Rush Limbaugh Calls For Rioting in " Operation Chaos " at Democratic Convention While Hillary Ducks bullets & Mortar Shells

And for today a bit of this and a bit of that :

Anyway here's a bit of a spoof on Hillary's claim to have been forced to run across the Tarmak in Bosnia while being fired upon:

Hillary WASN'T LYING! Bosnia gunfire footage discovered...

Barely Political has unearthed the following footage of Hillary Clinton visiting Bosnia in 1996.



And now lets look at a fun filled video of keith Olbermann & Rachel Maddow discussing Rush limbaugh's recent remark that he hopes for riots and chaos at the Democratic Convention. He invokes the images of the violence which ensued at the 1968 Democratic Convention in Chicago.

Rachel Maddow on Limbaugh's Hope for Riots: Operation Chaos "

" Did Rush Limbaugh encourage his listeners to go to Denver in late August and riot during the Democratic National Convention? Rachel Maddow and Keith Olbermann discuss on MSNBC's Countdown. Aired 4/25/08."



Barack Obama - Barack Has To Keep Denouncing, Rejecting...Rev. Wright

Keith Olbermann runs it down with Richard Wolffe after the denouncing of Reverend Wright by Barack Obama. Most enjoyed both Rev. Wright, and Obama, I think. Anyway, we are looking for Indiana and N.C. numbers that matter so this freak show can end soon. Amen?

Part 1- 4/29/08




From Liveleak
Cheney's former firm accused of financial abuses in war-linked contracts
Tue, 29 Apr 2008 by Jihan Hafiz, Press TV, Washington



And by the way Cheney still believes he is above and beyond the Law and Congress . The American people or their elected representatives have no say over what Cheney can or cannot do. Nor have they any right to judge whether or not he acted in his own best interest or the country's. So its none of their business.
If he is not held accountable will the next administration continue with the same arrogant elitist strategy.

also see;

Cheney Lawyer Claims Congress Has No Authority Over Vice President -By Elana Schor The Guardian UK Tuesday 29 April 2008

The lawyer for US vice-president Dick Cheney claimed today that the Congress lacks any authority to examine his behaviour on the job.

The exception claimed by Cheney's counsel came in response to requests from congressional Democrats that David Addington, the vice-president's chief of staff, testify about his involvement in the approval of interrogation tactics used at Guantanamo Bay.

Ruling out voluntary cooperation by Addington, Cheney lawyer Kathryn Wheelbarger said Cheney's conduct is "not within the [congressional] committee's power of inquiry".

"Congress lacks the constitutional power to regulate by law what a vice-president communicates in the performance of the vice president's official duties, or what a vice president recommends that a president communicate," Wheelbarger wrote to senior aides on Capitol Hill.

The exception claimed by Cheney's office recalls his attempt last year to evade rules for classified documents by deeming the vice-president's office a hybrid branch of government - both executive and legislative.

The Democratic congressman who is investigating the legal framework for the violent interrogation of terrorist suspects, John Conyers, has asked Addington and several other top Bush administration lawyers to testify. Thus far all have claimed their deliberations are privileged.

and so it goes,
GORD.

John McCain's Pastor & Religious Right Friends & Their Hatred of Present Day America

For all the fuss about Reverend Wright and Barack Obama it is only fair to also examine closely the religious leaders to whom John McCain and Hillary Clinton have been associated with over the years. A couple of posts back we looked at Hillary's connections to the Fellowship and to the Extremist Right Winger Richard Mellon Scaife.
These ties preclude Hillary from bringing about any real reform to Washington .

Both have gone out of their way to ingratiate themselves with the leaders of the Religious Right and their supporters.

Both support a number of policies of the Bush Regime. Oh yest Hillary will provide more people with Health Care while fighting more wars.

Both are committed to more military actions in the Middle East and elsewhere. Both believe in keeping the American people in a perpetual state of " Fear ".

Neither of them is interested in reigning in the Growing Powers of The Executive Branch. Both of them appear to be believers in the political philosophy of Karl Rove & Dick Cheney .

Neither therefore is interested in investigating the Bush Regime & whether it lied to the American public to go to war against Iraq.

Neither is interested in investigating the Boon Doggle of Billions lost due to War-Profiteering. Halliburton & KBR & Blackwater etc. need not fear these two cheerleaders of the Military Industrial Complex and Perpetual War etc.

Fox/McCain Pal Rev. Rod Parsley Calls for War on Racist USA
John McCain's Outspoken Pastor & America's " moral compass"
American Government Supports Segregation ,Genocide & Racism
Systematically eliminating African-Americans

" I Came to incite a riot " Rod Parsley

March 28, 2008
I guess it's ok to accuse the USA of genocide and call for armed insurrection as long as you also tell your parishioners to watch Fox News and vote Republican.





John McCain's Spiritual Guides

John McCain has sought out the endorsement of some radical pastors. In this video we see some of Jerry Falwell, John Hagee, and Rod Parsley's greatest hits. John McCain also chimes in with a few gems of his own.

"...(America )has disobeyed the law of God And we as a nation are about to pay for that " John Hagee

NOTE: PASTOR HAGEE HAS REMOVED OVER 120 VIDEOS IN WHICH HE IS FEATURED ON YouTube.



Note: McCain appears to claim that only true believing Christians should become the leaders of America -
of course those of other faiths can run but he hopes they would never win


and here's a couple of videos showing the Mind-Set of John McCain & Hillary Clinton when it comes to war. Hard to tell the difference between them. But both believe all the propaganda about Iran and Syria now pouring out of Bush's White House . Hillary says when it came to Iraq Bush & CO. fooled her but they won't fool her again. Yet all the lies and innuendos and half-baked Intel on Iran and Syria produced by the same group of corrupt liars this time she says they are telling the truth. Is she so naive or just too much a part of the corrupt self-serving elite in Washington. Remember she once happily and unapologetically worked for WalMart. Hillary also believes that America has a right to dominate the world. She like McCain believes that America has never done anything wrong. Like McCain she believes in supporting her country , the Pentagon, and the Corporate elite right or wrong.

John McCain is Dr. Strangelove



Hillary Clinton ON NUKING Iran
How many other countries are on her wishlist ?
Syria , Jordan, Pakistan, North Korea , China , India !!!



Hillary and McCain : One and the same




And here's more on McCain's record when it comes to taking a stand against the Status Quo; he is the Status Quo

Why did he insist on chairing a committee and then refuse to listen to those invited to testify- he went further and berated and insulted these veterans and their families for daring to speak out-

from VETSAGAINSTMCCAIN

The group Vietnam Veterans Against McCain attacks Senator John McCain's heroism as a POW in the Vietnam conflict; this is making some waves in the news due to McCain's presidential candidacy. The documentary "Missing, Presumed Dead the Search for America's POWs" however focuses more on Senator John McCain successfully blocking the release of classified POW/MIA documents. Here is a DVD extra from that documentary. A DVD of the documentary may be purchased at www.MissingPresumedDead.com




Missing, Presumed Dead

Trailer for the documentary "Missing, Presumed Dead the Search for America's POW's"

The group Vietnam Veterans Against McCain attacks Senator John McCain's heroism as a POW in the Vietnam conflict; this is making some waves in the news due to McCain's presidential candidacy. The documentary "Missing, Presumed Dead the Search for America's POWs" however focuses more on Senator John McCain successfully blocking the release of classified POW/MIA documents. Here is an excerpt from that documentary. DVD of documentary may be purchased at www.MissingPresumedDead.com



and so it goes,
GORD.

Saddam The Monster the West Created & Western Culpability

Saddam the monster the West had created

Americans had trained Saddam's elite guard-
The French had supplied Iran with the Mirage Fighters -
The French also supplied Saddam with a sophisticated air defense system -

Yes it is true Saddam did have WMDS prior to his invasion of Iran . But the U.S. government & its various agencies were well aware of what WMDS Saddam had . They and other western nations knew what Saddam had because they supplied him with these weapons including the chemical and biological weapons . Western governments knew that various corporations in the West were selling these weapons to Saddam. So American, British, French, & German companies were making a healthy profit off of Saddam's purchases. They like their governments were uninterested in whether Saddam used these weapons on his own people. Saddam was encouraged to continue his brutal and bloody war against Iran to keep Iran from being any real threat to the West or to Israel. When Saddam 's brother " Chemical Ali "gassed the Kurds the Western nations tried to blame Iran for this attack . They had to shift the blame because to a great extent they too were culpable in these crimes.
These may be the actual facts of the matter but the Mass Media is more interested in re-writing history in order to protect the reputation and image of the United States and other Western governments and corporate concerns.
Facts and so-called " History " do not always fit together. History as we have known it is for the most part a matter of " Myth -Making" & a series of " Noble Lies " . Most people of course prefer these myths and comforting lies over the painful and disturbing facts as it were.

Those in power and their corporate friends and the super-rich see the public as children who must be told fairy tales which the public can then believe in. The truth they believe is not something the public, the citizenry need to know. Besides what's good for the elite and the corporations is good for the world.

WEB OF DECEIT PART 3

Western Complicity in the Halabja Massacre.
Part 3 from the shocking European documentary,"The Trial of Saddam Hussein We'll Never See" never shown in the U.S.
Read more in "Web of Deceit-the History of Western Complicity in Iraq from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush." just written by ex-60 Minutes producer Barry Lando.



