world’s poor, the ecology and a raft of unilaterally abrogated international treaties. They might also have to be telling us why they support Israel in its continuing disregard for UN resolutions.

Full story...

Frodo Has Failed!

Blood Money - Israeli At US Loan Talks Implicated In Sabra And Chatila Massacre

by Robert Fisk

Israel is asking the United States for $8 billion (£5bn) in loan guarantees - and has sent to Washington one of the former army officers implicated in the 1982 Sabra and Chatila massacre of Palestinian civilians to persuade the Bush administration to grant the money.

Amos Yaron, who is now director general of the Israeli Ministry of Defence, was the Israeli military commander in Beirut when Lebanese Phalangist militiamen entered the refugee camps and slaughtered up to 1,700 Palestinian refugees. He ordered flares to be dropped over the camps, at the request of the Phalange, and Israeli soldiers blocked the exits to prevent civilians from leaving the area. Israel is pleading for the money - along with an additional $4 billion in military aid - on the grounds that a US invasion of Iraq will provoke further attacks against Israel.

It argues that some of the aid should be given to anti-missile defence systems for El Al airliners. Al-Qa'ida members tried to destroy an Israeli civilian aircraft with missiles at Mombasa last year, but narrowly missed it.

Full story...

Unexplained Media Omissions and Silence: How Did those WTC Buildings Collapse?

A message to the world's media:

One day, when the stories of our people are told and the true events of recent years are a matter of public record, when the bodies have been counted and their ashes spread to the four winds. On that day the people of earth will speak of you and ask; "Why did they say nothing when the truth was staring them in the face? How could they let all those innocent people die because they were too afraid to ask the important questions? How could they let the greed of the few outweigh the needs of the many?"

And on that day you and your kin will be judged, and you will be found to have failed the people of Earth.

That is how history will remember you my friends, not with love or respect but with anguish and a sense of deep betrayal.

The Washington Post recently (and casually) reported (1/3/03) that the ownership of our nation’s media and entertainment industries is becoming more even more consolidated than they are today. FCC Chairman Michael Powell is determined to relax the restrictions which control how much investment in media and information immense corporations like AOL-Time-Warner can make within individual markets. It has long been the opinion of this writer that media concentration is the Number One problem facing this country. People who dispute this idea always point out that the Internet is a source of information for those who (rightly) avoid the mainstream. However, the Bush right-wing faction (as opposed to the right wing faction that deplores government interference with liberties) is planning an attack on the freedom many of us associate with the “information superhighway” as you read these words.

With a more concentrated media comes the prospect that serious lines of inquiry will not be pursued in a timely fashion to correct problems. For example, what really happened on 9/11/01?

Full story...

Scowcroft: We Look Like a Warmonger and Rude

The heavy-weights step in to the ring... Question is, what does this mean...? These guys are both sons of the illuminati and as such we should take them seriously.

Zbigniew Brezinski and Brent Scowcroft, two national security advisors to the White House, have called on Bush to avoid unilateralism, and believe Bush must not take action without consulting [U.S.] allies.

This is the harshest criticism yet coming from a Democrat and a Republican politician. The criticism was addressed to Bush on a CNN broadcast.

"Thus far, we have moved on the correct path and have forced the international community to put pressure on Iraq, and the probability of UN inspectors finding something which may lead to the disarmament of Iraq is very high. We must make sensible decisions at this juncture and accept peace, because we can not act alone," Brezinski said.

"When Hans Blix presents his final report to the UN, the Bush administration will face a big problem," Scowcroft is quoted saying. "We are dealing with forces with were unknown during the Cold War, thus, Iran, Iraq, and North Korea should not have been lumped together in the 'axis of evil'. Anti-American sentiments result from the fact that we are considered a global superpower and everyone is waiting for us to solve all problems, and for the past year we have been looking like a warmonger and rude and indifferent toward friend and foe. If this situation does not end, we will become isolated and earn the enmity of other countries."

Who Will Inspect Americans Themselves? "The current U.S. administration is the faithful spokesman of the military-industrial complex and big oil companies who shamelessly lie," said Mercelo Clossi, an author.

Full story...

Of Big Oil, By Big Oil, For Big Oil

The 10 Most Startling Speculations and "Conspiracy Theories" About September 11 and America's New War

For about thirty minutes after his chief of staff told him that America was under attack, George W. Bush continued to sit in an elementary school classroom listening to a second-grader tell a story about a pet goat. He did a marvelous job of looking completely unsurprised. Meanwhile, four hijacked jumbo jets were able to fly off-course across several states without encountering any opposition from the most powerful and responsive air force in the world.

Less than a month later, on the pretext of pursuing terrorist mastermind Osama bin Laden, the Bush administration began what it called a "war" on the impoverished and already war-torn country of Afghanistan. It turns out this assault had been in the works well before September 11 took place.

Soon after replacing the Taliban government with one more to its liking (and, in what is surely a coincidence, resuscitating the world's most bountiful opium fields), the administration began agitating for a similar, but even more destructive, bombardment of the oil-rich nation of Iraq. This, although Osama bin Laden was still at large and no link between him and Saddam Hussein could be established.

