Monday, April 24, 2006

AMERICAN CONQUEST OF THE MIDDLE EAST , IRAN & NUCLEAR POWER PLANTS , U.S. BUILDING MORE NUKES


HITLER DIDN'T LIKE FREEDOM OF THE PRESS OR MEDIA EITHER
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Rumsfeld TELLS RUSH LIMBAUGH : War Critics Being Manipulated By Zarqawi and Bin Laden's Media Committees�
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BUSH KING OF AMERICA & MONARCH OF THE WORLD
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DICK CHENEY ASLEEP AS THE EMPIRE IMPLODES
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The United States is preparing to attack Iran claiming Iran is close to building nuclear weapons while experts argue Iran is five to ten years away from producing its first nuclear weapon & Iran argues it only wants to develop nuclear technology for peaceful uses which it is permitted to do according to international law .
But none of this matters to the Bush administration because if they believe Iran is a threat to the United States or the world then this must be so since belief & faith matter more than any other means of knowing something for certain.
And if it is discovered later on that they were wrong it is better to act than to hesitate or dither over the various possibilities & reactions i.e. intelligence reports & the public’s opinion or to debate the morality of one’s actions .

Anyway here is the pertinent sections of the International Non-Proliferation Treaty:

THE TREATY ON THE NON-PROLIFERATION
OF NUCLEAR WEAPONS (NPT)
www.un.org/events/npt2005/npt

Article IV

1. Nothing in this Treaty shall be interpreted as affecting the inalienable right of all the Parties to the Treaty to develop research, production and use of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes without discrimination and in conformity with Articles I and II of this Treaty.

2. All the Parties to the Treaty undertake to facilitate, and have the right to participate in, the fullest possible exchange of equipment, materials and scientific and technological information for the peaceful uses of nuclear energy. Parties to the Treaty in a position to do so shall also co-operate in contributing alone or together with other States or international organizations to the further development of the applications of nuclear energy for peaceful purposes, especially in the territories of non-nuclear-weapon States Party to the Treaty, with due consideration for the needs of the developing areas of the world.
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And so it goes ...Well it does appear that the United States with the help of Great Britain & Israel & possibly with Canada’s moral support will attack Iran . Unless this is just some sort of propaganda ploy to get the world’s attention away from the mess in Iraq & Afghanistan . But in order for it to work it would be better to do at least a little bombing of Iran. Going ahead with some so called precision bombing of Iran would create a greater diversion & would help with the Bush’s regime belief in Perpetual War & its belief that what is happening is a great Clash of Civilizations comparable to the First & Second World Wars & all in the name of peace & security .

It is extremely disturbing to try to digest the possibility of another declared war by the Bush administration on another sovereign country under some disputable rationale, at this time . And then we find that the American government is putting great pressure on The Hamas regime in Palestine ; do they intend to starve the people of Palestine to make their point. Will they invade Palestine or is the Bush Regime of the New World Order merely preparing the ground work for an all out attack on Palestine by the Israeli Regime . This might be more practical as the US forces are getting spread rather thin . And so far Bush has not insisted as yet to bring back the draft. This is also why the Bush Regime needs more allies who can provide them with large numbers of soldiers & equipment .

These issues, of course , could be resolved if the US can convince the International Community that in the case of Iran or Palestine or any other nation they designate as a threat to America or to Israel or Western Civilization that it would be permissible to use “ Nuclear Weapons” to eliminate such countries & their regimes as a threat .
A hell of a lot easier then claiming that they want to win the peoples’ hearts & minds especially when you don’t really care because all the Bush regime wants is to neutralize any regime it does not like .

All such moves in the end are for the “ GOOD ” because they help to extend American influence & hegemony , at least, that is according to the Neoconservative way of thinking . Though it is not really “ thinking ” but actually a matter of believing . From the Neoconservative point of view the problem is that many people in the West have not awakened to the fact that America is the best there is to be offered in the world & that all other nations must show the right sort of respect for the United States & a willingness to believe that whatever policies the US develops are by their very nature what is best for the world .

Of course in the nineteenth-century up until India won her Independence Great Britain believed it had been given the Divine Right to rule most of the world especially since God after all was an Englishmen. Now God is a Born Again Evangelical American Businessman who believes in the necessity of war .

There are those who are speaking up & protesting against the Bush Regime’s suggestion that it would be justifiable to use Nuclear Weapons against Iran. For instance the physicists Jorge Hirsch & others have sent a letter of protest to George W. Bush . But I don’t see how this would have any affect on a regime that sees most scientists as the enemy since many scientist deny the literal truth of the Bible & try to discredit “ Scientific Creationism” or its bastard child “ Intelligent Design ” & go around promoting Evolution & even “ Global Warming ” & other nonsense which Neoconservatives refer to as “ Junk Science” or “ Voodoo Science” & is to them as credible as astrology .


Prominent U.S. Physicists Send Warning Letter to President Bush
By Newswise

04/18/06 "Newswise" — Thirteen of the nation’s most prominent physicists have written a letter to President Bush, calling U.S. plans to reportedly use nuclear weapons against Iran “gravely irresponsible” and warning that such action would have “disastrous consequences for the security of the United States and the world.”

The physicists include five Nobel laureates, a recipient of the National Medal of Science and three past presidents of the American Physical Society, the nation’s preeminent professional society for physicists.

The letter was initiated by Jorge Hirsch, a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego, who last fall put together a petition signed by more than 1,800 physicists that repudiated new U.S. nuclear weapons policies that include preemptive use of nuclear weapons against non-nuclear adversaries (http://physics.ucsd.edu/petition/). Hirsch has also published 15 articles in recent months (http://antiwar.com/hirsch/) documenting the dangers associated with a potential U.S. nuclear strike on Iran.

...“Once the U.S. uses a nuclear weapon again, it will heighten the probability that others will too,” the physicists write. “In a world with many more nuclear nations and no longer a ‘taboo’ against the use of nuclear weapons, there will be a greatly enhanced risk that regional conflicts could expand into global nuclear war, with the potential to destroy our civilization.”
Jorge Hirsch, a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego Protesting President Bush’s plan to use Nuclear weapons on Iran.

And as for consensus on what the Bush Regime is planning ; here are a couple of articles:

New York Times
www.newyorktimes.com
Bombs That Would Backfire
By RICHARD CLARKE and STEVEN SIMON
April 16, 2006

WHITE HOUSE spokesmen have played down press reports that the Pentagon has accelerated planning to bomb Iran. We would like to believe that the administration is not intent on starting another war, because a conflict with Iran could be even more damaging to our interests than the current struggle in Iraq has been. A brief look at history shows why.

Reports by the journalist Seymour Hersh and others suggest that the United States is contemplating bombing a dozen or more nuclear sites, many of them buried, around Iran. In the event, scores of air bases, radar installations and land missiles would also be hit to suppress air defenses. Navy bases and coastal missile sites would be struck to prevent Iranian retaliation against the American fleet and Persian Gulf shipping. Iran's long-range missile installations could also be targets of the initial American air campaign.

These contingencies seem familiar to us because we faced a similar situation as National Security Council staff members in the mid-1990's. American frustrations with Iran were growing, and in early 1996 the House speaker, Newt Gingrich, publicly called for the overthrow of the Iranian government. He and the C.I.A. put together an $18 million package to undertake it.

The president assures us he will seek a diplomatic solution to the Iranian crisis. And there is a role for threats of force to back up diplomacy and help concentrate the minds of our allies. But the current level of activity in the Pentagon suggests more than just standard contingency planning or tactical saber-rattling.

The parallels to the run-up to war with Iraq are all too striking: remember that in May 2002 President Bush declared that there was "no war plan on my desk" despite having actually spent months working on detailed plans for the Iraq invasion. Congress did not ask the hard questions then. It must not permit the administration to launch another war whose outcome cannot be known, or worse, known all too well.

Richard Clarke and Steven Simon were, respectively, national coordinator for security and counterterrorism and senior director for counterterrorism at the National Security Council.

And also see:

care of ICH
Countdown Over Iran
By Eric Margolis

04/18/06 "Foreign Correspondent" -- -- NEW YORK – It’s both fascinating and dismaying watching the manufactured `crisis’ over Iran reach new intensity each week.

What we are seeing is a rerun of the administration’s massive propaganda offensive that led to the invasion of Iraq. There is also no doubt that the Bush Administration has been planning a major air war against Iraq.

On the list for possible US – and likely Israeli – air and missile strikes: more than twenty Iranian nuclear facilities, including the Bushehr reactor; airfields, missile and naval bases; communications nodes; military and intelligence headquarters; military factories; power plants and oil terminals.

...Respected international experts say that it if Iran wanted to produce nuclear warheads, it would take 5-10 years. UN nuclear inspectors report no signs Iran is working on nuclear weapons.
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Anyway as we are told over & over America is a righteous country that always obeys International Laws & Treaties but this is not, in fact , the case. We have seen it in the case of torture, renditions, kid-napping, death squads, indiscriminate bombings of towns & cities of Mosques, schools & hospitals and so we shouldn’t be too surprised if they break International agreements on Nuclear Weapons.
And so meanwhile back at the ranch we are told that the U.S. is going ahead with plans to manufacture a few thousand more Nuclear Warheads over the next five or six years to replace aging nukes . But these plans are in direct violation of International Agreements on Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty . At the same time the U.S. is threatening to attack Iran for trying to develop Nuclear Power Plants which Iran is permitted to do under International Law .
But as usual there is one law for the United States & a different standard or law for other countries.

SEE article in The Washington Post:
U.S. Prepares to Overhaul Arsenal of Nuclear Warheads
By Walter Pincus
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, April 15, 2006; Page A01
http://www.washingtonpost.com
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And further that the development of “ Bunker Buster ” bombs by the United States is in violation of the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) & the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty both of which the United States agreed to but as usual the present administration believes it should not be constrained by such treaties if they believe it is in their best interest to break such treaties. Of course if this is so shouldn’t any other country be permitted the same latitude when it comes to these treaties or any other international treaties & agreements .