Web of Deceit Part 4 1990: Sure Saddam, take Kuwait.

"US role in Saddam's invasion of Kuwait.
Another excerpt from the shocking European documentary never before seen in North America.
Check out producer Barry Lando's book WEB OF DECEIT and his blog at http://barrylando.com/
Anyone interested in distributing this documentary should contact the Capa Agency in Paris
http://www.capatv.com/capa_en/presset..."



and so it goes,
GORD.

HOLOCAUST UPDATE:NBC NEWS ON THE NAZIS SS EINSATZGRUPPEN REPORTED AS IF A NEW DISCOVERY

Anyway I have discussed the Holocaust and some of its lesser known details but I came across a couple of items which again caught my interest.

Besides we need to remind ourselves & our leaders about the horror and injustices of war as they brag & boast about " Obliterating " this or that nation without any regard to the millions of innocent civilians. War is not a Video Game- It is deadly & " the death of any man diminishes me " .

So now we are to prepare for a Nuclear strike on Iran or Syria or Pakistan for that is the way of the Christian Crusaders who wish to kill the infidel so we can go directly to paradise.

As we in the West without any regard to international Law or to our own national laws allowed Saddam to be tried without due process and then had him lynched . So once again we proved we do not really believe in justice for our GOD is REVENGE.

One is a news item on NBC speaking about the massacres in the Russian and Polish and other areas occupied by the Nazis. This should be old news but it is baffling & disturbing to realize how little most people know about the Holocaust and the overall barbarity of the Nazis and their collaborators.

The second thing was a Russian film made about one particularly brutal mass murder by the Nazis on Russian territory.

The third is a video dealing with the Babi Yar Massacre & a film featuring the Babi Yar Memorial Monument .

History tells us that the European settlers in North America eventually decided to remove or kill all native Americans so that these European settlers would have more room to spread out and take full advantage of the land and its minerals. So the Nazis believed they too had a right to clear a large sector of Eastern Europe and Russia so they too could spread out.

The Nazis like the Christian Europeans believed that this was their right and their destiny. It was their natural right as ordained by God or by the principles of Racial Purity and dominance as defined by their invented and dubious pseudo-science.It in the end they claimed a matter of the survival of the fittest.

Note for all those ignorant idiots & holocaust deniers, NeoNazis Skinheads & other demented low-lifes who think the SS Einsatzgruppen were such a brave & romantic group.
What is so brave & honorable about killing children & old people and unarmed men & women.

Soviet movie "Come and See" (1985) about NAZI atrocities.

These atrocities by the Germans and the local collaborators didn't just happen nor were they atypical or anomalies rather they were planned by Hitler & Heinrich Himmler & Heydrich and others.

The intent was for the SS Einsatzgruppen to follow behind the German forces as they moved further into Russia. The Special Task of the 20,000 or more members of these groups was to kill all Jews, Slavs or Partisans. They used the term 'partisan' quite liberally in order to kill vast numbers of non-combatants to mean just about anyone they believe to be racially inferior. ( American forces in Iraq use the term 'Insurgent ' or " suspected insurgent ' to justify indiscriminate killing, arresting, imprisoning & torturing of non-combatants or civilians who once they enter the system are horribly brutalized and treated as animals .) Part of the strategy of the NAZI High Command was to clear large areas of their populations so pure Germans or Aryans could settle in the emptied areas. (Americans want to kill and demoralize and control the Iraqis so they can use the country as a base from which to attack other Middle Eastern Countries while sucking all the oil out of the ground that they can )The difference the Nazis were organized and the Americans are not .

Note: Graphic images - intense subject matter
Requiem pour un massacre/ with music & no sound
Requiem For A Massacre
August 13, 2006- Montage from Russian movie " COME AND SEE " 1985
Montage du film d'Elem Klimov, musique d'Henryk Gorecki. Einsatzgruppen en Biélorussie, 1943.



This is the same montage of the film Come and See with complete sound.
" COME AND SEE "A RUSSIAN FILM 1985




" Come and See " part 2 with Eng subtitles
The rest of the full length film is available at YouTube.




Babi Yar Requiem
January 21, 2008
Monument for Babi Yar. Babi Yar was a ravine in Kiev where, in 1941, the Nazis' rounded up, stripped, shot, and pushed 100,000 Jews (and others) into the pit, then covered it up



The following is an odd bit from NBC news in 2007.
The massacres committed by the S.S. Einsatzgruppen/ Special Forces or Death Squads was well known by the time of the Nuremberg trials of the 1960s -Many people did not want to believe how utterly depraved and barbaric these so called members of the Master Race really were. People also don't like to face the fact that many of the local populations were quite willing to help murder their neighbors who were Jews or Gypsies or any whom the German Nazis considered worthy of death.

Anyway like most Americans the reporters at NBC only know what they learned about the Holocaust from Hollywood movies such as Schindler's List or Sophie's Choice . What they want to believe is that only a few Germans took part in these killings and not that hundreds of thousands actively participated in the killings while millions who knew helped round up Jews and others to be deported or killed. It also took a fairly well informed bureaucracy to make sure that the trains ran on schedule and that everything ran like clock-work. For what does a bureaucrat care if they are helping to ship food to people or soldiers or Jews to Auschwitz. For them it is just more paper work to be completed.

Holocaust in the Ukraine ( Patrick Desbois ) from NBC NEWS



The horror of the Nazi slaughter of over twelve million people which included some six million Jews is beyond comprehension for most people. Those who were the targets of the Nazi Killing Machine were mostly civilians that is non-combatants . These were not soldiers killed on the battlefield . Those murdered by the Nazis included the elderly and children and pregnant women and women with small children.

Unfortunately even today there are those who defend the Nazis and the SS and characterize these brutal cowardly and insane demented killers as if they were brave heroes. What bravery is it that shoots or gases an infant or a two year old child or an eighty year old frail man or woman.Yet today once again in Russia and Croatia and Germany Poland these Neo-Nazi thugs are on the rise once again. They wrap themselves in their national flags and talk of their homeland and how they must deport or exterminate all so-called foreign elements (people) from their precious Homeland. And there are always those politicians or even religious leaders who will use such fanatics to further their own personal agenda ; the gaining of power, influence, some twisted version of respect or wealth etc.

Anyway not all the Jews or others targeted by the Nazis were killed at the various labor camps or death camps.Large numbers in fact were killed by shootings , by starvation, by disease by being worked to death. Many died in the transport trains or on forced marches or died in the over-crowded Ghettoes from hunger or disease. But make no mistake all of these deaths were as a direct result of the Nazis Policies. One of the reasons I mention this is that those who deny that the Holocaust never occurred or has been widely exaggerated often focus on what they see as contentious issues such as the Gas Chambers, Gassing Vans , the Crematoria and say six million Jews could not have all been killed in the Death Camps but their reasoning is based on a complete misrepresentation of the facts and outright fabrications and a denial of the validity any statements by the witnesses of these atrocities whether the witnesses are Jewish or Russian, or Polish Catholic or a former member of the Waffen SS.

** UPDATE 8:59 PM, April 26

" ...Like every historical event, the Holocaust evokes certain specific images. When the Holocaust is mentioned most people immediately think of the concentration camps. They immediately envision emaciated victims in dirty striped uniforms staring incomprehensibly at their liberators or piles of corpses, too numerous to bury individually, being bulldozed into mass graves.

Those are accurate images. Those horrific scenes are real. They happened. But they are not all of the Holocaust. They are merely the end product of the systematization of the genocide committed by the Third Reich. The reality of that genocide began not in the camps or in the gas chambers but with four small groups of murderers known as the Einsatzgruppen formed by Himmler and Heydrich immediately before the invasion of the Soviet Union. They operated in the territories captured by the German armies during the invasion of the Soviet Union and, with the cooperation of German army units and local militias, murdered over a million men, women, and children. It was a story that did not end until 1952 when Otto Ohlendorf, the last surviving commander of an Einsatzgruppe (Einsatzgruppe D), climbed the steps of the gallows to pay for the more than 90,000 murders his command committed. "

From: An Itroduction to the Einsatzgruppen:an essay by Yale F. Edeiken

Gli Einsatzgruppen-
Not in English but in the International Language of Murder and Bestiality.
Force is all we know.

Real footage of Einsatgruppen at work & includes scenes of Babi Yar
Nel 1941 i nazisti diedero inizio al massacro degli ebrei russi e si servirono degli Einsatgruppen - che spesso venivano reclutati dalle popolazioni locali occupate.




References & Bibliography

Jewish Virtual Library: From Shootings to Gas Vans

Jewish Virtual Library

Also see TV series narrated by Linda Hunt Auschwitz: The Nazis and the Final Solution at PBS.Org

And see :
BBC TWO, January 2005

also check out the following websites:

The Stephen Roth Institute for the Study of Contemporary Antisemitism and Racism, Tel-Aviv University.

The Dachau Gas Chambers.an essay by Harry W. Mazal OBE

Academic Info
Holocaust Studies - Directory of Online Resources

friends of simon wiesenthal center for holocaust studies

An Itroduction to the Einsatzgruppen:an essay by Yale F. Edeiken

also see: Einsatzgruppen: DEATHCAMPS.ORG

and: Einsatzgruppen/ www.shoaheducation.com


For more on this matter here are some books I would recommend :

Carsten, F. L.: The Rise of Fascism , pub.

Carroll, James: Constantine’s Sword: The Church and The Jews-
A History , Pub. 2001.