For these reasons and hundreds of others, the year following September 11 has seen probably the most staggering proliferation of "conspiracy theories" in American history. Angry speculation -- focused mainly on government dirty dealings, ulterior motives, and potential complicity in the attacks -- has risen to a clamor that easily rivals what followed the Kennedy assassination. Some of these suppositions are patent balderdash. But many others are coherent and well argued, and cite disconcerting reports from the U.S. corporate media and respected overseas news desks to support their claims. Providing grist for the mill are such odd episodes as last year's partisan anthrax poisonings (using U.S. army microbes) and the sniper attacks that recently plagued Washington, DC.

Following are the ten most alarming theories about September 11, the "war on terror," and the future of the world. Feel free to accept them as gospel, study them as symptoms of a traumatized culture, or scoff at them as anti-American propaganda: I'm only the messenger. Personally, though, at this point the only person I hold above suspicion in the matter of September 11 is that poor kid with the goat.

Full story...

Bushwhacked

It is more than 30 years ago now, though it seems like yesterday. A Republican president, much derided by liberals, was in the White House and his opponents were being lashed by the rightwing attack dogs, led then by the vice-president, Spiro Agnew.

The elite East Coast press, exemplified by the New York Times and the Washington Post, were the special targets of his scorn: "pointy-headed liberals," he called them, and "the nattering nabobs of negativism".

But the press laughed last and longest. Agnew resigned in disgrace, to be followed by his president, Richard Nixon - forced out by the investigations of two Post reporters, Carl Bernstein and Bob Woodward, whose doggedness revealed Nixon's role in covering up the Watergate break-in and sundry other crimes. It remains one of the greatest - maybe the greatest - moment in the history of American journalism.

Now there is a new Republican president, elected even more controversially and pursuing a far more divisive agenda. Where are the pointy-head liberals now? The change can be summed up in Woodward's own career. As the Watergate investigator, he not merely protected his sources, he glamorised them. Now, still on the Post staff, he functions as a semi-official court stenographer to the Bush White House. And it is notable that those who talk to him - such as the president himself - always play the heroic role in his stories.

The worldwide turmoil caused by President Bush's policies goes not exactly unreported, but entirely de-emphasised. Guardian writers are inundated by emails from Americans asking plaintively why their own papers never print what is in these columns (in my experience, these go hand-in-hand with an equal number insulting us for the same reason). In the American press, day after day, the White House controls the agenda. The supposedly liberal American press has become a dog that never bites, hardly barks but really loves rolling over and having its tummy tickled.

Full story...

America Is Angry, Divided, Unhappy

Twisted By Conflicts It Refuses To Face

The creeping lunacy creeps on, creepishly. It gives life a constancy comforting in an uncertain world. For this we should be grateful.

In the Greeley Tribune (January 8, 2003) of northern Colorado I see that Mitch Muller, a boy of thirteen, has been expelled from school for a year. Yep. Gone.

You might surmise that he committed some grave crime, that he assaulted a teacher perhaps or was discovered to be selling bulk-lot cocaine. No. He played with a small laser pointer – the sort that projects a red dot onto maps during lectures. It was, said the depressing drones who run the school, a "gun facsimile."

This is fascinating, like a rare and aggressive tumor. Let us think about it.

To begin, there is no substance to the charge. A laser pointer does not look like a gun, no more so than a ball-point pen or a lipstick tube. It isn't a weapon, doesn't look like a weapon, and is not intimidating, being less dangerous than, say, a fist.

Further, note that we are not confronted by a somewhat overzealous application of a reasonable rule. If young Muller had disrupted class and gotten tossed for a week, that would have been excessive but not absurd. (Excessive because unnecessary: When you have a male principal who has not been administratively neutered, he says, "Bobby, stop that. Now." That's all he says.)

The child was suspended for a year, not for misbehavior but for possession of a legal and harmless object that was determined ex post facto to be gunlike. You see. Crimes carry harsh penalties, but you cannot tell what things are crimes until after you have committed them. That is, the authorities can find you guilty at will, whenever they wish to punish you.

Full story...

Blair is dangerously wrong about this US government

Tony Blair is neither wicked nor stupid. This puts those of us who disagree with his Iraq policy under an obligation. We need to do better than merely caricature his policy or insult him. We need to show why his assessment is wrong.

Though Blair speaks often now about Iraq, he rarely does so candidly. Much remains merely implied, especially about the relationship with Washington. Even at yesterday's press conference, he certainly concealed more than he revealed. In some ways it is as hard to get an absolutely clear overall picture of Blair's views on Iraq as about Saddam Hussein's weapons programmes themselves.

Blair's most recent remarks on Iraq came in his new year message, in his speech to British ambassadors a week ago, in the first prime minister's questions of 2003 and now in yesterday's Downing Street press conference. Through all of them there has run a pronounced vein of pessimism. It first caught the headlines in the new year message, which spoke of unprecedented dangers and difficulties.

What exactly is the source of this pessimism? The primary answer can be found in the speech to ambassadors, in a passage which was relatively overlooked in most reports, since these concentrated on Blair's "America must listen" message.

Full story...

UN report details humanitarian disaster expected from war vs. Iraq

A United Nations report marked “Strictly Confidential” and dated December 10, 2002, spells out in harrowing detail the likely humanitarian consequences of US-led war against Iraq.

Compiled by UN planners, the report makes clear that unlike the attack on Iraq in 1991, which it describes as a “relatively short, aerial bombardment of infrastructure, towns and cities”, the western powers are now planning “potentially a large scale and protracted ground offensive, supported by aerial and conventional bombardment.” [para 1]

Consequently, the potential devastation will be far greater than in 1991, it reports. Whereas a majority of the population of 26.5 million at that time had family members in work and access to cash and material assets, this is no longer the case.