But the American Neoconservatives believe that America is morally superiour to all other nations & therefore the decisions it makes concerning treaties or ignoring the sovereignty of other nations is justified by being the protector of the “ FREE WORLD ”. This also means that the American government is the sole arbitrator of what is or is not permissible & how “ FREEDOM ” is to be defined .

This also takes us into the murky world of “ REALPOLITIK” as defined by the philosopher Leo Strauss or by Alan Bloom in his influential anti-liberal pro-elitist book “ THE CLOSING OF THE AMERICAN MIND ”( 1987) Or Samuel P. Huntington’s view of Perpetual War in his heavy -handed book “ THE CLASH OF CIVILIZATIONS AND THE REMAKING OF WORLD ORDER” (1996).
Their belief is that since America is the best “ REGIME ” or political system in the world & is based on Christian Beliefs & Pure Capitalism it has the right under “ Natural Law” to impose by force its values & beliefs both political & economic on the rest of the world . If the United States does not do this then other emerging Civilizations or Regimes will by force spread & take over the world.

For instance see article on “ BUNKER-BUSTER ” bombs:
War Is Fun!
http://signs-of-the-times.org
Bush Plans to Use Illegal B61-11
Sunday April 09th 2006, 7:05 pm
Kurt Nimmo
Another Day in the Empire

It's said Bush and his bevy of Straussian neocons will nuke Iran (according to research conducted by journalist Seymour Hersh) using nuclear-armed B61-11 "bunker-busters." Bush will do this "to prevent [Iran] acquiring its own atomic warheads," the UK Telegraph summarizes Hersh's conclusion. "Hersh claims that one of the plans, presented to the White House by the Pentagon, entails the use of a bunker-buster tactical nuclear weapon, such as the B61-11, against underground nuclear sites. One alleged target is Iran's main centrifuge plant, at Natanz, 200 miles south of Teheran."

In Bushzarro world, as we know, up is down, right is left, and violating the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty and international law is legal and within Bush's reading on the Constitution. In fact, under the NPT, Iran has the right to develop peaceful nuclear technology, although of course the neocons argue Iran is feverishly building nuclear weapons, an assertion made without any credible evidence (essentially a re-run of the weapons of mass destruction argument-lies and fabrications-made in the lead-up to the invasion of Iraq). It is interesting to note that the very development of the B61-11 is a violation of the NPT, the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, and international law dating back to the Clinton administration, thus once again illustrating the fact the neocons don't have a monopoly on criminal renegade behavior.

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Anyway , that’s all for now.
GORD.

From Democracy Now
Monday, April 17th, 2006
Retired Colonel Sam Gardiner on Iran War Plans: "The Issue is Not Whether the Military Option Would Be Used But Who Approved the Start of Operations Already"
http://www.democracynow.org

New York Times
www.newyorktimes.com
Op-Ed Contributors
Bombs That Would Backfire
By RICHARD CLARKE and STEVEN SIMON
Published: April 16, 2006

The US, Iran and the End of the International Order
By Jussi Sinnemaa
04/17/06 "ICH"
INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE

From website http://antiwar.com
War Against Iran, April, 2006
Biological Threat and Executive Order 13292
by Jorge Hirsch

April 17, 2006
New nukes in your own backyard?
by Plutonium Page
http://thenexthurrah.typepad.com

by way of Information Clearing House
Busting empty bunkers
By Gordon Prather
04/18/06 "WorldNetDaily" -- -- On April 12, Bloomberg News

Turkish Press .com
Canada's Harper backs US nuclear standoff with Iran
04-18-2006, 23h45
OTTAWA (AFP)

Zarqawi; the Pentagon’s ongoing war of deception
By Mike Whitney
04/17/06 "ICH"







Saturday, April 22, 2006

HOCKEY,EH & CIRCUSES ---STEPHEN HARPER & HIS BUDDY GEORGE BUSH : PLAYING ON GOD'S TEAM : HARPER SO FAR...


...OOPS DID I INTERRUPT YOUR HOCKEY GAME,EH ???
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"I love my job as prime minister, but if you could be a hockey player, I mean, what could be better than that?" STEPHEN HARPER AND I"M SORRY HE DIDN"T
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“The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the TRUTH becomes the greatest ENEMY OF THE STATE.”

"Tell a Lie That is Big Enough, and Repeat it Often Enough, and the Whole World Will Believe It. "

— Dr. Joseph M. Goebbels - Hitler's propaganda minister

It is the leaders of the country who determine the policy and it is always a simple matter to drag the people along...Voice or no voice, the people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked, and denounce the peacemakers for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same in any country. --Reichsmarschall Hermann Goering

...“Once the U.S. uses a nuclear weapon again, it will heighten the probability that others will too,” the physicists write. “In a world with many more nuclear nations and no longer a ‘taboo’ against the use of nuclear weapons, there will be a greatly enhanced risk that regional conflicts could expand into global nuclear war, with the potential to destroy our civilization.”
Jorge Hirsch, a professor of physics at the University of California, San Diego Protesting President Bush’s plan to use Nuclear weapons on Iran.
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Anyway I ‘d like to talk about Stephen Harper & his policies & statements regarding Iran & Iraq & Hamas & a couple of other issues as a sort of report card on how he is doing thus far. From the comments he makes it is difficult to distinguish his policies from those of George W. Bush & his administration . But I do feel we should give harper a bit of a break since he & his buddies are so in awe of Bush; note how effusive Peter MacKay was when he met Condoleeza Rice ; it was a bit embarrassing I thought he was about to ask her to the Prom or whatever.

Sorry to interrupt your HOCKEY GAME , eh so what’s new,eh...
NUKES FALLING , Hockey Season goes ahead ,eh!!!
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Iran & Stephen Harper

Turkish Press .com
Canada's Harper backs US nuclear standoff with Iran
04-18-2006, 23h45
OTTAWA (AFP)


Canada's prime minister is backing US-led efforts to halt Iran's alleged nuclear weapons program as Stephen Harper claims :

" that our allies have a very serious concern when you see a regime like Iran with the kind of values it stands for, the kind of human rights abuses we've seen there ... our allies have a completely legitimate case in being concerned about a regime like that gaining access to nuclear weapons."

And so we are told by Stephen Harper that American values are better than Iran’s ? By aligning himself to the Bush Administration’s paranoia about Iran and Bush’s propaganda campaign to boost support for an attack & invasion of Iran & the possible use of Nuclear Weapons to accomplish their goals in Iran , Harper shows his true colours as another “ shoot from the hip cowboy ” & possibly where his loyalty really lies; with his alter-ego George W. Bush ?

And as for us, that is Canadians we have become a country of sheep believing whatever manufactured lies Bush & Harper & their cult of Neocons produce . These so called lies are really “Noble Lies ” told to promote their agenda which they believe is for the general good or, at least, good for the ruling Elite . This is just part of the philosophy of the Neocons who are “ True Believers ” of their Mentor Leo Strauss who believed as the Neocons do that the majority of the citizens of any state are not intelligent enough or wise enough to be able to understand complex political questions & not virtuous enough to be relied on to do the right thing and that which is necessary to protect that state i.e. America . What’s good for America is Good for the World

It is not surprising that Stephen Harper would support the United States in its manufactured crisis over Iran & that he would support bombing & invading Iran & even support the use of Nuclear Weapons against Iran. Besides he’s a good Christian boy & one thing Jesus loved was Blowing Things Up...eh!
He is far from being the moderate or traditionalist conservative he & his party claimed to be during the election.
Maybe he’ll do like Bush & declare himself King & God’s True Messenger???

HAMAS

Stephen Harper was the first world leader to break off Diplomatic ties with Palestine because Hamas won the election thereby echoing the Bush administration’s & Israel’s attitude to the election of Hamas.
( wouldn’t it be more profitable to engage in discussions with Hamas for a period of time to try to gauge what their aims , goals & agenda are since often when an opposition party comes into a position of power its past rhetoric must give way to the realities of actually governing ... ah well that’s not exactly what this is all about is it...

( of course we are not permitted to discuss any policy which directly affects Israel since the NEOCONS see everything in Black & White terms so any critique of Israel is therefore evidence of anti-Semitism-
or to show any sympathy or concern for Palestinians or Arabs or Muslims is also seen as being anti-Israel & therefore Anti-Semitic-
But I have argued before that disagreeing with the policies of a particular Israeli administration is just that & not necessarily proof of Anti-Semitism-
For instance I am against the Wall they are building which reminds me of the Berlin Wall & the Walls built around the Warsaw Ghetto by the Nazis which seems a little bit ironic -
I am also against the sort of indiscriminate reprisals launched by the Israelis ( in which innocent civilians including children are killed ) in response to a terrorist attack . This does not mean that I want to make excuses for the actions of terrorists who also kill indiscriminately . Two wrongs do not make a right.
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-------Iraq----

Most Cdns. support war, Harper tells U.S. TV
Updated Fri. Apr. 4 2003 10:56 PM ET
CTV.ca News Staff
http://www.ctv.ca

Opposition leader Stephen Harper has told Fox News in the U.S. that most Canadians outside Quebec support the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, despite our government's decision not to take part in the war.

In an interview with the American TV network, Harper said he endorsed the war and said he was speaking "for the silent majority" of Canadians. Only in Quebec, with its "pacifist tradition," are most people opposed to the war, Harper said.

"Outside of Quebec, I believe very strongly the silent majority of Canadians is strongly supportive," the Canadian Alliance leader says.

The Canadian Government’s position is explained by the Deputy Prime Minister at the time:

John Manley told the House Canada's "thoughts and prayers" are with the U.S. but said the decision not to go to war is "consistent with decades of Canadian policy."

"It was our hope that by authorizing greater time for inspections that a broader consensus could emerge in the international community that it was necessary for the use of force," Manley said.