Cohen- Sherbok, Dan: The Crucified Jew: Twenty Centuries of Anti-Semitism, pub. 1992.

Cohn, Norman : Warrant for Genocide: The Myth of the Jewish World Conspiracy and the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, pub. 1996.

Dawidowicz, Lucy S.: The War Against the Jews 1933-1945, Pub. 1986

Gilbert, Martin: Auschwitz and the Allies, pub. 1990

Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah : A Moral Reckoning :The Role of the Catholic Church in the Holocaust and Its Unfulfilled Duty of Repair, pub. 2002

Kertzer, David I. : The Popes Against The Jews: The Vatican's Role in The Rise of Modern Anti‑Semitism, pub. 2001

Lewy,Guenter The Nazi Persecution of the Gypsies , pub. 2000

Rees, Laurence : Auschwitz: A New History ,pub. 2005

Rhodes,Richard: Masters of Death: The SS-Einsatzgruppen And The Invention of the Holocaust by Richard Rhodes, pub. 2002

Wistrich, Robert S. :ANTISEMITISM: THE LONGEST HATRED, pub. 1992

& Waffen SS: Hitler's Blackguard at War ,by Christopher Allsby , pub. 1997 ( NOTE: glorifies the Waffen SS dismissive of their role in wholesale slaughter of Jews , Gypsies, Poles Slavs etc.)

and so it goes,
GORD.

Gord's Poetry Factory: SS KILLING SQUADS : THE EINSATZGRUPPEN TO GASSING VANS Heroic Baby Killers???

Gord's Poetry Factory: SS KILLING SQUADS : THE EINSATZGRUPPEN TO GASSING VANS Heroic Baby Killers???

Hillary Clinton Joins with Richard Mellon Scaife & Goes over to the Darkside

More questions raised over Hillary and Bill Clinton and who they really represent and what is their true agenda - Power at any price or worse ???

Hillary Clinton and Richard Mellon Scaife - How Far to the Right is Hillary

Ideology of Scaife supported groups:

... As soul mates in what they considered a war over American values, the groups to which he gave shared a core set of conservative beliefs evident in the way they described their missions.

For example, the Foundation for Economic Education promotes "individual freedom, private property, limited government, free trade." The Pacific Legal Foundation works "for less government and the preservation of free enterprise, private property rights and individual liberties." The Reason Foundation advocates "public policies based upon individual liberty and responsibility and a free-market approach." Lower taxes and fewer regulations are also part of the broadly shared program.

In the realm of national security, Scaife-supported groups have a similarly shared view of the need for a bristling national defense and vigilance against communism and terrorism.
see reference below **




Photograph of Bill Clinton and Rev. Wright Surfaces

The Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr. and President Bill Clinton at a prayer breakfast at the White House in September 1998.
By Kate Phillips at New York Times Blog


From Slate Magazine:Hillary's Rev. WrightHis name is Richard Mellon Scaife.
By Timothy Noah/Updated Tuesday, March 25, 2008

"Hillary Clinton has told the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review that she would have left her church if her pastor had made divisive comments like those of Barack Obama's minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. "He would not have been my pastor," sniffed La Clinton. "You don't choose your family, but you choose what church you want to attend."

The obvious reply is that you also choose which ministers receive the honor of an invitation to a White House prayer breakfast addressed by the president of the United States. Well, OK, maybe you don't, but the Clintons did, back in 1998, when Bill Clinton was seeking political absolution for his affair with a White House intern. As the Obama campaign is all too happy to point out, Wright was invited to that breakfast.


" Bill Clinton overcame whatever scruples he might harbor to raise money for his foundation. Hillary Clinton is now doing the same in the interest of her candidacy. She is free, of course, to associate with whomever she pleases. But she is not free, while paddling the sewers with Scaife, to judge Obama publicly for belonging to Wright's church. Compared with Scaife, Wright is St. Francis of Assisi. The only possible reason why any Pennsylvanian might judge Wright more harshly than Scaife is that Scaife is white and Wright is black. That must be obvious even to Hillary as she cozies up to this repulsive billionaire."

----------
And here is Bill Clinton's thank you note to Mr. Wright, dated Oct. 28, 1998:

Dear Pastor Wright:

Thank you so much for your kind message.
I am touched by your prayers and by the many expressions of encouragement and support I have received from friends across our country.

You have my best wishes.

Sincerely,
Bill Clinton
--------
And see article from Alternet Olbermann Asks Clinton About Scaife Alliance/Posted by Brave New Films/April 22,2008


Hillary Clinton Endorsed by Right-wing Extremist Richard Mellon Scaife
Scaife long time supporter and funder of right wing organizations and think-tanks.
Not she also gets to dump on Obama & Rev. Wright once again

Olbermann asks HRC about unholy alliance with Scaife



Hillary Clinton siding with the Vast Right Wing Conspiracy!
Hillary's alliance with Richard Melon Scaife was not out of the blue but part of some sort of strategy.
So I wonder will she ally herself with extreme right wingers the John Birchers & mcCarthyites or whatever maybe she'll reach out to the Klan next- I don't think this is the sort of uniting Obama had in mind- he wants to reach out to those with similar values and views who tend to be somewhat reasonable -



Countdown: Strange Bedfellows/ April 01/2007
Counter-intuitive or strategy going back over a year
Keith Questions her motives , her integrity and her self-respect
( she has no shame!!!)



Update 10:41pm/ April 25
also see :
Who is Richard Mellon Scaife?



And from NBC: Doug Coe & The Family & The Cedars
Doug Coe Hillary's mentor/ The Christian Mafia
'The Fellowship' aka 'The Family' secretive DC prayer group
Is he as extreme as Rev. Wright. He believes in fanatical devotion to Jesus.
I wonder about how committed Hillary is to an open liberal & pluralistic society.
Is democracy merely a tool to be used for whatever her real agenda is ? More and more she sounds like John McCain or worse Dick Cheney et al.




** And for more on Richard Mellon Scaife see:
Scaife: Funding Father of the Right/By Robert G. Kaiser and Ira Chinoy/Washington Post/Sunday, May 2, 1999

Indeed, focusing on his role in the crusade against Clinton can obscure the 66-year-old philanthropist's real importance, which is not based on his opposition or support for any individual politicians (though he once gave Richard M. Nixon $1 million). His biggest contribution has been to help fund the creation of the modern conservative movement in America.

By compiling a computerized record of nearly all his contributions over the last four decades, The Washington Post found that Scaife and his family's charitable entities have given at least $340 million to conservative causes and institutions – about $620 million in current dollars, adjusted for inflation. The total of Scaife's giving – to conservatives as well as many other beneficiaries – exceeds $600 million, or $1.4 billion in current dollars, much more than any previous estimate.

In the world of big-time philanthropy, there are many bigger givers. The Ford Foundation gave away $491 million in 1998 alone. But by concentrating his giving on a specific ideological objective for nearly 40 years, and making most of his grants with no strings attached, Scaife's philanthropy has had a disproportionate impact on the rise of the right, perhaps the biggest story in American politics in the last quarter of the 20th century.

His money has established or sustained activist think tanks that have created and marketed conservative ideas from welfare reform to enhanced missile defense; public interest law firms that have won important court cases on affirmative action, property rights and how to conduct the national census; organizations and publications that have nurtured conservatism on American campuses; academic institutions that have employed and promoted the work of conservative intellectuals; watchdog groups that have critiqued and harassed media organizations, and many more.

Together these groups constitute a conservative intellectual infrastructure that provided ideas and human talent that helped Ronald Reagan initiate a new Republican era in 1980, and helped Newt Gingrich initiate another one in 1994. Conservative ideas once dismissed as flaky or extreme moved into the mainstream, and as the liberal National Committee for Responsive Philanthropy concluded in a recent report, "The long-standing conservative crusade to discredit government as a vehicle for societal progress has come to fruition as never before."



and so it goes,
GORD.

Hillary Clinton Will " OBLITERATE IRAN " GO GIRL GO ! & other madness

Anyway the Iraq war continues as bloody and as devastating as ever while the media claims the war is almost over . Yet over 1,000,000 Iraqis are dead and counting.
Meanwhile tens of thousands of Iraqis are kept in over crowded prisons run by the Americans where prisoners are routinely tortured .

But of course according to the Bush , Cheney , Hillary dictionary all Iraqis are enemy combatants and potential terrorists. Therefore, they argue the Iraqis are merely getting what they deserve. And as these Neocons including Hillary define ' torture ' differently than the rest of the civilized world they therefore claim only a few detainees have ever been tortured . Or they claim that anyone accused of being a terrorist or insurgent or even knowing a terrorist or insurgent ought to be tortured.

Further Bush Hillary and McCain claim anyone who is against the torture of detainees is by definition pro-terrorist and pro-insurgency . They therefore are unAmerican or anti-American. Human Rights are only guaranteed for loyal, patriotic, non-leftists Americans . Though some might argue such rights are only guaranteed for the white middle class and the rich with a few exceptions but that's rather extreme.

And once again Hillary Clinton is out to prove that if she becomes president she will not hesitate to use over-whelming force against Iran or any other nation. She appears to be trying to reassure American voters that her policies will be a continuation of those of the Bush Regime and the Neocons. Voting for her will be not much different than voting for Sen. John McCain. The slaughter of innocent civilians doesn't matter to her since the entire population of Iran or Iraq or any other enemy country are all to be considered as enemy combatants. And she sees no reason to rule out the use of nuclear weapons. As the Neocons argue - why have nuclear weapons if you are not willing to use them. And if this means all out nuclear war we can only assume Hillary is not going to flinch. As long as at the end of the day America and Israel are still standing as they wait for the Messiah .