Neither does the report consider it valid to make a comparison with the result of the recent war in Afghanistan where the population is predominantly rural and used to being “more self-reliant”. In Iraq the people are largely urbanised and under the sanctions regime imposed after 1991 have “become even more reliant on the state to meet their basic needs” [para 3] with “some 60 percent of the population (16 million) highly dependent” [para 11] on the monthly “food basket” from the government.

Full story...

Tough decisions for bankrupt Turkey

by Eric Margolis

The Bush administration is arm-twisting Turkey's new government to allow the U.S. to deploy up to 80,000 troops in eastern Anatolia, whose mission will be the invasion of northern Iraq.

Turkey's government, led by Justice and Development Party chairman Recep Erdogan and Prime Minister, Abdullah Gul, are caught between Iraq and a hard place. Ninety percent of Turkey's 67 million citizens strongly oppose any attack on Iraq.

Erdogan's moderate Islamic party recently won a landslide election victory due to public anger over the devastated economy, corruption and resentment against the heavy-handed role of the intrusive Turkish military, which has long been the real "deep power" behind a thin facade of democratic government, and opposition to war against Iraq. Erdogan, the most popular and promising Turkish leader in decades, has gotten off to a commendable start by trying to settle the thorny Cyprus problem by backing the current, sensible UN peace plan, and normalizing relations with old foe, Greece.

But U.S. pressure on Turkey, NATO's faithful eastern bastion, keeps mounting. Bankrupt Turkey is being offered $18 billion U.S. in new aid, on top of $16 billion given over the past two years, plus $400 million to build new military bases in Turkey, cut-rate aircraft, and new weapons systems. The Bush administration is warning Turkey it will no longer have America's support in its efforts to enter the EU if Ankara does not cooperate. Pentagon No. 2 Paul Wolfowitz and State Department heavyweight Marc Grossman are heading efforts to enlist Turkey in the impending war.

Full story...

A Bigger Scandal: Illegal U.S. Funding of Sharon's Likud

EIR's recent series of exposés tracing the dirty money behind Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and the Likud party, have helped fuel the roaring political scandal threatening to wreck what was once thought to be a certain Sharon win in the upcoming Jan. 28 election. Since the series began, Israeli and American journalists and researchers have provided revealing information concerning the Likud's most important foreign funders, which, upon investigation, has proven to be accurate.

Israeli law has, since 1994, prohibited foreign donations to Israeli election campaigns. Yet tens of millions of dollars have continued to pour in from abroad, financing the radical-right Likud political apparatus which is driving the mideast and the world into religious-ethnic warfare. One prominent Israeli jurist told EIR, "Talking about illegal foreign money flows into Israeli elections is like talking about illegal booze in Chicago during Prohibition. Everybody does it, or you just don't survive."

But in the case of the money propping up the Sharon regime, its legal prohibition is made more sinister by its sources, primarily in the United States. They include heirs of the Meyer Lansky/ Moe Dalitz mafia syndicate; Michael Milken's junk-bond "monsters," corporate predators, and looters; and the sponsors of terrorists such as Meyer Kahane and the Armageddon-theme racial and religious provocateurs.

According to knowledgeable Israeli sources, the following names are at or near the top of the list of perpetrators, whose covert funding of the Likud has brought the Mideast to the brink of disaster.

Full story...

Top-Level Sources Confirm - Feds Knew of 9-11 and did nothing

Federal officials are trying to intimidate an individual who—six months prior to the 9-11 tragedy—had provided, through multiple venues, early warning, based on inside information, that terrorists reputedly connected to al Qaeda were planning massive attacks on American soil.

On Jan. 8, high-ranking FBI official Ted Gunderson (ret.) visited American Free Press headquarters on Capitol Hill in Washington and provided detailed documentary material that unveils a remarkable series of events.

Gunderson has compiled evidence demonstrating beyond any question that the FBI is now engaged in a clear-cut effort to cover up its foreknowledge of specific allegations about then-impending terrorist attacks of the type that happened on Sept. 11, 2001.

Gunderson’s charges are particularly powerful precisely because of who he (Gunderson) happens to be: a 27-year FBI veteran who capped his career in the bur eau as senior special agent in charge of the Los Angeles office of the FBI.

Full story...

The west, not Islam, is the real enemy of democracy

The warmongers encourage secular autocrats to suppress the Muslim world

How did it come to this?" asks Theoden, King of Rohan, as he gazes down on the massed ranks of evil beleaguering his fortress in Hollywood's adaptation of Lord of the Rings.

The words may be fictional but, as we count down to Washington's second instalment in the real-life epic that is the the war on terror, an honest examination of what has brought the civilisations of Islam and the west to this critical pass is long overdue. For despite the seemingly unassailable sway of the clash of civilisations thesis - in some quarters more a desire than a forecast - there is hope and it lies in the fact that the differences are less intractable than the forces of darkness would have us believe.

Five years ago, the Iranian president Mohammed Khatami called for a "dialogue of civilisations" before a meeting of the UN. The speech was an encomium to liberty, articulating what progressive Islamists have been advocating for years as the key to peace: emancipation from despotism. The major obstacle to peace, goes the theory, is not terrorism or religious obscurantism but the enslavement of hundreds of millions of Muslims, who continue to be denied the fundamental right of being free to choose their own leaders and systems of government.