"We have stood apart because we believe it is the Security Council of the United Nations that ought to take responsibility for authorizing force."
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Canadian policy for decades has been to support the United Nations but this did not & still does not satisfy Harper since like Bush he puts little faith in the UN & sees nothing wrong with the United States acting unilaterally even if the action contravenes International Law . The Bush administration only uses the UN to promote its agenda & when blocked ; it ignores the UN which is what Americans especially conservatives accused the former Soviet Union of doing- but now the United States does as it pleases & expects other Western Nations to support it or if not to keep their objections to themselves .

Of course we now know that the Invasion of Iraq was not necessary & has turned into a fiasco but if you are a true believer( like Stephen Harper & his gang of made in America Neoconservatives) in George W. Bush then you have faith in him & his friends who surely know what they are doing ??? Besides George Bush says he gets his orders direct from God so who could doubt him.
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Hamas

Canada shuts out Hamas
'No contact, no funds, period'; Relations with Palestinian government cut; aid to flow via humanitarian agencies

The Gazette
JANICE TIBBETTS, CanWest News Service; CP contributed to this report
Published: Thursday, March 30, 2006

Canada became the first country to sever relations and cut tens of millions of dollars in aid to the new Palestinian government yesterday for its refusal to renounce violence and recognize Israel.

"There will be no contact and no funds, period," Foreign Affairs Minister Peter MacKay said after a meeting with the Conservative caucus. "We cannot send any direct aid to an organization that refuses to renounce terrorist activity, refuses to renounce violence."

The Gazette
Harper slams Liberal over potential opposition to accountability act
Steve Erwin, Canadian Press
Published: Friday, April 21, 2006

TORONTO (CP) - Any Liberal threats to the fledgling Conservative government's bill aimed at making Ottawa more accountable and transparent would be "intolerable," Prime Minister Stephen Harper said Friday.

The proposed federal accountability act, which seeks to restrict the influence of big business, unions and lobbyists on government, is "not a done deal" because the Liberals will "work to defeat it," Harper told a group of about 900 people during a speech to the Empire Club of Canada.

Liberals in the Senate have only indicated they would slow the passage of Harper's accountability bill by returning portions they're concerned about back to the Commons for further consideration.

"I have to say, that's something, even for the Liberal party - unelected political appointees blocking legislation to make Parliament more accountable," Harper said to applause and laughter from a largely partisan crowd.

He accused members of the previous Liberal government of also being "obstructionist" and "particularly vicious" in their criticism of the bill introduced earlier this month.

"After the sponsorship scandal, why am I not surprised?" Harper asked rhetorically.

Recent Harper speeches have taken a similar election-style tone, taunting the Liberal opposition that is still months away from naming a new leader to replace former prime minister Paul Martin. He also included constant reminders in his speeches of the sponsorship scandal and subsequent Gomery inquiry that led to the Conservatives' zeal for a more transparent bureaucracy in Ottawa.
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Day Care

attacking the present system of Daycare by issuing “ Vouchers “ for $1200 per pre-school age child wow what a deal ??? actually not such a deal since private Day Cares charge a lot more than $ 5,200 per year per child... so the $ 1200 from a merely economic point of view is woefully inadequate but hey, maybe much of his constituency can’t crunch big numbers like this or maybe that’s how Stephen Harper sees it.

Anyway his aim is to undermine & scuttle the Day Care programs across Canada which he believes is necessary to help bring down the Evil Secular Humanists Anti-Christian Anti-Family Pro-Feminist Cabal that has taken over our country so Thank God for George Bush ...I mean ahhhh Pat Bucanan or Pat Robertson & oh Yeah Stephen Harper & the Heritage Foundation or Front Inc. Canadian Division.
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CBC & other ATHEISTIC SOCIALISTS infiltrated institutions

In his statements on accountability legislation he made sure he made references to the CBC & the Arts Council & other Liberal artsy-fartsy commie pinko organizations he ‘ll kill them all off by hacking away a bit here & there ... death by audit of course the CTV & other Canadian private networks are absolutely giddy over this & besides once the CBC’s gone there’ll be no more of those commie movies like the one on Tommy Douglas which made Capitalist look bad...so who cares if the poor do without good medical care “ let them die & reduce the surplus population ” as dear old Scrooge or George Bush would say...& you see how he handled a natural disaster like Katrina : Just pretend it’s not really happening...

This always reminds me of people who take fits because of the types of films that were financed by the National Film Board for instance the early rather tasteless horror films of David Cronenberg ( RABID, SHIVERS, The Brood , SCANNERS ) whose success which I now compare to the New Zealand ‘s version of the NFB which also bein an evil organization financed the early rather nasty even mor tasteless & GOREY horror films of Peter Jackson ( DEAD ALIVE , BAD TASTE, MEET THE FEEBLES, & HEAVENLY CREATURES ) who went on to make the outrageously successful LORD OF THE RINGS TRILOGY now we wouldn’t want that to happen here would we!!!
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The Canadian Veterans & Military

Harper also announced that his Pro-Military government ( like George BUSH ) will be reducing pay-outs to injured or wounded soldiers , or in the case of those killed in some meaningless engineered American War ,to their spouses & family ; if he follows in Bush footsteps the Canadian combat soldiers will have to buy their Body-Armor on EBAY or do a charity drive in their neighborhood to pay for their gear.

IDENTITY CARDS

Harper has also caved in on US proposals for a national Identity card to be used for crossing the border into the US.

ENVIRONMENT & “ JUNK SCIENCE ”

Harper like Bush is also POOH POOHING all that “ JUNK SCIENCE ” about Global Warming & Pollution or that corporations should be held responsible for Environmental damage by oil spills or whatever beside OIL IS NATURAL & NOT HARMFUL so there you go.

MARIJUANA

And to please the Neocons in America he has scuttled any plans to ease up on laws about the use of marijuana which we all know leads its users to become card-carrying Communists or even Terrorists -

And like Bush Harper now ends his statements to the press with “ God Bless um... America ahhh... Canada ”

For a Prime Minister who is running a minority government, it seems to me, that he acts as if he had a majority & therefore a mandate to push forward his Neoconservative Religious Right agenda-

This seems odd on the face of it but as far as he is concerned in my opinion if the opposition parties do not like what he is doing & he appears to be daring them to resist & thereby bring about the conditions which would lead him to call another election which Canadians will not like & will then punish the opposition for making another federal election necessary & therefore give him the majority he craves. But either way in Harper’s view it’s a win/ win situation.

But this seems to be what Canadians want & in our search for our own Identity we or most Canadians have chosen to identify ourselves with the present Bush Administration . And we too may get a piece of the World for ourselves maybe a few small colonies to call our own once the Americans conquer all those nasty evil-intentioned countries.

Anyway that’s all for now,
GOOD NIGHT & GOOD LUCK ,EH !
GORD.

Wednesday, April 19, 2006

BUSH PLANS TO ATTACK IRAN & THINKING THE UNTHINKABLE THE NUCLEAR OPTION FAKE INTEL & PROPAGANDA & FAKE JOURNALISM


MUSHROOM CLOUD OVER IRAN ??? AND GOD BLESS AMERICA & GOD BLESS CANADA !!!
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" WE"LL SQUEEZE & TWIST THE NUTS OFF OF THOSE IRANIAN SAVAGES & TEACH THEM ABOUT FREEDOM & DEMOCRACY AMERICAN STYLE "
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DR. STRANGELOVE MAKING HIS TWISTED DREAMS COME TRUE
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YA HO ! SLIM PICKINS CELEBRATING AMERICAN VICTORY
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HIROSHIMA AUGUST 6, 1945 AFTER THE BOMB
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“ God’s Away on Business ”
Tom Waits


"If there's one thing you can say
About Mankind
There's nothing kind about man "

From the song “ Misery's The River Of The World ”
Tom Waits

“ No, we do not pardon, we demand - Vengeance! ”
Adolph Hitler

“ Extremes must be fought by extremes. ”
Adolph Hitler

" We knew the world could not be the same. A few people laughed, a few people cried. Most people were silent. I remembered the line from the Hindu scripture, the Bhagavad Gita: "I am become Death, the destroyer of worlds."
J. Robert Oppenheimer
(After the first successful testing of the Atomic Bomb)

"A single nuclear weapon contains almost ten times the explosive force delivered by all of the allied air forces in the Second World War". -President John F. Kennedy - Commencement Address at American University in Washington, 10 June 1963

"A bomb can now be manufactured which will be 25.000 times as powerful as that which destroyed Hiroshima." - Bertrand Russell

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Anyway here we go again as the U.S. prepares to go to war against Iran & so the “ SPIN ” & propaganda begin with almost an unending barrage of negative reporting on Iran by the President & the Neocons & all those Media Personalities who pretend to be “ real journalist”.


The hypocrisy & duplicity of the Bush administration knows no bounds . While criticizing Iran’s government for being ruthless, brutal & inhumane; the Bush administration defends & condones the use of torture, renditions, mass bombings of civilian populations & the use of Death Squads to carry out assassinations & the indiscriminate use of Incendiary bombs to melt the bodies of innocent civilians . Meanwhile they continue to lie to the world & to their own citizens about why they invaded Iraq & claiming that all is going as planned & that everything is just Hunky Dory in Iraq except for a few malcontents .

Meanwhile on the Home Front they justify investigating & wire-tapping & monitoring computer activity of anyone who dares to criticize the Bush administration ‘s policies & labeling all such critics as unpatriotic . Now Rumsfeld characterizes many of the administration’s critics in the Media as being dupes of the massive & sophisticated propaganda manufactured by Al Qeda & America’s other elusive enemies .

But now in their manufactured crisis against Iran the Bush administration is planning to attack & invade Iran & claims that it is justified in using Nuclear Weapons in a pre-emptive strike on a country which has no nuclear weapons. They are trying to soften up the public in order to make “ the Unthinkable ” thinkable and therefore as an acceptable option.

In my last post I discussed the long & credible career of investigative journalist Seymour Hersh & it is to his recent writings that much of the plans & agenda of the Bush administration in regard to Iran have been revealed & he seems to have hit a nerve & stirred up a “hornets’ nest ”.