Like Margaret Thatcher and Indira Gandhi before her she too will be as ruthless as any male world leader. But then again maybe it is more war that the American people actually want.

But then again according to the American media the most important concern Americans have in regards to anyone running for the Presidency is whether or not they believe in God and are good Christians who attend church services every week. This matters more than if the individual wants to drop nukes on civilian populations or supports a wide range of torture techniques to be used on 'detainees'.

Supposedly there is separation of Church and state in America and further there is not supposed to be a religious test for anyone running for any office. That was of course merely a dream and has never been the reality in American politics.

Anyway back to the issue of how more nurturing and loving and compassionate a woman president would be:Hillary says kill them all !!!

Updated with video 3:12 pm.

Hillary Clinton FEAR & MORE FEAR
Some call it Realism I call it Fear-Mongering
She's Frothing at the mouth like John McCain -

Hillary Clinton - 'Would Obliterate Iran'



Hillary Clinton Say's She'll Nuke Iran On Keith Olbermann




Massive attack US elections 2008: Hillary Clinton's pledge to 'obliterate' Iran if it attacks Israel is unnecessarily bellicose

By Richard Silverstein

22/04/08 "The Guardian" -- -- In an interview on ABC's Good Morning America today, Hillary Clinton pledged that if Iran launches a nuclear attack against Israel, the United States would retaliate against Iran. "I want the Iranians to know that if I'm the president, we will attack Iran," Clinton said. "In the next 10 years, during which they might foolishly consider launching an attack on Israel, we would be able to totally obliterate them."

"Well, in fact ... I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region."

On Warren Olney's To the Point radio show today, Barack Obama's Middle East adviser and former congressman Mel Levine noted that during the Eisenhower administration John Foster Dulles promised the same "massive retaliation" should the Soviet Union attack the US or its allies. This was widely understood as a threat of nuclear attack. Is this really the type of president Americans want? One who so demonises Iran that she's prepared to go to war at the first sign of conflict in the Middle East? Do we want to create a Middle East cold war like the one we had with the Soviets for four decades?

Equally troubling is the fact that Israel, in Clinton's conception, is merely an extension of the US - a member of the greater commonwealth, if you will. Of course, I find the notion of an Iranian attack on Israel disturbing as well. But the idea that we would react to an attack on Israel as if it were an attack on ourselves ties me up in knots.

We are not the same as Israel. We have our interests. Israel has its own. What if Israel attacks Iran first in an attempt to knock out its nuclear programme and Iran counterattacks? After all, Israeli government ministers have threatened a pre-emptive attack on Iran. In the event of such an assault, is Clinton then bound to retaliate massively against Iran though Israel was the aggressor? You can see where this is going, and it isn't any place good.

Anyway here's a funny bit by Bill Maher talking about Obama's Bitter remarks and who the real "Elitists" are

Bill Maher New Rules: Democrats Will Not Steal Your Guns/God



And here is another example of Bill Clinton speaking about the Religious Right, Neoconservatives and single issue campaigns which target specific groups of voters.

(In the 70s and 80s when I was doing research on the religious Right and the Neocons this was referred to as the " politics of Resentment".)

Here he sounds like remarks made by Obama about how voters feel and how this is used by the Spin Doctors during elections . " Bitter " is the word . Do Americans really need to have such obvious concepts explained to them. Yes & there-in my friend lies the problem.

"God, gays, and guns": Bill Clinton agrees w/Barack Obama?



and so it goes,
GORD.

Hillary Just another Neocon & Her Visions of Nuclear War & Armageddon

More Fun Videos to View -

Hillary Clinton is a Neocon ! The Politics of Fear & the Mushroom Cloud .

Hillary's Civil War (Fear Card)
About this video posted April 20, 2008 by ccvanderbelt

" Hillary Clinton is a self proclaimed fighter, she often plays the fear card. She fought for war. She is also a selfish politician who will stand at nothing to win. Now, even after she has been mathematically eliminated, she's fighting to divided the Democratic party because she can't stand to have her opponent win. Even if it means 100 years of more War in Iraq and thousands more deaths, Iraqi children and American soldiers. Now she's proposing "nuclear umbrella" foreign policy, and she's playing the Bin Laden card to scare up the fear vote. Hillary Clinton has declared "civil war" on her own Democratic party."




And so how far to the right is Hillary? Besides Health Care she sounds more and more like John McCain and George W. Bush and Karl Rove. Bomb them all is that her new way to solve all international problems.

Hillary helped bring the world one unnecessary war . Will she bring the world another war with Iran ?
Hillary rarely mentions the hundreds of thousands of Iraqi civilians killed in this war .
Hillary does not mention the billions waste in Iran by corporations such as Haliburton. Would she prosecute their CEOs for fraud.
Hillary will not insist on stopping the use of Mercenaries / Private Contractors in Iraq.
Hillary rarely talks about the women in the military/ or working for private contractors who have been sexually harassed or assaulted.



Clinton, The 'Nuclear Umbrella' & The NeoCons by Bruce Wilson April 21, 2008.

'Meet the Press' commentators, nuclear deterrence expert from Scranton, PA disturbed by Clinton's nuclear agenda.


" On "Meet The Press" last Sunday April 20th, with David Brooks, E.J. Dionne and Michelle Norris, host Tim Russert brought up the "nuclear umbrella" idea that Hillary Clinton floated in her April 16th debate in Philadelphia with Barack Obama and DAVID BROOKS of all people, replied, "I’m amazed, I think like you, maybe,that it didn’t become a bigger issue. Because what it says, I think, to a lot of Americans, two Arab countries or two Middle Eastern countries get in a war and we’re going to get in the middle of it?... I don’t know why she would’ve said it, what policy thinking behind it was. It seems to me extremely perilous." E.J. Dionne concurred, "the term massive retaliation is a pretty strong term that she used in the course of that debate."

"Massive retaliation" is indeed a 'pretty strong term', to put it MILDLY and I've consulted with nuclear deterrence theory George E. Lowe, [link to Buzzflash.com interview with Lowe] who wrote the 1964 book "The Age of Deterrence" ( Little, Brown) and has won awards for his writing on nuclear deterrence as well, about WHY "massive [nuclear] retaliation" is such a loaded term and WHY the "Meet The Press" folks may have been taken aback by Clinton's "nuclear umbrella" idea. "


Also see: From Daily Kos: State of the Nation MoveOn Bashing, Nuclear WarTalk... CLINTON is a NEOCON by Troutfishing Sat Apr 19, 2008

Dr. StrangeRedPhoneLove (last campaign ad you'll ever need)
from brucewilson/ daily kos



John McCain's Father Rolls Over in The Grave
from Brucewilson/ DailyKos



and so it goes,
GORD.

Obama versus Karl Rove, Hillary Clinton & John McCain & Bin Laden

"Our position is that whatever grievances a nation may have, however objectionable it finds the status quo, aggressive warfare is an illegal means for settling those grievances or for altering those conditions." :

Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson. American prosecutor at the Nuremberg trials, in his opening statement to the tribunal
=
Crime Against Peace: A basic provision of the Charter is that to plan, prepare, initiate or wage a war of aggression, or a war in violation of international treaties, agreements, and assurances, or to conspire or participate in a common plan to do so is a crime:
Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson
http://fcit.coedu.usf.edu/holocaust/resource/document/DocJac14.htm
=
"It would be some time before I fully realized that the United States sees little need for diplomacy. Power is enough. Only the weak rely on diplomacy ... The Roman Empire had no need for diplomacy. Nor does the United States." : Boutros Boutros-Ghali

=
"We have come to be one of the worst ruled, one of the most completely controlled and dominated Governments in the world - no longer a Government of free opinion, no longer a Government by conviction and vote of the majority, but a Government by the opinion and duress of small groups of dominant men." : Woodrow Wilson

Above Quotes borrowed from Information Clearing House, New,Commentary & Insight

UPDATE 7:13pm. GORD.

Yes once again Hillay Clinton plays the " Fear Card " with the " Bin Laden Card"

Hillary Clinton Ad Features Osama Bin Laden: Campaign AdWatch By Jason Linkins at Huffington Post april21,2008

As Jason Linkins points out:

" Today's polling indicated a slight upward trend for Senator Hillary Clinton in Pennsylvania, with most numbers tacking above the margin for error. Still, there might be something to the rumors that tomorrow's primary is expected to be a tight contest, and the clearest sign that the Clinton campaign is taking that seriously is that they've released a new thirty-second ad called "Kitchen," which "detail[s] how tough the job of President is...asking voters who they think is ready to step in and handle it." And, hey! Look who makes a cameo appearance! None other than stock footage of Osama bin Laden, presumably on loan from the defunct Giuliani campaign."



Rebuttal once again from Bill Clinton on the use of Fear as a campaign strategy:



also see:
Clinton's Attacks on Obama Patriotism Have Nothing to Do With "What the Republicans Will Say in November" - Everything to Do with Her Own Strategy by Robert Creamer at Huffington Post April 20, 2008

Anyway here's a couple of video clips for your edification and entertainment which may be relevant to the presidential campaign in the United States . If Obama wins will he go after Bush, Cheney Karl Rove & Co. Will Hillary Clinton protect Bush & Co. at any cost. In the end she is part of the Washington establishment and so she will protect her rich and powerful friends. Or will she be willing to investigate the Bush Regime for any possible criminal activities or cases of fraud and criminal negligence.