The warmongers have made sure the message has remained outside mainstream debate so they can forge ahead unimpeded. Using their agents and sympathisers in the mass media to blanket all Islamist politics as fundamentalist, and by excluding its fluid, nuanced discourse from the international conversation, they have rendered voiceless a full quarter of humanity.

Full story...

Hitlers 9/11 Fake terror to grab control

"Terrorism is the best political weapon for nothing drives people harder than a fear of sudden death." -- Adolf Hitler



Full story...

Bush's 9/11 Reichstag Fire

French Finally Prove Gulf War Syndrome Caused by "Cocktail" Inoculations

by Joe Vialls

Many years ago before gaining access to the Internet, I wrote a report about the most likely causes of Gulf War Syndrome. The report slowly moved around the world by snail mail, and was eventually published in four small magazines. Then I forgot all about the report for a few years, because the nightmare symptoms being suffered by Gulf War veterans in America and Britain, seemed light years away from my sleepy little backwater in Western Australia.

That was before George W. Bush decided to do the whole thing all over again, in his increasingly frantic and very public attempts to pillage Middle East oil for Wall Street. Though I am obviously powerless to prevent Bush from ruthlessly sacrificing American lives in the Iraqi desert, I can at least sound a warning designed to minimize the physical and psychological impact on servicemen before they leave for the Gulf, and after they hopefully return.

There is no doubt that the panic generated by the false “War on Terror” is already being used to coerce people into accepting “preventative medical treatment”, that in a more sane world they would instantly refuse. Most profitable by far for the pharmaceutical multinationals backing the Bush Dynasty, are inoculations forced onto service men and women by legislation. Taking the dreaded “Anthrax Shots” as an example, the manufacturer makes a net profit of $18.00 out of every single individual, a figure that has to be multiplied by 2.4 million to get a true feel for multinational profit margins.

It is a harsh fact that the Anthrax vaccine being forcibly administered to service men and women today, is the same as that included in the deadly Gulf War “cocktail” inoculations of 1990-1991. This has no meaning whatever for politicians who habitually bend forward over a desk when their masters approach from behind, but it might have some meaning for you. In the event that the multinationals manage to spark a “civil emergency” somewhere near your own home, be advised that you too will be forced to accept exactly the same untested but hugely profitable vaccine as military personnel bound for the Persian Gulf.

The direct relationship between the Anthrax shots of today and the “cocktail” of yesterday is deeply troubling, and is the prime reason for reviving, editing, and adding to this 1995 report. You might find part of the text disturbing, which is probably a very good thing. It is difficult to protect your family from government-induced harm if you are not completely alert.

Full story...

UK 'rejects' lone action against Iraq

The UK would not join American unilateral military action against Iraq, according to International Development Secretary Clare Short. Ms Short said the UK had a duty to try to keep the world united over the Iraq crisis and ensure the danger of Saddam Hussein was only tackled through the United Nations.

Other ministers have shied away from saying whether or not the UK would join America if it decided to act alone against Iraq. With US troop build-up continuing in the Gulf, Labour Chairman John Reid has denied there is widespread disquiet about the handling of the Iraq crisis. Two surveys in Sunday newspapers point to deep unease about the prospect of war among Labour activists. Despite cold weather, a group of 30 peace campaigners went naked in East Sussex for their latest protest against any military action.

Full story...

Pilger cleared of bias in Palestine documentary

British television regulators have cleared journalist John Pilger of breaking broadcasting rules in his documentary on the Middle East which attracted more than 100 complaints from viewers.

Palestine is still the issue: A special report by John Pilger, shown in the United Kingdom in September and in New Zealand one month later, incurred the wrath of Michael Green, the Jewish chairman of Carlton television which made the programme, and provoked 116 complaints about bias and inaccuracy to the Independent Television Commission (ITC). The ITC also received 553 letters supporting the documentary.

In an adjudication published today the ITC says that, despite orchestrated campaigning for and against the programme, Carlton had provided "persuasive evidence of the care and thoroughness with which it was researched".

Full story...

ECB head's wife says Sharon provokes violence

The wife of European Central Bank chief Wim Duisenberg on Saturday described Israel's occupation of Palestinian territories as "inhuman" and accused Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon of provoking violence.

Gretta Duisenberg has stirred international controversy by using a diplomatic passport to visit Palestinian President Yasser Arafat this week, urging an end to Israeli occupation and making remarks that Dutch and Israeli officials have called biased and Jewish groups said verged on anti-Semitism.

The ECB chief's spouse, who heads a pro-Palestinian activist group in the Netherlands and last year hung a Palestinian flag from her family home, said after further talks with Palestinians she wanted to look into alleged Israeli human rights violations.

"The power of the Israeli government to humiliate (Palestinians) like that -- I cannot stand it ... If you see it yourself, it's more inhuman," Duisenberg told Reuters after a meeting with Palestinian lawmaker Hanan Ashrawi.

She blamed Israel for the violence afflicting the region since Palestinians launched an uprising in September 2000 for a state in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, territories Israel captured in the 1967 Middle East war.

Full story...

US$100 million for the head of President Hugo Chavez Frias?

Venezuela's opposition radicals and their cloak-and-dagger financiers are growing desperate as the 5th week of their national stoppage grinds inexorably to its close with democratically-elected President Hugo Chavez Frias still firmly in place.

"We are at War, since Chavez will not enter into dialogue or resign immediately, there is only one option left: to execute him!"