As Seymour Hersh says, in a recent article in the New Yorker,

“ The Bush Administration, while publicly advocating diplomacy in order to stop Iran from pursuing a nuclear weapon, has increased clandestine activities inside Iran and intensified planning for a possible major air attack. Current and former American military and intelligence officials said that Air Force planning groups are drawing up lists of targets, and teams of American combat troops have been ordered into Iran, under cover, to collect targeting data and to establish contact with anti-government ethnic-minority groups. The officials say that President Bush is determined to deny the Iranian regime the opportunity to begin a pilot program, planned for this spring, to enrich uranium.

And “...that President Bush’s ultimate goal in the nuclear confrontation with Iran is regime change. ”


And he goes on to report that:
“ in the event of an attack, the Air Force intended to strike many hundreds of targets in Iran ...“ninety-nine per cent of them have nothing to do with proliferation. There are people who believe it’s the way to operate”.

And further that “ the ( US covert operations) units were also working with minority groups in Iran... to “encourage ethnic tensions” and undermine the regime. ”

But what is also troubling about what’s taking place is that it is another move on the Administration’s part to consolidate more power to the White House as Seymour Hersh says:

“ The new mission for the combat troops is a product of Defense Secretary Rumsfeld ’s long-standing interest in expanding the role of the military in covert operations...Such activities, if conducted by C.I.A. operatives, would need a Presidential Finding and would have to be reported to key members of Congress.

“ ‘Force protection’ is the new buzzword,” the former senior intelligence official ...referring to the Pentagon’s position that clandestine activities that can be broadly classified as preparing the battlefield or protecting troops are military, not intelligence, operations, and are therefore not subject to congressional oversight...”


SEE : the New Yorker
THE IRAN PLANS
Would President Bush go to war to stop Tehran from getting the bomb?
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2006-04-17


Other journalists & military insiders have confirmed that there is a lot of credible evidence which supports Hersh’s assertions about the Bush administrations plans for attacking Iran. And the planning of the attack & invasion of Iran has been in the works since 2002 .

For instance :
from the Turkish Press.com
Pentagon declines comment on report of Iran strike plans
Published: 4/17/2006
http://www.turkishpress.com


William Arkin, a well-connected military analyst writing in the Washington Post on Sunday, said the planning has been conducted under the codename TIRANNT, an acronym for Theater Iran Near Term.

It includes a scenario for a land invasion led by the US Marine Corps, a detailed analysis of the Iranian missile force and a global strike plan against any Iranian weapons of mass destruction, Arkin wrote.

Army General John Abizaid, the commander of the US Central Command, was given the task of planning military options for Iran in 2002 and by May 2003 the planning was underway in earnest, according to Arkin.

____________________________________________________________


But the rationale for going to war with Iran is , in fact, questionable & is reminiscent of the accusations that Saddam Hussein had “ Weapons of Mass Destruction ” & was linked to Al Qeda & the 9/11 attack which turned out to be just lies the Bush Administration told to justify attacking Iraq .

As Director General Mohamed Eibaradei of the International Atomic Energy Agency has said that Iran is not a nuclear threat to the world & urges calm & diplomacy in discussing the issue.

As Eibaradei said ,

Iran’s “ nuclear program was not "an imminent threat" and that the time had come to "lower the pitch" of debate.

And he added:

"The issue of [uranium] enrichment right now, as emotional as it is, is not urgent," he said. "So, we have ample time to negotiate a settlement by which, as I said, Iran's need for nuclear power is assured and the concern of the international community is also put to rest."

SEE:
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) Director General Mohamed ElBaradei speaks during a press conference at the opening of the conference of the IAEA Governors Council in Vienna, 6 Mar. 2006
http://www.iaea.org/

And more recently see:

Calm Is Urged in Iran Debate
Mohamed ElBaradei, the U.N. nuclear agency chief, sees no imminent danger from Tehran and asks those discussing the issue to 'lower the pitch.'
By Jeffrey Fleishman and Alissa J. Rubin, Times Staff Writers
March 31, 2006

That’S All FOR NOW,
GORD.
___________________________________________________________

From Democracy Now
Monday, April 17th, 2006
Retired Colonel Sam Gardiner on Iran War Plans: "The Issue is Not Whether the Military Option Would Be Used But Who Approved the Start of Operations Already"
http://www.democracynow.org

New York Times
www.newyorktimes.com
Op-Ed Contributors
Bombs That Would Backfire
By RICHARD CLARKE and STEVEN SIMON
Published: April 16, 2006

The US, Iran and the End of the International Order
By Jussi Sinnemaa
04/17/06 "ICH"
INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE

From website http://antiwar.com
War Against Iran, April 2006
Biological Threat and Executive Order 13292
by Jorge Hirsch

by way of Information Clearing House
Busting empty bunkers
By Gordon Prather
04/18/06 "WorldNetDaily" -- -- On April 12, Bloomberg News

Turkish Press .com
Canada's Harper backs US nuclear standoff with Iran
04-18-2006, 23h45
OTTAWA (AFP)


Zarqawi; the Pentagon’s ongoing war of deception
By Mike Whitney
04/17/06 "ICH"

And here are some other articles which the reader can check out:

THE NEW YORKER
THE COMING WARS
What the Pentagon can now do in secret.
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2005-01-24 and 31
Posted 2005-01-17

From DEMOCRACY NOW
Wednesday, January 26th, 2005
Seymour Hersh: "We've Been Taken Over by a Cult"
http://www.democracynow.org/article

By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 11 October 2004
Watch the Webcast: Seymour Hersh
UC BERKELEY
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases

Monday, April 17, 2006

MY LAI TO ABU GHRAIB & OTHER U.S. ATROCITIES EXPOSED BY INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST SEYMOUR HERSH


GEORGE BUSH SAYS TO STEVEN HARPER "SO YOU FOOLED THEM, EH !!! SO NOW A NEW AGE DAWNS ! Posted by Picasa  
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PHOTO OF MY LAI MASSACRE BY US FORCES 1968 MURDERING 350 MEN,WOMEN, CHILDREN & BABIES...LT. CALLEY SAYS "WELL, AS YOU KNOW BABIES WILL GROW UP TO BE COMMUNIST "Posted by Picasa
PHOTO FROM MY LAI MASSACRE 1968 VIETNAM
NEOCONS SAY KILL'EM ALL !!!
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INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST SEYMOUR HERSH WHO FIRST REVEALED HORROR OF MY LAI MASSACRE IN VIETNAM 1968. BLOWS THE WHISTLE ON " AGENT ORANGE "& TORTURE AT ABU GHRAIB ETC.Posted by Picasa

“To be persuasive we must be believable; to be believable we must be credible; credible we must be truthful. ”
Edward R. Murrow

“ How fortunate for leaders that men do not think.”
Adolf Hitler

“ The great masses of the people will more easily fall victims to a big lie than to a small one. ”
Adolf Hitler

“ The great strength of the totalitarian state is that it forces those who fear it to imitate it.”
Adolf Hitler

“The leader of genius must have the ability to make different opponents appear as if they belonged to one category. ”
Adolf Hitler


“ When an opponent declares, "I will not come over to your side," I calmly say, "Your child belongs to us already... What are you? You will pass on. Your descendants, however, now stand in the new camp. In a short time they will know nothing else but this new community."
Adolf Hitler

“ Who says I am not under the special protection of God? ”
Adolph Hitler


Anyway getting back to the issue of journalistic integrity & Edward R. Murrow’s belief that the goal of journalism is to seek out the truth , to inform & enlighten not just to entertain or to uncritically support the status quo. Recently in the controversial case of the Danish cartoons of The Prophet Mohammad there has been much written about the Freedom Of The Press & the Media & the notion of a clash of civilizations & cultural values. Yet , even those who claim to support the Freedom of the Press & Freedom of Expression few seem to extend this ideal to criticisms of the now dominant philosophy & policies of the Neoconservatives in power in the United States & Britain & Canada & elsewhere in the West . Many Journalists & media personalities, for instance, saw nothing wrong with being “ Embedded” with the US military or her allies in the invasion of Iraq & thereby having their stories controlled by those conducting the invasion . Nor were most of these jounalist interested in stories about detainee abuses & often accepted without comment the Bush administration’s official statements about these abuses. Some felt they had to report on this matter once the evidence kept mounting & the infamous photos began streaming across the Internet . This to some extent is nothing new .

During the Vietnam War the US administration & those who supported the war did not take kindly to any criticisms of the rationale for going to war in Vietnam or of how the Americans were conducting the war . It was & has been argued that because the war was somehow righteous its goal being to stop the spread of Communism & to, in effect, spread the Western ideals of Democracy & Freedom, therefore, all that was done by the military & politicians to bring about this desired end was therefore justified .

So those in power went out of their way to defend “Carpet Bombing ”, “ free-fire Zones ” the indiscriminate & reckless use of Napalm & the widespread use of defoliants ( agent orange) & the ruthless reprisals of the American military against villages or towns which the American military believed were harboring Viet Cong enemy guerrillas as in the Massacre of 350 men, women & children of the Vietnamese village of Mi Lai in 1968. Throughout the decade or more of America’s involvement in Vietnam there seemed to be little interest in supporting any real democratic reforms in South Vietnam .

Anyone who pointed out any of these unsavory facts about the Vietnam War were painted as unpatriotic & as being Pro-Communist ,at least, according to the US administration whether it be The White House or the Pentagon or the CIA & FBI or the administrations staunch & hawkish supporters including many members of the mainstream media .

But in our own time there are a few journalists who are willing to confront the powers that be & are willing to question their policies & actions & to point out where they are mistaken in their beliefs & the results of those beliefs one such journalist is Seymour Hersh who is a reporter for the New Yorker. So I just want to take a brief look at the career of Seymour Hersh & his analysis of what is happening now.

He is well respected by many & hated by others. Neocons do not care for Hersh’s style of investigative journalism & they have various arguments for this but what it boils down to is that he uncovers or reveals the truth about events which they believe should remain secret & that the official accounts of such events are the only acceptable versions of these events whether it is the massacre at Mi Lai or the torturing taking place at Abu Ghraib or Guantánamo Bay or the Massive bombings of Fallujah or Samarra.