Is there much of a difference between McCain and Hillary. Is she just more of the same. She claims to have gained experience by being in the White House during Bill Clinton's presidency. If so then she must accept the good and bad decisions of Bill's time in office. During that period the United States imposed unreasonable sanctions on Iraq which led to the deaths of over 500,000 Iraqis. Did she believe that all Iraqis including toddlers and infants must share in the collective guilt of their government led by Saddam.I'm sure she sees nothing wrong with such a policy . Hillary seems to be from the Machismo school of Realpolitik believing its all just a game until an American citizen gets hurt then its serious. A million or so dead Iraqis does she or John McCain care . Given America's track record whom are we to trust. Believing in American exceptionalism and that America has been chosen by God has led to one blunder and horror after another.


Obama VS Clinton & Rove
from wehadron
Karl Rove supports Hillary Clinton ?



Olbermann Torture
When the president does it or oks it ; it is therefore not illegal.
Those of the executive branch or connected to it are above the law and cannot be prosecuted for criminal actions. Their actions by definition are never criminal. Hillary Clinton would of course favor this extreme notion of " Executive Privilege ". She wouldn't want to have to weigh her own actions as President giving some consideration that what she might want to do as president is not necessarily what she as president would be legally permitted to do. Hillary Clinton could be characterized as being a bit of a Neocon or what could be called Neocon Lite. She does believe in keeping and possibly expanding the American Empire to what end who knows -to make the rich in America richer; to exploit other nations and peoples; to spread American values such as insatiable consumerism , greed, militarism and the need for revenge and hate.
Interviews John Dean





Douglas Feith on Iraq War
Still defending the Iraq War
April 16, 2008

"Your Daily Politics Video Blog: The President bears the greatest responsibility for the catastrophe of the Iraq war. He was the key decision maker at every point. And he's fundamentally accountable. But if you look into the innards of the process that led to war there is probably no one who was either responsible for or involved with more of the bad decisions, more of the conscious decisions or horrible ideas than Doug Feith. You'd think someone like that would be keeping a low profile. But in fact he's got a new book out explaining how Iraq was a great idea, how nothing was his fault and sticking it to his enemies. Trainwreck is an overused term, but in today's episode of TPMtv we look at some choice moments from Feith's book release media tour where he explains how you've got the whole thing all wrong."



Also see:

Behind Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand
By David Barstow

Hidden behind that appearance of objectivity, though, is a Pentagon information apparatus that has used those analysts in a campaign to generate favorable news coverage of the administration's wartime performance, an examination by The New York Times has found.
ICH:NEW YORK TIMES

Pentagon Propaganda & Antiwar Analysts
By The Nation
The article reports that most of the news organizations either didn't know or didn't care about their paid analysts taking direction from the administration while claiming to neutrally assess its policies; or taking expensive trips paid by the administration; or meeting secretly with senior administration officials and plotting military or political strategy; or competing for military contracts.
ICH:The Nation




and so it goes,
GORD.

THE NEW YORK TIMES : BUSH & CHENEY 'S MANIPULATION OF THE MEDIA BY " MILITARY EXPERTS " AKA " PROPAGANDA INC. "

Anyway here is part 2 of Barry Lando's documentary detailing the Reality of Complicity by America in Saddam's War Crimes and the Propaganda the public is fed by Washington and the Pentagon.

The United States for a decade or so supported Saddam and helped to keep him in power in Iraq. The American administration encouraged Saddam to fight an unnecessary war with Iran . They also knew of his ruthless and murderous rule over Iraq but ignored or even down-played how murderously he treated his own people.It was after all western nations including Germany , France and Britain who sold Saddam his so-called Weapons of Mass Destruction which he then used against the Iranian and also against large numbers of Iraqi citizens . Saddam in this way was able with the aid of Western powers to murder some three to four hundred thousand Iraqi citizens mainly Shiites and Kurds.




This is not a matter of paranoia by a few people on the left but has been documented by sincere, serious, investigative reporters etc. For instance we have the recent article from the New York Times which details how the Bush administration and the Pentagon have been able to manipulates the American Media.

It becomes very difficult for the citizens of a country to reasonably weigh an important issue if the information they receive is actually propaganda and has little to do with reality. The war in Iraq from the beginning was hard to sell to the American people and so the government of George Bush and Cheney to a great extent were able to take control of the available information . By these means they were able to convince a large segment the American people as well their government representatives that Saddam was an imminent threat and that America had to invade Iraq. They later had to convince the American people that the War was going well . This had to be reasserted every time there was a set-back or when the real situation in Iraq had somehow become available to the American people . All other problems such as Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib also had to be dealt with in such a way to show that the problems were ' just a few bad apples ' or a matter of misinformation or a misunderstanding about what did or did not constitute torture. The fact that the use of torture by US intelligence, the CIA, the military was widespread neede to be played down and out-rightly denied .

One can only hope that if enough Americans read this article they will finally give up on any misinformed belief that the Bush Regime has any scruples when it comes to pushing for its own agenda or any claims to of being forthright with the American people.Maybe now someone like Hillary Clinton can take a step back and begin to seriously question anything which comes out of the White House or the Pentagon or by much of the Media.

For instance on torture see the disturbing book : Fear Up Harsh: An Army Interrogator's Dark Journey Through Iraq (2007) by Tony Lagouranis and Allen Mikaelian. The author Tony Lagouranis documents from his own personal experience how a host of harsh techniques became standard practice by American Interrogators and by American soldiers on detainees throughout Iraq . These 'harsh techniques were referred to as ' Torture lite ' . But these techniques the author admits in fact constituted torture no matter how Dick Cheney and Condoleeza Rice tried to characterize them . But they got their orders he says from higher up that is from the Oval Office .

Anyway I was alerted by Truthout.Org to this recent revealing and damning article in the New York Times detailing in this lengthy article the Manipulation of the Media by Bush , Cheney & the Pentagon entitled :

Behind Military Analysts, the Pentagon's Hidden Hand By David Barstow The New York Times Sunday 20 April 2008

So here are a few choice bits from the article- but I do believe the article is a must read and should be read in its entirety...
-------
..."Five years into the Iraq war, most details of the architecture and execution of the Pentagon’s campaign have never been disclosed. But The Times successfully sued the Defense Department to gain access to 8,000 pages of e-mail messages, transcripts and records describing years of private briefings, trips to Iraq and Guantánamo and an extensive Pentagon talking points operation.

These records reveal a symbiotic relationship where the usual dividing lines between government and journalism have been obliterated."


Internal Pentagon documents repeatedly refer to the military analysts as “message force multipliers” or “surrogates” who could be counted on to deliver administration “themes and messages” to millions of Americans “in the form of their own opinions.”

Though many analysts are paid network consultants, making $500 to $1,000 per appearance, in Pentagon meetings they sometimes spoke as if they were operating behind enemy lines, interviews and transcripts show. Some offered the Pentagon tips on how to outmaneuver the networks, or as one analyst put it to Donald H. Rumsfeld, then the defense secretary, “the Chris Matthewses and the Wolf Blitzers of the world.” Some warned of planned stories or sent the Pentagon copies of their correspondence with network news executives. Many — although certainly not all — faithfully echoed talking points intended to counter critics.

“Good work,” Thomas G. McInerney, a retired Air Force general, consultant and Fox News analyst, wrote to the Pentagon after receiving fresh talking points in late 2006. “We will use it.”

Again and again, records show, the administration has enlisted analysts as a rapid reaction force to rebut what it viewed as critical news coverage, some of it by the networks’ own Pentagon correspondents. For example, when news articles revealed that troops in Iraq were dying because of inadequate body armor, a senior Pentagon official wrote to his colleagues: “I think our analysts — properly armed — can push back in that arena.”

...With a majority of Americans calling the war a mistake despite all administration attempts to sway public opinion, the Pentagon has focused in the last couple of years on cultivating in particular military analysts frequently seen and heard in conservative news outlets, records and interviews show.

Some of these analysts were on the mission to Cuba on June 24, 2005 — the first of six such Guantánamo trips — which was designed to mobilize analysts against the growing perception of Guantánamo as an international symbol of inhumane treatment. On the flight to Cuba, for much of the day at Guantánamo and on the flight home that night, Pentagon officials briefed the 10 or so analysts on their key messages — how much had been spent improving the facility, the abuse endured by guards, the extensive rights afforded detainees.

The results came quickly. The analysts went on TV and radio, decrying Amnesty International, criticizing calls to close the facility and asserting that all detainees were treated humanely.

(and to mobilize the American people to favor a war with Iraq ):

...Charting the Campaign

By early 2002, detailed planning for a possible Iraq invasion was under way, yet an obstacle loomed. Many Americans, polls showed, were uneasy about invading a country with no clear connection to the Sept. 11 attacks. Pentagon and White House officials believed the military analysts could play a crucial role in helping overcome this resistance.

Torie Clarke, the former public relations executive who oversaw the Pentagon’s dealings with the analysts as assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, had come to her job with distinct ideas about achieving what she called “information dominance.” In a spin-saturated news culture, she argued, opinion is swayed most by voices perceived as authoritative and utterly independent.