Spanish-language transcripts of secret opposition radicals' conversations made available to VHeadline.com by IC sources say "Esto es en serio: ofrezco recompensa de US100 millones por la cabeza de Hugo Chavez Frias, al que lo meta de un tiro en la frente y uno en el corazon; luego lo decapite y cuelgue la cabeza expuesta al publico por los dias que nos ha tenido de paro en la Plaza Altamira, la Plaza Francia, La Plaza de la Libertad."

Translated: This is serious: US$100 million reward for the head of Hugo Chavez Frias, to anyone who puts a bullet in his forehead and one in his heart, afterwards to decapitate and hang the head exposed to the public for the same number of days as we have held the strike in Plaza Altamira, the Plaza of Liberty."

Full story...

Blair faces 'nightmare' over Iraq

As Patsy Calton of the Liberal Democrats asked the British prime minister: "Are you engaging in dangerous brinkmanship with Saddam Hussein, or are you seriously telling us that you intend to commit British troops when an overwhelming majority of the public is against this?"

Pressures are building up for Blair.

More than 100 of his Labour MPs threaten to oppose military action without more evidence from U.N. weapons inspectors against Iraqi President Saddam Hussein.

The public too remains unconvinced. Talking to Londoners this week, doubts were raised over sufficient proof to justify an attack, the cost of a war and the motives, with one man saying it was just about oil.

One issue is crucial. Polls indicate that if the United Nations authorises an invasion of Iraq, then 73 percent of the British public will back it. But what if the United Nations doesn't?

Full story...

Uncle Sam Desperately Seeks Reason to Attack Iraq

Anything goes to start an attack, even a missing American pilot

UN inspectors are at a loss: no banned weapons have been detected in Iraq. However, the Americans have more trump cards to use. One of them is American Air Force pilot Michael Scott Speicher.

UN inspectors’ work in Iraq has reminded a comic sketch over recent couple of weeks. Their futile efforts to find weapons of mass destruction in such original places as a spirit factory, a deserted airbase, or two major stores of Baghdad, can only make people smile. Inspectors acknowledge that themselves. Chairman of the UN Monitoring, Verification and Inspection Commission (UNMOVIC) Hans Blix informed UN Security Council members that the international inspectors failed to find any evidence to prove either the availability or the production of weapons of mass destruction. Hans Blix stated that the inspectors conducted investigation at 120 Iraqi objects, and found no traces of storing or producing chemical or biological weapons. Answering journalists’ questions, Blix said that the inspectors did not find a smoking gun in Iraq (chemical and biological weapons). Mohamed El Baradei, the chairman of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), set out the same conclusion regarding Baghdad’s alleged nuclear programs a couple of days before Blix’s statement.

UN sources pointed out that the USA explains the fact of no weapons in Iraq with certain gaps in the declarations of Iraqi military programs. American officials are intended to use those gaps as a pretext for the army operation against Baghdad. To be honest, the American pretext is rather a feeble one, but the United States is happy about it anyway. On the other hand, the USA might use another trump card that it has – US Air Force pilot Michael Scott Speicher. PRAVDA.Ru published a story in March of the last year entitled “The Story of the Missing American Pilot May Be the Excuse Needed for the US To Attack Iraq.” The article told the sad story of the American pilot Michael Scott Speicher. Here is a short excerpt from it.

Full story...

Russian warships on standby to sail to Gulf

Just for the benefit of those who thought that Russia died when the Soviet Union did...

Russia has put three warships on standby to go to the Persian Gulf within the next month to protect its "national interests" in the event of an American invasion of Iraq.

Russia's Pacific fleet has been ordered by the central command to prepare two cruisers and a fuel tanker for immediate deployment to the Gulf.

The move will heighten tension between Moscow and Washington, who both have interests in Iraq's oilfields.

The Marshal Shaposhnikov and the Admiral Panteleyev cruisers would be called upon to defend Russian "national interests" in the Gulf if the conflict between Iraq and the US escalates.

Full story...

Sharon's Fingerprints on Latest Suicide Bombing

How much more obvious does it have to be anyway? Looks like Sharon is in political trouble too, oh dear what a pity never mind. Fortunately for us, none of these war-mongering arseholes has ever heard of Karma!

"The prime minister mortgaged a family ranch in the Negev desert and used the money to return the illegal campaign funds. But the bank subsequently discovered that Mr. Sharon did not own the ranch...OHMYGAWDLOOKATTHETERRORISTBOMB!!!" - Mike Rivero

It is difficult to imagine that Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, with his much vaunted military and strategic acumen, did not understand the consequences of his policies over the past month.

Since the last suicide bombing on November 21, escalating Israeli military assaults have killed over sixty Palestinian civilians, culminating in the December 26 wave of killing and abductions, in which Israeli occupying forces killed at least nine Palestinians, injured more than 30 and abducted several others.

On that day alone, Israeli execution squads assassinated three prominent members from three different militant Palestinian groups: Hamza Abu el-Rab of Islamic Jihad, Ibrahim Hawash, of Hamas and Gamal Abu el-Nader of Fatah's Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades. All three groups vowed revenge.

As if on que, the horrific double suicide bombing near the old Tel Aviv bus station took place within two weeks of these assassinations and reports have now confirmed that the bombers were members of the Al-Aqsa Martyr's Brigades. Twenty two Israeli's and foreign workers were killed and a hundred more injured.