The problem , if you like, that Seymour Hersh has is that he seems to actually believe in the Democratic ideals which the Neocons claim to espouse but mainly just pay lip service to . And of course this stance on the part of Neocons is better understood once we see their relationship to the political philosophy of Leo Strauss who claimed society is best served by an elite who are permitted to use “Noble Lies” to promote their own agenda & to promote peace & security for America & ,at the least , prosperity for themselves. But more on the shadowy figure of Leo Strauss at another time.
___________________________________________________________________________
Here is a short Bio of his work from the website of The Lavin Agency
http://www.thelavinagency.com/college/seymourhersh.html
SEYMOUR HERSH

“ Seymour Hersh is one of America's finest investigative journalists. His work has challenged abuses of power and held the privileged to account in the court of public opinion.

Seymour Hersh has uncovered some of the most important news stories of our times, and in the process shown America that power, and the exercising of that power on the international stage, comes with a price. Nowhere is that more true than in his most recent bestseller, Chain of Command: The Road from 9/11 to Abu Ghraib, which has made him once again a subject of national and international attention. Hersh's work has won more than a dozen major journalism prizes, including the Pulitzer Prize for International Reporting and four George Polk Awards.

He told the world of the CIA's complicity in the overthrow of Salvador Allende in Chile; of the secret B-52 bombing of Cambodia; of the unconstitutional wiretapping of newsmen and White House aides authorized by Henry Kissinger; of the CIA's illegal spying on American antiwar activists and other citizens (which led to the widely publicized Senate investigations into the CIA).

In the 1980's Hersh revealed the CIA's illicit sale of U.S. weapons to Libya; the drug-running, vote-stealing, and other criminal activities of Panama's General Noriega; the CIA's complicity with South Africa's spying on the African National Congress; the deceit and incompetence of the 1983 U.S. invasion of Grenada; and the growth of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal... His reporting goes far beyond headlines to the core problems of ideology and personal intrigue that drive so much of American foreign policy. ”
___________________________________________________________

And from the website SALON.COM in BRILLIANT CAREERS David Rubien has this to say about Seymour Hersh
http://archive.salon.com/people/bc/2000/01/18/hersh/

“ The man who broke the story of Vietnam's My Lai massacre is still the hardest-working muckraker in the journalism business. ”

And he continues:

Investigative reporter Seymour Hersh must feel like he's howling into the darkness sometimes. His eighth and latest book, "Against All Enemies," which gruesomely details the extent of Gulf War Syndrome and the government's attempts to pretend it doesn't exist, has been selling indifferently and has been ignored by a surprising number of reviewers. His 1972 "Cover-Up," a report on the Army's cowardly investigation of the My Lai massacre -- the bloodbath Hersh had previously exposed in his blockbuster "My Lai 4" -- also sold poorly. When he revealed in 1991's "The Samson Option" that Israel was secretly stockpiling nuclear weapons, the response was yawns.

And as Lakshmi Chaudhry says in an article posted at AlterNet. October 27, 2004 about Seymour Hersh .

See: AlterNet: The Mix is the Message/MediaCulture
Seymour Hersh: Man On Fire
http://www.alternet.org/mediaculture/20309/

“ For when Seymour Hersh speaks, he does so with unparalleled insight, passion, and candor. He is willing to say what most other star journalists rarely permit themselves to even think in this era of celebrity journalism, when image is king. When Hersh speaks, it's for two simple reasons: it's important and he cares. It's why we care to listen.

Be it his coverage of the My Lai massacre during the Vietnam War or his recent work exposing the Abu Ghraib scandal in Iraq, Hersh has been a dedicated watchdog for democracy. His latest book, ""Chain of Command: The Road From 9/11 to Abu Ghraib," builds on his reporting as a staff writer at The New Yorker. The book – among other things – reveals how National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice was made aware of human rights abuses in Guantanamo Bay two years before the torture in Iraq took place. It is a searing indictment of the Bush administration for its willful ignorance, ideological agenda, and above all, a profound failure of leadership. ”

Past Peak: Cause for Alarm
HOME PAGE : http://www.pastpeak.com/
http://www.pastpeak.com/archives/2004/07/post_1.htm
July 15, 2004
Seymour Hersh's ACLU Keynote Speech Transcribed
On July 8, Seymour Hersh addressed the ACLU's 2004 Membership Conference.

As Hersh comments on the lack of critical media coverage of political affairs in America:

“ … The truth is, it's so ironic… the best information we may get about this election may come from a combination of The Control Room, Fahrenheit 9/11, John Sayles, the nightly news from Jon Stewart if some of you watch that. At the height of the prisoner abuse stories, [Jon Stewart] had one of his mock news broadcasters say very seriously to the camera, on the Stewart show, he said, "The important thing is not that we commit torture and abuses, it's that we're a country that doesn't condone torture and abuses" [laughter] — that's a wonderful line. ”
__________________________________________________________
And as for what’s been happening since the Invasion & Forced Take-over of Iraq in April of 2003 here are some of his observations:
See website: The Shalom Centre
http://www.shalomctr.org/

SEYMOUR HERSH on Being Honored by SHALOM CTR, December 2005 with the MENORAH AWARD for bringing new light into dark places.

SEYMOUR HERSH:
“ About what's going on in terms of the President is that as virtuous as I feel, you know, at The New Yorker, writing an alternative history more or less of what's been going on in the last three years, George Bush feels just as virtuous in what he is doing.

He is absolutely committed... George Bush thinks this is the right thing. He is going to continue doing what he has been doing in Iraq. He's going to expand it, I think, if he can.

I think that the number of body bags that come back will make no difference to him. .. because he will see it as a price he has to pay to put America where he thinks it should be. So, he's inured in a very strange way to people like me, to the politicians, most of them who are too cowardly anyway to do much.

It gives Rumsfeld the right to do an awful lot of things he has been wanting to do, and that is basically manhunting and killing them before they kill us...”

And further he comments about the concentration & abuse of power that there are many in the Intelligence Community & in the military who do not support the policies of the administration but there is little they can do about it ...since...“ the amazing thing is we have been taken over basically by a cult, eight or nine neo-conservatives have somehow grabbed the government. ”

You do have to wonder what a Democracy is when it comes down to a few men in the Pentagon and a few men in the White House having their way. What they have done is neutralize the C.I.A. because there were-- serious senior analysts who disagree with the White House, with Cheney, basically, that's what I mean by White House, and Rumsfeld on a lot of issues, as somebody said, the goal in the last month has been to separate the apostates from the true believers. That's what's happening. ”

And goes onto more disturbing observations about the Bush administration & the War In Iraq which he claims has become a “ free- fire zone ” & “a turkey shoot ” & “ bombing the country into the stone age”...

“ ...Since we installed our puppet government, this man, Allawi, who was a member of the Mukabarat, the secret police of Saddam, long before he became a critic, and is basically ‘Saddam-lite’.

...every month, one thing happened: the number of sorties, bombing raids..., and the number of tonnage dropped has grown exponentially each month. We are systematically bombing that country.

“...which means that what happened in Fallujah, essentially Iraq -- some of you remember Vietnam -- Iraq is being turned into a “free-fire zone” right in front of us. Hit everything, kill everything. I have a friend in the Air Force, a Colonel, who had the awful task of being an urban bombing planner ...to make urban bombing be as unobtrusive as possible. ”

On the “Sunday after Fallujah I called him at home., and he has one of those caller I.D.’s, and he picked up the phone and he said, “Welcome to Stalingrad.” We know what we're doing. This is deliberate. It's being done. They're not telling us. They're not talking about it. ”

And in another article in The New Yorker magazine Seymour Hersh uncovers the secret operations for renditions & torture:

THE GRAY ZONE
How a secret Pentagon program came to Abu Ghraib.
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2004-05-24
Posted 2004-05-15

as he states the case:

"The roots of the Abu Ghraib prison scandal lie not in the criminal inclinations of a few Army reservists but in a decision... by Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, to expand a highly secret operation, which had been focused on the hunt for Al Qaeda, to the interrogation of prisoners in Iraq. Rumsfeld’s decision embittered the American intelligence community, damaged the effectiveness of elite combat units, and hurt America's prospects in the war on terror.

"According to interviews with several past and present American intelligence officials, the Pentagon’s operation ...encouraged physical coercion and sexual humiliation of Iraqi prisoners in an effort to generate more intelligence about the growing insurgency in Iraq. A senior C.I.A. official ...said that the operation stemmed from Rumsfeld ’s long-standing desire to wrest control of America’s clandestine and paramilitary operations from the C.I.A."