And so even before Sept. 11, she built a system within the Pentagon to recruit “key influentials” — movers and shakers from all walks who with the proper ministrations might be counted on to generate support for Mr. Rumsfeld’s priorities.

In the months after Sept. 11, as every network rushed to retain its own all-star squad of retired military officers, Ms. Clarke and her staff sensed a new opportunity. To Ms. Clarke’s team, the military analysts were the ultimate “key influential” — authoritative, most of them decorated war heroes, all reaching mass audiences.

...Other administrations had made sporadic, small-scale attempts to build relationships with the occasional military analyst. But these were trifling compared with what Ms. Clarke’s team had in mind. Don Meyer, an aide to Ms. Clarke, said a strategic decision was made in 2002 to make the analysts the main focus of the public relations push to construct a case for war. Journalists were secondary. “We didn’t want to rely on them to be our primary vehicle to get information out,” Mr. Meyer said.


The Pentagon’s regular press office would be kept separate from the military analysts. The analysts would instead be catered to by a small group of political appointees, with the point person being Brent T. Krueger, another senior aide to Ms. Clarke. The decision recalled other administration tactics that subverted traditional journalism. Federal agencies, for example, have paid columnists to write favorably about the administration. They have distributed to local TV stations hundreds of fake news segments with fawning accounts of administration accomplishments. The Pentagon itself has made covert payments to Iraqi newspapers to publish coalition propaganda.

...Over time, the Pentagon recruited more than 75 retired officers, although some participated only briefly or sporadically. The largest contingent was affiliated with Fox News, followed by NBC and CNN, the other networks with 24-hour cable outlets. But analysts from CBS and ABC were included, too. Some recruits, though not on any network payroll, were influential in other ways — either because they were sought out by radio hosts, or because they often published op-ed articles or were quoted in magazines, Web sites and newspapers. At least nine of them have written op-ed articles for The Times.


...The Generals’ Revolt

The full dimensions of this mutual embrace were perhaps never clearer than in April 2006, after several of Mr. Rumsfeld’s former generals — none of them network military analysts — went public with devastating critiques of his wartime performance. Some called for his resignation.

On Friday, April 14, with what came to be called the “Generals’ Revolt” dominating headlines, Mr. Rumsfeld instructed aides to summon military analysts to a meeting with him early the next week, records show. When an aide urged a short delay to “give our big guys on the West Coast a little more time to buy a ticket and get here,” Mr. Rumsfeld’s office insisted that “the boss” wanted the meeting fast “for impact on the current story.”

That same day, Pentagon officials helped two Fox analysts, General McInerney and General Vallely, write an opinion article for The Wall Street Journal defending Mr. Rumsfeld.

“Starting to write it now,” General Vallely wrote to the Pentagon that afternoon. “Any input for the article,” he added a little later, “will be much appreciated.” Mr. Rumsfeld’s office quickly forwarded talking points and statistics to rebut the notion of a spreading revolt.

“Vallely is going to use the numbers,” a Pentagon official reported that afternoon.

The standard secrecy notwithstanding, plans for this session leaked, producing a front-page story in The Times that Sunday. In damage-control mode, Pentagon officials scrambled to present the meeting as routine and directed that communications with analysts be kept “very formal,” records show. “This is very, very sensitive now,” a Pentagon official warned subordinates.
----------


and so it goes,
GORD.

America's Complicity in the Crimes of Saddam Hussein From Torture to Genocide

Barry Landos points out that for over 80 years from 1920 to the present western nations from the British to the Americans have been involved in the internal affairs of Iraq without any real consideration for the dreams, aspirations, or needs of the Iraqi people. The Iraqi people are seen as more of a nuisance than anything. If there were no people there then these foreign powers could more easily advance their own agendas .

Empires throughout history have often had this same attitude towards native populations. For instance the British, French, Portuguese , Spanish etc. had little interest in dealing fairly and justly with the Native or aboriginal peoples of the Americas. Their attitude was to enslave or slaughter these peoples so that these countries could take advantage of the natural resources of these lands while expanding their empires and repopulating these lands with Europeans. This view was based on the belief in the racial superiority of the Peoples of Europe . The belief was that the aboriginal peoples of the Americas were of an inferior race and therefore their survival was inconsequential.

We see the same view being expressed today by those in positions of authority in regards to the peoples of Iraq and to many of the peoples of the Middle East.
This view does not take into account that a civilization and various Empires and advanced cultures existed in the Middle East for thousands of years before there were any European Civilization.

WEB OF DECEIT: PART 1
Deals with the guilt and complicity of American administrations and other western nations with Saddam's Crimes from torture , summary executions to the bloody war with Iran and the slaughter of hundreds of thousands of Iraqis .

This is the first part of Barry Lando and Michel Despratx's brutal documentary SADDAM HUSSEIN: THE TRIAL YOU'LL NEVER SEE.



WEB OF DECEIT: The History of Western Complicity in Iraq, from Churchill to Kennedy to George W. Bush - Barry Landos (pub. 2007 )

As Barry Landos in his book WEB OF DECEIT (2007 ) Claims :

" Hypothetically, the trial of the former dictator (Saddam Hussein ) could have been a ghastly global media circus in which many of the world's great leaders, past and present, would have found themselves pilloried as codefendants-charged with complicity in many of the crimes against humanity that occurred during Saddam's bloody reign. It wouldn't take unusual skillfor Saddam's defense team to make such a case. Those leaders would include, but certainly not limited to, American presidents Jimmy Carter, Bill Clinton, and George Bush pere and fils, other world leaders such as Margaret Thatcher, Jacques Chirac, Leonid Brezhnev, Mikhail Gorbachev, King Hussein of Jordan, and Prince Fahd of Saudi Arabia;; Israel's Menachem Begin; and many of the men and women who guided their foreign policy, ran their military, and oversaw their intelligence agencies. Outside the political sphere the accused might include hundreds of American and foreign businessmen, leaders of agro-business, oil tycoons, and arms merchants from across the globe who profited handsomely from doing business with Saddam Hussein while closing their eyes to what he was up to-or, in some cases, despite knowing full well.

Its not that such foreign involvement in any way alleviates Saddam's guilt; its just that these and other foreign notables, through Saddam and on their own , were also responsible for much of the suffering of the Iraqi people. And without their sophisticated arms and massive financing , their intelligence information and diplomatic support- their sins of omission and comission-Saddam would never have wreaked the horrors that he did. " ( pp. 1-2 )


VIDEO available at Information Clearing House and youTube

and so it goes,
GORD.

AMERICAN WAR CRIMES: GENOCIDE TORTURE MASSACRES ETC. : BARRY LANDOS' WEB OF DECEIT

So anyway the war in Iraq grinds on and continues in Afghanistan while China and Burma & Pakistan continue to crush all dissidents claiming they are terrorists . Here in Canada our government under Neocon Bush admirer Stephen Harper is trying to designate anti-seal hunt protesters as " Terrorists ". So any one who protest against the government or private industry will soon all be called terrorists and if so would Canadians protest; well no stupid because to protest means you are UnCanadian and pro-Terrorists and possibly working for Al Qeada. Only Commie Atheists are part of the Environmental movement or are always trying to raise concerns over animal rights etc. And only enemies of the state would accuse the state of acting unfairly , unjustly or in a criminal manner.

And as for a list of other War Crimes and Crimes against Humanity committed by the Bush administration and by former US administrations in regards to Iraq see Barry Landos' book WEB OF DECEIT pub. 2007.



Landos begins his account about Iraq in the 1920s when Britain created the artificial country of Iraq with a puppet regime controlled by the British . Soon there were revolts, riots and a full scale uprising against the British. But the British were ruthless in their use of force against the so-called insurgents . They used the full weight of their air force against poorly armed rebels . Using the air force meant a loss of only a few British soldiers or pilots while towns and villages were utterly destroyed killing large numbers of civilians. But being British believing as a race they were superior to all other peoples especially Arabs they were therefore little interested in the deaths of Arab civilians or children . T.E. Laurence and others also wanted to use gas on the civilian populations to teach them a lesson that it was absolutely wrong to defy British rule.

Even though the situation seemed less and less worth the effort involved the British stubbornly continued with their failing and irrational policy. As Winston Churchill wrote at the time:

" There is something very sinister to my mind in this mesopotamian entanglement," Winston Churchill wrote his Prime Minister, David Lloyd George, in August 1920. "Week after week and month after month for a long time we shall have a continuance of this miserable, wasteful, sporadic warfare marked from time to time certainly by minor disasters and cuttings off of troops and agents, and very possibly attended by some very grave occurrence."

Writing to Lloyd George, Churchill, frustrated after all the bloodshed in World War I, asked, "Why are we compelled to go on pouring armies and treasure into these thankless deserts?" But the British had created the problem, cobbling "Iraq" from three disparate Ottoman provinces. They chose sides, picking the Sunni minority to run the country. The Brits remained there 12 years, bleeding occasionally, until 1932. The bleeding continued after they left, as the Sunnis brutalized Iraq until 2003. The Bush Administration, defiantly ignorant of history, has created a situation far more dangerous than the one Churchill complained about. We are in free fall in Iraq, and there is no net.