Any observer with elementary skills in discerning cause and effect could see this latest suicide bombing atrocity coming. In fact, the vast majority of the nearly 100 Palestinian suicide bombings since they began in 1994 have followed an almost predictable sequence: Israeli attacks that cause major Palestinian civilian casualties or Israeli assassinations of important militant leaders are the most common trigger leading to suicide bombing cycles.

Full story...

MORE SHARON IN TROUBLE NEWS:
Sharon fights for survival
Scandal threatens Sharon re-election hopes
Israel's Sharon Funds Scandal 'Abominable' Plot
Israeli Media Stop Broadcasting Sharon Speech
Sharon screws up big time!

World on path to disaster, bomb pioneer warns

President George Bush, hijacked by hardliners in his administration, is setting the world on a course towards nuclear disaster, a founder of the nuclear deterrence policy said.

The 1995 Nobel peace laureate, Professor Sir Joseph Rotblat, accused the US of developing a policy which regarded nuclear weapons as bad if in the possession of some states or groups but good if they were kept by the US for the sake of world security.

The fact that it had signed the non-proliferation treaty and was legally bound to the elimination of nuclear weapons was ignored, he told the Guardian-sponsored non-proliferation conference, jointly hosted by the Royal United Services Institute for Defence Studies and Physicians for Social Responsibility.

"Nuclear arsenals will have to be retained indefinitely, not just as a weapon of last resort, or as a deterrent against a nuclear attack, but as an ordinary tool in the military armoury, to be used in the resolution of conflicts, and even in pre-emptive strikes, should political contingencies demand it.

"This is in essence the current US nuclear policy, and I see it as a very dangerous policy."

Full story...

Booyakasha! Ali G goes to the States

You just know that this is going to be superb! Ali lost it a bit over here because everyone now knows him so it's more difficult for him to get away with it. But to see Ali G interview Newt and Buzz is something I'd dearly love to see - he'll eat them all for lunch. Definitely a Jedi.

Booyakasha! British comedian Sacha Baron Cohen is taking his comic creation Ali G, the spoof white wannabe rap star, to the US.

Ali G will make his US debut next month on cable channel HBO, the home of hit shows including Sex and the City, The Sopranos and Six Feet Under.

But he won't be reinventing himself as a character from the Bronx or any other downtown district of the US - instead he is returning to his roots as a spoof yoof TV interviewer.

Da Ali G Show will feature Baron Cohen as Ali G, conducting his trademark dumbed-down interviews with leading American politicians and celebrities, none of whom are aware of his cover in the UK.

US public figures suffering the Ali G treatment include rightwing Republican Newt Gingrich, former Democratic presidential candidate Michael Dukakis and astronaut Buzz Aldrin.

Full story...

Better drugs laws will cut gun crime

Once again Mo has demonstrated that she is a politician who actually understands how the world works. Why the hell is this lady not in government????? She should be Prime Minister!

A series of gun-related crimes is reported in the press over the last week and, as sure as night follows day, we have an immediate response from the government that it is going to bring forward legislation to increase the penalty for possessing a gun. At a time when our prisons are straining at the seams we have a headline-grabbing policy which may in the short term look good, and in the medium term will probably be either irrelevant or counter-productive. On top of this it is announced that the prime minister is going to take personal control of a new crusade against guns. Visas will monitor Jamaicans travelling to the UK, and instant deportation will face asylum seekers found in possession of such weapons.

First, let's put this into perspective: a Metropolitan police spokesman has said that gun-related crime only accounts for 0.003% of all crimes they deal with. Yes, it would appear that gun crime is increasing, but from a very small base. It is not a time to panic. Also we should remember that most gun crime relates to the illegal drugs trade, which is mainly controlled by foreign gangs, for whom guns are a regular part of the business. Drug dealers have been shooting each other for some time, without the media and Home Office attention suddenly being lavished upon them.

Admittedly there are changes occurring in the gangs that dominate this market. It would seem that at the moment there are a number of Kosovans moving in on the UK. This, though, probably has far more to do with US and UK military action in Kosovo (where defeat of the Serbs has facilitated drug running through the Balkans) and Afghanistan (where defeat of the Taliban has led to the extensive production of heroin again) than with the UK's sentencing laws for gun possession. The increase in gun crime is a byproduct of the level of organised crime that we are allowing to fester within our society - an organised crime business that is being fuelled by our wrongheaded laws relating to drugs.

Full story...

Inside the Weird World of George W. Bush

Can anyone say; "NUTTER"??? This is just outstanding, here we have the most powerful religious hypocrite on the planet in control of the largest and most powerful military the human race has ever seen. This gets better and better.....

His male staff must only wear blue or grey suits and women should avoid bright colours. His aides must not drink, swear, smoke or eat food late at night. His staff's attendance at Bible study is 'not quite uncompulsory'. He’s obsessed with turning off lights to save electricity he has a poor memory for facts. He's confused, impatient, moody, evangelical, short-tempered, uncurious, forgetful, glib... And President of the United States

George Bush is bad-tempered, ignorant and desperate for approval from his mother, according to an extraordinary new book. His former speechwriter David Frum, a Canadian right-winger who coined the infamous phrase "axis of evil", paints a disturbing picture of a president and his White House. And in curious parallels with his arch enemy Saddam Hussein, the world's most powerful man comes across as confused, tightly wound, prone to mood swings and obsessed with petty detail."He is often uncurious and as a result ill-informed," says Frum, whose description of Iraq, Iran and North Korea set the administration agenda after September 11.