See:
Hersh, Seymour M. : CHAIN OF COMMAND: THE ROAD FROM 9/11 TO ABU GHRAIB, PUB. 2004

Columbia University, Graduate School of Journalism
Graduation 2003
Journalism Commencement Address by Seymour Hersh
(audio is available at the website)
http://www.jrn.columbia.edu/students/graduation2003/hersh.asp


THE NEW YORKER
THE COMING WARS
What the Pentagon can now do in secret.
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2005-01-24 and 31
Posted 2005-01-17

From DEMOCRACY NOW
Wednesday, January 26th, 2005
Seymour Hersh: "We've Been Taken Over by a Cult"
http://www.democracynow.org/article

By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 11 October 2004
Watch the Webcast: Seymour Hersh
UC BERKELEY
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases

PBS.org NOW
2.21.03
Politics and Economy
Transcript: Jane Wallace Interviews Seymour Hersh
http://www.pbs.org/now/transcript/transcript_hersh.html


Then there are a couple of interviews of Seymour Hersh by Amy Goodman of Democracy Now :

Monday, May 17th, 2004
Rumsfeld Knew: Iraq Prison Abuse Part of Pentagon-Approved Black Ops Program
http://www.democracynow.org

Tuesday, June 22nd, 2004
Seymour Hersh: Israeli Agents Operating in Iraq, Iran and Syria
interview of Seymour Hersh by Amy Goodman for Democracy Now

See for instance New York Times editorial:
Restoring Our Honor
May 6, 2004, Thursday
By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN (NYT); Editorial Desk
(reprinted at Peace Corp Online: http://peacecorpsonline.org

"I have never known a time in my life when America and its president were more hated around the world than today"

see for instance on Mi Lai

CUSP
JOANNA BOURKE, Men and Killing
23 February 2000
Kingston University
http://www.kingston.ac.uk/cusp/Lectures/bourke.htm


Also see comparisons of Mi Lai to Torture at ABU GHRAIB

COUNTERPUNCH
Weekend Edition
May 1 / 3, 2004
An Army Vet on Prisoner Torture in Iraq
Abu Ghraib as My Lai?
By DIANE REJMAN
http://www.counterpunch.org/


And from PORTLAND INDEPENDENT MEDIA CENTER
April 15, 2004
imperialism & war
Falluja = My Lai Massacre revisited
Bring the criminals to justice. NOW!
My Lai Massacre

On attrocities in Iraq see:
website: NOT IN OUR NAME
http://www.notinourname.net
Wasting Fallujah & THE HIDDEN MASSACRE
US used white phosphorus in Iraq
BBC. November 16, 2005

STEPHEN HARPER " GOTTA STOP THOSE QUEERS & HOMOS & START BLOWING THINGS UP " ???
Posted by Picasa

Thursday, April 13, 2006

PAUL ROBERTS & ANTHONY SHADID & THE HORRORS OF THE U.S. INVASION OF IRAQ & THE DEAFENING SILENCE OF THE MEDIA


THE DEBACLE IN IRAQ
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THE NIGHTMARE IN IRAQ
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PICTURE FROM www.DubyasWorld.com
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CANADIAN S.O.S.
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FROM www.dubyasWorld.com : THE NEED TO STOP ALL NEGATIVE NEWS STORIES ON IRAQ OR NEW ORLEANS
Posted by Picasa

Anyway I just read a couple of good books on the Iraqi War which I would
like to recommend ..

One is the War Against Truth by Canadian journalist Paul William Roberts & the other is Night Draws Near by Pulitzer Prize-winner for journalism Anthony Shadid . These two journalists are examples of Journalist with some integrity.
Both authors were on the ground during the Invasion & Occupation of Iraq & were not embedded with the US military or other forces & so were able to report more openly & accurately about the situation as it unfolded. Both were also were able to talk to average Iraqi citizens as well as with military personnel .
Unfortunately many journalist fearing for their personal safety or were naive enough to actually believed the military would be open & honest with them about the unfolding situation. Of course this is not an issue for journalist who are as committed to the Bush’s administration’s overall view of the world & its ultimate goals.
Both authors have attempted to cut through the Western Media's propaganda about the war. They also give a more intimate account of the War in Iraq & put a human face on this great tragedy. Of course all of this is wasted on those who support President Bush & his administrators since they believe that they are the truly enlightened ones & can by definition do no wrong as they are the very people who are defending Christendom & the West & Capitalism & their peculiar version of Freedom & Democracy from the Savage Arabs & Muslims of the World. The invective & maledicta they use cannot point in any other direction except to create a climate of Hate & Intolerance to all Arabs & Muslims.
They have done their job well since even many individuals who see themselves as “ liberals “ or Humanists & as open-minded or fair-minded have more often than not fallen for these stereotypes & racist attitudes towards all Arabs & Muslims. Even they forget that those who attacked New York on 9/11 represented a small minority in the Islamic World . This minority has grown more emboldened though with each & every brutal attack on innocent civilians in Iraq, Afghanistan or elsewhere.
Whether or not the war with Saddam Hussein was justified it becomes apparent how the US botched the whole thing. Unless ,of course, their intent was to literally destroy the country & culture of Iraq which many Iraqis & others have come to believe.
The so-called “ Clash of Civilizations “ has to a great extent become a self-fulfilling prophecy .
For instance ; The US administration knew there would be some serious problems arising over law & order , and re-establishing the infra structure i.e. communications television radio, telephone water supplies, sewage treatment, electricity, & gasoline supplies , food & medical facilities & medical supplies as well as medical personnel once the regime of Saddam Hussein was toppled but they did not prepare for it.
And the US led forces continued for month after month which stretched into at least the first two years of occupation to do little to give aid to the Iraqi civilian population. After the US forces attacked a city , a town a village a neighborhood they little or nothing to give medical aid to Iraqi civilians since the Americans saw all Iraqis as the enemy & therefore as potential terrorists or insurgents & so refused to give them even basic humanitarian aid . This doesn't surprise those of us who were against the war since time & again Bush & his cronies said that the Geneva Convention & other International agreements no longer applied to the US forces in Iraq or elsewhere . From their point of view America is the final arbitrator of the Moral as well as of International Law.
The Neocons believe all these laws were drawn up by a discredited " Liberal Elite " comprised of " Secular Humanists " & Communist front groups like the ACLU & Pro-Choice & other special interest groups such as Amnesty International, World Watch & evil pernicious groups like the International Red Cross which insists doctors , nurses & other medical personnel as well as Hospitals & ambulances are not legitimate military targets. So Us forces blew up hospitals, first aid stations & clearly marked ambulances if they gave medical treatment to wounded insurgents or even innocent civilians.
The US forces often led reprisals against areas from which Insurgents supposedly came from & so would revenge themselves again on innocent non-combatants killing as many as they thought fit . At times the US forces seem to have acted in a manner more often ascribed to the Nazis of Germany in the Second World War or to the very Terrorists they claimed they were fighting . Of course to adopt the tactics of Terrorist seems odd to some of us since then one loses the Moral High-Ground as it were since one is no better than those you are fighting but NeoCons do not like such wimpy liberal sentimental unrealistic views .
For the NeoCons it is only by showing the enemy brutal naked force that one can subdue them & thereby eliminate them as a threat & as they tell us this has worked well in Iraq & Afghanistan & elsewhere even if it means bombing them back into the stone-age . For instance the Neocons & Religious or Christian Right believe it is appropriate , given the aims of their enemies , to use rather deliberate & brutal actions to control the “ Enemy Population” i.e. Iraqis .
And so it is justifiable To enter a neighborhood & then barge into peoples home waving their rifles around & shouting in English at men , women & children who speak Arabic & not English to then search their homes smashing the family's possessions , terrorizing them doing body searches while pointing the barrels of their guns to the heads of women & children while shouting & swearing at them .
This is not an exaggeration as many US soldiers in interviews have said in preparation for going to Iraq they were told all Iraqi's were their enemy & that they were a little less than human & that all Arabs & Muslims were godless evil creatures out to destroy America & Christianity. So what's a soldier to think especially a 17 or 18 year old kid who was told very little if anything about the Geneva Conventions or other International Agreements on The Rules of Engagement & then is told he must avenge the thousands murdered on 9/11 . And how should they behave when they are told that they are permitted to use whatever force or tactics they wish including humiliation, intimidation, threats, torture , mutilation of corpses & even shooting women & children. After what we are told has taken place at Quantanimo & Abu Ghraib there seems to be no real restraint placed on US forces or their allies in Iraq. The few who have been tried for such wrong -doing are merely a few scapegoats to appease the public who don't really understand the nature & dirtiness of war . These are the Neo-Cons martyrs to their cause. Most merely received a slap on the wrist even for killing prisoners in their care. Since only American lives count for anything ; what can one expect ?
For instance Paul Roberts points out that American forces have illegally used & continue to use anti-personnel cluster bombs in areas where there are innocent civilians who will also be killed .
Each of these cluster bombs when they explode scatter thousands of little bombs ripping into the bodies of anyone in the vicinity . But not all the little bombs or “ bomblets” go off & it just so happens the “ bomblets” look like a child’s spin top which then explodes when someone picks it up. This is done quite deliberately it seems in the same way the Americans have used Napalm or Napalm like incendiary chemicals on the attack on Fallujah & elsewhere in Iraq even though the use of such chemicals are prohibited by International Agreement which the US signed. As has been noted before the Americans may sign such agreements to appear as being somewhat reasonable but when it suits their purposes they chose to ignore them or prevaricate in various ways by putting their own Spin on the issue ; and putting their Public Relations people to work & by using Neo-Conservative lawyers to explain to the American public that the Us administration & military forces are either not doing what they are doing or that they are not really in breach of the particular agreement at issue.
This is how they have treated the issue of torture since day one- i.e. “We don’t use torture”, “Sometimes we use torture but it’s necessary ”,or These prisoners of war are not really prisoners of war but detainees & are terrorist & so international law does not apply to them” or “ What we do is not really torture .” Humiliation , beatings , sleep-deprivation & making a prisoner masturbate or perform sodomy these according to the average American , Canadian & British Good Little Christian Neoconservative do not see this as torture but as part of doing God’s work so we are told by the Bushites and their puppets in the Media .

Anyway don’t fret next stop Iran with Bunker Buster Mini-Nukes all for what aim well whatever Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Paul Wolfowitz & Condoleezza Rice can come up with because they just want to rule the world & what’s so wrong about that their little puppets Tony Blair & Stephen Harper would like to know. It seems to me if I remember correctly when the Soviet Union did this sort of thing the Americans & her allies used to go ballistic , my, my how times have changed in this best of all possible worlds as Voltaire might add... These guys used to get all teary-eyed when they heard about some dissident in the USSR being tortured or even imprisoned for his or her beliefs or public utterings now any member of a US department who speaks out even on Global Warming or Evolution or whether or not NOAH literally in historical terms sailed on the biggest bloody ship ever built all so their God could invent rainbows ah well there you go... Freedom’s just another word for nothing left to lose someone once said...

The horror inflicted upon the Iraqi people by the US forces & their allies appears as completely unnecessary . The tragedy of the war was just another horror inflicted upon a people who had suffered for some thirty years under the rule & tyranny of Saddam Hussein &then had to undergo the ordeal of years of a pointless war with Iran followed by Saddam’s invasion of Kuwait followed by the US counter-attack & then ten years of oppressive draconian sanctions which contributed to the deaths of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians leaving the country rather destitute before the US 2003 invasion.
There were no weapons of Mass Destruction & no connection with Al Qeda & the 9/11 attack.