From: Even Churchill Couldn't Figure Out Iraq
Sunday, Jul. 30, 2006 By JOE KLEIN at CNN & TIME

And further in 1922 Churchill wrote to Lloyd George:

"I am deeply concerned about Iraq. The task you have given me is becoming
really impossible. Our forces are reduced now to very slender proportions.
The Turkish menace has got worse; Feisal is playing the fool, if not the
knave; his incompetent Arab officials are disturbing some of the provinces
and failing to collect the revenue; we overpaid £200,000 on last year's account
which it is almost certain Iraq will not be able to pay this year, thus entailing
a Supplementary Estimate in regard to a matter never sanctioned by
Parliament; a further deficit, in spite of large economies, is nearly certain
this year on the civil expenses owing to the drop in the revenue. I have had to
maintain British troops at Mosul all through the year in consequence of the
Angora quarrel: this has upset the programme of reliefs and will certainly
lead to further expenditure beyond the provision I cannot at this moment
withdraw these troops without practically inviting the Turks to come in. The
small column which is operating in the Rania district inside our border
against the Turkish raiders and Kurdish sympathisers is a source of constant
anxiety to me."

From:Winston S. Churchill to David Lloyd George
(Churchill papers: 17/27)1 September 1922



So we jump ahead to the 1970s and 1980s when Saddam Hussein has become the head of state of Iraq and an ally and good friend of the American and British administrations whom they support utterly and completely.For various reasons they see Saddam as lynch-pin for stability and peace in the Middle East. So one of their first task for their puppet Saddam is for him to engage in what turns out to be a long and bloody war against Iran. They supported Saddam for years and knew of the crimes he committed and either remained silent or downplayed the accusations since he was their ally. Britain and the United States also gave Saddam the WMDs which he could use on Iranians and on his own people with the cooperation and help of Britain and the United States. Though sometimes they played a complicated duplicitous game surreptitiously supporting Iran at times against Iraq and then switching sides again and again.

It is highly unlikely that Saddam would have gone to war against Iran if he had not been coaxed, encouraged and coerced by the United States administration. They kept lending him money or giving him a bigger line of credit to ensure that he was able to buy the best in military equipment and to build an air defense system and manufacturing plants for creating chemical and biological weapons .They were also allowing Saddam to begin a nuclear weapons program .

All of this later the US and Brits would claim Saddam did without their knowledge or permission which was just another lie on their part. They then accused Saddam of illegally building these weapon systems and that they were shocked and outraged and believed Saddam had to be stopped before he endangered other Middle East countries especially Israel.

The book takes one through the various crimes from torture and murder to full scale slaughter of Kurds and Shiites when they rebelled against Saddam in 1991 believing that the Americans and British would give them aid but of course did not. American troops stood by watching whole villages being slaughtered with bombs ,machine guns ,and gas. Some American officials voiced the belief that it would be better for everyone if Saddam wiped out all the Kurds & most of the Shiites while he was at it. So they concluded in the end it was a good thing. Though George W. Bush would use these human rights violations & massacres and the use of Chemicals and gas against civilian populations as a rationale for invading Iraq. Even though his dear old dad stood by and did nothing while these crimes were committed. If President Bush senior had given orders to American troops still in Iraq to shoot down Helicopters being used by Saddam to kill insurgents the insurgency might have succeeded. If the Americans had also turned over the large caches of weapons they had seized to the insurgents they would have had at least a fighting chance against Saddam. Instead President Bush senior encouraged Shiites and Kurds to revolt against Saddam and when they did he allowed American and coalition troops to stand idly by as the insurgents were slaughtered. Is it any wonder why many Iraqis do not trust the Americans or the British .

Barry Lando 's book is an important book in detailing the crimes of Saddam and the role played by the American administrations of Ronald Regan , Bush senior, Bill Clinton and Bush Jr. They in the end were or are as guilty as Saddam. Unfortunately all of these war criminals including George Bush , Tony Blair, Margaret Thatcher,Colin Powell, Dick Cheney, Bill Clinton, Madeline Albright , Donald Rumsfeld , Condoleeza Rice, etc. will never face criminal trials as they should.

The victors as they say write the history and therefore decide what constitutes a crime and who in their view are criminals. Being Americans and British they believe as do their people that they are above any form of international law or any appeals to justice, fairness and humane treatment of human beings . Only those of their elite groups it seems are to be treated humanely and fairly and everybody else is on their own.


For instance we cannot expect Hillary Clinton to do much about the Bush administration's crimes or those of the past administrations because this might lead to charges being laid against President Bill Clinton who kept the draconian inhumane sanctions in place against Iraq which led to the deaths of some 500,000 to 1,000,000 (one million ) Iraqi civilians. These sanctions were condemned by various international groups and have been called Crimes against Humanity. Though Clinton and other Americans and Brits don't see it that way since Iraqis it seems are mere pawns in America's Game of Global Empire. Whatever will help America's agenda of world Domination is by definition justifiable and therefore cannot be characterized as immoral, unethical, or illegal.

President Clinton also on several occasions attacked Iraq though these attacks were unnecessary though they did help to give Clinton a boost in the popular polls making him look like a real Macho kind of guy. Americans seem to like their leaders to choose force over diplomacy. As we see this is one of the issues Barack Obama keeps getting attacked for since he claims he would try to use diplomacy before going to war with some country . Whereas Hillary is much more Macho and strident and is already planing on going to war with Iran or maybe some less well defended country.

Of course Americans might get all upset over a President conducting an extramarital affair but torturing or killing thousands of innocent people is a small matter in the scheme of things according to America's sense of values.


When Saddam killed innocent civilians it was wrong when America does it it is collateral damage or necessary .
It is important to remember that it was America that supplied Saddam with WMD's in order to fight an unprovoked war against Iran. Saddam was obliged to fight this proxy war against Iran to reduce Iran as a threat to the region or to the United States. And when Saddam used his conventional weapons and WMDs including chemical and biological weapons to terrorize and Kill his own citizens it was ignored or played down by American and British administration. Or they would claim these actions were an internal affair and none of their business even though he was accused of Crimes against Humanity and War Crimes. They were of course in a difficult position since if Saddam was found guilty of War Crimes they too would be implicated since they helped to arm Saddam and had full knowledge of how he was using these illegal weapons.
So America and Britain spent a great deal of money and time covering up Saddam's Crimes against Humanity. They for instance claimed ( lied )that it was Iran that had used poisoned gas during the war rather than Iraq . They of course knew that such an accusation was not true.

Once America and Britain decided Saddam was a liability they used those very acts against his people as part of the rationale to invade his country in 1991 . After this brief war the United States and Britain insisted on using the United Nations to impose the most draconian inhumane sanctions ever placed on a nation for some 12 years to punish not just Saddam but the people of Iraq for not rising up and ousting Saddam. After the slaughter of some four hundred thousand Iraqis during the 1991 uprising the Iraqi people no longer had the means or the leaders to stage another uprising. The sanctions have been declared a case of Genocide which led to the deaths of over one million people . Over half of those who died as a result of the sanctions were children. But President Bush senior and President Clinton claimed the sanctions were justified and were unrepentant when it came to the deaths of so many Iraqi children.

Somehow or other Bush Senior , President Clinton & George W. Bush convinced the media and the American people that starving Iraqi children to death or allowing them to die because of lack of medicine or doctors was OK since all Iraqis were to blame for Saddam continuing in power In Iraq.This is referred to as collective guilt .

One shouldn't be surprised by this logic as the Israelis have used it again and again in their fight against Lebanon and Palestine and all Arabs who are second class Israeli citizens.And the Americans have carried out the same sorts of policies in other conflicts most notoriously Vietnam.

Hitler used a massive bombing campaign against British Civilians claiming that all British citizens were the enemy. In response the allies fire-bombed German cities such as Dresden which had little or no military value and was filled with German refugees . But this war crime is not one we are supposed to mention. Or rather when our side mass murders innocent civilians we are justified when the other side our enemy of the moment do the same thing they are characterized as evil monsters and criminals.

So over the past couple of decades American administrations have concluded that all Iraqis, all Arabs and all Muslims are the enemy and therefore legitimate targets.

And as things worsen in the Middle East more and more of the peoples of the region have come to mistrust if not outright hate Americans and Britons & other Western Nations for the suffering they have unnecessarily caused as part of some Imperialist game. The problem in part is that we in the west are dependent upon access to inexpensive and dependable supply of oil and so we are willing it appears to ignore the sovereignty of other nations , to replace regimes we don't like or support ruthless regimes whom we like without consulting the citizens of a particular nation.
In the end the corporations want their slice of the pie as it were that is cheap oil they can sell at a what they consider to be a fair profit. The problem with the oil companies is that they do not want to have to pay a fair price to the oil producing countries and they further want to charge as much as they can to the consumers in the west.

and so it goes,
GORD.

Will Obama Proceed With Criminal Charges Against Bush & Co.

UPDATE:
Compassion Forum: David Gushee asks Obama about torture



Anyway the Iraq war continues as bloody as ever though CNN and FOX news tell us the war is over. Like Bush and Cheney they lie on a daily basis . But that's ok we North Americans as good consumers mesmerized by Television can't remember anything before last weeks episode of 'Lost' or '24'.( I never watch 24, I don't get it just more hype to keep Americans wrapped up in their fear and paranoia )

WATERBOARDING ONLY PRO-TERRORISTS ARE AGAINST TORTURE !
At least that's what Bush , Cheney & the Media & the popular tv show " 24 " keep telling us.