And he discloses: "Bush had a poor memory for facts and figures."

The book - The Right Man: The Surprise Presidency of George W. Bush - is the first insider account of the Bush regime and reveals how the White House is run on strict, almost military lines, a so-called "culture of evangelism".

When Frum joined the president's staff he discovered "this was a White House where attendance at Bible study was, if not compulsory, not quite uncompulsory".

Full story...

The double standards, dubious morality and duplicity of this fight against terror

by Robert Fisk

I think I'm getting the picture. North Korea breaks all its nuclear agreements with the United States, throws out UN inspectors and sets off to make a bomb a year, and President Bush says it's "a diplomatic issue". Iraq hands over a 12,000-page account of its weapons production and allows UN inspectors to roam all over the country, and – after they've found not a jam-jar of dangerous chemicals in 230 raids – President Bush announces that Iraq is a threat to America, has not disarmed and may have to be invaded. So that's it, then.

How, readers keep asking me in the most eloquent of letters, does he get away with it? Indeed, how does Tony Blair get away with it? Not long ago in the House of Commons, our dear Prime Minister was announcing in his usual schoolmasterly tones – the ones used on particularly inattentive or dim boys in class – that Saddam's factories of mass destruction were "up [pause] and running [pause] now." But the Dear Leader in Pyongyang does have factories that are "up [pause] and running [pause] now". And Tony Blair is silent.

Why do we tolerate this? Why do Americans? Over the past few days, there has been just the smallest of hints that the American media – the biggest and most culpable backer of the White House's campaign of mendacity – has been, ever so timidly, asking a few questions. Months after The Independent first began to draw its readers' attention to Donald Rumsfeld's chummy personal visits to Saddam in Baghdad at the height of Iraq's use of poison gas against Iran in 1983, The Washington Post has at last decided to tell its own readers a bit of what was going on. The reporter Michael Dobbs includes the usual weasel clauses ("opinions differ among Middle East experts... whether Washington could have done more to stop the flow to Baghdad of technology for building weapons of mass destruction"), but the thrust is there: we created the monster and Mr Rumsfeld played his part in doing so.

Full story...

Sharon and His Mafiya Allies Plot Israel Election Theft

by Jeffrey Steinberg

On July 16, 2000, as President Bill Clinton was huddled with then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat at Camp David, attempting to hammer out a final peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, 150,000 Israelis turned out in Tel Aviv's Kikar Rabin, to hear Ariel Sharon and other leading Israeli Jabotinskyite fanatics denounce peace and call for Barak's ouster.

Five years earlier, a similar mobilization of radical West Bank settlers, "Greater Israel" racists, and "Jewish underground" terrorists was directed against then-Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin, the architect of the Oslo peace accords, and set the preconditions for his Nov. 4, 1995 assassination. The assassin, Yigal Amir, came from the ranks of the Sharon and Benjamin Netanyahu-led anti-Rabin mob.

The July 2000 protest rally against a Barak "sellout" at Camp David marked the public launching of Ariel Sharon's drive to overthrow the Barak Labor Party-led government, trash the peace process, and launch a regionwide "strategy of tension"—which had been designed in 1996, by American advisers to Sharon's Likud party, who now happen to be senior Bush Administration officials, centered in the offices of Vice President Dick Cheney and Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Their goal: to bury the Oslo peace process in a sea of Palestinian and Arab blood.

Full story...

Cyclone Zoe: Natural Event or Weather Warfare?

by Joe Vialls

Over the centuries, in times of war or threatened war, deterrence has frequently been used to avoid direct hand-to-hand or nation-to-nation combat. The most memorable recent use of deterrence as a weapon was the sixties and seventies “Cold War” between America and the Soviet Union, with both sides pointing huge arsenals of nuclear-tipped intercontinental ballistic missiles at each other. Neither side dared fire the first ICBM, because the calculated ultimate result of a long-range nuclear exchange would have been the total destruction of both sides; a process known in western military circles as MAD [Mutually Assured Destruction].

Deterrence has also been used on a “proxy” basis by the superpowers, when smaller states have threatened each other in such a way that other countries would inevitably have been drawn into the conflict. One such example was Israel’s attack on the Arab nations, when air reconnaissance photographs proved the Israelis were arming their nuclear intermediate-range missiles, in order to destroy the civilian populations of “enemy” capital cities in the Middle East. Realizing the imminent danger of an Arab holocaust, the Russians very openly armed two “Scud C” missile batteries in Egypt with nuclear warheads, then casually aimed them directly at Tel Aviv. Mutual destruction was thus assured by the superpower umpire, and deterrence won the day.

Nuclear weapons were not the long-term deterrence solution however, because in the event of a madman calling someone’s bluff, a nuclear weapon would actually have to be fired with unpredictable results. What was needed was a far more subtle system, one that could be used openly in such a way that the public would not recognize it as a weapon system at all. Most obvious was the serious manipulation of weather patterns on the “aggressor’s ” home turf, thereby forcing him to back off ,or face military and economic ruin.

Full story...

President George Bull And His Excremental Message To The Troops

The obnoxious odor floating over the ground at Fort Hood, Texas, makes one almost gag. Fort Hood houses some 42,000 troops-- the most at any military base-which will almost certainly be heading soon for the Gulf region and a war with Iraq.