Anyway the authors of these two books try to put the present situation in an historical context of the history of the Middle East especially since the time of the First World War. At that time much was promised to the Arabs who were willing to fight on the side of the British & French . In the end the Arabs were betrayed & the British & French and others carved up what they won from the Germans & the Turks leaving the Arabs to once again be left ruled by another group of conquerors. And so now they have been conquered again by another nation & so history of Iraq continues from broken promises & conquerors to Tyrants to new Conquerors .
As Kurt Vonnegut used to say , “ and so it goes, Hi, HO ”


Paul William Roberts HOME PAGE
www.paulwmroberts.com/
A WAR AGAINST TRUTH : An Intimate Account of the Invasion of Iraq pub. 2004

"With regard to Iraq, we are continuing to act as imperialists or colonizers in a post-colonial age. The more we attempt to remake the world in our own image, the deeper the resentment against us will grow." -- PWR, 2002.

"Despite the bitter humor and riveting eyewitness accounts of the Iraq tragedies, a serious reading of this lacerating account of the crimes and the lives of the victims is about as enjoyable as ripping off scabs. But it is so vivid and compelling that it is impossible to put it down. Reading it is not only painful, but also as necessary as opening one's eyes in the morning, for those who want to perceive the world as it is and to do something about it."
-- Noam Chomsky on A WAR AGAINST TRUTH


2. Interview with "Night Draws Near" author Anthony Shadid
Sherri Muzher, Electronic Iraq, 30 September 2005

Appropriately beginning with the day of amnesty at the infamous Abu Ghreib prison when Saddam Hussein released all the prisoners, the new book Night Draws Near is an illuminating look into the ordinary lives of Iraqis during not so ordinary times. From this day on, author and Pulitzer Prize-winning war correspondent Anthony Shadid gets his first peek into deep-seated complaints and the long history of Iraqis, hardened by modern events but always proud of their identity.

Shadid, a 36-year-old Washington Post correspondent who chose not to be embedded with the military when the 2003 war was launched, embarks on a journey into the lives of numerous Iraqis. From the young girl Amal who writes a diary about the war and death she doesn't understand to Iraqi sculptor Mohamed Ghani who laments the looting and destruction of Iraqi historical artifacts to the clairvoyant Islamic mystic Hazem who provided comfort to Shadid's friend, Nasir Mehdawi, Shadid helps us to understand a society that was clearly misunderstood by the architects of the Iraq War. Not only does Shadid humanize the conflict, but he also explores the intersection of Eastern and Western cultures at a time of conflict.


See wbsites:
INFORMATION CLEARING HOUSE for daily news
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/

THE NEW YORKER
THE COMING WARS
What the Pentagon can now do in secret.
by SEYMOUR M. HERSH
Issue of 2005-01-24 and 31
Posted 2005-01-17

From DEMOCRACY NOW
Wednesday, January 26th, 2005
Seymour Hersh: "We've Been Taken Over by a Cult"
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=05/01/26/1450204


By Bonnie Azab Powell, NewsCenter | 11 October 2004
Watch the Webcast: Seymour Hersh, 1 hour 22 minutes
UC BERKELEY
http://www.berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/10/11_hersh.shtml

Robert Fisk website & blog
which has audio & video of interviews & speeches of Robert Fisk
http://www.robert-fisk.com/

Other related books include:

Wheatcroft, Andrew : Infidels : THE conflict between Christendom and Islam, 638-2002 , Pub. 2003

Woodward, Bob : Bush At War Simon & Schuster Pub. 2002

Vidal, Gore : Dreaming War: Blood For Oil And The Cheney-Bush Junta,
pub. 2002

Hersh, Seymour M. : CHAIN OF COMMAND: THE ROAD FROM 9/11 TO ABU GHRAIB , PUB. 2004

Carter, GRAYDON : WHAT WE’VE LOST: BUSH’S WAR ON DEMOCRACY & FREEDOM , PUB. 2004

MARTIN , WILLIAM : WITH GOD ON OUR SIDE: THE RISE OF THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT IN AMERICA ( COMPANION TO THE PBS SERIES), PUB. 1996

FACKRE, GABRIEL : THE RELIGIOUS RIGHT & CHRISTIAN FAITH, PUB. 1982

MARTY, MARTIN E
& APPLEBY, R. SCOTT: THE GLORY AND THE POWER: THE FUNDAMENTALIST CHALLENGE TO THE MODERN WORLD ( COMPANION VOLUME TO THE PBS AND NPR TV SERIES) PUB. 1992

Anyway that's enough for now,
GOOD NIGHT ,AND GOOD LUCK
GORD>

Sunday, April 09, 2006

IRAQ TURNED TO RUBBLE , JOURNALISTS & TRUTH OR PROPAGANDISTS FOR BUSH & FRIENDS


THE FUTURE OF IRAN UNDER A MUSHROOM CLOUD !!!
INFINITEJEST.ORG

Posted by Picasa

IRAQ , "OH WHAT A LOVELY WAR !!! "
Posted by Picasa

BEN FRANKLIN & BUSH & THE POLICE STATE
Posted by Picasa / from www.dubasworld.com

And here a few quotes from C. S. Lewis ( 1898-1963) on Democracy , Tyrants & Theocracy:

Democracy demands that little men should not take big ones too seriously; it dies when it is full of little men who think they are big themselves.

Nothing gives one a more spuriously good conscience than keeping rules, even if there has been a total absence of all real charity and faith.

Unpublished letter (20 February 1955).

Of all bad men religious bad men are the worst. Of all created beings the wickedest is one who originally stood in the immediate presence of God.

Reflections on the Psalms, ch. 3.

Those that hate goodness are sometimes nearer than those that know nothing at all about it and think they have it already.

The Great Divorce, ch. 9.

Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies.

The Humanitarian Theory of Punishment, Res Judicatae (June 1953).

I am a democrat because I believe that no man or group of men is good enough to be trusted with uncontrolled power over others. And the higher the pretensions of such power, the more dangerous I think it both to the rulers and to the subjects. Hence Theocracy is the worst of all governments. If we must have a tyrant a robber baron is far better than an inquisitor. The baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity at some point be sated; and since he dimly knows he is going wrong he may possibly repent. But the inquisitor who mistakes his own cruelty and lust of power and fear for the voice of Heaven will torment us infinitely because he torments us with the approval of his own conscience and his better impulses appear to him as temptations. And since Theocracy is the worst, the nearer any government approaches to Theocracy the worse it will be. A metaphysic, held by the rulers with the force of a religion, is a bad sign. It forbids them, like the inquisitor, to admit any grain of truth or good in their opponents, it abrogates the ordinary rules of morality, and it gives a seemingly high, super-personal sanction to all the very ordinary human passions by which, like other men, the rulers will frequently be actuated.

Of Other Worlds, p. 81.


Being a democrat, I am opposed to all very drastic and sudden changes of direction (in whatever direction) because they never in fact take place except by a particular technique. That technique involves the seizure of power by a small, highly disciplined group of people; the terror and the secret police follow, it would seem, automatically. I do not think any group good enough to have such power. They are men of like passions with ourselves. The secrecy and discipline of their organisation will have already inflamed in them that passion for the inner ring which I think at least as corrupting as avarice; and their high ideological pretensions will have lent all their passions the dangerous prestige of the Cause. Hence, in whatever direction the change is made, it is for me damned by its modus operandi...

I must, of course, admit that the actual state of affairs may sometimes be so bad that a man is tempted to risk change even by revolutionary methods; to say that desperate diseases require desperate remedies and that necessity knows no law. But to yield to this temptation is, I think, fatal. It is under that pretext that every abomination enters. Hitler, the Machiavellian Prince, the Inquisition, the Witch Doctor, all claimed to be necessary.

see article : Why C. S. Lewis Is Not a Culture Warrior by Ralph C. Wood
www.thefellowship.info/documents/

And also see:
DAILY TIMES
http://www.dailytimes.com
Friday, March 03, 2006
PURPLE PATCH: I am a democrat... — Cs Lewis


And on Materialism & Reductionism see article at Discovery Institute website
C. S. Lewis and the Materialist Menace
By: John G. West
July 15, 1996
http://www.discovery.org

So anyway that brings me to where my discussion ended in my last post & continues with idea of Journalistic Integrity . One wonders if almost anyone in the profession of journalism can have integrity since they appear to be too close & chummy with those in power. They appear to be too easily manipulated by those in power. Up until the election of Stephen Harper as Prime Minister of Canada this applied more to the United States than to Canada but it seems our journalists are trying very hard to catch up. Now more & more journalist will have to take more seriously the more radical Neo-Conservatives & the angry & militant Religious & Christian Right who see everything in black & white terms of good versus evil & there are no grey area. To them our civilization is on the brink of disaster & only they have been able to see how all of this is playing itself out & only they have moral fibre & integrity & are aware of the dangers facing our society & only they have the vision to stop the destruction of our civilization ; that is Western democratic capitalist Christian society. This will be interesting to watch with Prime Minister Harper appearing to mimic George Bush’s style & possibly his militarism & expansionist agenda .

In my last blog I focused on the broadcast journalist Edward R. Murrow who was a journalist of personal integrity & had the courage of his convictions to take on powerful individuals like Joseph McCarthy whom Murrow believed was abusing his position of power to destroy the careers of individuals based on rumor, hearsay & innuendo. To some even now Edward R. Murrow & other like minded journalists should be impartial & objective in their reporting .
It is also believed that journalists , for instance, should not be using anonymous insiders in governments or in private corporations as whistle blowers to discover whether governments or corporations are being completely truthful to the public.