So anyway John Yoo and Cheney tell us torture is OK because they made it legal. That of course as any first year law student will tell you is the purpose of the law and law makers. Lawyers are legal engineers who merely twist and tweak the language to have it say or mean whatever you want it too. If a corporation is polluting the environment or making shoddy goods they hire a lawyer to defend them to prove they are not really polluting or producing shoddy goods it is after all just a matter of opinion or perception. This is also what Public Relations depts are for . Imagine someone attends a university in order to learn how to be a really good liar i.e. public relations & the law . This also sums up the situation when it comes to so called places of higher learning i.e. universities which once upon a time stood for something now they are open to the highest bidder .
But I should add as a caveat that I do have to admit there are Lawyers who are actually good people , sincere , idealistic but they tend to be less successful than the real top of the class lawyers.

(Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo)

On April 1, a secret 81-page memo written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo in March 2003 was made public. In that memo, Yoo advised the Bush administration that the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel would not enforce U.S. criminal laws, including federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking in the detention and interrogation of enemy combatants. The week after the publication of Yoo's memo, the National Lawyers Guild issued a press release calling for the Boalt Hall Law School at the University of California to dismiss Yoo, who is now a professor of law there. The NLG also called for the prosecution of Yoo for war crimes and for his disbarment.

It appears Obama has made his strongest statement yet that he will look into whether or not criminal charges are warranted against members of the Bush administration. One can only hope that this is not just rhetoric but that he is sincere and will do the right thing . Of course Hillary has already made fun of the whole notion of doing the right thing or doing that which might actually mean pursuing justice. But Hillary only wants to get elected and as she has shown will fling as much mud at her opponent as possible. Though it seems she forgets Obama also belongs to the same political party; maybe someone should inform her.

From Philadelphia Daily News Monday, April 14, 2008
Obama would ask his AG to "immediately review" potential of crimes in Bush White House

" What I would want to do is to have my Justice Department and my Attorney General immediately review the information that's already there and to find out are there inquiries that need to be pursued. I can't prejudge that because we don't have access to all the material right now. I think that you are right, if crimes have been committed, they should be investigated. You're also right that I would not want my first term consumed by what was perceived on the part of Republicans as a partisan witch hunt because I think we've got too many problems we've got to solve.

So this is an area where I would want to exercise judgment -- I would want to find out directly from my Attorney General -- having pursued, having looked at what's out there right now -- are there possibilities of genuine crimes as opposed to really bad policies. And I think it's important-- one of the things we've got to figure out in our political culture generally is distinguishing between really dumb policies and policies that rise to the level of criminal activity. You know, I often get questions about impeachment at town hall meetings and I've said that is not something I think would be fruitful to pursue because I think that impeachment is something that should be reserved for exceptional circumstances. Now, if I found out that there were high officials who knowingly, consciously broke existing laws, engaged in coverups of those crimes with knowledge forefront, then I think a basic principle of our Constitution is nobody above the law -- and I think that's roughly how I would look at it."

The bottom line is that: Obama sent a clear signal that -- unlike impeachment, which he's ruled out and which now seems a practical impossibility -- he is at the least open to the possibility of investigating potential high crimes in the Bush White House. To many, the information that waterboarding -- which the United States has considered torture and a violation of law in the past -- was openly planned out in the seat of American government is evidence enough to at least start asking some tough questions in January 2009.

From AlterNet.org Torturers in the White House: Why Is This Story Being Ignored? By Ruth Conniff, The Progressive. April 17, 2008.

We now have confirmation that the President of the United States gave the OK to torture. Where is the media? Where are the Democrats?

The biggest news of the last week went virtually uncovered by the mainstream, print media. ABC News first reported last Wednesday that top Bush Administration officials, including Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, John Ashcroft, and George Tenet, Colin Powell, and Donald Rumsfeld met to discuss which particular torture techniques should be used against Al Qaeda suspects in U.S. custody.

The group signed off on specific techniques, including sleep deprivation, slapping, pushing, and waterboarding, and gave instruction "so detailed … some of the interrogation sessions were almost choreographed, down to the number of times CIA agents could use a specific tactic."

If John McCain is seriously considering Condoleezza Rice as a running mate, the former POW should keep in mind that Rice not only condoned torture, but chaired the National Security Council's "Principals Committee" meetings to plan the details of torture of prisoners in U.S. custody.

Then-Attorney General John Ashcroft was so troubled by the meetings, he was moved to object: "Why are we discussing this in the White House?" he asked, according to ABC. "History will not judge this kindly."

On Friday, ABC added this blockbuster: Bush himself was aware of the meetings. Unlike Ashcroft, he had no compunctions. There was nothing "startling" about the revelations that his top advisers were directing the waterboarding of individual prisoners, Bush told ABC's Martha Raddatz. "And yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue and I approved," Bush said.

Why is this not bigger news?

...In his new book The Terror Presidency, Yoo's colleague Jack Goldsmith writes about his evolution from friend and supporter of the officials who brought us to this pass to a conscientious objector to their illegal and morally corrupt practices.

Back when he worked for Rumsfeld at the Pentagon, Goldsmith wrote a memo warning that Bush Administration officials could be indicted by the International Criminal Court for their actions in the war on terror.

After he went to work for Justice, Goldsmith began standing up to the torture cabal at the White House -- to his enduring discomfort. In one incident, recounted in his book and in a September profile by Jeffrey Rosen of the New York Times Magazine, he knocked heads with Dick Cheney's advisor (now his chief of staff) David Addington. Goldsmith delivered the bad news that terror suspects were, in fact, covered by the Fourth Geneva Convention against torture of civilians: "'The president has already decided that terrorists do not receive Geneva Convention protections,'" Addington replied angrily, according to Goldsmith. 'You cannot question his decision.'"

Goldsmith also criticized the torture memos for their "extremely broad and unnecessary analysis of the President's Commander-in-Chief power" and for their extremely loose definition of torture as limited to causing a level of pain akin to organ failure.

Pointing out that the Administration was violating the War Crimes Act of 1996, the Geneva Conventions, and the Uniform Code of Military Justice, Goldmith withdrew Yoo's torture memos -- and promptly resigned his post.

--------

From MWC NEWS:Call for Dismissal and Prosecution of John Yoo by Marjorie Cohn april 17/2008

Center for Constitutional Rights Supports National Lawyers Guild

(Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo)

On April 1, a secret 81-page memo written by former Deputy Assistant Attorney General John Yoo in March 2003 was made public. In that memo, Yoo advised the Bush administration that the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel would not enforce U.S. criminal laws, including federal statutes against torture, assault, maiming and stalking in the detention and interrogation of enemy combatants. The week after the publication of Yoo's memo, the National Lawyers Guild issued a press release calling for the Boalt Hall Law School at the University of California to dismiss Yoo, who is now a professor of law there. The NLG also called for the prosecution of Yoo for war crimes and for his disbarment.

Two days later, the Center for Constitutional Rights released a letter supporting the NLG's call for Yoo’s dismissal and prosecution. CCR Executive Director Vincent Warren wrote, "The 'Torture Memo' was not an abstract, academic foray. Rather, it was crafted to sidestep U.S. and international laws that make coercive interrogation and torture a crime. It was written with the knowledge that its legal conclusions were to be applied to the interrogations of hundreds of individual detainees... And it worked. It became the basis for the CIA’s use of extreme interrogation methods as well the basis for DOD interrogation policy... Yoo’s legal opinions as well as the others issued by the Office of Legal Counsel were the keystone of the torture program, and were the necessary precondition for the torture program’s creation and implementation."

Indeed, ABC News reported last week that Dick Cheney, Condoleezza Rice, Donald Rumsfeld, Colin Powell, George Tenet, and John Ashcroft met in the White House and micromanaged the torture of terrorism suspects by approving specific torture techniques such as waterboarding. George W. Bush, the decider-in-chief, admitted, "yes, I'm aware our national security team met on this issue. And I approved."

These top U.S. officials are liable for war crimes under the U.S. War Crimes Act, and for violation of the Convention Against Torture and the Geneva Conventions, which are all part of U.S. law. They ordered the torture which was carried out by the interrogators.

But John Yoo and the other Justice Department lawyers, including David Addington, Jay Bybee, William Haynes and Alberto Gonzales, are also liable for the same offenses. They were an integral part of a criminal conspiracy to violate U.S. laws. In U.S. v. Altstoetter, Nazi lawyers were convicted of war crimes and crimes against humanity for advising Hitler on how to "legally" disappear political suspects to special detention camps. The United States charged that since they were lawyers, "not farmers or factory workers," they should have known their technical justifications for circumventing the Hague and Geneva Conventions were illegal.

The cases of Altstoetter and those of the Bush lawyers share common aspects. Both dealt with people detained during wartime who were not POWs; in both, it was reasonably foreseeable that the advice they gave would result in great physical or mental harm or death to many detainees; and in both, the advice was legally erroneous. More than 108 people have died in U.S. detention since 9/11, many from torture. And the Department of Justice's Office of Legal Counsel later withdrew the memoranda, an admission that the advice in them was defective.

Furthermore, the Bush lawyers have engaged in ethical violations which should result in their disbarment. As New York University School of Law Professor Stephen Gillers wrote in The Nation, H. Marshall Jarrett, counsel for the Justice Department's Office of Professional Responsibility, who is examining the legal advice these lawyers provided, "should find that this work is not 'consistent with the professional standards that apply to Department of Justice attorneys."

and so it goes,
GORD.