If anyone had stopped long enough to find out where the bad odor was coming from they would have seen and heard President George W. Bull firing up the soldiers and getting them ready for combat with rah rah lines like, "This generation is ready. We accept the burden of leadership. We act in the cause of peace and freedom, and in that cause we will prevail".

Bull dung. To say this generation of Americans is ready for war--especially with the recent downsizing of forces and a possible war on two fronts-- is nonsense, and the troops know it.

Moreover, no generation is "ready" for war because wars kill people, and nobody wants to die. It's as if Bush had said, every generation needs a good war, so cheer up guys, now it's your turn.

To tell combat troops that "we accept the burden of leadership" is to sell a concept that "one world" politicians have invented, then asked the troops to lay down their lives for. Not their own lives, mind you, but the soldiers' lives.

We may be the strongest nation in the world, but we are not necessarily the smartest. Or even the most honest. One glance at our emasculated foreign policy will tell even the village idiot that our self-proclaimed role as the world "leader" is just a bit overstated, and more than a bit arrogant.

Full story...

Britain's envoys want the PM to stall Bush's plans for war

Telegrams from British embassies and missions around the world are urging Tony Blair to step up pressure on President Bush to pull back from a war against Iraq. In what amounts to a collective cri de coeur, our envoys - congregating in Whitehall today for an unprecedented Foreign Office brainstorming session - are warning of the potentially devastating consequences of such an adventure, including its impact on a greater threat than Saddam Hussein: al-Qaida-inspired terrorism.

The warnings are not just coming from our envoys and defence attaches in Arab capitals. They are also, I am told, coming from Washington. This, our diplomats suggest, could be one of Blair's - and Britain's - finest hours, a unique opportunity to make a constructive contribution to world affairs. They also know, not least from American opinion polls, that the Bush administration needs Britain onside. Our contribution would be a token one in military terms, but significant politically. That gives Britain leverage.

It is hard to find anyone in Whitehall who supports a war against Iraq and who is not deeply concerned about the influence of the hawks around Bush. They cannot say so in public, of course.

Full story...

Bush's War on the World's Poor

Each day, one turns to the latest news from the bowels of the Bush Regime with Dorothy Parker's immortal words sounding in the mind like a tocsin: "What fresh hell is this?"

Last week, the news was particularly shameful--and the "hell," though fresh indeed, was in no way metaphorical. For last week saw two new examples of the Regime's most egregious ongoing crime against humanity--its cold, calculated, covert war against the world's poor.

Although it's being waged with words and policies--and not the flesh-devouring hardware now massing on Iraq's borders--make no mistake: Bush's war on the poor is a real war, with real casualties, and death tolls in the tens of thousands. It's war on a global scale, on many fronts, but it's being fought for two reasons only: personal political ambition and financial profit.

Ever since he seized office, Bush has taken every opportunity to derail or destroy UN efforts to provide reproductive health services to the world's poorest women. He has filled American delegations to policy-setting conferences on these issues with religious extremists from his devoted "Christian Right" political base. He has arbitrarily cut off funding to the UN's family planning program for developing nations: money that health experts say could have prevented 4,700 maternal deaths and 77,000 infant and child deaths in the past year alone.

But this Herodian slaughter means nothing to Bush; what's important is that he secures his "base" for the 2004 election. And so last week he launched a fresh assault on the poor and vulnerable. His fundamentalist minions sought to kneecap a UN conference on family planning in Asia, standing adamant--and alone--against the final resolution of a plan to guide policy and determine funding for a range of international health programs for women, reports.

Full story...

Israel's Blitzkrieg on Middle East Oil

In early March 2001, a leading European intelligence agency received disturbing news from its most senior and trusted agent in Tel Aviv. Aware of growing international resistance to its ruthless and murderous suppression of the Palestinians, the Israeli Cabinet had met to discuss the limited ways in which it could proceed with its plans to annex the rest of Palestine, with or without the support of principal ally America, or the “International Community”. At the time, the Israeli Cabinet had no idea that the subject matter of its March meeting would later become one of the prime reasons for the September attack on the World Trade Center.

The Israeli Cabinet was seriously worried. Despite effective control of the western media by the Jewish-American lobby, risk assessment conducted in Tel Aviv showed there was still a high probability that continued ruthless Israeli activity in Palestine, would lead in turn to increased sanctions by the western nations. Initially the sanctions would take the form of decreased arms shipments to Israel, followed later by increasingly large cuts in overseas financial “aid”, still provided in the main by unwitting American taxpayers. Sooner or later financial aid might dry up completely, but this was not the worst case scenario.

Eventually, if western public opinion became strident enough, America and Europe might feel compelled to impose a complete oil embargo on Israel. With no natural resources of its own, and only limited strategic oil reserves in the country, Israel’s armed forces would grind to a complete standstill in only a few weeks. Aircraft and battle tanks have an almost insatiable thirst for petroleum products, and when those products run out, the aircraft and tanks are no more use to their owners than chunks of aluminum and steel waiting for the recycling smelters.

Clearly then, the Israeli Cabinet had to find an alternate source of oil, and find it quickly. Moreover, bearing in mind they would no longer be able to pay for the oil because of financial sanctions, the new source would have to be “free”. Back in the sixties, ambitious Israelis had made detailed plans to acquire just such an alternate source of oil by force, but the plans had to be shelved for geopolitical reasons. Those geopolitical restrictions no longer existed in 2001, so the old plans were taken out of storage, dusted off, and renamed Operation Shekhinah.

Full story...