For instance when representatives of the federal government of a nation like the united States or Great Britain or Canada tells people that they want the people of their country to support the government & its military in their plan for going to war according to many journalist & the public in general should accept what those in power tell them as the “ Gospel Truth” & have “ Faith “ in those in power.
When the Bush administration presented their argument for going to war & invading Iraq they claimed their decision was based upon certain intelligence which had been gathered which those in authority claimed left them with no other option except to invade Iraq.
The Neo-Conservatives & the Christian Right telling us over & over again that we are involved in a Global Conflict with Terrorist call anyone who dares question those in power in the United States or Great Britain & Canada as being “unpatriotic ” “ soft on terrorism” “ anti-democracy” “ anti-Christian ” “anti-Capitalism ” “ anti-Western ” & part of the “ Great Secular Humanist Conspiracy ”
Others like Edward R. Murrow would argue that one should question those in authority & investigate to discover if what is being told to the public has some basis in fact .

There is this odd notion that journalist when reporting on a story they should be impartial & objective. It is claimed that both sides of a story should be given a fair hearing. It is contended that all sides be represented that each be given credibility . In many disputes or controversial events current or historical this approach may be appropriate. My contention ,as it were, is that this is not always the case. For instance Edward R. Murrow believed that Joseph McCarthy was abusing his position of power & Murrow made a judgement call. He believed there were important values at stake. There are certain instances in which one is forced to judge the merits of both sides & then render a judgement. Being fair-minded or open minded does not mean that one is simply “empty headed “ or that we do not hold to certain moral values. It is in this reluctance to make such judgements based upon certain moral principles that liberals & moderates & even those on the left have, at times, done a great disservice to themselves & to our society. It has left them without articulated principles or a comprehensible world view which can compete in the market place of ideas with those to the far right,& with the Neo-conservatives & the followers of Ayn Rand's " Objectivism" or the Christian Right or other fundamentalist religious groups be they Islamic or Hindu or some small fanatical cult . What is needed is a more comprehensive well thought out liberal philosophy which can be rigorously defended.

To digress for a moment consider some historical event like the Holocaust which sent six million Jews to their deaths. This was not a matter of opinion , it was & is not a matter to be resolved by public debate. First it is an historical fact. Secondly it was an act of horrifying proportion; if any act can be called “ evil” then it surely was an evil act. It was a crime against humanity since it was a deliberate attempt to wipe off of the face of the earth a particular group of people. Hitler & the Nazi party & millions of Germans focused all of their fear, resentment & hatred on the Jews of Europe claiming they were the cause of Germany’s & the world’s ills. My contention is that the extermination of six million people was morally wrong. Millions of other people stood by as the Holocaust took place & did nothing & did not speak up. Some because of indifference to Human Suffering while others did not speak up out of fear & others because they themselves were anti-Semitic & others did not believe it was happening or who could not imagine the extent of the tragedy .

Given the facts of the Holocaust ( SHOAH) if a journalist at that time had discovered Hitler’s plans for THE FINAL SOLUTION should the journalist keep quiet or should the journalist present “ both sides of the case ” entering into a debate that can not be debated. My belief is of course the journalist should speak up & report it without hesitation because it is his/ her duty as a journalist & as a human being to do so.
The Nuremberg Trials conducted after WWII attempted to bring about at least some form of justice to punish at least a few of those who took part in this horrendous event. This further led to the creation of a set of international laws to deal with any cases that might occur in the future .
The same I would argue applies to other similar situations such as the Genocide in Rawanda in the 1990's & the world then stood by & did nothing even though the world was told about it as it was happening.
So journalist at times are forced to speak out & to take sides.
This also applies to other atrocities committed in any part of the world whether it was committed by the Soviet Union in Tibet or a dozen other countries or the atrocities committed by the Khmer Rouge in Cambodia (1975-1979)or the more public attack on America by Al Qeda on 9/11 or the War Crimes of Saddam Hussein or those committed by American soldiers at My Lai ( or the hundred other villages wiped out in Vietnam by US soldiers) or by American soldiers Special Forces or C.I.A. in El Salvador, Chile, Gautemala or Honduras or at ABU Ghraib Or Quantanamo .
Torture, for instance, is not a relative term though Bush Rumsfeld et al think it is.. It along with Genocide & other Crimes Against Humanity are well defined by International Law though George W. Bush and his friends see themselves as the true & only & final interpreters of law since they are God’s Messengers & enforcers.
The Bush administration supported by Britain’s Prime Minister Tony Blair & now by the new Prime Minister of Canada Stephen Harper claim that they will not be ham-strung by what they consider to be antiquated & “ quaint” international laws. They therefore reject all such international laws including those regarding the rules of engagement & Crimes against humanity and the prohibition on torture & inhumane treatment of combatants, prisoners of war & non-combatants & the requirements on nations to protect non-combatants in a war zone & to take on the responsibility to look after the basic needs of the civilian population i.e. food, water, medical needs, clothing & adequate shelter etc. once they have replaced the regime that was in power when they attacked that country .

( In future blogs I will discuus further on the need for articulated values as we venture into the Death of God, Reductionism, & Relativism C.S. Lewis meets Immanuel Kant & Ludwig Wittgenstein for Tea at a nuclear test site - see you there - )

Anyway here are a couple of examples of how the Bush administration & its friends have misled the public as they changed their story about the threat Iraq & Saddam Huesein presented to the world as the agenda of the Bush administration changed from 2001 to the Invasion of Iraq in 2003 .
These examples show that the decisions of those in power ought to be questioned & investigated. How does this sort of “ Flip-Flop” actually take place ? Are these the sorts of leaders that the American, British & Canadian populace should put their trust in ?

2001: Powell & Rice Declare Iraq Has No WMD and Is Not a Threat
from the website THE MEMORY HOLE
http://www.thememoryhole.org/index.htm

During the run-up to the 2003 attack on Iraq, we were repeatedly told by US leaders that Iraq absolutely, positively had weapons of mass destruction [read more]. The country was an immediate threat not only to its neighbors but to the entire world. It had the capability of launching WMDs within 45 minutes.

In August 2002, Cheney insisted: "Simply stated, there is no doubt that Saddam Hussein now has weapons of mass destruction."

In a March 2003 address to the nation, Bush said: "Intelligence gathered by this and other governments leaves no doubt that the Iraq regime continues to possess and conceal some of the most lethal weapons ever devised."

In April 2003, Fleischer claimed: "But make no mistake--as I said earlier--we have high confidence that they have weapons of mass destruction. That is what this war was about and it is about."

In February 2003, Powell said: "We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction, is determined to make more."

But two years earlier, Powell said just the opposite. The occasion was a press conference on 24 February 2001 during Powell's visit to Cairo, Egypt. Answering a question about the US-led sanctions against Iraq, the Secretary of State said:

We had a good discussion, the Foreign Minister and I and the President and I, had a good discussion about the nature of the sanctions -- the fact that the sanctions exist -- not for the purpose of hurting the Iraqi people, but for the purpose of keeping in check Saddam Hussein's ambitions toward developing weapons of mass destruction. We should constantly be reviewing our policies, constantly be looking at those sanctions to make sure that they are directed toward that purpose. That purpose is every bit as important now as it was ten years ago when we began it. And frankly they have worked. He has not developed any significant capability with respect to weapons of mass destruction. He is unable to project conventional power against his neighbors. So in effect, our policies have strengthened the security of the neighbors of Iraq...

[See the page on the State Department Website with Powell's Cairo press conference. The Memory Hole's mirror of the page.]

AND further:

But Powell wasn't the only senior administration official telling the truth before the truth became highly inconvenient. On 29 July 2001, Condoleezza Rice appeared on CNN Late Edition With Wolf Blitzer (an anonymous reader sent me the full transcript from Lexis-Nexis). Guest host John King asked Rice about the fact that Iraq had recently fired on US planes enforcing the "no-fly zones" in Iraq. Rice craftily responds:

Well, the president has made very clear that he considers Saddam Hussein to be a threat to his neighbors, a threat to security in the region, in fact a threat to international security more broadly.

Notice that she makes it clear that Bush is the one who considers Hussein a threat. She doesn't say, "I consider..." or even, "We consider..."

Then King asks her about the sanctions against Iraq. She replies:

But in terms of Saddam Hussein being there, let's remember that his country is divided, in effect. He does not control the northern part of his country. We are able to keep arms from him. His military forces have not been rebuilt.


XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
In this news item we are told that much of what has happened in Iraq since the United States invaded the country the administration had been forewarned but refused to heed the warnings since they already had a plan & believed it to be workable & so refused to listen to any who doubted their plans & forecasts.


Common Dreams NewsCenter
http://www.commondreams.org
Published on Sunday, October 19, 2003 by the New York Times
State Dept. Study Foresaw Trouble Now Plaguing Iraq
by Eric Schmitt and Joel Brinkley


WASHINGTON, Oct. 18 — A yearlong State Department study predicted many of the problems that have plagued the American-led occupation of Iraq, according to internal State Department documents and interviews with administration and Congressional officials.

Beginning in April 2002, the State Department project assembled more than 200 Iraqi lawyers, engineers, business people and other experts into 17 working groups to study topics ranging from creating a new justice system to reorganizing the military to revamping the economy.

Their findings included a much more dire assessment of Iraq's dilapidated electrical and water systems than many Pentagon officials assumed. They warned of a society so brutalized by Saddam Hussein's rule that many Iraqis might react coolly to Americans' notion of quickly rebuilding civil society.

Several officials said that many of the findings in the $5 million study were ignored by Pentagon officials until recently, although the Pentagon said they took the findings into account. The work is now being relied on heavily as occupation forces struggle to impose stability in Iraq.

The working group studying transitional justice was eerily prescient in forecasting the widespread looting in the aftermath of the fall of Mr. Hussein's government, caused in part by thousands of criminals set free from prison, and it recommended force to prevent the chaos.

"The period immediately after regime change might offer these criminals the opportunity to engage in acts of killing, plunder and looting," the report warned, urging American officials to "organize military patrols by coalition forces in all major cities to prevent lawlessness, especially against vital utilities and key government facilities."

Despite the scope of the project, the military office initially charged with rebuilding Iraq did not learn of it until a major government drill for the postwar mission was held in Washington in late February, less than a month before the conflict began, said Ron Adams, the office's deputy director...

So see you later,
AND GOOD NIGHT & GOOD LUCK
GORD.